001okay our youtube feed is live our webinar is live dr g the meeting is yours okay i would like to call to order the november 1st eci committee meeting let's start 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 indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay uh tonight's meeting is our regularly scheduled committee meeting in order to meet the requirements of pennsylvania 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 address members of the all and address members of the audience are asked to
002limit their questions and comments to no more than five minutes this limit will permit time for all those who wish to speak to the committee whenever members of the audience exceed this time limit the committee chair may ask the individual to yield to the next speaker tonight we will have an opportunity for public comment at the end of the meeting with that we will move forward to the approval of the minutes do i have a motion to approve the minute so moved second all in favor right motion passes minutes approved and we will move forward to our first presentation program of studies be happy to jump in here and introduce dr hart um so this evening as per uh i guess a customary agenda for november for us is the changes to our program of
003studies and the timeline here is we present these in november and then get the actual revised program of studies ready and then come january students are starting to pick courses for the 22-23 school year it's hard to believe that we're already starting to talk about that um all that being said this year it is our first year with our new director of curriculum and equity dr pamela hart uh who will kind of be the emcee for tonight's presentation so dr hart i believe the mic is now yours and we need you to mute that much you're still muted sorry about that okay can you hear me now all right great there we go two years of practice and still not smooth all right so i am delighted along with donna doan rachel earley jim gallante
004and jackie j marco uh to be here this evening with you to share the proposed changes to the program of study for the 2223 school year and before we jump into those proposed changes i did want to take just a minute or two to talk a little bit about sort of the philosophical framework that we have been using as we're thinking about making changes to existing courses and proposing new courses um as well so bob if you would just want to go to the next slide um so our guiding principles are that we want to make sure that we're expanding opportunities and increasing accessibility for all of our students that we want to make sure that that's reflected in high expectations and we realize that as we're collapsing levels and offering new courses that is
005a way to kind of open the door but we want to make sure that students have the tools and the support necessary to actually walk through and to be able to engage in those courses i'm in really meaningful ways so we've worked very hard to think about ways to balance rigor with support and ultimately we want to make sure that students have an opportunity to have a really strong foundation for college um and career readiness as well um although i was not present um in the meeting this time last year i am pretty confident that there was a lot of conversation um in this meeting and there was around opportunities for students and really giving more students an opportunity to engage in internships and really to expand um our dual enrollment programs as well um
006so we as a team have listened um and heard and i think that you'll be really pleased as a committee uh to see some of the recommendations that we are offering um for this next school year the way in which we've organized our presentation this evening is that we're going to talk a little bit about changes in current courses um provide an overview of classes that we'd like to add and then we'll end the presentation with um oop and there goes the dollar one second uh with internships and dual enrollment um as well so having said that um i'd like to turn the mic over to cheryl up to rachel early thank you dr hart bob you can go to the next slide all right good evening everyone i'm going to start by talking a
007little bit about ninth grade english and ninth grade social studies in the next two slides and as dr hart has stated we've been working on the collapsing and restructuring of our levels for quite some time and i'm pleased to discuss tonight on the end of the middle school sequence of collapsing of levels um in the beginning of the high school sequence um as those of you on the committee know we've worked with um from collapsing the levels at middle school from from three to two um and uh as we all know ninth grade is housed in our middle schools but it is the beginning of all of our students high school career um and with the current level structure at the high school being aligned with the 5-0 level and the 6-0 level being honors
008and 9th grade being included in the transcripts it just really made sense that we had this strict alignment so we're very excited um the course codes are listed there and i also have a description of our ninth grade english course and our rationale for doing this um and like i said just having that clear articulation from middle school to high school we're really looking forward to that and also having it be more clear for our parents and community members that the highest level a 60 level is an honors course with honors weight associated with it and if you want to flip to the next slide bob there's just an outline for the american history 2 course which is our 9th grade social studies course that all of our students take and there's a description of
009that course listed there um and again our rationale as dr hart did a wonderful job of explaining you know we are promoting greater access and equity for our students and this was a part of our curriculum research finding as we did a large study in montgomery county of all the middle districts in the county and how many levels they had at middle school and high school and this was the result of our findings and i just have one more slide to just share a little bit about the implementation details of this process um so how are we going how are we accomplishing this work so we're going to be having we do have they've already met and started curriculum committees for both ninth grade english and social studies are meeting monthly to update the curriculum
010frameworks and assessments and provide additional resources in preparation for these to go live in the 20 to 23 school year and we're also of course um very excited to note that you know both courses will continue to have coach support for those students that need it at the final level so that's obviously very important that we make sure that all of our students are able to get the resources that they need hi everyone um jackie g marco i supervise um special content areas as well as professional learning and um as dr hart and uh miss early just mentioned as a long process of kind of um you know collapsing levels we have a list of remaining electives that will be changing from 4-0 to 5-0 um as a result of kind of finishing up this
011work to provide better equity and access for our students and alignment with other courses some of which have already uh made that shift to 5-0 um donna i want to kind of toss it to you if you have anything to add specifically for your areas no uh just the technology and engineering i also oversee so this part of the tech ed major those courses will now be listed as fivo as well with the appropriate supports in place i do have a question um donna and is it jackie you're in charge of this side with this part i think um is them changing from 40 to 5 0 content is not changing so we're not it is anything relative to the content or assessments that are being used it's not that we're going to make an
012effort to we're just changing the level because the credit is we believe that these are 5.0 courses as they exist is that correct correct yes well stated thank you so just as a follow-up because i anticipate this may be asked in public comment um as it ties to equity uh dr hart or whoever could you just take a moment and explain how this actually addresses that initiative to make our courses more equitable for our students um i think by so in terms of just like gpa and appeal for students taking the courses i think it um kind of creates more um alignment there in terms of you know these these courses these electives are you know just as challenging and rigorous as other um other courses offered just simply you know we haven't made that
013shift here um so when we were talking about it we really kind of wanted to make sure that we were consistent across all areas in really offering students you know appealing electives and ones that are rigorous and consistent with their other coursework yeah i think it's also important to share that in many of these courses as somebody who has helped to schedule the high school they were the same class so we had 405060 of some of these classes and as people subscribed to them students subscribed we wouldn't have enough say for a 4-0 section so students who chose to take a 4-0 course would end up in a 5-0 class anyway and they would be getting less weight towards their gpa than their peers um and it just it it wasn't fair quite frankly these
014are 5-0 courses and we're setting high expectations for all students and and not letting students think well i'm a 4-0 student i shouldn't take i'm not worthy of a 5-0 class that's not true we're going to have high expectations for all of our students and while the approach may be differentiated for kids and the level of support may vary the expectations are the same and it's all about setting high expectations for all students because they can all do and i think that's an important point because i think people have some confusion about that that the 4-0 and the 5-0 and they think that there was a demonstrable difference between those two courses and that somehow this initiative waters down the 5-0 courses you know i i think it's worth the time to explain to folks
015that that's not the case that these essentially were the same courses the same texts the same assessments they just were weighted differently essentially hey is there an excellent could for the community safe um understanding what a co-taught model looks like very briefly for the 5-0 uh english and social studies perhaps mrs g marco could elaborate on the way in which we're training teachers to differentiate a little bit more in those classes just for community information that might be good well i'll just say it really depends on the needs of the students and particular courses so we work very closely you know the supervisors in terms of um you know where we might need to provide for professional development and then obviously our special education department works with the high school um you know team to
016determine what classes require uh you know a co-teacher or maybe it's just consultative support from the special ed department so it really is a collaborative effort between curriculum and the building teams and special education to make sure that all supports are provided um and in an effective manner um it's not just like straight across the board i appreciate that very focused approach because it's so easy to say well let's just co-teach these and we'll just put this over here but but certainly every class is going to be different so i really appreciate our specified look at that thank you okay do you want to go to the next slide please okay and then um just as we have a some changes from 4 to 5 though we have some level changes from 5 0 to
0176 0 in these courses um these are courses that previously it's been talked about for a long time making these six 60 level courses and again really just um kind of acknowledging the rigor of these classes uh when students are enrolling and and committing to these courses so we wanted to be sure to um you know adjust here as well as these classes definitely warrant a 6-0 level in terms of expectations and content uh required of these courses thank you jackie so we're going to kind of shift our attention now to um courses that we're recommending that be added to the program of study for the next school year so first up we have anatomy two so you saw anatomy one shifting from five o to six so and um we're requesting that anatomy two
018be added it's very anatomy one is very popular at the high school and really does uh provide students with um additional exposure and these are students who often have interest in the medical field you know pursuing that in in college and beyond so adding this new 6-0 course to um as an elective within health and pe and i'll just say this was part of a survey that we sent out to students to really assess their interests and this was one of the courses that they really expressed interest in having added to the elective options along with that leadership in today's society this is really a leadership course um and is really open for all students and really building their leadership skills both within the school and and community to really explain what leadership is how
019to work together become organized and put some of those principles into practice so this will be a new course that we'll be developing and again students express high interest in really being able to learn more and become active leaders within their school community and make those connections um outside of north penn high school jackie you're referring to the uh survey um were all students at the high school given a survey or how how did that occur in terms of determining what might be courses of interest um so all students in like health and pe courses so the departments that you know shared that with their classes and that's how students were surveyed was it a menu was it like an open response like these are things i'm interested in um it was somewhat narrowed because
020i feel like you know we had to be able to sort it and and kind of um you know disaggregate the data a little bit we were looking at you know again based on some of the committee's feedback you know some courses that we had researched for dual enrollment and and just looking at area um other area districts to see what opportunities they're offering uh for their students to kind of um set them apart but we really wanted to appeal the students in in their interests and get some excitement around some new electives so that was kind of the premise for it um in just getting their feedback and then for music um looking to add a guitar lab elective and really this is the primary purpose is to expand the music offerings currently at
021the high school we don't have many opportunities where students can come in and participate in a music class if they have zero music uh experience it's really kind of we have a phenomenal music program in north penn but um in terms of like entry level music classes we don't have many at the high school if students are looking to get involved um you know as a 10th grader and so we wanted to propose this um you know again to see if the interest is there to to recruit students to the program um i'm looking at the cost of this it's three thousand dollars for the materials i mean i guess i have a concern regarding that i mean that's for us that's foreign okay i'm like all right so that is that that's not per
022student though that's that's district cost so that will be to like outfit a classroom of guitars for so that we can provide them with the guitars yeah and then it would just be like a class set of guitars um that they can you know use during the class we almost lost dr g there yeah but um but i think that the point that you raise is a great one and we can kind of go back and just delineate that on the slide just so that this is shared with other people we reckon we're you know acknowledging the fact that it's a district cost and not something that we're asking for students or families to ever pay so thank you for that i also think it's um important to know those who don't know about like
023the intricacies of how the schedule works when you're a 10th grader you could in theory have health and pe right which are twice a six day cycle so the high school runs off of an a through f cycle and they have eight periods so you might have a class on a and d day for p e and then health would be on b and e day and now you have blanks for c and f and a 0.3 credit class can parlay well with those other two so it kind of fills in a blank there if students chose to take the class so it's an exciting opportunity like mrs giamarco shared a lot of kids in high school are intimidated by music classes because these are students who have a background in music at this point
024all through middle school even elementary school and this is going to be like an entry-level exploratory course so if ever i'm not in my office you might be able to find me in guitar lab because i too would like to learn how to play the guitar that credit structure that you're referring to i'm wondering if you know that we have the block scheduling at the middle school and i'm not want to delve into a deep conversation about black scheduling per se but um it's in order to maintain it at the middle school i think at some point we may not have a conversation about whether or not we want to see it translate here to the high school with this the way the credits are structured would there be problems that we would have to
025anticipate in making that consideration having those discussions no that wouldn't be a problem um so the way that a standard block would work would be a b so they would have two days and then your electives which mind you the electives at the middle school still run the way they always did in a traditional schedule um so so they're still on a six day cycle you have quarterly minors or um cycle minor cycle minors or as i just previously described like a d b e c f um so if we went to a block at the high school way way way down and we haven't even really been discussing that at this point we're going to present about block and probably just after the new year and adjustments to our middle school schedule but um
026it would just be every other day for a portion of the year to align with this credit structure so it wouldn't be an impediment at all we'd be okay okay anticipate that conversation i'm seeing some some difficulties from kids going from black scheduling back to an eight period schedule where the course work is much harder it's definitely something that needs to be examined i think at some point not tonight but at some point i understood and from the science department i'm very excited uh to propose environmental science at the 5.0 level we currently um only have environmental science at the ap level um so we are very excited to offer this at the 5-0 level so it offers an additional full year elective for students particularly for seniors but also open to juniors there are
027no math prerequisites for this course and very excited about the rigor and relevance that this course would offer our students in our science continuum during my introduction i talked a little bit about internship programs and one of the challenges that your committee posed uh to us as an administrative team last year and so i'm really delighted to have an opportunity um for jim callante to talk just a little bit about our proposal um for internship program for next year good evening everyone and as i'm listening to the wonderful additions that we're making to the program the studies for next year um i i'm struck with the thought before i even get into the internship program that north penn is cutting edge and offering such tremendous academic opportunities for our students and always have and i
028think that this program that i'm i'm thrilled to talk about tonight the internship program is the next step uh we've done a great job getting our kids act giving our kids an academic foundation for the rest of their lives but where we've kind of fallen short of what the internship internship program can do is to give them some practical experience to get to that next level too coupled with their academics so i'm really excited to be here to talk about it dr g as you recall last year when we were here to talk about the guidance plan to get approval from the board for our our plan uh i walked away with a very clear mandate from the committee and specific specifically from you dr g about creating this program and i'm i'm really happy
029to be here tonight to talk to you guys about what we've come up with uh for an internship program that will involve all students uh which is really key so based on that uh presentation last year we convened a committee in the mid-winter and then spring and then into the summer worked very hard a number of talented teachers and supervisors and some administrators a lot of a lot of conversations and the conversations were always based on the from the standpoint of what's going to benefit every student at north penn high school let's create a program that's flexible it's comprehensive that will give a variety of experiences in a variety of modalities so that we can meet everyone's needs so that we're any student in high school that wants to participate will be able to do
030that and i believe wholeheartedly that we've accomplished that the program is uh chip i should go back for a second chip is is the community hosted internship program uh it is a three-year comprehensive pro program starting for 10th graders which is more of an exploratory year uh bob you can hit the slide there i think because i'm kind of going off script there a little bit as i'm known to do there it is so the 10th grade is more of an ex exploration year where we'll provide students with career exploration um they'll do a uh we're escaping me here [Music] a survey a career survey to identify strengths and areas of interest to uh spawn uh interest in a careers of study down the road we'll have a speaker series we already have a speaker
031series in place so we'll expand on that so people will come in representing a variety of careers students will be able to take part in that and then finally a career day many of these things we already have in place from over the years but we're going to pull that together for the 10th graders and that will serve as a springboard into the 11th and 12th grade programs which will be the actual internships students in 11th and 12th grade will be able to participate in three different types of internships next slide bob so the first option uh for the internship is um to participate in an experience um outside of the school outside the school day um it is a flexible opportunity allowing kids to uh work with our chip coordinator to identify a program
032that they're interested in and uh partner with a community someone in the community of business or someone else that's identified and that that relationship is uh brought together by them is created by our coordinator who will help students find make that match and uh all of that will take part outside of the school day bobby and go to option number two can i just ask a quick question mr gallante so the chip coordinator that's something that we will be looking into further is that new no that's a that's a um actually a very key component i apologize i did not state that yet we actually the last part of our of our process was a hiring committee was formed uh within the last month we went through uh you know we had a number of
033really qualified candidates all internal people um and we went through two rounds of interviews and we were able to identify a really talented individual who's going to take that role on uh he will be um the candidate will be presented to you guys at your next meeting for uh confirmation of the position okay so that it'll be you know that's a that's a full-time job and it'll be that his job to bring this whole the whole program together what we're talking about tonight is is it a strong framework and there are a number of details as you can imagine to have to be worked out and this individual will be working on that thank you welcome so option number two um this is this is probably the key component and i have to thank uh
034some of the folks here tonight uh for insight um on on this part of the program because this part of the program will allow our students students that don't necessarily have the infrastructure to be able to make connections outside of the school day for whatever reason many students don't have transportation um they're you know they just don't have the ability to to do some things this will allow flexibility for kids to have an in-school experience and we also envision it being a summer camp type of experience we will bring people in to the building uh to provide uh insights into the into the various careers represented um so it'll give kids the same opportunity um but they won't have to uh you know worry about where am i going to go how am i going
035to get there after the school day has ended it really will provide a lot of flexibility and and a framework for all students that want to take part in that in the uh internship program but may not be able to do it outside of their day so it really is is an important part of the program um clarification you said summer it would be the school year and in addition to that it would carry through the summer or exclusively in the summer now possibly it's it's each uh avenue mr fusco it would be we would have opportunities throughout the year like field trip type things where people would come in take trips out to various uh locations and then we the possibility exists of having like a week-long camp type thing in the summer time
036as well but they would be exclusive those would be two different uh experiences so mr gallant are you saying that transportation could possibly be provided for those students um needing to get to their internships yes uh thank you dr campbell that's that's precisely the points that we would really provide the infrastructure for students during our school day and even in a summer camp environment um which will help a lot of kids out thank you i also like the idea that a couple of slides earlier um you indicated that students can suggest some internship opportunities and has to meet your set criteria correct and they will work with our coordinator to to define what the internship experience will be like uh with the criteria guiding the conversation thank you you're welcome bob next slide please for
037option number three so option number three is is another relatively new idea in our process which is to align to identify specific courses and uh in the program of studies representing a variety of different disciplines and to assign um internships with that course so provide kids the opportunity to learn uh hands-on while they're actually uh you know involved in a course of study an example that would be the journalism uh the journalism course and the student may take you know the intern the obvious internship would be with a reporter or one of the online venues so while they're taking the journalism of course they could also be to be engaged in an internship uh outside of the school day to to support and supplement what they're learning in the classroom um so with the the
038vision there as dr hart uh this was dr hart's um insight is to bri is to identify courses across a broad spectrum of our program of study uh so that we have courses that are interest of interest to all students not just you know the higher end kids i mean it would be really flexible so that we would have that opportunity for everybody is there any uh conversations about integrating this and maybe we're already kind of doing it anyway with the grow your own program so that if people are interested in teaching they might just you know shadow somebody at north penn who's teaching a subject they might be interested in teaching help out with some of you know those sort of day-to-day responsibilities for a period or so yeah thank you mr foster i
039think that the great thing about last year's experience of presenting to you guys we really felt like we had a mandate as a blank slate to build a program and and leave no stone unturned so yeah we did talk about having a grow your own um situation there as well and there's a bunch of other ideas i think what we were what we accomplished was it was really solid framework from which to build to to make this thing a legacy for however many more generations as this thing uh takes root so any and all options are are being considered within the framework yeah and i'll add that we do have like a career study that currently exists which is during the school day and there's a work study where students actually go out and and
040work for pay so the career studies students you're currently like go down to help with an elementary school teacher for example you can have a high school student who does career study at inglewood and they help a third grade teacher that exists these internship programs are almost entirely outside of the academic day the the field trip option that mr gallante uh described is you know transportation is a challenge during the school day right we have students going all over the district for certain placements for uh whether it be for private schools for the three runs that our bus drivers already do so transportation is an issue during the day but outside of our structured day in our school calendar there are options such as weekends such as the summer where we could run a camp
041and take kids to different types of jobs and samplings um so the the description or the course that you experience that you describe mr fusco that does exist in a sense but let's say a student wanted to go spend time with dr lewis campbell in the evening and with a college professor and experience that from an internship perspective i would see that fitting into this internship program as opposed to our career study program so yeah it really is we try to have three options here that give the opportunity for some students who you know their next-door neighbor might be a welder and they they want to have that internship experience with a welder but then we recognize that some students don't have those connections in the community one that's our chip coordinator to help create
042opportunities for kids but two we're also going to have like circuits for kids who have many kids who talk to them right i think the average student switches their major now four or five times um many kids have no clue so we're hoping to put together kind of a circuit to sample different types of careers also included in this chip program for credit for students i think i am like evidence of the effectiveness of the program like this when i was a senior in high school when i was a junior in high school i expressed some interest in deaf education i happened to be a student in the band who was deaf and i watched like watching the interpreter a program like this was set up for me to go to the pennsylvania school for
043the deaf i had no experience with deafness i didn't know anything about it i didn't know sign language and you know 26 years later i'm still a working professional as a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing something that i couldn't have done in the building at hepa abortion but certainly something that without having had that first-hand experience i would never have even i'm sure by the time i got to college pursued it um and it's obviously had a huge impact on my life so i mean the opportunities that exist for our students with an internship program like this are limitless they really are and i i think that this is um really putting us on on a course to really strengthen this uh college career readiness conversation that we have been trying to
044really bolster for the last few years and this is very encouraging what you're putting forward here so um dr bauer or um can i ask um i i see where you have like outside of the school day um i'm wondering for those students who um have actual like work responsibilities maybe they have to work because that that's the uh socio-economic um the status of their st of their family or students who um participate in sports like how would this fit into if they can't so if they're interested in um going to a law firm and you know is there something with no school period eight or if you have no school period eight like how does this work where if they had enough credits they could do something the second half of their the year
045the year the senior their the second half of the day in their senior year or something like that could you describe how this could work for those students who maybe have barriers to doing it outside of student day like after four or five o'clock or you know that kind of thing yeah um so i'm pleased to share that honestly the opportunities are limitless if we if we were able to talk to a student and i'll use my son so my son's name is brady he is not in high school and he doesn't go to north penn however if brady bauer wanted to work get experience at a law firm and he happens to be a three sport athlete he could have a couple options one i'm going to try to be pragmatic here and say
046that eighth period probably isn't an option right so if you had no school period eight that young man's got to get ready for practice and and he's got some homework so it would either have to be before school which if he had no school period one or or unscheduled period two we could make that work we're also realistic that 45 minutes in the middle of your day it might not be a great opportunity to get in a car go somewhere get an experience come back um we also discussed the option of you know the last two years have taught us that we can do way more than we ever thought virtually um so we could have virtual internships and help support or learn in the industry virtually um but brady bauer with that schedule that
047i described maybe he wants to do saturdays maybe he only wants to do uh the days in service days and days off of school as long as he's able to meet the requirements and accumulate the hours he can obtain credit for that maybe brady's schedule is far more open in the summer time well then he can do it in the summer maybe over winter break you know there's some years we have as many as 10 or 11 days off you can accumulate internship hours over that break so we really didn't want to be limiting uh in the parameters that we set up uh hopefully like jim said we were kind of inspired by the direction um to hey let's just make sure that every student who wants this opportunity has the opportunity and i think
048that exists with this structure whether it's career study work study chip and we gifted mentorship i mean we have a library of options for kids and i'm just really excited to kind of get this thing off the ground and once we get program of studies approved this month and then the coordinator approved uh that same evening i guess that's november 18th um we're gonna hit the ground running and and hopefully start to line kids up so any of you who have children at the high school and i know several of our board members here this evening have children at the high school uh we look forward to working with them and giving them those opportunities and dr barr if i could just piggyback on the comment that you made i think we um have in
049our preparation thought of a variety of um scenarios for children but i think that going back to your point dr g when we have students who are actually enrolled and kind of get a sense of what people's schedules are what some of the hurdles might be we'll be able to kind of target programs more specifically um based on what their needs are as well so i think that um in a year from now we'll be able to reflect on this process and really be able to talk about some things that maybe we had never even anticipated because we have students who needed um certain structure or support that i think will work really creatively to be able to provide what an awesome opportunity this is for for our students here just as they're trying to
050figure out what they're going to do when they get out of high school what career they might be interested in you have so many kids these days they just don't really know because they haven't had these opportunities so thank you so much for your work in this and i'll let mr fusco ask this question this is wonderful thank you for doing that for our kids i was actually just a conversation i had with dr bauer not that long ago about how there are some seniors who load up on their coursework early in their high school career and then find the second half of their senior year that they actually are looking for things to do because they've actually surpassed or have met their graduation requirement or only need one or two credits in that second
051semester so if there is sort of that let's see what we can do per individual component is it realistic to even think that there might be students in a senior year if they have you know basically met that requirement or or only a few credits away could spend a couple periods a day doing these internships like i have sort of a longer experience something more um involved and integrated into the actual like work day because i do think that to dr g's point you know that work happens the same most these work days happen at the same time that school day's happening right so you know we want to be able to find as much as possible opportunities for people who really want to use this internship program as a true exploratory experience as a
052springboard into a potential career to have the ability to really sort of get into the weeds a little bit of what you know it means to be at a law firm or working with a welder or you know um whatever it is that particular interests me maybe mr foster i think that as i've um i think i use the word flexibility 15 times tonight so i'm going to use it again the way we see this happening is that students would make individual proposals to uh the coordinator and it could be any as you're describing hey i'm pretty much done with my credits uh i'm in the second half of my senior year i'd like to take off at the end of the day and uh go to this internship site and here's what i'll be
053doing so uh the coordinator would would you know work through that process with the student and then ultimately approve it but again it is a flexible fluid situation to meet each kid's need uh as it's presented i don't think there's a there aren't a whole lot of room blocks i don't think so i think um great answer mr gallante but i also think for the student that mr fusco is describing like we legitimately it's possible to have a student that has three periods open in their schedule their senior year because they've loaded up on so many credits ninth through 11th grade which is where dual enrollment comes in as well which is the next section of this presentation so mr fusco just put it on the little t for us and i think we're ready
054for the the next segment here dr hart great thank you so much uh dr bauer um next slide bob um i know um that for members of this um committee uh dual enrollment has been a topic of conversation over the past year or two um so for those i'm community members who may be looking at this presentation i just want to take a minute or two to talk a little bit about what dual enrollment programs are um and that kind of highlight the difference between an on and off on campus program uh dr bauer has played a really important role in these programs over the past couple of years so feel free to kind of jump in since i'm new to the game and you've got a lot of history with the high school program
055so in general the dual enrollment um program really allows students to earn both high school and college credit at the exact same time um you can see some of the logistical considerations that are on the slide but i think the big takeaway from this particular slide is that we have um two opportunities for students to participate in dual enrollment programs one is an on-campus um offering and the other is an off uh campus offering uh one of the things that's a little bit different um this year um is and we wanted to kind of delineate kind of the credits that students would be able to earn um they can earn up to one credit toward a major course requirement and then 2.5 credits toward an elective requirement through this dual enrollment program so a little
056bit about on-campus offering so you can see we have a couple of um colleges um that offer um credit bearing courses and partner with north penn high school um in the areas of business education and family consumer science departments um these on-campus offerings are taught by members of the north penn um high school faculty and have been certified to be able to teach these courses um the benefit of an on-campus offering is that similar to what we were talking about a little while ago it allows students to be able to participate in those courses without ever having to leave campus and it really eliminates the travel um as well and the books are provided by the high school as well um students are responsible um for tuition and so that's one of the things that
057very much kind of gives them that college credit but it does kind of open up some opportunities for students to be able to take those college credits without some of the barriers that we talked about just a little while ago off-campus offerings which is the next slide students take those courses at universities sometime during their um high school their senior year in high school of course they need to consult their guidance counselors prior to scheduling those courses to make sure that they're meeting all the graduation requirements and to discuss the implications for um scheduling as well and so tuition books and transportation are really the responsibility of the student and their family and so that's really the big ticket of difference between the two offerings on the slide you'll see that through montgomery county community
058college there are a variety of math courses that students are able to take um if i think it's um if they've kind of exhausted the math options um in the um high school so i just wanted to kind of highlight and provide an overview of what those dual um the structure of dual enrollment can look like for various students who are taking them at the high school next slide so i want to turn um that it's over to i'm rachel earley who's been working really hard to be able to expand the dual enrollment courses and i'm really excited um for what she's going to share with you so take it away rachel thank you dr hart i am pleased to update the committee on our progress with the university of pittsburgh college and high school
059program um we've been very fortunate to have partnerships with other institutions as dr hart has said and this is a new partnership with us with the university of pittsburgh and as we talked about previously this year um this process is really dependent upon our wonderful teachers at north penn high school those who are interested in applying to this particular program for certain courses um so we have listed there american politics and basic applied statistics and um mrs domes been working as a supervisor of math has been working on the statistics course with a particular teacher and i've been working with mr brian haley at the high school who's applied already both applications have been sent in and we're very excited about that so that was an update of last week um we've been told that
060it takes about three weeks to hear back if our teachers have been accepted or not but based upon their credentials we're you know very highly optimistic about that and um once we get that official acceptance we can go ahead and of course with your approval have these added to our program of studies and this would allow for our students to be in north penn high school but receive credit from the university of pittsburgh for these courses that we're already offering at north penn high school so we're very very excited about this progress and then lastly uh i'm hoping we'll also be adding um two new dual enrollment courses through montgomery county community college similar in a similar fashion that we already offer courses through maco there are two courses again offered uh through health and
061pe department one course very closely aligns to our health and wellness our health and society class that already exists at the high school and so we'll be kind of bolstering that course a little bit to more closely aligned to the montgomery county community college course to offer dual enrollment for students enrolled in that health course as well as a strength training and conditioning course which is uh would be a new course and again um feedback this was the um you know garnered the most interest from students in terms of uh potential electives within the department and so we're we're excited to hopefully add these courses um as well just a quick question about the the course cost so um is there can you give me an eye or give us an idea how much it
062cost a student north penn for the on-campus dual enrollment because don't we get some type of discount like don't our students get some type of discount they don't have to pay like the montco tuition say five or six hundred dollars is it is there a different price if you're taking it at the high school dr bauer are you able to respond to that i can speak to the university of pittsburgh they are 225 for a three credit course for the university of pitt and also they work with us if we have students who are unable to afford that specifically so university of pitt has shared that with us as well that's a pretty good price for three credits three credit course credit yeah it's 75 per credit 225 for a three credit course yeah as
063opposed to about three thousand for a three credit course yes and similarly uh the other prices are gwyned mercy is four hundred dollars for three credits monko uh get ready for this hold on there's 191 for a three credit course through the dual enrollment program um and then we have some other colleges that we've utilized uh arcadia or penn state and penn state being the most expensive was 994 uh but still a bargain compared to what you would pay after high school so absolutely provides access uh to our to our students that maybe they wouldn't normally have that's certainly at a reduced rate uh one of the things that i heard there in the question and then the response is about credits and i just want to point out to everyone that high school credits
064and college credits are not the same right so we say that in north bend in order to earn a north penn high school diploma signifying that you met all the requirements of this district it's 23 credits well at the college level typically one class is three credits at the high school it's one credit if you have for example at north bend high school if you have one period one your math class every single day for 180 days for roughly 45 minutes that's a credit if you pass the class whereas your your full class for a semester at college would be three credits so when we say you know x number of credits for a north penn high school student that's not that doesn't translate over to gwyndon mercy for example that 1.0 credit at north
065penn might be three credits equine at mercy i just think that's important to highlight for folks was that the end of our presentation it was can i answer did i ask a question or i guess i want to go back to the slide relative to credits i think we had initially talked about modeling it after another program that we saw there being one core course available and two and a half courses for elective and um i i think i'd like to see us and dr barry can kind of tell me what motion i would need to make sure but i would like to see us make that cleaner for families so that it's just four courses because two and a half courses is just confusing and so why not do two core courses not the
066same subject though and then two elective courses um so that it's just the clean four courses which to me what that says is that a north penn student could actually take four college courses a whole semester of courses and be able to transfer them into credit which i have a college student so i can tell parents who could be watching out there that that could save you about 25 000 um and take that kind of debt off of your you know children's plate or off of your own plate and in addition to give them a head start into college so i'd really like to see us kind of translate that into it's basically a semester you know if you do four classes right um certainly we can we can do that so and just to
067be clear these are um the limit would only apply to those credits off campus yeah so certainly we want our students going to north bend high school we want our students learning our curriculum from our teachers in our building but we also see the value in pursuing opportunities that maybe we can offer and getting our students the exposure to uh the college classroom as well so we see value in both and as previously mentioned um i just think the accessibility with the synchronous and asynchronous virtual options now since quite frankly 2019 um you should see the course catalog for montgomery county still enrollment i mean it has i would be willing to bet more than quadrupled because so many classes are offered synchronously and asynchronously in a virtual environment so we could have a student
068take it a peer a class second period online from the library um elsewhere so that all said we could certainly if it was the desire of this committee to move this forward to the action meeting later in the month i think the motion would be something such as recommend moving forward the changes to the program of studies as advertised with slight alteration to the credits being two in major content area and two in the elective area um with those two in the major content area not being in the same area um so anybody that wants to repeat that mouthful good luck but that's the essence the essence of the motion okay um so i'll move to move the um the course um program of studies to the action meeting with the um correction of two
069core courses and two elective courses off campus being permitted to be transferred in the two core courses being in two different subject areas and just to be clear dr g is asking for someone to make that motion i make that motion i'm sorry yeah that's okay yeah so we have a motion for mr fusco that i wanted to make and it was actually relative to the electives um [Music] it's a little obviously late at this point for what we're considering for next year but i want to take this opportunity to really um urge those of you in curriculum to consider um in possibly next year in subsequent years to consider offering as an elective american sign language um we have um a deaf community here at north penn it's a it's a small community it's
070a vibrant community there are personal friends of mine as i said i've been a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing for 22 years um it's a topic of high interest i understand the difficulty that would come along to try to make it in a language at this point the certification for a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing as a language teacher is not something as well understood in the state of pennsylvania but at the same time i think that as we continue to talk about inclusivity and diversity that even a small population such as our our deaf community here in north penn um you know they have expressed many times to me their appreciation for the fact that i'm one of the few people who can just without an intermediary have
071a conversation with them um and they are important members of this community um so i would like to see an emphasis put on that moving forward to try to find a way to offer that as an elective to our students it's also something that we've seen you know whether it be at a more functional level our autistic support students you know as a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing i've many times had um support staff and autistic support specifically um where i work asked me to do trainings for them i've done trainings at springford for that purpose so i think that it's something that would could potentially be high interest i think it's something that could have um some real impacts for for uh folks that are members of our community um so
072i would just like to take the opportunity to sort of urge that our committee to consider that moving forward i i'm really delighted to say that we've already begun that conversation um this past month in the month of october one of our recognitions was really around disability awareness and we talked a little bit about um hearing impaired as well and some of them actually talked a little bit about speech and language and so um we've had teachers in our district who focus on speech and language and heart of hearing have kind of come to me and enter rachel early and sort of made the same uh request um so we've already met talked a little bit about what does it mean for certification and kind of what are some steps that we'd be able to
073take to make that a reality so um i'm really delighted that you've raised that and just please know that we're already beginning to think about that and so i appreciate your um support um and advocacy as well so uh dr hart just so that you know um there's a there's a friend of mine uh melanie droves ball i was also a parent of a student who is a educator at arcadia and a couple other colleges specifically in american sign language so perhaps at some point we could put her in touch with you or even bring her into the committee to have a further discussion about how that could be a reality how we could try to figure out how to make that happen here i'd love to follow up and be able to do that
074so thank you very much for that recommendation all right thank you um the only other um comment that i had was just um you know i'd look definitely like to see the data for this after um you know a year like what is specifically for the internship program i remember touring the high school and mr brett talking to me about the internship program and and we really didn't have a lot of students doing any career um readiness type um internship programs we had very few students i think he said something like 50 or something like that um and i don't know dr barry you probably had the exact numbers of you know how many this year but i just would be interested in knowing how that might increase over the course of the next year
075um as well as the number of students that i mean you know english 101 was a new course like i'm very interested in knowing more about how the programs that we're trying to be more progressive and implement about how successful they are how many students enroll in them um i want to commend our pe department on coming up with some pretty creative electives like the leadership course which take the course description of that i would want to take it i would want to find my kid up for it um so i just um i'm very interested in seeing what the enrollment looks like for some of the courses and as we just as we move forward because i think this really progressive work great work among the team um a lot done one year so
076thank you for that and i just like to say uh since you spoke as a parent knowing that you would want your children to take these courses i think i asked at the last meeting what are we doing to ensure that parents are apprised of all of this work you know we say the students have an opportunity to enroll and we're hitting the ground running to get them started uh these are high school students parents need to weigh in on this as well so how do we ensure that we don't leave them out of the process so um i think i'll be getting and then dr bauer because this is sort of your area of expertise definitely feel free to jump in we've begun to have that conversation regarding the idea of it doesn't matter
077if we have the courses if people don't know that they actually are in existence um so we've talked a little bit already about sharing the proposed changes and the courses with counselors you know as soon as they're approved so we know that it's part of um kind of their um wheelhouse and also i'm just making sure um which i think was actually dr g's um recommendation we were chatting not so long ago just putting the text like in the program of you know when students are looking at the program sitting and looking at the course catalog just making sure that it were as transparent as possible if there are recommendations since a couple of you have um high school students or have kind of gone down this road before and can give us some recommendations
078of ways to be as transparent we're really open to that as well um i think kind of going back to dr g's um challenge of like you know does it matter you know it's a lot of hard work on the upfront but it only really makes a difference if we have children that are participating um and really i'm taking advantage of this and we have to do a really good job in our communication on the upfront in order for that to happen so we absolutely recognize it's something that's really important um we have some preliminary steps in place and if there's anybody's recommendations or things that you're thinking about dr bauer because you've been in that role you know definitely share that so we can make sure that um everyone is taking advantage of these
079really wonderful opportunities yeah dr lewis campbell thank you for that question uh if you recall you are correct you did ask this at the last meeting and as a follow-up dr radigan and i actually met with the student representatives from this committee we had a separate meeting with them so we devised a plan with our student reps and let me pull that up right now so um some things that have happened since there was a slide uh presentation prepared there are nighttime lessons uh one last week and three coming up one on 12 22 126 and 223 where they're going to talk about these offerings on the morning show then they're taking students who are currently enrolled in dual enrollment and having them go push into classes and talk to students about it they're also
080going down to the middle schools to talk about the new offerings and then of course this is in addition to the newsletters uh the weekly mailings to parents and then course information night which is late in january um we also talked about structures if you recall our uh the young man on this committee spoke about supporting the students you know he voiced concern like hey these are college level classes these kids need might need some support so we talked about how we could have some support groups for them meet after school certain days of the week and month just to make sure that students are on the right track and doing well in addition to their counseling supports um and some of the other teachers so um the kids were great great we got off
081the the call and dr ratigan and i were like exhausted from their ideas they were just wonderful so many many means of communication and i'm excited to have the kids be a part of that great thank you dr bowers and maybe even some of our parent groups at the high school could be informed and looted as well thanks chris oh i'm sorry i just wanted to add really quickly um in addition to all of those amazing ideas that dr bower just rattled off we also um the meeting prior to the meeting he had with just dr ratigan and students we also talked about every time the students you know either speak to their peers or talk about their experiences that we follow up with an email to parents letting them know that occurred that day
082so that that will spark conversation maybe that night with parents as well um dr bower i guess you know the course if you haven't looked at the actual whole course selection guide because we offer so many um courses which is amazing this can get lost in there and so i think really branding and marketing like something out to parents that's a specific presentation about this about the internship program and the in dual enrollment opportunities just that because at court of course election night i think it just gets it can get lost in it it's there's so much it's so heavy and i think branding it and marketing it is important and um you know sending something out to families that's just focused on this and maybe having a virtual night um focus just on this
083is is maybe something to consider i also had asked that as part of maybe the beginning of the course selection guide that we could have some type of pathway or road map so that um families know this is what i need if i want to apply to an in-state school such as penn state i need this many you know i'm going to need this many languages this many englishes this like you know beyond just the graduation credits it's what do you need in order to get into temple university what do you need we can't assume that families just know that especially with our ninth graders not at the high school um as a as someone who came you know 10th graders this year that you can feel ill prepared in ninth grade as you move
084into tenth grade not really completely knowing every everything that you're supposed to know so i just think the more we can educate our parents and have some type of pathway at the beginning of the course guide i'd like to see something like that i've seen it in a couple other course selection guys i know we talked about that we just have to find some examples out there and possibly include it yeah because i think even if you do it just at the state level i mean obviously there's students who go out of state but it even just kind of puts it in their mind like oh i better check and find out like what these are at tulane or whatever it is they might be considering because dr g is absolutely right i've had a
085couple conversations with some friends recently who have ninth graders and there's a lot of confusion about what they think in terms of oh you know these schools aren't really looking for languages anymore like [Music] that you know you may want to really follow up with a counselor on that one and she's right it's a little unwieldy we do offer so much so it's a kind of that double-edged sword so to really have some more explicit sort of and i think it's a great approach is to say you want to get in penn state this is what they're looking for you want to get a temple this is what they're looking for obviously not going to cover every college but it's going to put it in people's minds like hey i better find out you know
086and start making a plan at you know right away yeah we um dr g referenced that we talked about this just last week and uh i have a meeting tomorrow morning with uh administration at the high school and then uh we have to loop mr gallante and we'll leverage our our counselors uh mr turner who is in our future planning center right now uh mr brett uh when he returns and and we'll get something in the front of the program studies and then of course the explicit evening events i think are great great opportunities especially now that they're virtual people are attendants at such meetings or have increased dramatically just because they're virtual and people don't need to leave home and fight that traffic and all those things so all great suggestions i'm also thinking
087that that's that's an exercise that our counselors at the ninth grade level can take the kids through to teach them how to do that uh build capacity with the kids um research schools and and get that information so they'll know how to do it on their own as well right great so with that we have a motion on the table and the second um so all in favor aye all right okay motion passes the program of studies will move forward to the action dr g i think you dismuted i believe that was the only item on our agenda i know our student representatives were not able to be here this evening so we would move on to public comment if we have anyone for public comment mr gilmer before we before we jump into public
088comment i did want to offer a public uh happy birthday to a gentleman who has been attending these meetings for 12 years um mr patchell and i happen to share the same birthday and it it is tomorrow uh so he dropped off not one but two birthday cards for me today uh so mr patchell if you are going to make public comment i know you're in the meeting i just wanted to wish you a happy birthday bill that's great happy birthday mister natural and dr bell birthday twins okay um do i need to reread the um just as a reminder that tonight's meeting um in order to meet the requirements of sunshine law it is necessary to record the names of all citizens who speak to the committee during the during the meeting to assure
089compliance with this requirement it is essential that those planning to address the committee state their name and address members of the committee 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 whenever members of the audience exceed this time limit the committee chair may ask the individual to yield to the next speaker all right just a reminder of the folks that are in the room um to go ahead and raise your hand if you intend to make public comment uh you can do that now and then we'll get everybody in a cube uh dr g the first person up is mr patchell so mr patchell i've enabled your microphone so when you're ready to begin go
090ahead and unmute and you can state your name and township thinking and begin your comments my name is william patchell i reside in montgomery township which i consider probably one of the finest places that you can possibly live in you better start the timer can you hear me we've got you can you hear me we can hear you um on a positive foot i kind of got shut out on the last meeting thank you dr bauer i'm so glad that you received those cards and i hope you found a great amount of joy and i think you're doing a great job because you know in addition to your varied backgrounds you do come to the table with an open mind and an ability to listen to all those that reside in the north penn school
091district and i appreciate what you do it's a really miserable job i don't think i would have ever picked it out and tomorrow at 7 00 a.m november 2nd the demands of the people will be heard at the conclusion of voting i hope everybody exercises the ability to vote which was given to us to over 200 years ago and it's a sacred responsibility and i want to tell everybody that's responsible to show up whether it's by mail or in person i am looking forward to this so that you will be able to sort out what needs to be done what the public needs what the public wants what the students need what the students want and i speak with this a great amount of passion i don't need amplification and i'm telling you all of
092you on these school boards and in the administration work for the citizens and the parents i can say this the public will elect and tell you again what they demand what they need and you need to listen you need a good sense of listening and knowing what is possible what is not what's what which is not possible because many people want more than what is possible i am speaking about all those senior citizens the families that are struggling over their atlanta catholic they don't have a court track they're running around on cinder they're doing what they can and as you raise these taxes and come up with these programs it's not possible you are driving a system which will be like apartheid both in academics and in finance you need to be mindful of the
093special needs you have ignored these people they're not going to do this they all need to brought be brought along and with a sensitivity and with a listening these parents which will vote tomorrow i don't know what the outcome will be but you must listen to those that if they do not win they must be addressed and it is your responsibility to act for the greatest good for the greatest number of people thank you so much thank you mr patrick all right if uh you intend to make comment now would be the time to raise your hand and i do ask if anybody else is intending to comment go ahead and raise your hand right now just so we have them in line uh up next we have mr jason lanier jason i have enabled
094your microphones you're ready to begin state your name and township bro and you can begin jason lanier lansdale borough uh first wanted to to say that i you know looking at the the presentation on the changing of from classes from four to five and i always found that confusing with my kids going through whether four or five six in er so conduct consolidation to meet the in line with what's in the high school makes a lot of sense ship program sounds really really awesome great move i like the iden internships and the dual enrollment as well uh so thumbs up on all that uh i where i do have a problem is as you guys can hear me hear me revving this up is first with the books that that were talked about the the
095sexual sexually explicit books that were found in the library uh there's a bunch of them one of them seems to be gathering uh some attraction and i talked to dr bauer about this uh i'd like some to figure out who actually is responsible for bringing this stuff in and why uh and all these books there's a bun there's a whole i have a whole list of these books that that really don't belong in in a in a school setting i mean public library there's one thing not in the school setting um second thing is who is responsible for uh controlling the the uh privilege walks we've been i've been talking about this for a long while you guys denied it ever happened and we've heard all throughout uh this year well i guess for the
096last maybe six months of incidents of this happening finally at the last meeting when uh when eric wong came on and said it's happening you guys need to take responsibility who is the one who allowed this to happen and they sh there should be people who aren't currently working i don't know if it's a school board or what is this should not be happening uh and it ties right into critical race theory you guys for weeks and weeks and months have been telling me it isn't in the system you know what i did i could i could read you all of the the incidences where you guys denied it happened i can read you the incidences where uh other other citizens have said you know they're glad that it's not uh in their system and
097they because it's the worst thing we shouldn't have it so i went to the literature the the the literature that is available that i guess is is part of the library for teachers which is listed as professional education and i look at this and they all contain sections about implementing critical race theory so again who is responsible if you want me to read a couple here this one is called the teaching race and the whole idea is this teaching uh uh against colorblind perspective is the focus of chapter 11 in which wendy young builds a critical race theory to explore the community writing projects there's another one which explicitly asks for to to uh give handouts to students about critical race theory and that's called uh cultural competence now and the the it says discussion
098uh discuss five tenets of critical race theory these are listed in the article describe them in your own words uh to your partner and it goes on from there so this is something that is happening even though you guys are denying it is again who is responsible why is this in here and i guess this ties in a little bit with i think there was some there was an actor if you could to um what equity was whether it's greater access or is equal to greater equity that didn't make a lot of sense so you guys might want to kind of polish it up make make sure it really does make sense it sounds sort of like a word salad thank you thank you mr lanier okay so is there anyone else for public comment
099there are no other hands up at this time that'll conclude public comment okay with that um the items moving forward are the is the program of studies for 2022-23 and the next eci committee meeting is scheduled for december 7th at 6 00 p.m in a virtual format and with that can i have a motion to adjourn the meeting okay all in bye