001Americans many meaning of the whole board first item on the agenda is introductions and administrative remarks hello thank you very much very cozy tonight so very short on introductions and administrative acts just reminded that we have our elementary stem night coming up this Thursday April 19th and it is 560 students all right and then sleep study and also conversation about thank you oh man I shouldn't have I mention at this point the next two months meetings on the curriculum committee will also be meetings of the full board that brings us to public comment in public comment at this time Judy sherry governor Satomi town square as questions in January about Mandarin an extension is running next year when nothing appeared to have changed about the way it was offered for the past three years the
002administration's last statement in February 28 minutes is that quote no further information will be shared about Mandarin unless the information mr. Bechtold shared changes unquote wording in this response is unfortunate based on mutual respect a reasonable expectation to the ports on substitute teaching have been bounced around between finance and curriculum the finance chair is very satisfied with the current status and the longer ones regular reports in her made so I'm bringing the substitute cause forward in curriculum may 5th 2017 major function major object report 2017 18 of those final budget with projections function 1,100 number 300 professional and tech services which I believe is the category for substitutes shows 49 percent or three hundred fifty two thousand eight hundred twenty dollar difference between 16 17 and 17 18 budgets with the total of 1 million
003seventy four thousand six hundred ninety three dollars designated for substitutes was this budget increase for more substitutes the result of an increase in absenteeism last year when teachers are absent and sows are employed the district is paying two people to fill on positions what are the district's goals regarding absenteeism and what's happening this year what steps can be implemented to improve attendance was this year's budget increase justified and what about next year's plans so basically what the impact on substitutes on the budget and what's the impact former number three districts responds to questions about concussions was an announcement that on May 8th Creek young committee meeting the RTS D athletic directors will offer a presentation on contact sports and the procedures and practices in place to in RTS D to protect our students from injury
004my specific question about helmets was does Brandner Township School District use the most highly rated football helmets districts response was rtst helmets a professional inspected and certified annually they are replaced on a rotating basis most recent purchase of football helmets occurred last at the May 8th meeting will the administrator for middle school football when and how is that number determined is it still a relevant number for student safety district response the way classes for participation football comes to us from our local athletic league the league uses its historical data and other information to identify weight classes the classes have changed over the years most recently reducing between 320 classifications to 2 district didn't answer student safety questions and instead shifted responsibility for determining student safety participation to quote our local athletic league unquote the questions
005still stand and why is reducing the classes the weight classes from three to two a better safety measure today RMS what issues pump did the study arrive in middle school what are the targeted goals and changes that the study will generate under six the district currently receives financial information from the athletic booster organizations which is reported on the athletic opportunities disclosure report which is related to title nine a review of this disclosure from 16 17 and 15 16 that the football club contributes $0 toward purchases for football how is that possible and is that accurate I have other examples now and finally regarding digital sports and all other vendors that collect student data district need to try to see policy that ensures that any data collected about students is only used for educational purposes and
006I bring this forward at this time because he just went through learning about all the information that Facebook has released and and generated with people who posted there that had no idea that their information could be shared the board discusses privacy and confidentiality at length in policy 216 student records at the same time the district states rather high school uses digital sports to share all important information related to its athletic teams parents and students are basically warned when they enter this site that the district's privacy guarantees are no longer available and if there is an issue of concern it should be discussed with the third-party in other words district sounds like it's very concerned about student privacy and then washes its hands of its respond to safeguard students data at the same time by encouraging
007use of this commercial enterprise digital Sports says show your school spirit today at wwe.com it's free nothing in life is free access to parents and students information is the product for sale here the revelation about the amount of information that is shared by Facebook has come to light and this student privacy issue should be revisited in addition to this much-needed policy the board should request representatives of these companies to make presentations on their business model how be it as collective toward access and destroyed and whether or not they've ever had a game please thank you is there any other public comment I have a question and I know the answer and you notice tonight there's overnight student trip decision that has been made again how decisions are made coming if that's the case and the
008narrative reported I just there's a lot of has been covered in the information that was given all of us wondering that I noticed the final slide is that recommendations will be given to June there's a way that you to date I noticed that there were people from others from other school districts that visiting the middle school to study exactly leaving father bell schedule our bus schedule and there any recommendations for the new schedule recommendations of those could be discussed fire like fire meeting in June which by that point poor decisions and and just to add to what miss cherry brought up about these sup services the actual expenditures we just take a second on the actual expenditures for the professional tech services air market sub services for 1516 the total expenditure $146,000 actual expenditure for
0091617 eight hundred and seventy eight thousand big difference are there other other that means additional huge haven't had a report in quite a while that's the reason for my question the budgeted requests for 1819 thank you miss Berto any other public comment seeing none that brings us to the approval of our minutes from the March meeting one clarification I wanted to make just to be clear that you look at the technology integration study part to the second paragraph the one that starts the cost of a device and expected to be the last sentence that the cost comparison we got was as a district purchasing and servicing and ensuring it was kind of a package for you to invite so I'm okay with purchasing and servicing but it should say Virge purses a parent purchase and
010servicing of the device I mean it was an apples to apples comparison it wasn't just a purchase okay so you're proposing adding in the last sentence a parent purchase and servicing yes purchase into that is that grammatically correct a parent purchase and servicing it should probably be purchasing a service all right with that a correction is everybody on the committee okay with the March minutes all right but that fraction we want to do that now or do we do the presentation okay so we do have two new business items that you'll receive a yellow paper so so the first one is already part of the regular board agenda was a donation passed around a quick picture here for you we actually have a directions from a family who it's donating to experience first rate classroom
011starter kit and just in case you don't know what that is picture one is coming around with anagrams like a candygram that the student copies from an iPad we have them in our classrooms an additional kit has been donated to the nurse Bank bathroom at Grand Isle entry yeah and then we have I don't think the scholarship so on the yellow paper you have a description provided by mr. bechtell this would be a scholarship in honor of Jennifer to someone in this year's class sorry very exciting overnight trip our students at the high school this year participated in sea perch and we actually have one of the students with us and their first time competing as a high school they've actually qualified so go to the national competition and they have a proposal in to
012get an overnight trip approval the see first competition in case you're not familiar with it my name is sha Chi cago I'm a ninth grader at Radnor high school and part of the writer baseball station pretty much secret is underwater robotics competition in which you have to build robot to navigate it through a series of underwater challenges this year at the regional competition in temple our team did well we please that engineering design process no fog a second presentation first in the fool challenges which is the actual competition and then first overall so we did really well in qualified for the nap international competition in Dartmouth Massachusetts thank you very much so they're asking for permission for 10 students to travel to the competition they will be travelling by car with their parents they have
013a mr. Lester sponsor who will be a company and then they've also filled out a grant application to get the funds for the actual entry fee from the right education foundation so what I mean their parents will be contributing $100 towards the cost as well so so just to clarify this $3,150 cost 2150 of it's coming from Rath mari dr. mechanics the breath portion hasn't been approved yet because we haven't had our brand beating but the that course would be discounted about the 2150 695 so entropy so graphic is going to subsidize some portion of the 2150 assume that the kids get this particular brand correct so what you're asking us to do is approve the entire 2150 and it may be decreased assuming the ref grant comes through right okay great I just wanted
014to clarify thank you we appreciate that and and you have this money budgeted in some yeah somewhere at this lengthening year you still have some funds to cover this and actually our middle school has qualified for the last couple of years but the sea perch finals and they in qualify so we budgeted for them to go to the finals this year they have qualify this year so unfortunately so we have some funds available around funds have recently [Music] joining us and congratulations I don't want to leave you guys short and strap the bake sale so we agreed the district would contribute 2150 of the 3150 but that's assuming there were 10 students does that mean the costs go down proportionately costs will go down so that in the high school completed the form the assumption
015was that every students who participate that competition what we'd offered an opportunity to go so first base time how did you make sure we last year there were eight students and there will be a shaft forever that's what we've apparently all right real quickly the public we look at what we how we assess the trips and there's so much curriculum that's attached to this could you just real quickly go through a little bit for instance of the body engineer that's applying for the grant so if you can quickly share all the things related to curriculum why and that's why it's New York right hysterectomy likely connected to a club that we approved as well so at the middle school the students actually agency first competition as part of the gateways program so that is connected
016to and pieces that they have written explicitly in Africa and they create their project and make their plan during the instructional day these students and that Robeson high school which is why we approve this new club this year so even though they're not directly in approach that supports c4 people you can find if you take the mafroom so they have a sponsor and they do it either after school or during you kitchen even outside construction day but again there's a terrific okay now it's Committee of the whole I'm not sure exactly how this works but for these three items we're putting the fourth for next week's agenda good brings us to the last board action item is our instruction and start some calendar in the packet and fortunately we had six weather emergency days so
017you can see that RV guys calendar is a to the last 20 days all the way up to that last proposed makeup day which is from 21st that day teacher day is on the 22nd so this is our you made this announcement several times and share it with several different groups but this would be our formal approval of the revised school so I guess we'll have to hold our nose and prove that so my question about that is summer school starts on the 21st I understood that you were bombing it by today are you still going to be trying to end it by that Friday August 3rd so that it doesn't kick in to the next week just so parents who are signing up for summer school cool yeah as they've planned accordingly so the
018math the summer school at the high school will start one day later we'll start on the 22nd but mr. Bryant is working that additional time over the course of the days that the class was already offered it's not evenly distributed you prefer to wait it towards the end of the summer course it's like 15 minutes attitude all right yes the course will begin one day late and it will end on the thank you for clarifying that appreciate any comments about does that bring us up to about your metals felicitations acid so go through the timeline and the PowerPoint and I've been announced and we'll be ready to answer any questions you may have we thought it was really helpful with the technology study so get an opportunity to number one recognize work that went into
019the process is a particularly group they're working with at the dose school so tonight focus is really going to be to talk about the process itself what we've been doing on here at the middle school what the different pieces are and then when we get that together in June we'll be talking about what was uncovered through that process and also bringing the patience how to draft those visas so today our focus is really going to be on what happened specific recommendations we'll talk about the process we're using to put those together all right so the study of the viewers reminded of the law school program is district old number four it's something there is somewhat a technology study that's been going on all year we had a series of questions that we developed earlier this
020year that we shared it in October so we're going to circle back around some of those pieces as we so here was our goals that we couldn't play this year we program we have a committee in place things are happening throughout the year and as I mentioned will be recommendations forward we organized a look at the middle school into three specific areas you'll see the 3d overarching topics there and we also have very specific so area one was academic number two we were looking at the organizational structures and processes so how do those organizational structures and the processes in the building support a successful middle school and area number three was organizational culture and the climate of the organization itself you can see on the next slide we have a list in committee and I
021have to applaud school they did a lot of their work as a whole faculty through faculty meetings but you'll see here we see the little asterisk white deal and Daniels and Jen campus now those are people that serve down in the core community that did a lot of planning playing the activities for the teachers compile the data those types of things and the rest of the group listed here these consider their spirit go through some of the different activities we'll talk about the fact that many of the activities took place with the entire factories to the process so the first things we'll talk about a little bit is focus groups so we completed several parent focus groups and his parent focus groups we not only invited parents of current middle school students but we also
022invited high school parents so if the students or in the middle school at any time you're welcome to participate we actually even had a parent come to one of the focus groups whose child was in a private school they would go school at one point and they were privates only to come back and offer some feedback so that was a unique perspective for us because some kind of administrators as I mentioned there was there were certain specific jobs specific focus groups and mountain counselors and then civic areas that pertain to their content as well data analysis data analysis please the school has a very strong building level data team they obviously started the data that you saw at the beginning of this year but then also is really down the other thing last year and
023this year in some PS VA has actually funded an ID X subscription comparisons using ITEX what idec's allows us to do is to set certain parameters so that we can find what truly are our peer groups when we're looking at data you know scores come out things are in the newspaper how do we do compared to our neighbors to reduce in the West but what idents allows us to do is actually use criteria around from different parts of the state so they look at the poverty level the size of the schools and structures of the school the information about how many library books they have or how much money they spend so we were able to come up with nearly 20 school districts across the state there they have very similar schools to they only
024remember the data presentations State has struggled over recent years the answer is always oh well all school all middle schools kept going down or eighth grades across the state but this was for us to really look at how are other middle schools just like that and you do see things like that drop that but again an opportunity to compare ourselves or similar to ourselves we did a deep dive into math trance man program in place so it's very important to take a look at and then we took a targeted look at particularly some suburbs we spend a lot of time with one of the questions asked which are obviously what Jews are assessed on we want to make sure that the documents that were using that we create for teachers use in the classrooms are
025aligned some of our documents are at work some of them are actually getting it's been a while since language arts so we're looking at some of those Rico documents and making sure that that aliveness there and then a topic that came up as well as the whole idea using the curriculum documents so that whole idea written curriculum and the talk breaking them so just because something is but down certainly is it actually what you see in the classroom and then also the usefulness so do the teachers find that it's useful when they go to plan for instruction use assessments and actually operationalize them in the classroom so we looked at that is that a lot of time teachers right now there exemplars other items that we looked at some data around a time study we
026looked at how the time is used in middle schools in our area cub time is used regarding not just the minutes in the day how long the periods are because we know we talked about that quite a bit particularly like that but also how many days be here new middle school students across the state and in the classroom how many days do they have under school calendar and looking at some comparisons about that then we looked at might be virtuous interruptions or modifications to the instructional day how many instructional days a year do we have assemblies or special presentations or anything that would shorten the instructional period or modify the day those things are all coming we did a parent survey and we survey out several months ago and you know almost immediately got about
027parents responded to it and when we sent out the invitation to focus groups we actually got over a hundred additional parents to respond to the survey so we've gone through the survey once and look for common themes but we have more people we're getting online without the survey open and when we invited parents in focus groups we said if you're not able to come to focus group please go online the new survey questions and operation so we have a lot more we looked at the vertical teeming observations we're still working on some additional classroom observations and walk rooms so the idea that things we value are things like student age mid differentiation when you move into the classroom and are they actually evident in the classrooms across the village as well so similar to with
028the Great Khan document you might break something he posted on the website we could say and then our next steps are going to be and what we're doing at this is reduce the process where we're taking three different components from all the information we've collected so the first the second what is a recommendation that we're putting forward to address those problems our concerns and then the third one being what is the data that supports those recommendations so you know obviously we talk about these types of things have ideas and things but when it comes right down to it you know which of these recommendations can support with we've collected our data surveys and it was observations so we'll be hearing from many of the folks who work on this we come together in June but
029in the mean time the other thing provided on the website as one of the attachments this month is the time height of the this is very similar to what you see on the website summary of it on the website so this is actually a reverse timeline of what's happening if you're interested in a lot of the details about what happened during faculty meetings how many people responded to the survey so and I'd like to invite mr. pronounced come up with us yeah where should we start over there no all right let's start so I pretty straightforward questions let's see are you going to the interview incurring a bride new middle school students I saw that you interviewed students at the high school who graduated from random middle school I'm just running current students will be
030included that's one question I see that you've included by the way thank you for presenting it this way because it is helpful to take it in and jumps and digest it I think I do appreciate that and thank you Lydia and Chuck for allowing us to be a part of this because I think it's in long I'm going to help us digest it I noticed that you've math and English language arts in this study in terms of the curriculum reviews I don't specifically see science and fourth the other science foreign languages social studies the arts what's the plan for evaluating those portions of the program at another point I'd love to hear who those other cops schools are that were in the idec's I think that would just be kind of interest do you don't
031have to cancel Emmys now without send them to death with it they really are information gathering questions so I can I feel like what kind of at that level I'm not looking for answers tonight I'm gonna just pass these questions and then I'm just curious who was the building level of data team that way you might know I'd love to know the three questions that were on the survey for the parents didn't see when you're doing the English language arts data trend died and those were my question oh why did we bring in amplify science that's a non-sequitur this report but it's a question on their last so it started in the fall of 16 right thank you those were all my questions thanks so much I just give a nano unit the dev team
032is most of those I'm going to shoot an email to you guys because okay I know most of those are kind of background questions that will inform me for the whole kind of picture but i but mentioning kind of when are we looking at the other academic subjects and the curriculum in the arts and wellness and he's our curriculum as part of this whole view of the middle school was a piece for me and i guess my final comment is I'm hoping at some point we are going to hear the answer if there is one about what or how the new Bell system is working what are they corrected is there there's still issues but I'm kind of thinking that's in the results meaning it's not so thank you no no no no no no
033you barely dealing what I think you might know is who's on the data team the rest time I'm gonna shoot an email to you guys somebody happy one of the names or the representives representing season two days so from each of our four core areas are on or teacher counselors the administrators our coaches and our specialists I know I'm the data team yes okay great thanks so much it's all cheering that's not how many questions I just want to say I appreciate your third Pro CH and I appreciate the boldness of it I think everyone likes to see how bright they are and come up and talk about how wonderful they are and flash of slides of great achievements and I think it takes a lot of strength my confidence just to have a public
034self-examination of our program and I really look forward to the answers it's just a great thing to do and thank you so much mr. Mehra no we do you really we're going to jump to mr. Babson down there questions does our student I see here on the data to you I was on the data team I had to take myself off I am specialized apartment mr. Miller you liked I know that you know I read in the nares that you asked some selected high school the curriculum did you review the teachers part of that this seems like a dive just whether or not you know pretty guitars right is there an ongoing thing I know the high school level coaches and stuff analysis we have talked about the teacher information performance that comes out of
035different areas Esther has a wealth of data available to her regarding and those things are looked at every year occurs in different areas but we also have looked at specific areas like different programs or kind of results they're producing students accelerated class results students in the special education program and what kind of results as far as both growth energy so I think you'll see a lot of that we did get some information on the parent survey some more specific responses not a lot of not a lot of specific tension of teacher names sometimes you know teams you know this but what we've been doing is organizing that information in a way so when the feedback we get from students and parents and the data that we're looking at align with each other to a place
036where it's drawing a trend those are the pieces that when the data doesn't align you said well I think that well you can look at why you know let's your track or whatever I didn't throw I didn't learn anything look at the achievement data our growth data and you can see that that refers to our hitch or is right now the alignment of the triangulation of you know what do we hear from multiple pieces that are overarching threads that we want to address and income that you talk a little bit about this today is the list of recommendations or draft recommendations grows very long you know some of those things will be pieces that rise to the level of coming to the board I'm part of our you know overall recommendations to the middle school
037and some other things are in these small things that are addressed at the building level or you know taking care of you know more on a 1:1 manner Gina's Holman so Maureen would it be possible to bring up on the screens the webpage that is devoted to this study and the reason why I ask is for two things one is that it's not easy to find and I think it's worth pointing out to people who want to follow this work online where it is we're there the second reason I haven't done their parents and students yes I always search for it well if you go to parents and students and you go down to war and then you can click under our see where it says RMS program review now hazard column that's where it
038is so I have one request and that is would you consider putting it in a more visible place in the midst of the study going on because that would be helpful for people to follow it and the second thing is the reason why I bring it up is when you look at the action plan loops up a little bit when you see those three areas and this is pertains to Mike's question about teaching evaluation or whatever under area number two organizational structures and processes there's a question number two these are guiding questions as you call them right Maureen so these questions give more color to what each of these action areas are or these areas study are continue that's not included in the PowerPoint but I think they're important because it helps people better understand
039what exactly you're looking at when you talk about something like organizational structures and processes for example the second question is do the current staffing practices support having the most highly qualified staff in place it's not exactly the question you were asking but it would it's something that's being examined perhaps under area number two so I just think that those are important for people who really want to get sense of what's being looked at more than just in a broad two or three topic statement the other thing I wanted to mention is that for the next steps we did mention problems concerns that are being identified through this evaluation I do think it's important though to also point out things that are working because it's you know no system is perfect there are all these things
040that are working in things that aren't working but they certainly want for now I think the things that are working so that those for whatever reason are not just celebrated but they're preserved if they're working so would that be something that you could incorporate into the study has a fourth part of the June 19th presentation a way to balance what's not going with our tent as we're going through the areas we do have a small committee and a larger committee and we've pretty much I would say wrapped our brains around focus area number one or number one we are practically through cool area number two our teacher region campus has done a fantastic job of holding this all together for us our teachers have volunteered that grade level on their own time and our faculty
041means there's been great work on goal areas number one and two you know we use our faculty meetings we try to use about 3035 minutes about 30 minutes at that time where our on 44 everyone is present but of course if they're coaching they're not there but we still try to follow up with them the reason that the look which is also important we knew that our PSSA testing was coming up so we chose to give our teachers an opportunity like that three week window to not I want to put it aside or where we weren't meaning Miscanthus and I we're going we knew that once we got underway with our PS essays that we're going to set smaller meetings which will allow our teachers to then we use the chart paper and you know
042typing and sending it through the docks and I think that part of what we're trying to do is capture the positive things as well as those areas that may be areas of concern and so and our Falcon II need excuse me on Tuesday we're going to update our staff regarding the recommendation so far that we have Aaron number one and a large portion of cold area number two and what we miss campus and I met about a week week and a half ago how we think we want to move forward with malaria number three so we do plan on trying to provide a balance of the positive as well as those areas that we feel should be addressed so we're using this year to identify in whatever areas we can check all over Luthor just
043that oh we can compare that oh this may be a two year progression or through your progression so those are some of them larger or more particulars that we are having within our ongoing discussions okay and because I mean even under organizational culture and climate you know the first question is do the staff students and Families good faith and wealth of in grab your middle school those touch on other things that we're evaluating right now in terms of safety perhaps so knowing what those questions are in the study air I don't know if that's possible but I think it's important to have those be as apparent as possible so you know when you get the outcomes what the questions were in general thank you and still so I'm really happy to see the responses you've
044gotten so far to the survey and I appreciate that I apologize I did not get a chance to go on the website today I know we have the technology integration study kind of in a graphic on the main page is the middle school study posted that way when are we I don't I didn't hear I think we said it I think this doesn't open I'm not sure but actually it is a little disturbing yeah and how long will we be okay it wouldn't be possible maybe it's something we need to ask my but to post that prominently I think this is a really important program it would be good to make sure parents have it front and center and able to yeah we can do that again did that what we first circulated it and
045then did the focus groups last month to be sent out of school messenger to every family at both the middle school and the high school so directly they got the invitation to the three focus groups and they also - the survey and I think that's my life so and I agree I think it's but it's one of those if you lost me now you know I've got a million emails in a day so it might even be helpful with it we're in the wrapper eater on Sundays as long as gonna leave it open for people to cook through that link that was one question it would be I think helpful to the board to know again I also miss bond bird I really appreciate the honesty in candor that's here but I will admit I
046was a little concerned when I saw in the November meaning that councilors identified gaps and updates that are needed to the current practices to meet state minimum requirements I don't always assume that the statement of the requirements are necessarily those practices but I would like to make sure that we are understanding of what what situations were not so a lot of these different areas that we investigated the idea was for us to study through here if there was something look that could be addressed immediately we didn't wait to address those things there were several things that place this year's regarding interventions regarding our health centers regarding the way they approach the one of the things we talked about as an issue or struggle that we have is last year was very very high we've had
047numbers as high as 156 and what was your number this year 24 so again you know the approach wasn't we're doing a study of things we'll fix next year if you know the team came up with a solution fermentation dressed it and for that to add to that if I may for every three nine friend you began on working also dr. clay and her crew team dr. Kane office of student services and he's been the sage once they began to share that information with us last spring began to just shared with our status is coming this is what this means so that they become at least familiar with the language towards the end of the year we tighten some things and in our middle school and our guidance department meeting on last Wednesday there are
048I believe 13 components and our guidance department chair mr. Clyde deal had you know over in my direction and he said looking pretty good we have no right we're on target for at least twelve out of the thirteen you know we still have a few more months and you know arms off rank so even though that statement is there from November sort of like we're in it so we sort of see it and sometimes you think everyone knows or understands but we feel pretty good that me are closing in on those gaps there's still work to do but we feel pretty good about a couple other questions will you be sharing or would you please share I guess the outcomes of that either trend my deck strength analysis yes we have slides prepared we didn't
049want to present the same information that was already presented it in the year so this comparisons differently and then sorry who's he the it would be helpful it's just helpful to me to know just in terms of amounts of participation I think it's great that between the 273 survey responses and parents coming to the focus groups I think you've got a pretty good place but it would be helpful if you could quantify that next time just update this and let us down all the parents for this and the student focus groups and then two lessons somewhat someone else made his coming I was hoping and I trust that it'll appear at the last one I just wasn't focused on here that the middle school program would focus not just on math and language arts I
050understand that those are important but on the program as a whole so you know I know everybody loves facts music art language arts you know are we meeting people's needs like in all of those areas because it's all part of the educational program proper and we don't want to forget that that's part of you know what we send our kids and so very quickly as trip our sort about that's why we have it during that time all such as our president we've also had individual groups we had one yesterday where we just met with all of our encore teachers our coaches were walking them through various activities and ways mindset toward addressing their curriculum and how what they're doing can help to lift and build and addressing the whole child so we have had multiple
051meetings with our on for teachers regard and so as we're not pushing them aside but we have had meetings I would even say once a month since we began this where we are talking with them as well as including them and the faculty meetings that we've had and so their input is there and part of that it's not just because that's how why we said we want to make sure they feel included winter said yeah it's part of the what we consider the program so the only other question and Chuck our counselor notes about this it's just a timing in terms of I don't know how much of this is what you are things you can fix with your current resources but I guess I would want to make sure since from a timing standpoint
052though the recommendations aren't going to come out until June 19th I want to make sure that you submitted whatever you think you may need budgetarily for updates or improvements so that we don't get down to the wire or we get to budget approval on June 26th and suddenly we haven't considered some really key financial piece and stuff though that's the middle school when we present the recommendations we will prioritize them so you can see which ones are again one priorities here two priorities those types of things that was one thing we wanted to make sure that if you see recommendations coming down the road that may impact on the budgets that you can take the time to push them to want to recommend something to us they're back you don't have to wait to do
053recommend countenance to say this is something that we feel is coming she's saying she's already talked about no so then okay if you would see that that just increased above for you like now similar to what we did with the technology budget if we have budgetary implications you know just like you did with the you know the laptops for the high school we're looking at other portions of the budget reallocating so you're comfortable with your one I like the idea you want to come back with your data to support some recommendations I'm a budget guy and this is curriculum but also like this she was now this is this this comes back to monks how to measure effectiveness how what these old again and how we're getting some of the results might come we should
054there are multiple ways overdue so that might be helpful for the board to understand differently that you mention or Academy delivering decree and and something also comes from the feedback you receive from our teachers I mean have very high expectations for themselves and when Astrid asked the teachers you know what what types of instructional so you was comfortable with where is it that you would like to grow as a teacher you know overwhelmingly they're all interested in growing in the area she instruction in the class all ends of the spectrum right I'm just saying we can share that with at the board so that they understand it's not just the school that the child gets on the assessment there is much more that we measure of how we're delivering their curriculum the school system the
055whole child potential protector brings me to another question it's a bit of a controversy here and it's a customer satisfaction survey dude goes out buys a car it's not like it's into it doesn't play so apparently I'm not really satisfied the choice was this with that I I would like to see us looking at possibilities abilities of developing satisfaction survey you talked about this okay but it's very important that we somehow create a link where we can get feedback when we're doing things correctly when parents are satisfied with what we're doing and also ways that we can improve what I'm not saying to issue it I'm just saying that's something that we need to discuss and to look at another way of measuring those results and it could be something also that you can do
056with the teachers for instance a are we satisfied with our professional development are there things that we need to add to this you're talking about we as teachers where they see growth is needed do that that's just one suggestion and the other piece is the 339 plane just for the people that are out there that have it just has to do with so could you briefly like the public know what we're talking about because the 33 9 plan is very important to have but we're dealing with a lot of that right now remain we may look at the minimum but we're handling what we're doing our students career we're here going to be required to present artifacts that show that here her answers ecology premier so in third grade eighth grade and 11th graders various
057number of artifacts that need to be presented there's a specific criteria in place so for instance when it first came out a lot of districts said well we'll have a career fair every year as students will walk around our about careers but the criteria is very specific in that career fair is a great start to a three three nine part of that but the next step is to actually work with a student to think about a career that might be a fit for them that reflect upon that career fair and connected to their own learning and those artifacts are going to be that our students use originally we used to for college applications but it has we're collecting our artifacts to Naviance and there will be an increasing number of artifacts required as this is
058the first year so extreme to slightly reduce this year but next year we will be required to collect of all the artifacts for each of our students so our counselors together to identify what would be age-appropriate for students at different levels and then they're going to be working I think May 7th with the supervisors we're going to be looking into our curriculum and finding places where these connections already occur so Maria pointed out is that it's Emperor's so it's something that's already in the curriculum say let's reflect on STEM careers and probably might be you know once you reaction we hear about STEM careers and so we student basically as they portfolio during which they so they build them and that's I guess my last comment would be like a spec asteroid and then the
059team for putting this together I know this was a I wanted to use this perfectly particularly in attempted and it's something that we've been discussing many years if we think our population hey okay ozs mother people FDA for the closed point very challenging very critical component of the so I I have a few things just to I want to make sure we tie this tab to tremendous amount of work we've done in the past most of people sitting here and so just to not to leave in the wheel and not to make extra work but to utilize things that we've looked at in the past and and sort of tie them into what we're doing now so in particular I'm thinking of the scheduling for a couple of years in a row and just talk
060about where we are but what we've discussed about it in the past you know where we think we landed we this was several years ago talked a lot about underperforming groups analysis of specific groups I don't want to lose that piece that you know that we are meeting the needs of all students I know that'll be part of the data that you'll have but I particularly want to make sure we don't forget about those students we used to call them hug the hug group remember Maureen you know what I mean under historically understood was their girls early so just I know we have let's just and I also curious because we did so much work on the math curriculum it's a fantastic job implementing it and how the the math placement was such a hurdle
061for many years just to help bring that full circle and and just see you know we are I'm hoping that probably solve most of the issues that we have with that but just to bring that into the present so those are things I know in the past just you know I shoulda 40 wrap up because sure it's a lot to process but something is occurring to me and maybe I've missed it but they questioned that the focus group from November around school counselors says that they meant to discuss ways and thank you for using the blue sky parents names by the way I just wanna shout out there so many buddy school counselors about their middle school met to discuss ways the RMS program is preparing their students for college and career and it occurs
062to me that a lot of the middle school experience any student experience but I think we think of this are sure in middle school is the social emotional experience of students and I'm just wondering if we're taking a dive while we're at it into any of the trends that we see in terms of behavior absenteeism truancy referrals to house you know mental health resources those kinds of things all of that impacts on learning so is there somewhere that I might have missed or is built into this study framework to address the kind of evaluation those are some of the components that we are addressing we do actually look at that every year that type of information that data regarding the number of students we the students that are struggling to come to school the attendance
063which you mentioned we do have our student attendance provement plans to get the students here and that causes us that framework that allows us to look at the reasoning in the ration a lot of students may not be here a lot of times it does lead to some of the temporary out of district placements some of the neighboring programs that we have our students needs are being met our weekly meetings through our SAS program which people MS hopeless will help in our peoples esteem or mean me and me look at the students in those four large categories the behavior of the attendants the health of Johnson who's been to health and then the attendance and so those four broad categories allow us the team that volunteers are going to be to discuss those students that
064may be struggling in based on one of those four key areas we do give updates to our staff trying to create that and that worthy now he was also our crisis coordinator by our psychologist then because she also works at the high school it allows that continuity as you were saying to talk about those critical areas talk about out loud but that we're addressing looking at our referrals the discipline trying to make sure that our teachers feel comfortable providing some level of using our intermediate units to come in and even though that was like a year hand or two years ago to try to address some of the concerns that the teachers had with some of the behavioral patterns and trends that were our students were exhibiting so well you know I was a former
065emotional support teacher so that really is that the core of everything that I've seen from that lens first and then try to address it outwardly with all the resources and the staff that we have present central level district level we're fortunate to have worthy Laur in our billing formerly twice a week our social emotional learning coach three times a week and then we have our building based icons well of course my job and we do have our emotional support program and 100 is sitting here and the major support their students yeah I mean I I guess I was talking about that in terms of assessing student trends but also assessing school interventions and the effectiveness of those the training that goes into it it's if this is a middle school evaluation we're not just looking
066I think it current student data we're looking at how what we do to address trends we see in student data as a bad sport I was asking his heart is that going to be part of this study is do are we apprise our approach to those trends effective or keeping up with best practice isn't as much and I want to say yes as we have our conversations we are looking at various about everything ties in even with our PTO and I last allowed to see kids meeting with our PTO is what the 17 so on April the 5th we met with our parents just trying to show from another angle how are we supporting our students with our human resources these individuals that are in our building every day how are we providing for those
067needs how are we making sure that the program which is what we're looking at in every aspect how are we keeping up you know I don't want to say latest research but that sounds you know I'm like I don't know it's supposed to be technical but we are looking at every aspect that's what we're hoping that we're bringing forward and we can't report on that okay can I just make one suggestion related to banish it reminded me and you guys may already be all over this but I recently attended the Speak Up event at the middle school which was wonderful and I know a lot of that needs to remain confidential to retain respect and which is a patient of the students who were there but I would hope that as part of you know
068fostering an inclusive culture an environment that you would take some kind of input and that speak up would be willing to give you some kind of high level you know you have a problem in the lunchroom there you know social issues there and that you're incorporating that into the programs I know that it was a very moving and meaningful evening machine it was useful in and of itself so it'll be ashamed to lose that as a resources part yes within the first week or two weeks we have a follow-up meeting with the students just and to get their feedback and then those in charge of the organization speak up with burn occur they then provide those key highlights as best as possible this usually within the five life areas to give us an idea how
069we can go tell what we're doing maybe better and then address anything that may have bubble up in one of the smaller groups we had some teachers and administrators part of those groups as well yes absolutely I just want to make sure that yeah they do far respect the confidentiality so much that we lost some vital information Thanks so I also want a second or third what many of my colleagues have said you know just sort of this really this approach just open approach I suspect what's gonna come out of this is that he wouldn't smile you know there's always room for improvement everywhere so thank you to all of you the team because it does cater a mature person to be able to examine what you're doing that way so we appreciate that alright
070ended any other questions if any other questions come up it would be helpful for us to get them you know because obviously everything that we have so there's something that specifically you're interested I just have one more thing Abraham Lincoln Cent introspection if Thoreau is the first step towards change that brings us to our second public comment as they probably comment at this time we're Lord of winters I just have two comments one is in regard to the study and I think one of the things that would be helpful for those in the audience who are not educators would be to have a list of definitions at the beginning of this study I think it's is a lot of jargon and it's very difficult for people to or not educators to understand what you're doing
071I would also like specifically delineated things like academic excellence organizational structures and processes and an organizational culture and climate I think there's a real broad and probably not too well delineated system which is actually looking at and I didn't have a chance to look at all the questions online but I think those things could be cleaned up because I don't know if you talked about bluebirds robins and vultures or you're talking about you know bottom-up top-down you know flower organizations I don't know what you're doing so it's really be helpful to me as someone who's looking at this from the outside wondering exactly what it is you're examining and I think things like you know the grouping practices are very important when you're looking at things like climate and culture and those things need to
072really be examined because I know from what I've read about educational groupings it can mimic other kinds of social patterns further in terms of what you discussed the previous meeting at the minutes I did mention another medium who's the Finance Committee and I'm concerned about the cost of the technology which is would be group on our community and their parent and I think we need to think long and hard about a final instructional piece of equipment as you do with textbooks that we provide and passing that on to parents in our community all of whom are not necessarily able to afford that or all torch and crown for how to say that one is that I think it'd be helpful I know for me a presidental page I'm always interested in student grows across the
073board in general and children with GI ApS in particular the last time I actually saw graphics with growth data was probably seven or eight years ago dr. McGuire did it I don't think there's been one sense that was really helpful for us to know so I hope at some point there could be a presentation that way my second comment is about I know the schedule was really tight at the middle school but I hope that they find room for enrichment through the Arts and what in the needs of assembly is that it can be helpful I don't see a lot of art component and steam it seems to be focused mostly on science technology so I'd like to see what and the PTO funds this kinds of things and so I'd like to see room
074for arts immersion