NPSD School Board - Education, Curriculum and Instruction Committee Meeting 5-1-23

001let's give this another 15-20 seconds I see YouTube waiting for video there we are all right our YouTube feed is live our webinar is live um we are good to go Dr Lewis Campbell meeting is yours oh thank you good evening everyone I am sharing this meeting tonight and I call this meeting to order and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God with liberty and justice for all okay our agenda um is as follows can I get a Committee Member to give me a motion to approve the minutes a second okay was that moved by Mr McBain and seconded by Mr Fusco that is correct thank you so we'll move to

002our uh business the informational items and the first one on the agenda is the North Bridge update or we should vote on um yes I'm sorry all in favor of accepting the minutes has approved indicate by raising your hands or saying aye all right thank you all the post the eyes have it the minutes have been accepted as read thank you Mr Fusco now we'll move to Mr gallant and ask him to go forward with his presentation on the North Bridge update back to Dr Campbell and thanks everyone for giving me the opportunity to be here tonight to represent our Dynamic and really committed staff at Northbridge it's a real pleasure to be with everyone I recognize that time is of the essence tonight so part of my presentation will merely be an update on

003what we're doing I'm not going to get into a lot of detail on some of our programmatic things um so that we can move forward relatively quickly here the most important part of the presentation will be at the end where we have an opportunity to hear from our students select students that uh were interviewed for this presentation so again thank you for having me here tonight uh the first slide that you'll see thank you Bob talks about the mission of our school and the the most important part of that mission it's really a pretty simple um uh mission in terms of what we've tried to do for our students but the most important part is that we are flexible and we try to present a personalized uh experience for all of our students in a

004caring therapeutic and Equitable environment so when I say therapeutic obviously you're aware that Northbridge is designed to program for students around the district in person uh that are experiencing mental health related issues from trauma and other things happening in their lives many of them are also behind in their credits credits the older students are behind in their credits and that's the second aspect of our in-person population that we uh service the students that are not on a grade level so you can see on the slide here are four programs there's really three programs the mental health program is designed as broken into two uh aspects it's our Rise program uh one is a long-term program for students that are with this as it sounds like and for the long long term uh most of them

005are with us for the entire year and then we we have a short-term program for students that are um either coming out of hospitalization as a step down prior to going back into the regular setting or they're coming out of the regular setting the middle schools in the high school to come to Northbridge to get their feedback on the ground with some increased counseling uh and some academic components as well to the hope there is to uh head off a hospitalization so it's coming and going uh to and from the hospitalization and that uh time frame is usually four to five weeks that they're with us we also have the bridge program which is as I reference the credit recovery for student that are not in grade level behind in their credits and finally our

006teachers do a wonderful job of managing our Virtual Academy which has even after covet we still have a solid core of students in that program so our teachers really um I can't give them enough credit for facilitating an adeptly facilitating all of these programs for our students in the district again highlighting our mental health it's the mental health program at Northbridge is critically important we have outside help from americay and Lakeside who come in and do uh group counseling and individual counseling with select students um the uh the service uh every student in our building at Northbridge receives receives group counseling three days a week in individual counseling as needed as little as one time a week and many of them are with a counselor of three or four times during the week and our

007terrific Northbridge councils our school counselors um do all of the school counseling things and in addition to that they provide a critical uh component of the program which is the transition counseling which they work with the sending schools in middle school and the high school to allow a seamless transition to and from Northbridge so that's really important that students as they exit a program have an advocate back in the buildings to help them re-entry back into the regular setting with all the goals and needs that they have so they have a another advocate for them in that in that transition the counselors are also responsible for identifying students to bring into the program so that's really the most important part of uh what our counselors do the school counselors I just basically just described this

008slide uh preemptively sorry about that Bob it's just the process from the recommendation to the transition and then the return our program really is designed ultimately whether they're with us for the long haul or in the short term to return students back to the regular setting to get them back on their feet to work with the school we work individually with the students on their goals for return from the mental health standpoint as well as their academic goals um and ultimately at the end of the year even the students that are with us through the entire year the goal is to get them to go back to the eye of the middle school or the high school uh for September so um again our counseling staff and teachers played an integral role in that you

009have Democrat demographic data on the screen and essentially our uh our student body is uh reflective of the district in terms of the demographics we have students from grades 8 through 12 in person and then um roughly 150 or 60 students it's evolving every day in the mpba program uh and with that with that we have we are representative of the entire District in terms of demographics these are the 266 is the number of students that have been referring to our program as a school year you can see as of March 31st we had that number uh and well over half of those students were refer for mental health purposes getting into the meat of the presentation here the equity goal that we really honed in on this year was attendance we wanted to create

010an environment at Northridge in which students want to be in school many of our kids whether it's because of um you know difficulty with their academics or mental health issues peer issues anxiety depression Etc just are not coming to school in the regular setting so our goal as stated by our staff and and faculty is to create a caring environment a dynamic environment an environment in which students want to be in school so ultimately the goal was to have um to hit uh exceed 80 percent of daily attendance uh because that's what that was our high Mark last year 80 and as of now we currently are at a mark of 87 so we we've exceeded that goal we've met our goal for the year and we're proud of that because many many of our

011students struggle with merely with the tenants and if you're not in school you're not getting the help and you're not progressing with the academics as well so we're really proud of that statistic this is also a review from past presentations but our interventions which are also critical primarily particularly from the academic standpoint um we have a couple periods during the day independent Explorations and the bridge period in which students can get individual help uh with their academics we have virtual hours for our North Penn Virtual Academy students at the end of the day our teachers are free to meet virtually with kids uh in that program and some students in the virtual program actually come in at the end of the day to get in-person help in-person tutoring our teachers and counselors work with students

012to create customized customized uh plans for their academics throughout the year as I mentioned the support meetings for the mpba students we also look at behaviors some of our students struggle with making good choices so we use the behavioral behavioral data forms to help them see the antecedent behavior and ultimately make better choices down we said that when they do return to the regular setting it's it's a smooth transition a shout out to our CP e task force really Dynamic group of folks Mr Tela is new to the group as is Miss Lindquist uh Mrs Alex Moore and Mrs um I'm sorry Mrs Lindquist is a veteran Mrs Cantor was new this year uh Mr Tello was a new teacher at Northbridge he jumped right in but the group is really committed and dynamic and

013led all of our in-service programming throughout the year um have had they've had a monthly Focus for the building with regard to equity and have just done a really uh outstanding job of of uh creating and helping all of us to create an environment that's Equitable and accessible for all of our students so getting back to the original goal here of the of the attendance piece and having kids in school obviously the culture of the building is really important so one of the things that we try to do is Empower our students to give them a voice so we have a student ambassadors group that meets with teachers and and other team members in the building myself occasionally as well to talk about issues in the building and things that they would like to see

014done because it's such a small population of students all of our faculties available at any time but we do have this group of common official setting to um to support student voice throughout the year and I included a number of just uh pictures here of our students and engaged in activities in the building that that Center picture is a um presentation force uh women's history depicting women's History Month display that's in the front of our building uh each month there's a different display highlighting the group that's that's uh relevant that month that's being celebrated that month so that's really the first thing you see when you walk in our building this the picture to the left are students obviously playing cards but you see the security officer there as well as a teacher with the

015with the students so you can hopefully get a flavor for the uh culture that we have in the building by that picture more pictures I'd like to really give a shout out to the young man in the middle stood in the middle that's that's one of our students giving a presentation on Ramadan this was at the outset of Ramadan And he as a 10th grader presented to all the students in the building class by class so all grade levels did an outstanding job uh all of us adults included learned a great deal about the month of Ramadan and Eid and the tradition behind it and just really a terrific job by the salesman I was really proud of him and more as importantly it was proud of our other students who were really interested in

016engaged and it was just really a great moment for the building uh for all of us to to learn more about that important event for our Muslim Students uh and to the right there is Mr Mitchell with students in the crocheting Club so we do try to have clubs for their kids and Mr Mitchell ahead of that effort uh believe it or not he's got a big smile on his face there I think that was the first time he crocheted was that day new to Northbridge this year another therapeutic uh aspect of the of the district housed at Northbridge is our friend Mario there with uh Trish Pike and the school board you guys have been so uh gracious and um uh helpful in getting that program started but Marta was actually a staff member

017believe it or not at Northbridge is with us three days a week and students will uh you know gravitate toward Mario for uh when they're in crisis and he absolutely helps them calm down uh it's amazing what the animal does he's a big part of what we do and there again you see some teachers on Pancake Day uh making pancakes for their kids next slide Bob we have taken some trips this year we got a grant from the Ed Foundation to go to the Camden Aquarium which is terrific we had a nice field trip at the high school to see the trouble with my name uh and thank you Mr Hassler for supporting that and we've and we've also had students with the north Moco uh trip for A's and Ninth Grade kids to see

018their outstanding program as well more photos you get an idea of the kind of things that we do in our afternoons uh on Fridays where we have clubs and activities um so just try to keep it as engaging and upbeat as possible for the kids I just referenced our Friday program in the afternoon we've had some guest speakers um we we hit our high our SEL curriculum uh lessons as well as the clubs so it's kind of the afternoon not Fridays are not academically oriented uh just gives a different flavor for the for the experience more photos uh guest speakers Etc and the most important part is our students so here's a little clip on student voice I like being here because there are a lot of specific combinations that are able to help with

019different mental health things most schools just assume that everyone needs the same thing but this one actually is able to help everyone with what they need the teachers are much more understanding it's a good way to help students with both mental health and credit recovery and I really like it here what I really like about Northbridge is probably how quiet it is here at Northbridge I feel it's very calm a very good place to be to work and focus I've noticed that my grades go up to like a lot more since then I think that's a big major reason like so quiet I think that's a big major reason what about Northbridge I like that it's more it's really inclusive I like that um that they can be really understanding and there's a lot of

020one-on-one uh the teachers can really talk to you you can say in typical like high schools and middle schools you don't really get that option it's like it's such a big classroom and they don't always get that chance to and then talk to you one-on-one they can't help you out because schools the class is so big they don't really get that chance I like that the teachers are really nice right the teachers can be really helpful at times they can be really um educating I I like that they're all really respectful to the students and that they're really kind um uh yeah this is the staff I like the programs that we have and I I know it might sound like I'm talking a lot of good about it but it really is that really

021good because uh North Bridge uh they have the staff uh the programs that they have it's all really really fun you know I actually enjoy being here when I was in the high school I wasn't the greatest student honestly I skipped a lot I I was not a good person I think the program's really helped me out it really uh changed my perspective on school and I actually enjoyed coming here I come here every single day I try my best and yeah it really makes you like I like the school I like it I enjoy it so just a couple student voices there and we're proud of those those young people for the for the gains that they've made in their individual program programming throughout the year and I I'm confident in saying that those

022voices are um consistent across the building the vast majority of our students have made strides in their uh respective uh goals whether it was academic or mental health and the bottom line is that to sum it all up I I because of our teachers and the staff commitment to kids and the help that we've gotten from the district and the school board I think we've created an environment at Northbridge that has been beneficial to a large number of students over the last few years that we're marginalized in terms of having a a school experience that was working for them so I'm proud to say I've been part of it and just thankful to each of you for your support as well as most importantly our teachers and staff who do a great job every day

023thank you so much Mr Gallant for that update um and I am glad that you added those student voices at the end because that was going to be one of my questions about uh how do your students feel about the services you provide and I see that we have some other hands and I'll go in order of what I saw raised uh I think it was Dr Bauer and then Mr Fusco thank you Dr Lewis Campbell and Mr galante thank you so much uh for the presentation I just want to Echo a lot of what you saw but really uh drive home the pack that the fact that I sincerely believe the Northbridge program saves lives I sincerely believe that um when I did part of my superintendent's advisory I go to a different School

024each month and sit down with kids for about an hour unequivocally each student uh who I met with at Northbridge talked about how it saved them whether it's academically behaviorally emotionally and the sincere care that the adults in the building have for them so it's a really great opportunity for our students and we are very appreciative of all the hard work of Mr collante certainly who is retiring this year it is not a secret at this point um and we're just grateful for all that you've poured into the program Jim it's it's a beautiful thing and I know it's in a great position as you move on to the next phase so thank you Mr galante thank you I appreciate the kind words it's been a real pleasure being part of it I've just been

025in some cases really moving to see kids uh want to want to be in school for lack of a better way to put it so thank you for the support Mr Fusco yeah um my first question is what's your secret Mr galante you you don't look like you're old enough to retire like well you know what's going on there I'll be happy to try it out um so uh this is a great program um it was wonderful hearing those students um you know talk directly about the how did program impacted them right like when they're talking about what they find you know good about the program obviously that's going to be very personal you know to say most schools assume everyone needs the same thing but here we're actually getting what we need I think

026there's a lot of Truth in that right I think that you know we're just as Educators really starting to put our our minds around the idea of not just supporting students but really in more of a almost clinical fashion like how do we you know figure out how to provide services that right now are just almost impossible for some families to find you know out there privately you know that we can do it at such an effective high level um is is impressive I actually have once in a formal life I was um I did Arch programming at a place called the bridge in uh in Philadelphia and it was not Northbridge these kids were remanded there most of them by the courts but um it was a therapeutic environment where they had school and

027it was residential in that case but to see students in that therapeutic environment and and small and quiet and to have that opportunity to reflect on you know themselves and where their life is heading and what their goals are you know and being a structured environment like that really I I saw firsthand the impacts that it had on the kids that I was working with back then so you know it sounds to me very similar to the experience that that I was able to be a part of back when so kudos to you all for that um I had a couple questions about the program itself um and actually kind of goes right to that that I did Arts programming for the students um what is you mentioned independent Explorations and virtual hours what about

028specials what do they do over there for specials thank you Mr fosco just to get back to your point about what the secret is number one is a commitment which all of you have made systemically to our program because it's all about resources you have Commit made a commitment to Staffing and resourcing our program without that it would not be possible and the second part of it is the commitment on our staff's part to creating connections and giving every kid an opportunity every day to be successful and that that is a tremendous effort on their part um our specials we are somewhat limited it's a very small building um we you know so space is an issue but we haven't we have health and PE and we have art uh in the Virtual Academy we

029can offer many more classes obviously but in person it's Health PE and art at this point okay and do they so they don't take a special like every day then I would assume if it's Health in order yeah I mean depending on what grade level they they have one of them and then I was actually another thing I was kind of curious about was when you talked about the counselors and uh I was wondering about that the process for raking a recommendation to the program right I mean obviously if you're somebody who's in crisis and you're transitioning from a hospital setting you know that's one thing but um beyond that does it prompt a uh a 504 even an IEP I mean what what are we talking about in terms of the process for a

030student being referred to Northbridge so all of the the process aside from the trauma you know the immediate crisis uh student all those conversations start in the in at the building level in their child study meetings our our school counselors each of them are assigned to a different school and they sit in those child study meetings so they begin to understand students that start to Bubble Up and start to to appear to need our assistance that are you know starting to become uh fit the Northbridge profile so that's more of a you know more of a deliberate trajectory as as to when they would show up with us uh adjust the pose to the student that's in crisis that is hospitalizing that comes in it so those conversations happen in the in the child study

031meetings um and then you know once the decision is made to make the referral our counselor will bring it to our team uh then we determine what what the best situation is for the student as they come into Northbridge is there usually like a like an event that would prompt that like because I mean obviously the counselors are working with a lot of kids and it's a fairly dramatic change to say Hey you know maybe we should put you in a much smaller setting you know over here and outside the the high school of you know population yeah it's it's basically all of the metrics that we look at you know behaviors attendance academics obviously students with mental health issues uh you'll get back to your previous question you know some of our students do

032come with 504s and IEPs others do not many of them once they arrive with us are uh thought to be a need and you know we get them into that into that Continuum um but yeah it's basically anything that you're looking at in schools that we that we all look at attendance grades behaviors uh family you know things happening outside that that precipitate uh the need for extra help yeah so the last thing is just a note um related to the the equity part of the presentation you know the idea of that student giving a presentation about Ramadan I found this I was really paying attention to this this year because a lot of other districts have started adopting you know having Eid and Diwali off you know following in North Bend footsteps over here

033and I think it's great because you know I'm sure people have heard of Ramadan and they've heard of the volley but now students are genuinely asking questions about it because they actually have the holiday off so there's more of like a connection to it and more of an interest in like I've noticed on their part asking questions of what is it and so I think it's great you know when students can feel empowered to go and actually you know take ownership of having that knowledge and sharing it you know such as that student did at Northbridge going to each room and talking about um Ramadan and talking about Eid so I think that that's um yeah that's great so thank you the young man that you heard from at the end there was the the

034the student that did the Ramadan presentation and he's talented you'll be seeing him on TV at some point I promise you that he was good I think no one knows I know I said I really liked him he said it was inclusive and he seemed like he really went I had a hard time coming around to saying that he liked it but he's like I can't help it I like it here he's like you know very genuine so yeah he was uh very um interested in you know when I approached them about talking to the kids about Ramadan he was a little hesitant at first but once we talked through it he really became enthusiastic and as I said previously the best thing about that whole situation was what you said uh Mr Fusco about

035the other students in their interest and the level of questions that they asked and it was organic and sincere um which is really powerful for everybody um particularly the other students all right well thank you great presentation Mr galante and congratulations on your retirement I hope you enjoy it well thanks so much I appreciate it Mr McBain thank you very much I'm a little bit more upset at the fact that if we run into Mr galante in the next couple years he's going to look younger than he does now because he's retired and he's taken a little easy but anyway it's going to look more like Dr McKenna than me but anyway um uh as a regular education teacher I know exactly the kind of students that are coming to you and how difficult it

036can be to reach those students I teach 80 minute periods every other day so there's some weeks when I only see them twice and if I divided that time out amongst each of my 28 kids in the room at once I only get less than six minutes with them and a week at a time so that lack of communication and that lack of time with an individual student certainly does impact a regular education teacher's ability to to reach kids so thank you for you know being there to to reach those kids that that we aren't able to reach for any kind of various reasons I was wondering what kind of communication is involved between the rise counselors or the Northbridge counselors that you mentioned um transition counselors I think the title is and the regular

037education teachers specifically um sometimes you know in a different District I get a very little information about one of students coming back and sometimes I get a lot sometimes it depends on how much the the parents want to share and I was wondering if there was a process in place especially as a student's about to return in which the the regular education teachers find out what they need to know before that student comes into their classroom yeah thank you for the question such a critical aspect of a student's re return to the regular setting if they don't feel comfortable in the regular classroom when they come back because a lack of communication of not knowing what to do that could be a trigger to you know send them back in the other direction so if

038you answer your question our counselors over the last couple years have really fine-tuned that there's a there's an email exchange document exchange the teachers in the regular setting have been terrific in providing uh daily academic updates about what students need to be doing uh to be successful when they return and then our staff in turn provides the feedback from us to back to the regular setting teachers about how the student is progressing that has taken a couple years you can imagine especially with the high school the size of it um there's but we've had some you know bat you know there's been it's taken some time but I think at this point we're in a really good um communicative standing with with all stakeholders all from the stand everybody wants the help by the way

039all everyone one is interested in helping these these students but again sometimes with the size it can get a little complicated but at this point I think we're in really good shape with that our counselors do an outstanding job of meeting with them they'll walk down the hall and in the in the big buildings and and you know speak individually with teachers at times if if that is what is called for so I think we've I think we've took credit to them I think we're in good shape yeah it's great to hear and you know as as you're finishing up your time don't be afraid to let us know uh in very honest ways if there's something where we're missing or if there's something in the process that doesn't work I know my fellow board

040members are always happy to hear from anyone um and you know you've done so much already we're so very thankful for uh all of your contributions so thank you once again now thank you very much and as I said before without the commitment from the board and uh the directors in our in our district here we would Northbridge would not be a possibility so we appreciate your commitment and uh backing thank you okay so Mr galante you've heard from everyone and I too Echo the kudos to you for a job well done with Northbridge and I like to say that as a 27-year member of the school district probably longer than most on this call except for a few and I know who they are um Northridge had a bad reputation back in the days

041of when my son was in school and my children are now adults and no none of them had to ever go to Northbridge but in the black community a lot of black students were thrown into Northbridge because of discipline problems without all of these services that you now talk about so we know of Northbridge from back then so to see it evolve to where it is now it is a good thing and I I I I don't know your ethnic breakdown and I can get that another time but I'm just saying knowing what it was I lived it because my kids were in school at that time um and to see where it has evolved now is a tremendous step in advancement for our children our students so thank you for all that you have

042done to bring it to that point as well um continued good wishes thank you very much good wishes for your next chapter of your life as a retiree I can say retirement is good so thank you Dr Campbell and listen just very quickly there's one person I didn't give any credit to and that's the person that really started this whole thing and that was Kyle Hassler whose vision is now um happening on a daily basis at Northbridge Kyle was the one who bridged the Gap from the years that you're talking about Dr Campbell to where we are today so I was remiss I should have let off of that I just saw Kyle in my boxer and I was like that's the guy who started the whole thing so Kyle gets gets the credit on

043that end of it thank you Kyle thank you Kyle as well so thank you uh we'll go ahead uh and move along with our agenda and the next thing I believe uh we'll hear from Dr Bauer regarding the second chance learning and assessment and he will call those people forward to present Dr Bauer thank you Dr Lewis Campbell and good evening everyone uh and the committee and our presenters uh so we did I did want to share with the community We Had A Series of Unfortunate Events this afternoon slash evening um Dr G has been an integral part of the conversation surrounding both Second Chance learning and authentic assessment and unfortunately she had a family medical emergency this afternoon and unexpectedly could not join us uh given that this agenda was uh publicized and made

044public yesterday and the actual presentation was uploaded we are going to uh continue with the actual presentation itself but we do want to have Dr G be a part of the conversation so in terms of questions um we'll certain we'll save them for another meeting and we'll make sure everyone knows when that meeting is but certainly she is a leader in this discussion and we've heard a lot from our staff and from students quite frankly surrounding both of these topics and the purpose here was to reflect and talk about where we are and where we're going to go as a result of garnering that feedback and unfortunately she was denied that opportunity tonight because she has to care for a loved one so out of respect for Dr G we'll save the questions and comments

045not that you can't interrupt and raise your hand if you have something urgent but the the fruitful conversation and discussion we'll say for another time uh so thank you for that Dr Lewis Campbell at this time I will turn it over to a lady who needs no introduction uh but our esteemed assistant superintendent Dr Deanna Waters Dr Waters thank you good evening everyone and thank you Dr Bauer that just uh you just put a little something in my bucket made me feel good just now um all right so as Dr Bowers said um everything tonight um all the presentations are you know you have um heard in the past so tonight is about updates and so Mr galante joined us gave us an update for spring uh with Northbridge he was here in the fall

046and uh the next two presenters uh actually it'll be about four presenters um for this next presentation they've also been here to talk about these topics but they are also here to give an update and then um we will end with uh Nina fenstermaker who will be giving an update now that our Ela curriculum review team has made a decision so uh without further Ado I'd like to turn it over to our wonderful director of curriculum and Equity Dr Hart and we're going to start with our wonderful high school principal Mr Kyle Hassler so together they will present and then they'll be joined uh by Rachel early and Donna Dome supervisors who you also know very well here at ECI all right Kyle it's all yours all right thank you Dr Waters um so I'm

047here to start to kind of recap and give an update for where we are with Second Chance learning um I was here in February and presented kind of some of the some of the early successes and some of the questions that we had some of the things that we were working through so at this point in time I'm very happy to say that every class at North Penn High School has some element of Second Chance learning a second chance is available to you every student in every class that they have in our high school um as we kind of work through still some of the the challenges of implementing this uh we I'd say my administrative team were working very closely with teachers for some teachers this was brand new this wasn't uh something that

048they had in their class for others they've been doing Second Chance learning for years so there's definitely teachers that are at different levels so one of the important things that we're doing is we're meeting with individual teachers to reflect on how their second chance learning is going giving some you know recommendations and some feedback to help improve it and make it more accessible for students and then really focusing on one of the biggest parts of Second Chance learning it's not just that second chance it's the opportunity to re-teach the content and really give those students a second chance to master the learning so that's really what Second Chance learning is all about and we're working through that and we're working kind of you know differentiating the way that we work with each of our teachers

049to meet them where they are to help them to you know really get that out there for the students the other apart we're going to talk a little bit in the second part of this presentation is we're still looking to differentiate the pathways for assessment so I know that Dr Hart and a couple of our curriculum supervisors are going to talk about authentic assessment but our supervisors have been great they've been working closely with the administrative team with our department chairs and with the teachers in the building to really focus on authentic assessment and to make sure that we're not just simply handing out paper and pencil tests like sometimes was traditionally what you know some of us I know growing up in school that was the way that I was assessed and we're really

050looking to get away from that really makes a more Hands-On learning opportunities than some of that authentic assessment that they're going to talk about in the second part and then the last piece of where we are right now is we're still in the first year of this we're still collecting data so you know just like as a teacher data it drives your instruction data needs to drive where we're going to make sure that we're serving our students the best that we can you know we're supporting our teachers in this as well so we're continuing to collect data as far as you know how many students have had the opportunity how many students have taken advantage of it how much their scores have improved so we're really looking to make sure that you know we want

051to focus on Mastery Mastery learning to say really we're teaching the curriculum and we want to know how much of the curriculum the students have mastered so we're collecting that data to make sure that our grading policy and our grades truly reflect that mastery foreign so that brings us to our next steps as to where we are I know that right now it's an exciting time up at the high school our seniors are in that home stretch we're going through AP testing and then final exams are coming up so they're about to to leave us and go off into the world to do great things but I do know we also have our 10th and 11th graders right now who right now their their grades are important because they're starting to really ramp up and

052look at colleges and look at you know vocational schools after the high school experience so we want to make sure that we're working with them that their grades are truly reflecting what they're mastering in the curriculum to help them get into those those colleges and to pursue those opportunities that they'll have once they leave our leave us at the high school so in order to do that some of the things that we're doing to to really get us in the right direction or keep us in the right direction is we're forming a committee and we have formed a committee with our department chairs and then also bring in some of our other teacher leaders in to review what we're doing with Second Chance learning and really make sure that we establish guidelines for all courses

053so Second Chance learning might not always look the same in every course but we're really looking to solidify the guiding principles so that when you say what a second chance learning look like at the high school we can point to things that are in place across the board even though that it might be a little bit different in each one of our courses the next thing that we're doing is again like I said we're continuing to collect data but really the biggest piece of data that we're missing right now is our final exam scores so when we talk about Second Chance learning and some of the changes in our grading policy the reason that we did that is we wanted to make sure that the amount of the curriculum mastered as you heard me to

054say the amount of curriculum mastered is truly reflected in the final grade for the students so the biggest piece of that is really the the penultimate test there at the end um you know the final exam does that final exam score does it match their scores throughout the year so as our students get into the final exams we're going to look at that and we're going to use that data to really direct us on where we're going in the future the next piece that we have here is we are meeting with student focus groups so I think it's important in this that we hear we hear the teacher's voice we also hear the student's voice they're the ones in the classroom that are experiencing this so we're collecting student feedback by forming focus groups groups

055across all of our different course levels so we're talking to AP students we're talking to 6.0 5.0 really across the board students in all different level of courses to get their feedback what they think about Second Chance learning have they taken advantage of the opportunities are there changes that we could make to the policy that entices them to access the opportunities if they haven't so we're having those conversations with with different student groups and then we're collecting that data and that feedback to help us push forward with with establishing some goals for for next year and then we're going to take all that information and with that we're going to update our Second Chance learning policy right now each department is a little bit different again we're going to find those Define those guiding principles

056put them in place and then roll out the second chance learning policy for the 23-24 school year so that there is that kind of Common Ground across all courses and then we can also kind of outline where those little pieces of differentiation come into play for each course so that's where we are for the next steps like I said one of the things that I mentioned is we're really focusing on those different Pathways to assessment so at this point I'm going to turn it over to Dr Hart to talk a little bit about where we are with authentic assessment thank you Mr Hassler hello everyone it is great to be here uh to kind of provide an update for authentic assessment um I want to begin uh by saying the way in which we've organized

057this presentation is to provide a little bit of an overview of what we mean by authentic assessment I know a number of you may have been uh present in November when we uh presented but for those of you who are not we just want to make sure that you have a really great frame um and then talk a little bit about what it looks like where we are and then where we will be going um in the future so next slide please um Bob um as I'm listening to Mr hasser talk about Second Chance learning and the connection to authentic assessment um you all are able to read kind of the definition of authentic assessment I really do want to take an opportunity to thank Mr Hassler his administrative team Department chairs and all the

058teachers at the high school for their work and kind of taking a leap of faith and engaging in this work around authentic assessment and addition to Second Chance learning that some of the other initiatives we know it's been a pretty big lift and we really have appreciated as a curriculum Team all of your hard work and we look forward to continuing that work as well so having said that authentic assessment is really an opportunity to give our students opportunities to perform real life tasks to really take the knowledge that they're learning in class and apply those skills and Concepts in really authentic and meaningful ways and in this slide you're able to see kind of traditionally what assessment looks like I think Kyle talked a little bit about the paper pencil the idea of kind

059of filling in the blank the multiple choice pieces and there's value in that but we also recognize as we think about student variability um the idea that people demonstrate their knowledge in lots of different ways and we want to make sure that students are not just memorizing content for the test but able to take that material that they're learning and actually be able to apply it in lots of different situations that is why our goal is really to spend some time really taking deeper Dives and more opportunities to have assessment that it's a little bit more authentic next slide please um so I'm going to turn it over um to Rachel's going to talk just a little bit um about the November PD that we engaged in and some of the work that we did

060to kind of get the ball rolling thank you Dr Hart and again I just wanted to highlight Dr Hart's message of just thanking the teachers and the department chairs who kind of jumped in this work this school year and tried out something new so I just wanted to highlight that as well um one of the things that we set up at our November District admin meeting were um just a central area where examples checklists and then departments could organize their authentic assessments um so this is a snapshot of of all of that work um and it's just really important that we have this organizational structure because it allows individuals in this department to check out what their uh their colleagues have done number one and number two it also allows administrators um you know a

061curriculum supervisors assistant principals principals or um district office staff um to check out what's going on in each one of these departments so this was just a really good first step in transparency and organization for all of this information foreign so I want to just take a minute or two to talk a little bit about the time that it's been allocated during our professional learning opportunities throughout the year uh for teachers and admin to work collaboratively to really spend time on developing authentic assessment um so we kind of hit the ground running in November um kind of and then our goal was to provide opportunities through the winter for teachers to work collaboratively with grade level colleague with their content colleagues in their departments to be able to develop those assessments our goal was really

062for each teacher to have an opportunity to develop authentic assessment sometime by January with the expectation that there would be an assessment that would be administered sometime between January and um June so we in some of the professional development opportunities we've been able to share ideas we've been able to refine some of the authentic assessment as well and you'll even see that as we look to May 16th which is just a couple of days away we have an opportunity to reflect on where we've been and really be able to kind of broaden the scope of the work that we've engaged in and kind of go back to that repository of assessment uh that have been developed just to be able to share those ideas we can have some common experiences in various grades and content

063areas as well as be able to kind of refine those assessments and then develop new ones as well next slide um so I'm going to turn it over back to you Rachel to talk just a little bit we want to kind of highlight two examples although we have many many to choose from just to kind of give all of you an opportunity to get a sense of what uh authentic assessment looks like across a couple of content areas thank you so I'm going to jump in and talk a little bit about English and then I will turn it over to Donna to talk a little bit about science um so I want to start off with our 10th grade world literature course a few years ago we adopted a new text called The Alchemist to

064align with the world literature course and the teachers of this course created an authentic assessment where students have to create their own personal Legend where they make three connections to the text and their own life because the central theme of the literature is that when a person really desires something all the universe conspires to help that person realize their dream so that taking that theme and then applying it to their own lives and then drawing from the text rather than a traditional um cumulative assessment on that text so that's an example from 10th grade in 11th grade we have an American literature course and on the transcendentalism unit project again instead of their typical chapter test students create a presentation rather than a paper which is really really important that we're making sure that our

065students are engaging in different mediums to show what they know and they're just collecting and displaying artifacts that illustrates transcendentalism in society so they're able to then share that out with their classmates rather than taking a test or just writing a paper and I'll pass it over to Donna to talk a little bit about science thank you Rachel I'm going to highlight a chemistry experience that our students have had this year in an authentic exploration and looking specifically when they were looking at molecular structures and they were presented with a situation where students were exposed to a chemical that can be fatal if not counteracted with an antidote so with the use of percent comp percent composition and unknown substances they were able to do calculations with data provided by the teacher working in small

066groups and coming up with those percent compositions with substances to try and figure out which mystery substance would be the antidote and then once they figure that out they then went around the room to different balances to gather the molecular structure pieces to present that to the teacher um as part of their assessment and now back to Dr Hart thank you very much um so hopefully you've got a good sense of kind of where we've been um had some insight into some of the examples of authentic assessment that have been developed and as I said before lots of opportunities to choose from many so I appreciate Rachel and Donna just highlighting just a couple um as we think about next steps and really reflect on the year we definitely have done some really great work

067but we know that it's still really important for members of our curriculum team to continue to partner with the admin team at the high school and teachers in the various Department areas to really kind of look at the assessments that have been developed and see where we can refine some of those assessments and then think about additional ways in which we can incorporate additional authentic assessment into the kind of the assessment schedule throughout the year as well we recognize that we really decided and kind of initiated this initiative very close to the opening of the school year there and as I said before really appreciated everyone kind of jumping in and giving it two foot you know two feet forward um and their very best opportunities and so we have an opportunity now that we've

068begun this process um to see what has worked well uh where there's some glitches and where we really want to um kind of strengthen not only our Partnerships between curriculum and the admin team and teachers um but ways in which we want to be able to kind of ban the opportunities that our students engage in as well um you know I think as we really have a good sense of how students have engaged in these assessments we can get a really good sense of what other opportunities we want to have for them and kind of diversify those experiences moving forward so that the students are leaving our high school we know they've had a wide range of opportunities to really demonstrate what it is that they've learned and really have mastered during their time there

069and we're looking forward to that continued work in Partnership so thank you all for the work that you've engaged in and we look forward to really great partnership and continue to work as as we move forward and get ready for the 23-24 school year and that is our presentation and we know we'll be um having lots of conversation uh the next time we get together but hopefully that does give you a really nice overview of where we've been where we are and where we hope to go moving forward into the fall so I just I do want to say I'm not asking questions we're going to hold the discussion uh for probably June date but I do want to just make sure I say something um uh I recognize this is a work in progress

070you know we're collecting data you know we're focusing on next steps um so just really it's a few observations about why I support this effort right when we talk about the two pieces right the first one being second chance learning right I I feel that there was a really incredible point that was made about the final grades right and that really the culmination of all this is really to to see a a grade that reflects what a student has actually learned right so in a first attempt if they haven't learned that content but they've made that sincere effort to come and take the time to to study and and give it that second opportunity you know and to have the opportunity to even maybe be able to sort of focus on the information that they

071missed on the in the first place um and have a second chance that it it should be then reflected in that final grade so hopefully you know if we're doing it right that's what we will see um regarding authentic assessment which I do think is so important I mean I'll be honest I've said this a number of times I just think paper and pencil tests suck oh God like in in blunt right like we all hated them as kids kids today hate them um the reason there's a good reason they're disconnected from actual experience right I tend to use this example in when I talk to people about this right the idea of changing motor oil right if I when I learned to do it my dad took me to a car and you know

072injected up we unplugged it we drained it we changed the oil right I learned how to do it the way that you know paper and pencil test would have said something like that it would be through the manual right you would say here's step one step two step three step four and there's no actual like Hands-On engagement into what the materials are what the actual steps look like to solve it there's no you know planning out of the process it and it's devoid of that experience where you know when when Donna Dome talked about the mysterious substance anecdote you know that is something that a student can really get excited about because it's like a puzzle it's a it's like a game it's a fun thing to solve and engage in and I feel like

073we just underestimate in public education motivation right we wonder why our kids are struggling you know at 8 30 in the morning and maybe part of the reason is it's just not the most exciting engaging environment you know to sit at a desk class after class after class after class and fill out study guides and read from a text and then answer multiple choice questions so you know this is a a very large departure from the way most schools are kind of doing business these days um but I think if we are truly interested in what is going to best reach and engage our students we really need to take a critical look at what these practices are and not just accept that because it's the way everybody does it that it's somehow the best

074way to do it I believe there's a better way to do it I believe we have the talent here at North Penn at that high school to take this Challenge on and it reminds me of like some of the things we did in covet when we had to learn about canvas right and people were very stressed for good reason they had a short period of time to turn around and they had a short period of time to put their minds around this that is absolutely true right this was something that was not anticipated it was not being discussed at this time last year and all of a sudden it's been it's been put on folks and and I know everybody over there is doing their best to make sense out of it and it's now

075hone in on that data and to have those important conversations at that committee level what's working what's not working um but this truly is an important effort that I think we're undertaking and I do believe that it's something that the fruits of this labor are going to are going to be evident when those authentic assessments are just there and a repository to grab when we can use them for Second Chance learning even right where we could say hey instead of you know let's give you an opportunity to do an authentic assessment to replace this you know paper and pest paper and pestle test that you failed but there's a lot of ways we can use this and and make it more of a part of the routine and not something that's getting in the way

076of the routine which I do understand is something that's happening right now so those are my thoughts on it so but good work great presentation and I'm definitely looking forward to see what the administration uh and the teachers and department heads put together in terms of that consistency and sort of expectations for next year it's great thank you so much Mr Fusco for summarizing what it is these dedicated educators are doing uh Mr casler thank you for the comments you made even about student voices and the importance of them becoming participants in their own learning so that was key uh and Dr Hart about taking that classroom learning and put it into real life tasks that's key and we have the best Educators in this district and you heard from Mrs Eli and Miss Doman

077you know people are committed and want to go forward and do the best that they can in terms of authentic assessment and second chance learning so that's why I say this this school district is the creme de La Creme of the suburbs so okay I see Dr hassle I thought we weren't going to ask any questions but he has his hand up so go ahead you called me Dr Hassler first of all God I just want to make sure I have the correct marching orders for the administration here so uh would it be appropriate uh Dr Lewis Campbell Mr McVeigh Mr Fusco whomever wants to answer this uh that we bring this band back together in a couple months and kind of present uh the road map for the the fall is that okay oh

078absolutely and uh hopefully by our June meeting when Dr G is here so that all of us can be put back on the table and then go further great thank you uh Mr Fusco your hand is up or no just just haven't looked down yet I'm good thanks okay thank you um great discussion team and we'll go on with our agenda I believe it's our student rap report and I don't think she's here Mr Gilmer do you know yeah she's not in the room but I do believe we do have a little more presentation though oh okay um and there's I'm trying to see what that will be can you tell me which one that is sure uh Nina fenstermacher is going to provide a overview of the adoption of ela curriculum I believe yes

079Miss fenstermeyer Victor all right uh good evening ECI and community um over the past year we have engaged in a very robust curriculum review process to evaluate the effectiveness of our Ela curricular program kindergarten through sixth grade um and tonight I'm here to share our committee's final recommendation so I do want to take a brief moment to thank our steering committee of teachers administrators coaches and Specialists who have spent countless hours Gathering research analyzing data and evaluating many curricular programs to find the best fit for our teachers and students this process included many meetings site visits to other neighboring districts and some teachers even did some sample lesson planning and tried out a few things in their classroom I'm really proud of our process and the teacher leaders who were a part of it I

080was here back on March 14th and did share some details about our process so if anyone on the call tonight is interested in learning more about the process that we took within curriculum review they can watch that meeting on the North Penn YouTube channel so these slides ground Us in what our steering committee set out to do to highlight a few things from our vision and Mission we committed to ensuring that students would have a command of the foundational skills of the English language be able to comprehend and analyze a variety of text and through Reading Writing speaking and listening be able to communicate effectively and contribute to their local and Global societies also the North Penn School District is committed to to using data and scientifically based research to to guide our decisions as

081and also we aim to Foster collaboration between home school and the larger community so we also had some non-negotiable goals that we created based on feedback that we that we've received from over uh 340 teachers from A needs assessment that we did and these goals included alignment with the science of reading research providing Equitable and inclusive practices for all students including authentic and and diverse texts and also maintaining our foundations Integrity curriculum strengthening student Grammar and Writing and building students knowledge through authentic connections between science and social studies so with our vision mission and goals at the heart of our decision making process our committee has selected written wisdom as our primary resource for our new Ela curriculum Whitton wisdom has not only met the expectations of our district rubric but has received high ratings

082on multiple third-party evaluation scales it aligns with our beliefs our goals scientific research and many of the curriculum resources that we're already using in the primary grades and what our committee loved most about Whitten wisdom was their authentic literature and that it is a knowledge building curriculum so we're going to show um you and the community a quick three-minute video that gives you more of like a high level overview of Whitten wisdom [Music] welcome to win wisdom we're excited to join you on your curriculum Journey Witten wisdom was created by teachers for teachers like you we want all students to have the knowledge and skills they need to pursue their dreams whatever they may be let's begin with some basics Whit and wisdom is a grades K through 8 English language arts curriculum all grades

083follow the same structure the year begins with an introductory module module 0. each grade then has four modules or units modules one to four each focus on a different topic these topics build students knowledge of literature social studies science and the Arts most teachers start with module zero the short module that introduces written wisdom to students modules one to four include 30 to 38 90-minute lessons each module has several cortexs these complex high quality texts build students knowledge of the module topic texts are the heart of Whitten wisdom you and your students will dive into some great books modules also include shorter texts poems videos art and graphics let's look at the components of each wit and wisdom module the teacher edition will be your guide the teacher edition is print or digital depending on

084your school's purchase students have a print student Edition workbook for each module student assessments are available in the print assessment pack as digital PDFs in the teacher edition or through a firm our online assessment platform cortex are the previously published books students read these sets of texts anchor students knowledge and are the basis for students daily reading writing speaking and listening students read a wide variety of supplementary texts in each module students access these as handouts or through online links when wisdom also includes resources to support multilingual Learners these are designed to help multilingual Learners meaningfully engage in went and wisdom instruction for grades K through 5 the multilingual learner resource provides text specific scaffolds for every module the multilingual learner resource is available in print or digitally prologue is designed for grades 6 through

0858. prologue is a collection of lessons that previews key content and language in the context of specific written wisdom lessons prologue is available in print and digital format all wit wisdom teachers can access module 0 resources for families and other resources on the dashboard digital users can also access the K8 teacher editions here Whit and wisdom is not a foundational skills program your school or district will pair win wisdom with a strong foundational skills program your school may have also purchased geodes for grades K through two geodes readers build students knowledge and foundational skills these books are a bridge between written wisdom and your foundational skills program now that you've had this brief introduction here's some next steps you might take you may want to explore more resources we offer webinars blog posts there we

086go thank you and just to um you know talk about the video really really quickly we also we already have a foundational skills program it's called foundations we also have a phonemic awareness and phonological curriculum called hegarty so the pairing of that is something that already exists in our district and the GEOS that were mentioned in the video is something that our district already has as well so over the past few weeks each grade band and groups of Specialists met to discuss the program strengths and of course their shortcomings we know that no program resource is perfect but there are many strengths outlined on this slide that will give us the bones that we need to create a really well-rounded robust curriculum for all of our students k6 a reoccurring strength of the program is

087a variety of text options and media in the program and the vocabulary across the grades yes so as we know there is no perfect resource and so our committee members have really taken a deep dive to uncover and call out some of the shortcomings of the resource and ways in which we will need to supplement our support and our resource the blue text on the left highlights some of these challenges and the orange text on the right are some of the strategies that we've already started to consider to support our teachers in the implementation our Ela coaching team with the help of other leaders in the district have already started Gathering technology resources and working on ways to support teachers with navigating the manual and while some of this work has already started we do

088have a timeline to complete most of the curriculum writing and assessment review this summer and have it already by the middle of July so I love this quote from Louisa Motes I do think it reminds us just how valuable our teachers are and the need to prioritize training and professional development I know this board and our Union are also huge advocates for this as well so we've already started the development of a really robust training plan in order to best prepare our district and the site-based leaders for the next phase of curriculum review which is our implementation we just scheduled a full training with Whit and wisdom on May 12th for reading Specialists coaches and administrators and that that data is actually not even listed on this slide because those details were just approved we

089will then share a high level overview with our entire Elementary staff on May 16th it will be important for them to understand the vision of the new curriculum the direction we're headed in with some of the instructional shifts and how we are going to be prioritizing different instructional practices so we recognize that our staff members approach training in very different ways so we are preparing for a range of ways that teachers can start to feel comfortable and enter this work some people may want time to dive right into the resource and start exploring and some might want to take a slower approach on May 16th so we will also be offering a range of opportunities over the summer that will be optional for staff to get what they need one event I want to highlight

090for this board is our summer literacy Symposium we did this two years ago and had great feedback from teachers this year we will have keynote speakers from Wilson language on Equitable literacy practices as well as Dr Carolyn strohm from the end from NYU on the science behind how the brain learns to read and we know that many staff members are just not available over the summer so all of these opportunities will not replace the Deep dive that everyone will get in August our district leaders are taking professional development very seriously and we have been guaranteed at least one full day for the training at the start of the year and then ongoing training each month and then additionally we will have our coaching team who is already preparing ways to support teacher including special ed

091and ell teachers and reading Specialists on next year so that is all the information I wanted to share with you tonight about Whitten wisdom our process and our recommendation and the why behind our recommendation and I would love to ask you know answer any questions that you have or you know take any of your feedback back to our planning process and our team so thank you foreign wisdom and I like what you said programs don't teach teachers do so thank you so much for that I have a hand Mr McBain thank you very much Dr Lewis Campbell there's an elementary teacher in my household that is not me that's very happy to hear about this and that you're keeping the foundations uh programs and other things that we already have in place so uh for

092what that's worth congratulations on finding something good there um I did have a question real quick you outlined very clearly uh everything that's going to be put in place for the the teachers across our district to get their hands on this um you mentioned that if they want to check it out before summer they can I think are they able to get their hands on these materials that they'll be working with before they leave for summer so that is a great question um and there's a good news to that answer and a little bit of bad news to the answer so I'll start with the bad news is that we will not have the materials in by the end of the year we want to have physical materials in um so two parts of the

093good news the reason why is because litten wisdom is currently um printing new manuals they've updated uh their most recent copyright which I believe was 2017 and they now have a 2023 copyright which is what we are purchasing and for that reason uh they are bringing all their new print materials out in May with um production and and delivery available in June and so as soon as we have you know the board approval uh to purchase these materials we'll be getting them as soon as possible um the other good news I can share is that we have digital access immediately so it's just that print material piece that we are going to need to wait for for good reason that's great and I know that so many of these um companies are making just about

094everything you can get in your hands is also on that online system too so I'm glad for that opportunity and uh you know not having the book in your hands but still being able to see it uh sounds like a price we pay for having the newest edition of the best resource so um certainly we can look forward to getting their hands dirty with with that new works as soon as possible thank you foreign yeah just one question um for the community um when will they be able to look at the materials as I recall in this process they do before we actually adopt sorry what do you explain the process for the community yep that's Dr Bauer whoever wants to explain it uh sure I can start with an answer and then um you

095know all of my my not anybody can can chime in and add so uh all the materials are available right now at our Educational Services Center they've actually been out and about we've been sending samples to schools we've been making sure that teachers if they wanted access to anything they've had the opportunity to see samples and we actually have every copy of the text that will be used with students at the Educational Services Center they're out on a table and they will be out for the next 30 days as word policy um you know us recommends um and so if anybody would like to come take a look um they're more than happy to you know to come take a look and we can answer any questions that they have thank you I know that

096there's going to probably be community members they commonly do express interest in knowing what's happening and looking at our curriculum and looking at our goals so it is available at the ESC folks for you to check out just just to reiterate too you know this is an ongoing process if parents ever have questions about our curriculum we're always more than happy to set up meetings with with anybody and answer questions or or show them resources even beyond the 30 days if the 30 days is just you know they'll be out in the um ESC thank you Nina I appreciate that thank you thank you for another Well Done presentation Okay so moving along with our agenda I believe that's it am I correct okay I see Dr Waterson yes so now we don't have a

097student representative here we do have an item of student travel on here uh okay we didn't vote to move the item ahead either okay if you would let the chair get to that it would happen I'm sorry thank you we're now going with those recommended items for work session and that's the curriculum resource adoption Mr Fusco I make a motion to move it to action all in favor raise your hands okay we will move that to uh the next work session or Action meeting and then we have student travel can I get a recommendation on that so moved is there a second second all in favor thank you we will move student travel as well to the next warp session slash Action meeting okay now are there additional topics we don't have any additional topics

098Dr Lewis Campbell thank you Dr Waters so we'll go ahead and go with our um public speakers if we have any Mr Gilmore yes we do have one hand raised in the audience okay let me read the statement tonight's meeting is our regularly scheduled committee meeting in order to meet the requirements Pennsylvania's Sunshine Law it is necessary to record the names of all citizens who speak to the committee during the meeting to assure compliance with this requirement it is essential that those planning to address the committee State their name and municipality members of the audience are asked to limit their questions and comments to no more than three minutes this limit will permit time for all those who wish to speak to the committee we're never members of the audience succeed this time limit the

099committee chair may ask the individual to yield to the next speaker so can we have that speaker absolutely up first is Jason Lanier Jason I have enabled your microphone so when you're ready to begin please state your name in municipality and begin your comments please uh Jason there Lansdale um I guess I had a question regarding well let me back up the curriculum stuff curriculum I guess is fine for the most part I I think I'm gonna um take Miss fenstermacher's recommendation go look at see what the the K-8 education curriculum is going to be about and I'm kind of interested in in that but not so much I mean I I can't you guys have made references to diverse books okay that's fine that's awesome don't that's not really my concern my concern comes

100with more of the the proficiency of the students once they get to the the the the the critical years near her graduation and and the second chance learning thing when I heard that you know what that tell says to me and I think maybe somebody brought this up before is is why aren't kids going to game this why are kids going to prepare for the first test if they know they can only come back and take it the second time and that might be part of the discussion um but when you when you pair that with with the um authentic assessment it seems to me the goal is to have kids uh seem like they are proficient when they don't haven't tested well at least not the first time maybe they got up to passing

101a second time and instead of actually having them compose things uh or or take you know quizzes and tests you're having them display their knowledge through other means now back in when I went to school I think we called these Labs you know science labs is where we did this whether they were uh dangerous chemicals and or you know very uh simple chemicals in chemistry physics experience physics Labs all the Sciences have Labs I got that and you can have reading Labs so to speak and or papers where you include yourself as a character this has been around forever so calling on authentic assessments is fine but the idea of pairing these things together says to me you're trying to um you're trying to make an outcome based upon an assessment which is not truly

102an assessment that's what it says to me it says to me because you want to load the the the the sort of SEL critical race Theory whatever you want to call it uh and you want to kind of taint the results with doing an assessment which makes kids not proficient necessarily in the end and you know I looked at this up that in Chicago they did this starting in 2010 and the proficiencies have dropped precipitously and they they did all this sort of thing and and I don't know why we are following the footsteps of a failed practice why would we want to do this and it to me it's it's it strikes a political agenda not an actual opportunity for kids to learn I'll leave it there okay well thank you for your comments

103Mr Lanier I'm going to call on Dr Bauer to see if you have a response to what you just heard from Mr Lanier uh certainly Dr Lewis Campbell and uh thank you Mr Lanier for your engagement as always uh I agree uh when you mentioned uh outcomes as we get closer to graduation and proficiency and it just so happens that today um I had a bi-weekly with our director of technology and asked about act 158 if you're not aware of what act 158 is those are the requirements to graduate and they were implemented just last year this is the first year where this criteria based upon proficiency and other metrics uh to meet the graduation requirements across the state of Pennsylvania so please understand that these results are from May 1st so there's still quite

104a bit of time left to get to the finish line but I just wanted an update on where we are with our class of 2023. we have 1059 students in that class as of 5 1 23 920 five of them have met the state's expectations of proficiency 28 of them either have a waiver or extenuating circumstances sometimes students with significant disabilities get a waiver from such a requirement things such as that so 925 plus 28 is 953 of 1059 with still um a month and a half to go in the school year so I feel really good about that graduation rate and meeting the proficiency requirements from the state as we get closer to graduation as Mr Lanier outlined and it really is a coincidence I had a conversation about this and had the data

105extracted today um so I appreciate and we certainly use the same types of metrics that Mr Lanier is speaking to and with a month to go we're well over 90 percent the way there so I'm very pleased with the outcome there at North Bend High School thank you Dr Lewis Campbell thank you for the update and so today you just got it so it's so real and So Fresh So thank you so very much for that okay so on our agenda are there any other speakers Mr Gilmore guys make one last Point yes just and I made this point a number of times in defense of this program especially for Second Chance learning you can retake the SAT and they take the best of both and put it together right you can retake the knock

106D if you fail it and then you can go work in a profession right you can retake the bar right you can retake the bar and then you can go practice law right we have the standard if a student fails for whatever reason and then commits to studying and passes the second time nobody's suggesting that we make it any easier nobody's suggesting that we let them cheat right they just have a second opportunity to learn the content they've learned the content we've all done our job teachers students and the end product is somebody who knows more than they did from only having taken it the one time and moved on so yeah I find it in Easy defense of Second Chance learning point will take in Mr Fusco and there's no CRT involved in that

107no politics in allowing people to retest thank you so much Mr Fusco so we'll go ahead and um with our items that are recommended um a summary of items recommended to be moved to Action meeting and so we have on there our curriculum resource adoption and student travel both to be recommended to Action meeting and so that being all the business that we have the next ECI meeting is scheduled as listed there being no other business can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting so moved Mr McBain second yes thank you meeting is adjourned thank you everybody appreciate you support and attention to this evening's meeting hi everybody good evening everybody thank you good night