001development she's going to be presenting on the equity summit that took place this summer which went really really well but i won't kind of steal her thunder i'll let her tell you a little bit more about it before she begins so jackie thank you dr waters and thank you everyone for having me um as dr waters mentioned we were fortunate to be able to plan an equity summit which was held virtually this summer um and if you click to the next slide mr gilmer um so really the focus of the equity summit was an opportunity for teacher leaders educators and community members uh to engage in professional learning uh or really like learning uh sessions uh around our equity work it included some pre-recorded sessions and live sessions and the goal was really to kind
002of further our work here in north penn around our cultural proficiency and equity goals um our target audience for this wara uh was teacher and administrator leaders in the district and then also our parent and guardian leader so we really focused on our parents who are um active and important members of parent organizations within the district uh to really join this session and there were a lot of breakout groups that took place in discussions on this day and as i mentioned it was held virtually because when we initially started planning the session we weren't sure where we would be with our coved you know restrictions and things like that so we wanted to make sure that everyone could be fully engaged and it also allowed us some flexibility since we were holding it over the
003summer to make sure that people could participate wherever they were um so if we talk about why we decided to hold this summit it really is our students right we have a very diverse district and that really is what makes north penn a fabulous place to be um and we just included this graphic which is from 2019 2020 which breaks down our um you know kind of our demographics here knowing that our district is becoming increasingly diverse and that we are constantly striving to meet the needs of all students across the district some of our sessions included dr tyrone howard he was our keynote and then did a breakout session for educators which really he incorporated a lot of north penn specific data and engaged teachers in conversation which i think everyone found truly meaningful
004to um kind of participate in this collegial discussion we had sessions for both parents and teachers on really supporting our lgbtq plus students and so we um ran a session trans inclusion 101 and i should just say that our presenters here for for all set like this uh assortment of sessions was both in-district presenters and people that we uh reached out to um that have expertise that are not within the district so we had uh sessions that really focused on um our esl population and some missing misconceptions around that implicit bias um dr barbara moore williams who is a consultant with whom we've worked for a very long time uh she ran a parent session around color blindness in the continuum and then the italicized topics here at the bottom were our pre-recorded sessions so
005we had a student panel that miss tinsley ran and we recorded this summer um dr bauer and dr d.a did a special time for dinner uh podcast featuring dr hart um and then we had our learning coaches do some sessions on disability as diversity and udl and anti-racism so some takeaways um i love feedback and so we always after any professional development session really are looking for feedback from our participants to really you know kind of gauge what went well and what we need to improve on so i i went through the feedback and tried to pull an assortment of teachers administrators parents to really um you know gauge um and help show all of you what they had to say about the day um and so i highlighted just a few i'm not going
006to read all of these but a north penn teacher shared i thought the equity summit was a great idea for both its depth of focus that allowed us to be immersed in the topic for an extended period of time rather than just an hour or so and two parents to be included to learn as well as see the work the district is committed to i would like to see this information or initiatives that demonstrate our values like this to be shared with students i think too often these ideas are discussed in adult-only spaces rather than including them in student spaces as well we had a parent share how do we create brave spaces where teachers students and parents can engage in conversations about equity and a north penn administrator maslow before blooming the need for
007social emotional supports how are we going to address this and the premise of color blindness needs to be addressed with our staff as well so um i really felt like the feedback we received one it's always nice to hear positive feedback but i feel like the feedback was also okay some of the ideas for how we can move this forward with staff and even just kind of bridging the gap between um our our staff and also our community so how can we engage families in this conversation on the next slide are just some remaining questions and so again i included a few pulled a few um we literally had 100 you know over 100 responses so um although there was an amazing energy um what do we do now are we really willing to roll
008up our sleeves and get down to doing what we know has to be done what can we do more to get our community members more involved in participating in school events will we be supported by admin when and if we are receiving pushback from community about addressing brave spaces black lives matter and other social justice topics and what policies and procedures is the school district putting in place to protect students of color lgbtq plus students neurodivergent students and disabled students etc so i thought these questions were just um they stood out i think to me because um i think a lot of our our teachers and staff have these questions they want to feel supported they are invested in this work um and and they just want to know that they and students are being
009supported both at a building level and by the work that we're doing on our cultural proficiency and equity um executive committee so a lot of people have asked like what are our next steps and where do we go from here and one i think a first step is really um sifting through all the feedback and kind of um taking some actionable steps based on the feedback from uh the equity summit this this summer tomorrow actually our district administrators will engage in conversations around dr howard's presentation um the teacher questions and the impact on our equity work so we'll be doing that tomorrow and kind of revisiting some of not only his presentation but just the general conversation that took place that day and the very um kind of honest comments that teachers administrators shared during
010those sessions we are planning on sharing the recorded sessions from the entire day uh with teachers support staff and community members so we're going to um kind of talk with our team and kind of develop a plan for that particularly for sharing out with the community so that everybody knows when it'll be shared how it will be shared who will it be coming from we want to make sure that's clear um and then i think because everything went really well with the format um and how content was delivered uh on that day and just the conversations that took place we are planning a full day of cultural proficiency and equity um in february with a similar format to the equity summit and so we've already started talking about um additional topics that we could include
011based on feedback from teachers um for this event that we had over the summer does anyone have any questions um i don't have a question uh but uh i want to thank you miss mrs demarco you did an excellent job in coordinating this i i was on this uh session all day and from beginning to end it was wonderful it was great to see parents were engaged as well as teachers and administrators um and you know my question always is okay so what now what and you've answered that because i was wondering okay now that we have done this where do we go from here and it's especially important that the teachers do receive this support from the administration especially what we see with what we see going on all across the country and our
012school board is head and shoulders above many of the others and i was just really enlightened and glad to be a part of this excellent day that you put together so thank you so much thank you for that i really appreciate it you're welcome so i i just had a couple um thoughts i got questions um about um the community involvement piece i'm really glad to hear that there's um a decision being made to uh share this with the community there's been you know some obvious um uh feedback from people in the community that are um skeptical of some of the work that we're doing unfortunately there's a national narrative right now that's trying to undermine a lot of this work um so i i do feel that you know um being able to allow
013the community to take a look and see you know not just what are the topics or you know a brief summary in a forum like this but to be able to have the chance to to see you know what actually is taking place and with what the conversations are um i think that can go a long way to dispelling some of the um some of the misinformation that's out there about what it is that we're trying to accomplish um in the district and i am curious about the um the summit from the summer how did people um particularly community members how were they able to be involved were they invited did they reach out it was there a message sent to the community what was the what did that look like so we really looked
014at the um kind of the organizations within the district where we have parent leaders because it really was focused on um kind of like that leadership aspect of okay we want not only teacher leaders that are leading the work in our buildings but also our parent leaders who are leading you know our home and school and end page and our pie group so they've received an invitation and then we had some parents reach out to that said hey i heard about this you know is it possible for me to come and you know we shared the information so they registered through that and then the information was shared based on whoever registered the february um the february summit that you're referring to is that going to be um since it is would be during the
015the school day right um or at least the work day i should say um would that be i guess more involved with all of teachers would staff as well be involved in that um support staff and you know who is going to be targeted for that particular summit so that would be all staff that's present that day so um it might not be a day you know depending on employee calendars or things like that but anybody present that day we'll we will be planning sessions and try to really um kind of tailor sessions that meet the needs of the different employee groups that are within north penn because i think that's important as we're planning meaningful professional development that um you can really people understand how they fit into this work too right so it's
016not just you know kind of like a one size fits all and that was very deliberate too with how we um structured the day was that people had choice um so they could kind of pick sets you know certain sessions that they wanted to attend that would best meet their needs and and interest so we're going to do our best to do the same thing in february i think that's very smart i think that you're you know right on to to target the different you know groups of uh staff that we have in the role that they play and the engagement that they have with students and you know the different expectations that fall within those roles you know so that um that's how this work this becomes comprehensive right is that we're addressing it
017on not just the level of the individual groups that we're talking to but the individual groups of people who are doing the talking right so i'm very encouraged that um there was such a successful um summit in the summer i i was uh unfortunately not able to attend um but uh i'm very um i'm very encouraged by this work uh and i'm looking forward to hearing more about uh where where we're going uh moving forward so thank you jackie great thank you all right anything else to shoot me tonight wanda so uh any other thoughts no well i just want to say too uh if and when we roll this out to the community i think it's very important that they hear um the session about with dr howard um because he he explains it
018very succinctly that you know when a lot of people say well our district is not like that we don't do that here all the data he uses comes from your district so they get to see that what he's talking about is what's happening in our district not some other district out there but our district and so for those naysayers who said well that doesn't happen in our district well he's using our own data so i think that's just very important for them to know if they get to hear anything about his presentation where he gets the information from and from the start our cultural proficiency work has been grounded in our data right if you go back to the plan from three years ago we did a granular look at our data and set benchmarks
019based on it um this isn't something that we're just pulling out of the air this is something that we are recognizing is um work that needs to be done in order to reach student groups that we are not fully engaged at this point you know and you got to reach kids and teach kids and this is that work and that's the whole purpose here is to make sure that everybody feels like a part of the north penn experience and is be able to live up to their potential and they're going to do that when they feel like this is their school so okay great thank you this is your mark giamarco i'll say that wrong all right um dr waters yes so before we move to the next presentation i just wanted to thank both
020of you for your comments and feedback and also just let everybody who's listening know we are planning a community forum um i believe it's october 26th i don't have the date in front of me dr hart shaking her head yes so on october 26th it did go out in our community ed um brochure all are welcome you know giomarco spoke about how the summit was more focused on the parent teacher leaders but this would be open to anyone who's interested in the topic all things equity so some of us will be there presenting some of the work that we've been doing in our district um so we look forward to that conversation as well as a few others that we have planned throughout the school year that's great yeah sure so um next we're gonna
021we kind of end it with summer there with mrs giomarco and we're gonna move into fall transitioning back to school we're all so excited uh to be in person it's great to see the kids their smiles um we've all been out visiting schools and it just makes all of us feel great to know that we are sort of returning to normal we know that there's still some things that aren't where we want them to be um but we're just really happy that um we're on our way to getting there and so dr hart our director of curriculum and equity put together a presentation that she's going to be sharing to kind of highlight some of what you will see if you happen to drive by a school or stop by on your way to work
022or if you're one of us just during the day so i'll turn it over to you dr hart thank you dr waters i appreciate that uh so as we were thinking about the presentation for this evening um there is magic and new beginnings um there is a lot of energy on the very first day of school and we i tried to capture as much of that as i could as i visit i think four or five schools on the very first day so i wanted to give everyone who was watching and board members who are present an opportunity just to get some sights and sounds of that very first day of school and as dr waters said a really magical time so next slide so i started at about 7 45 um 7 50 or
023so um on the very first day and visited um uh penbrooke and i'm an elementary person so it was the first time in my life i'd ever been on a first day of school in middle school um and it was really you know some pretty cool energy people having an opportunity to see each other uh principal out um the dr jenkins really welcoming kids back i mean it was really a lot of really good energy so you can go to the next slide bob um and so one of the things that was fabulous uh were kids who were seeing each other who had not seen each other for the entire summer and kind of making those connections and i was actually pleased because me there's 13 000 students and i've not been in north penn
024that long and actually bumped into someone that i knew and so i had an opportunity to take a picture of her and her friend as well um so al you know that nap is a school sort of in transition but it did not stop the energy on the very first day with staff and students um you know coming together parents um you know dropping their kids off for the first time some of them for 18 months and i was just really impressed when i was in the building with the flexibility and the adaptability of staff and parents and students as they were kind of getting used to their new space i mean every day looks a little bit different but that very first day people were still trying to get their feet wet and kind
025of where they were going i mean there were tons of staff people present welcoming families in kind of directing them and it was really a beautiful thing to say uh so um after um i was there i also spent some time um as to dr dedrick um at gwen noor um and i was there for arrival um and there's a lot of great things on the first day of school in middle school in high school but there is nothing more magical than that you know what it looks like on the very first day in an elementary school and some of the um images that i've captured on the bottom right you see two little girls who were kind of walking next to each other i asked to take their photograph and i was asking what
026grade they were in and they both said it was their first day of kindergarten and i asked who their teacher was and they ended up being in the same class and so they had never really met each other but they were going to walk into school sort of knowing someone and i think that's sort of the magic that we see as well um and so just you know some older students younger students just trying to find their way um but it was really a very very festive um occasion maybe that's a story it'll someday tell yes yes um so the idea of um school mascots being present i know it was typical of other schools in addition to gwen noir as well you know kids some of the children were riding buses for the very
027first time needing some direction but you know everyone was all hands on deck making sure that that transition um was as smooth as possible um and for families for whom this was their very first day at the school um very warm welcome as well and so i think the photographs of taking you know being taken with um the mascot people kind of directing them um children feeling really comfortable going into a building for some of them they had never really entered before um was really really pretty special as well so it's a small steps that bring you satisfaction at the very end of the day and so those are the schools i visited in the morning and then i had the opportunity uh to visit um north wales um in the afternoon at dismissal and
028so you know the first day of school the transportation piece is always tricky there are lots of kids who are riding the bus for the very first time um ever and for others who had not been on a bus for you know for quite some time as well and so i really want to take this opportunity to compliment on the staff they have a dismissal process that is seamless um and having done dismissal myself for many years um you know joe cavone is using an app so there's like a silent dismissal there aren't huge announcements or bells ringing people just sort of look at their phones nowhere to go and the kids come right out i mean it was obvious that people would practice that dismissal routine before the very end of the day so
029they knew kind of where to go as well there's a beautiful car line set up in the back of their building as well and once again lots of staff members who were there just to kind of jump in and help make sure that process went as smoothly as possible um so the days in each of the elementary schools and i can imagine all of the schools ended and began very smoothly and they ended the same way as well i had an opportunity to kind of zoom through some of the buildings and we talk a lot about like the the power of images um that the kids see when they walk into school on those very first days and these are just some of the bulletin boards and displays um that really were found in a
030number of schools i didn't capture all of them there were others i could have taken as well um but i think when we kind of go back to this notion of cultural proficiency and equity those visual signs mean a lot and can be very affirming and reaffirming so the idea of focusing on identity the idea of kind of who kids are and what we want for them to be into affirming who they are um and then i also love this um quote um by audrey lord and it was actually in a couple of different schools um you don't have to be um me in order for us to fight alongside each other um and i think in a world where we've had a lot of turmoil it's really um was a powerful message to see
031and a reoccurring theme that we saw in a number of the buildings um that i visited during the first couple of days and i think that's it so just some you know insight into you know what some of the energy that took place in those first days it was really great great way to begin i know there was a lot of coordination at work that goes into it every year um but this year even more so and i feel like the administrative teams teachers um did an amazing job just making that transition back as smooth as possible other thoughts or questions that you have for me well thank you for the pictorial essay i love seeing the pictures to give an idea of what that first they look like and thank you so much i
032think it's important that uh you said a lot of the teachers and administrators were all working in sync together making sure that it worked and that's important so thank you yeah thank you dr hart uh i fortunately am in a position where i get to experience first day of school every year right from my own district so and i do start in middle school so i know how the craziness that goes on there um but uh yeah it looks like it was a real exciting time and um you know we're just finally sort of getting our feet under us you know we have one more holiday coming up and then we'll finally start having some full weeks of school to get used to um but yeah that was um a great way to sort of
033start off the year with the the energy that was in that presentation thank you my pleasure oh i think our student rep has a question oh well it wasn't really a question but was it another comment it was just a comment about how i felt like coming back to school so like um she said earlier yeah like the energy is really bad you can see that everyone's like really enjoying being back to school like before you know how people would be like oh school like they wouldn't be too excited about it but you can really tell this year everyone's really been grateful to be able to come back see their friends like i haven't seen some of my friends since ninth grade so seeing them now is pretty amazing like i love how everything went
034through i'm grateful to be back can i ask you i'm just curious from your own perspective what's the vibe on the fact that they're wearing masks does it bringing down that energy your kid's just glad to be back and it's kind of whatever you need to do what is what is your sense so you well we could tell a lot of people they like would rather not wear the mask but like i feel like at the same time people are like thankful to be at least back in school just like if we have to wear a mask we'll wear it because you know like rather have to wear the mask and come to school and be at home and do virtual school yes it's nice that you know there's a new appreciation for in-person learning
035from our students right that's good to hear mr fusco if i may yeah um young man can you pronounce your name for me i want to say it properly oh yeah sure it's enough enough thank you for sharing that enough um just beautiful to hear high school kids talk about loving being in school we just had a new administrator meeting after school today dr mckenna and dr waters were there as well and even the new administrators enough were like the kids seem to really want to be there and it's exciting that they want to be there and they seem to recognize and that it feels like a privilege now um and so it's just thank you for sharing that that makes me smile and it was exciting to hear it from the adults as well
036so it's mutual everybody's feels fortunate to be there and happy to see one another all right thank you dr hart okay all right and enough i just want to thank you too because i was watching the pictures that dr hart uh was showing and they were just making me smile and you know um and then to hear you say that even at the high school you feel the same way is really great to hear um we do know though that obviously not everyone is back in person and people did have a choice and we do have about 300 elementary students who did choose the virtual option but i have to tell you they are also smiling um and dr michael mckenna our new director of elementary education and miss jensinsky who is kind of leading
037the charge up there at our virtual school um they have a presentation that they're going to share with you as well about how that came to be and also how it's going so i'm going to turn it over to you too thank you dr waters real quick i am new to this role and it was the first time in 20 years i did not have my own school to go to on the first day of school so i joined mr mccoska over walton farm and he had a great opening day outside with his mascot as well so i i actually had my own first day just you know a little bit different than being in my own building so um as soon as i came on board here in august one of the tasks was
038to uh get the north penn virtual academy going and ready for the start of the 21-22 school year uh before i jump into any of the slides i just wanted to read a quick overview uh just to provide some background on uh kind of what our goal is for the virtual academy for our as as dr waters mentioned just about 300 students and um for the 21-22 school year elementary families had an opportunity to elect uh to choose the north point virtual academy they were able to choose just for the first trimester or for the entire year during that time the programs taught by north penn school district teachers who are teaching in our north penn schools and are using our north bank curriculum so i think that's a really important piece of information to
039understand it is a synchronous learning opportunity across all subject areas they operate in tandem but separate from our traditional in-person program we provide daily office hours for teachers to work with and check in with students at the end of the day we utilize canvas as our learning management system and use google meat to provide our synchronous instruction and we also kind of from feedback from last year we provide a consistent lunch recess and specialist time for students kindergarten through sixth grade and i think that's really important for families that have multiple students in the virtual academy to know that they can have their kids at lunch and be off their their computers during that time to have a common specialist time as well and also a common end time uh office hour time uh as
040well so start end time all those things are consistent across uh kindergarten through sixth grade uh bob if you go to the next side slide please so currently we have 13 grade level teachers in the virtual academy uh we have two per grade level right now um except for second grade we actually have three teachers in second grade due to the enrollment numbers also if you look at the enrollment numbers in general across elementary you'll see that second grade is our largest cohort kindergarten through six so the idea of having more students opt for virtual uh kind of parallels our overall enrollment numbers as well we also have a virtual english second language teacher and we're actually in the process of hiring a special edu actually one autistic support special education teacher and also a
041learning support special education teacher right now and our director of education megan mcgee-heim is actually working through that process currently our class sizes which was important as we were monitoring enrollment um our class sizes do fall within our classroom size guidelines and actually range from a smallest size in kindergarten i think that actually is now 15 students in kindergarten uh all the way up to uh 27 and sixth grade which is our largest so we start still are within our guideline frameworks that we have in person in our virtual academy as dr waters mentioned at this time when i created this presentation it was 306. um we have uh been navigating some movement a little bit here and there we have a process for that if there are any changes at this point because we
042are in the midst of our trimester kind of to navigate that and we do have a process for our principals and families to work through uh if we have any of that information comes about as far as changing learning environments at this point in the school year i'm going to turn it over to mrs jensinski who's going to do the next two slides thank you dr mckenna so we felt it was really important that our virtual academy teachers were housed in district buildings which gave them an opportunity to have you know a professional learning space for their students and kind of set up that classroom atmosphere um so you can see on this slide that our six seven grade levels are at the respective buildings and this really also gives them an opportunity to collaborate
043with grade level partners in these buildings have access accessibility to an admin in these buildings and really feel a part of that north penn culture so we just wanted to go over some communications with the families in august dr mckenna and i had sent out to communications just kind of setting up the guidelines and expectations we know this is different than march learning online so we wanted to make sure that you know parents kind of knew what their role is as a learning coach and how we're here to support them we've been sending out weekly communications doing that through our teachers to our virtual parents so they kind of know up to date some different things that are going on we also wanted to make sure that our kindergarten students had an experience to meet
044the teacher just like our in-person students do their kindergarten day so we had a virtual meet the teacher in august before school started and we also had a parent informational session which we had learning coaches tech coaches present to kind of go through the canvas interface and just give an opportunity for parents to ask any questions and then in the beginning of sep in the beginning of september we had a materials pickup which was successful students went to their home buildings and families were able to pick up their school supplies for the school year we've also created a virtual academy professional development calendar uh always uh through an equity lens as we navigate through these different topics um also some of almost all of our virtual academy teachers are new to north penn uh some
045are have been in within the district in previous years so there is some training that goes involved in making sure that they're up to speed with all the interfaces and programming that we use um we definitely spent a lot of time in canvas due to the fact that that's the learning management system that the teachers are using although the younger grades we use a lot of seesaw as well for a lot of the student work uh and feedback for teachers as uh including as through canvas but mainly through activities are run through seesaw also our student information system infinite campus we have some assessments that we need to talk through and how to navigate those in a virtual setting obviously it's a little different than going through those um through an in-person setting um even
046even training within all of our our curriculum as well second step responsive classroom our school-wide behavior program foundations for our early grades and also just looking and discussing best practices in a virtual setting and how important that is and we actually have set up a weekly professional development sessions for our virtual teachers uh to come to together as a group and working through that calendar every month or actually really every week to ensure that we've have a consistent professional development schedule in line for those teachers also they don't know they can always access any of our coaches one-on-one as well for any additional support and the last slide is just you know mrs uh jan and myself are are the main contacts for our virtual academy teachers and also virtual academy families uh and we've
047been the ones again been communicating with the teachers and families um since august since we initiated this and and and started the virtual academy here at north penn all right thank you dr mckenna thank you jen um do you have any questions dr lewis campbell um yeah i did have a question regarding that canvas training i know in the past that was a concern with many teachers not feeling as if they had enough time to learn canvas to teach did you find that teachers had enough time or were more receptive to teaching via canvas it's a great question that so the great thing about canvas being um really ubiquitous across many school districts is the fact that when we went through the hiring process we actually found a lot of our that was actually a
048question we asked and and determined and and really looked for for teachers that had experience using canvas hopefully as a teacher uh and many had done that previously and even having that as a student helped too where they now actually know how to navigate that process as well so many of our teachers already had training and had used canvas as a teacher before but we definitely knew that was an important area so we spent a lot of time before the first day we actually were still hiring very people very close to the start of the school year but we ensured that they had not only a whole group access to that professional development but also individual help many of them accessed our technology learning coaches for one-on-one support before the first day of school too
049okay thank you and how often did they come together to talk about and flesh out the best practices for teaching in those virtual settings so we jen and i have met with the virtual teachers on a number of occasions through the first week before the school started and bringing our tech coaches as well we just met last thursday we have another meeting this friday so really thursdays at 2 30 we've kind of programmed in our calendar that we will bring to everyone together for professional development sessions so that is our general day teachers know that the office hour time needs to be needs to end at 2 30 so then they can participate in that professional development every thursday at 2 30. oh great okay thank you dr bauer i don't oh gosh yeah come
050on dr brown i don't think it was mentioned um but what was the funding mechanism for this uh virtual program views did you mean me or did you mean dr mckenna well you i meant because yeah so we used we use federal funds uh to support the faculty the additions um for the virtual academy so this is the sr monies that we've spoken about in finance committee meetings these were new teachers right yeah these are all new teachers and we have used the funding that we got through the covered relief for much of this right people are clear on you know where that money is being allocated um there are not enough of many districts i think um in the county that have taken this approach many have just decided if you want to have
051an option um without being in person uh that you'll have asynchronous learning um so which actually kind of brings me my next question you did say and that was actually surprising to me that there were um the option to opt for the full year is that correct dr mckenna how many uh what percentage of the students opted to do a full year of this i don't have the exact date on that but it definitely was a lot lower i i mean if jen and i probably when looking through it uh it was it was probably close to 10 or 15 if i had to look through when we looked through the data um it definitely wasn't as high but again at the end of the trimester those students who did sign up for the trimester
052they could continue for the rest of the year so i think many families weren't sure about signing on for the whole year so they did the trimester and then like i mentioned they may be able to continue on uh if they want to for the rest of the school well and the reason and that doesn't surprise me at all that it would be like a 10 number because you know i wonder and i think it might even be worthwhile to at some point to consider surveying some of the families participating how many are opting to do this as opposed to you know a cyber charter for the year right and you know they're most of the families i would expect are kind of just waiting for things to normalize you know enough where they could
053feel safe and comfortable having their students return to school but we know there is a percentage of students in the district that um for a number of reasons opt for cyber charter and i'm just wondering um because it has that additional piece of just of being synchronous instruction um you know and personalized with your own home school if there is a a percentage that see this as a viable alternative to going elsewhere because we're continually looking for ways to bring these families back to north penn not just because they're north penn residents and we want our kids in our buildings but also because of the funding that tends to go with them when they do leave us mr fusco i just pulled up the numbers in infinite canvas it looks like 56 students elected virtual
054for the entirety of the year at the elementary level that's significant i think i'd be curious about reaching out to some of those families to get their thoughts um okay uh one other question was you did say that there was some fluctuation you know that you were supposed to make a trimester but you know we're working with families is that more of a which direction is that heading is that more kids going in or more kids coming out yeah i mean it was interesting because you know some students who had done signed up for virtual actually showed up on the first day of school and came in person and then vice versa kind of as we got close to the start of the year you know we had some students who who wanted to to
055switch to virtual as well um it's it's been very few that we've had a switch to from more in person to virtual um we've asked really ask that that the parents you know speak with their principals and have a clear rationale on why we understand you know family situations happen different things happen with with our families and to make sure that we look at every case individually to make the best decision and support those families if they need to make a change in learning environment either direction virtual may not be working that well for a family and they might want to come in and then for some reason in person is happening they but for some reason it could be a medical issue with a family member or something that they may need to transition
056to to virtual so just making sure that we work with the families and and make the best decisions possible for whatever the family situation is at that time so um one last point and this is really for the community because i do know the answer to this question but um there's two classrooms for first grade three for second grade you know two for fourth grade and 13 elementary schools so when a student does return what does that look like and they can return to in-person learning so every child was placed in an in-person classroom uh all the way back into in september so they they actually when they went on infinite campus they would be able to see who their teacher in person teacher would be when they returned so when we looked at enrollment
057and placement and all that we factored all the students in to have a seat in a classroom so when they return we have a teacher designated for them um and we'll be ready to go when they decide to return at the end of the trimester or or whenever that may be great thank you dr mckenna anything else dr lewis campbell thank you both all right i think then thank you that brings us to enough i say that right enough okay good yes i wrote it phonetically i have to do that sometimes all right um do you have an update anything that you uh care to enlighten the committee about so i actually had a question sort of so i remember in my cal class we talked about how there might be a possibility that we
058might like go virtual or something because our my calculator was talking about it or like how the virtual option was gonna be like because the delta numbers were getting higher or something is there anything about that like um maybe change to virtue or anything like that no right yeah i'll answer that enough at this point in time we have no plans to go to fully virtual our goal is to continue to have schools open if at all possible but of course to be safe um so we'll just continue to monitor the situation but there are no plans presently to go to fully virtual if we are in high community transmission again tomorrow morning then that would mark the second week of being in a particular level namely now high because we do have it written
059in our health and safety plan it does take two weeks at a new level for you to officially switch to that new level we won't be switching each week so if we are again in high since we were high last week if we're high again as of tomorrow morning then we would switch to the opportunity for students to be able to elect to be in a streamed situation we are saying that those individuals would need to make a choice so that if they do that then they would need to stick in that mode of learning for the remainder of the period that were in high if we could fall back to uh substantial again then uh they would return to the classroom but it won't be last year there was an opportunity well today i'd
060like to be virtual the next day you know what i'm going to go in you know then i'll be virtual it was just too difficult for everyone to manage in that situation so we do make it available to our students and their families if they would like to elect virtual when we're in high transmission and to be able to you know watch classes in a streamed basis but we are asking for a commitment for the remainder of the time period whatever that might be that might be two weeks that would be the minimum because you need to have two weeks at the same level so if we would have two weeks of substantial we would drop you know back into not having that streaming again but it could be four weeks fine whatever it might
061be there after all right thank you you're welcome that's what ada that is a very important piece that while we do want to be flexible for certain families in certain situations and take you know issues on case by case that the back and forth particularly with the high school students last year was a real frustration it was really disruptive for um for many many educators last year and um i think we really do need to drive this point home that you know we are in this and we're going to give you the opportunity to have the streaming element that you really are committing to it at least until conditions on the ground change i know from my own personal experience i had a student i had to text to see if he was coming in
062or not on the days i was planning to see him like he had my cell phone number only i could reach him it was really frustrating my own personal experience um so that's a very important piece of that thank you dr dietrich right um any additional topics for the committee all right seeing none we're going to move on to our public comment and i do so we have a few attendees uh tonight's meeting is our regularly scheduled committee meeting in order to meet the requirements of pennsylvania's sunshine law it is necessary to record the names of all citizens who speak to the committee during the meeting to ensure compliance with this requirement it is essential that those planning to address the committee state their name and address members of the audience are asked to limit
063their questions and comments matters being discussed at tonight's meeting or matters that may come before the eci committee the committee chair may ask the individuals to yield to the next speaker all right mr gilmer so if anybody intends to make public comment now would be the time to raise your hand we do have one hand up up first is jason lanier jason i have enabled your microphones you're ready to begin you can state your name and address and begin your comments jason air uh lansdale barrow um i i'm so glad you guys had a uh an equity summit unfortunately i guess you forgot to invite people who might be interested in understanding what it is that you guys are implementing with your diversity equity and inclusion and your anti-racism and all the other stuff that
064i've been asking you about for some time going back eight months and being that nobody seems to be able to give me a clear definition of what that means i went to your the resources on the website on the north penn website to find out what some of this meant and if you're telling me that anti-racism is something other than racism you got to educate me on that i don't get it because it's it sounds a lot like racism you're just kind of switching switching uh i mean the traditional racism where you're saying that when you say that that it's an impression of of one minority group well i guess you're not oppressing a minority group but you're certainly oppressing you're you're calling out a race uh or you're singling out a race based upon
065their color and you're using terms for anti-racism which don't make any sense like only white people have uh self-reliance and only white people have individuals only light white people are decision makers i can't believe you guys are pushing this and yet and yet this is the language that is coming from the references that you push forward i don't get this in in a little bit more on this uh mr fusco you said that there seems to be a national effort to push against this and and i would say well there seems to be a national effort pushing this on this this didn't just sort of organically happen and it seems to be done on the sly you don't want to keep it uh you don't want to let people know what you're thinking it doesn't
066seem as if there's really an interest in in getting feedback from the the parents of the kids that are going to the school and it just seems like you guys are pushing this without really uh looking at what it is that we were concerned about and in in i just it seems to me when you when you say uh the the you you i'm gonna you know paraphrase what you said but something about uh but the the this national push uh that is going against the work that needs to be done what is the work that needs to be done this would be would be would be great to to let everybody know what the work what the goal of all of this is because when i see you guys taking things of doing uh
067i guess you don't want to say it's critical race theory where you're where you're dividing kids at play on race but you sort of are but you're in colorblindness but only if it counts to what you're saying uh how about when you do the privileged walk and you and you separate kids of peon uh for for for things that they have versus what they have and what they have grown up with and what they haven't how is this good for anybody i really don't understand this implementation of of equity in the greater sense of education if you could answer that i would appreciate it thank you thank you mr lanier i do not see any other hands at this time that will conclude public comment thank you uh just very briefly the the work that
068needs to be done i would say primarily regards our disproportionality data right um it's real it's evident and we want to lessen and then eliminate the achievement gap that we find in our data so that is the purpose um at least one of the main drivers of this work okay seeing no other comments uh we have no agenda items that have been recommended to move to work session or action and our next eci committee meeting is scheduled for tuesday october 5th at 6 pm and as is the case for all of our committee meetings um it will be in the virtual format all right uh seeing nothing else can i have a motion to adjourn so moved all right thank you everyone great job with the presentations tonight thank you thank you