001we'll call this regular board of education meeting to order i want to welcome everyone thank you for joining us tonight and if we could please stand we'll have mr michael martin lead us in the pledge of allegiance [Music] i have a motion to approve the agenda second second any discussion um mr president i do need to remove um the consent agenda sorry the payment that the payment i item seven a seven dollar consent today beforehand due to conflict of interest any other discussion all those in favor of the agenda all right opposed motion carries unanimously our next item is the public hearing on the school calendar for 2022 2023 and ms tana burkhart assistant superintendent of teaching and learning will come forward to present that good evening dr gilpin dr murphy and members of the
002board of ed before you is the second presentation for our calendar proposed calendar for the 2022-2023 school year would like to share a few highlights of the calendar for this year we did have a very diverse committee that worked together to establish the calendar is very similar to this year's calendar teachers will begin on monday august the 15th the first week for teachers they will have five days before students come to prepare for their lessons that will have faculty senate professional meetings professional learning opportunities as well as student orientation the first day for students proposed first day is monday august the 22nd within the calendar we have six faculty senate scheduled every other month that is proposed by law for those will be two hour early dismissals we do have an election day this year
003which is on tuesday november the 8th we have proposed thanksgiving break again will be a week long starting on november the 21st uh winter break will start friday december the 23rd staff will report back to school on january 3rd for a professional learning day this was something that was highly recommended by parents and service personnel and the staff it's something they really liked to prepare for the next semester january 3rd will be a professional learning day we have a curriculum development day on friday april 7th 2023 which again is another workday for staff with new students spring break is scheduled for april 10th through the 14th 2023 and our tenants of last day for students will be friday may the 26th um we also have uh non-traditional accrued instructional days available for the first five
004snow days and uh the second five snow days would be a synchronous learning date if needed that's very similar to the calendar that we had this year thank you we need to wait until 7. so we're going to take a little break uh and then we'll start recognitions at uh close to seven maybe a little bit before okay we'll go ahead and resume our meeting our next item are recognitions and the first is student recognitions and mr ron lyons principal at hedgesville high school will come forward to recognize a couple of our students good evening thanks for having us um it is a great honor to be here tonight uh with two fine hedgesville high school students uh danica props and chase snyder they are both a semi-finalist in the u.s presidential scholar program the
005u.s presidential scholar program was established in 1964 by lyndon johnson the president then and each year it recognizes the outstanding students from each state and each high school there you know over 24 000 high schools in our country each high school gets to select three for berkeley county we have two of these semi-finalists for our state the state has about 70 i think but berkeley county's only two semi-finalists are here with me tonight and i'd like to introduce them danica is a senior she has a whopping 4.59 gpa she has been named an ap scholar of distinction she is a true leader in our school community she serves on berkeley county school student advisory committee she's the treasurer of the class of 2022 and she truly is just a natural leader very quiet unassuming but
006a real go-getter at the same time she is a standout on our volleyball team which was the state runner-up and she plans on attending west virginia wesleyan and majoring in communication communication with a minor in pre-law as of now still still as of right now she plans to uh become a speech pathologist and that would she would be truly uh great at that as she would be at anything she decides to do i also have chase snyder with me chase is a senior he was a cte qualifier a career and technical education qualifier one of five from the state of west virginia and has been named to the national technical honor society next week he competes in the state robotics championship at fairmont chase has been active in the national vex robotics competitions competing with
007clubs not only from west virginia but also the world last we were just talking they virtually last year correct and not sure how you do that but he was able to do it if anybody could it would be chase um chase uh was talking to me and said that since watching transformers as a little kid he has been fascinated with robotics so uh it's it's neat to see a childhood kind of moment lead to a lifelong fascination with robots chase is working on his faa certification to become a drone pilot and is osha certified in safety management it's amazing how much our students can do at a young age chase has been a standout on our track and cross-country teams and plans to attend shepherd university next year majoring in computer engineering so i am
008proud to have both of these students at hedgesville high school and they are truly fine examples of what berkeley county schools can produce and they do produce so congratulations [Applause] so chase and danica congratulations and thank you for joining us tonight do you guys have uh friends and family with you if if so have them please stand [Applause] congratulations again and good luck our next item is a caring educator award and principal krista emitrudo will come forward to present that good evening dr gilpin dr murphy distinguished board members and senior staff it is an honor and a privilege to present the march 2022 ace award to mr houston johnson mr johnson has been a reading specialist for berkeley county schools for the past eight years having worked solely at opequen he is a nationally board
009certified teacher and an active member of our school leadership team i playfully refer to him as mr o'pekken because he consistently seeks innovative ways to improve our building for our students and our staff mr johnson is extremely nurturing and creates a positive environment for the students that he services he actively collaborates with the teachers on the kindergarten team and has worked hard to help streamline the data collection process for academic interventions not only does mr johnson serve as an instructional leader but he also takes immense pride in our school community last year he worked with the capen institute to plant 16 trees on the grounds of opequen he was responsible for writing the proposal coordinating with the cacapen institute creating a planting schedule for all classrooms and for the maintenance of those trees a few
010weeks ago we received official notice that opequen elementary had been selected to receive a kit of 24 additional trees through the capen institute and their partnership with west virginia project community they advanced mr johnson's award because they strongly believe in his ability to engage our community in volunteerism and education as we work to build communities from the roots up we look forward to the planting of the additional trees which will take place under mr johnson's leadership in april additionally mr johnson is collaborating with the leadership team and administration on future upgrades to our playground proud to be able to share with you the wonderful attributes that mr johnson brings to a peckin each day i proudly present the caring educator award for the month of march 2022 to mr houston johnson mr johnson thank you
011so much for all that you do for our students and then for that school and uh do you have any friends or family with you here tonight thank you for joining us we appreciate all that you do we really do our next item is volunteer of the month and an interim principal at berkeley heights elementary mr chad pence will come forward to present that honor good evening dr murphy dr gilpin and board members over the course of this school year um the west virginia air national guard chief master sergeant billy gillenwater here um and two additional guardsmen have been visiting berkeley heights classrooms um teaching our students to become well-rounded individuals they are past trained volunteers and have also been mentoring students they have been educating and supporting our children in the following ways teaching
012adaptive skills such as proper hand washing bathroom procedures oral hygiene which are very important in elementary school along with pbis re-teach instructions teaching social skills including sharing taking turns making friends and personal space which was very important during the pandemic development of greater self-esteem and self-confidence to effectively cope with anxiety and enhance their decision-making and problem-solving skills teaching interpersonal skills that allow students to develop meaningful relationships as well as more reflective skills that allow them to see their actions and their responses teaching students how to make good decisions which is very important and the consequences of making inappropriate decisions teaching us flag code flag folding teaching military history and tradition have also been some lessons that they have taught their main goal is to ensure students are intellectually challenged as well as emotionally engaged and
013supported so that they can they will so they are enjoying school being challenged and most importantly achieving all right it gives me great pleasure pleasure uh to present the volunteer of the month award to chief sergeant billy gillenwater thank you so much for all that you do in our schools we really appreciate it thank you and thank you for serving our next item is citizens forum citizens forum is a time for the public desiring to address the board on any topic at a regular meeting to keep time for the citizens forum to a reasonable level we will allow two minutes per speaker during our regular meeting the board shall not consider discuss or take action on items addressed during citizens forum that do not appear on tonight's meeting agenda our first speaker is mr damon
014wright good evening as many of you know my father is a pastor here in berkeley county and has been for over 40 years i bring that up because one thing he says often and he actually said on our last service is not to take his word on what he's preaching he implores us to research the bible and what he says and what he says ourselves he doesn't want us to take scripture out of context by failing to read the entire verse the surrounding verses or chapters i say all this because since 2020 we have seen a huge uptick in the number of experts in first medicine then voting the constitution and our founding fathers marxism socialism and now education and oil and gas the problem is that so many are calling for research but unfortunately
015like many in and out of the church that research doesn't occur we throw out questions and innuendos but fail to look up the answer or say how we plan on fixing the problem the teachers staff and administration are available to answer questions yet so few take the opportunity to take advantage of their attempted transparency now can they be more transparent certainly and i certainly want to push for an easier to navigate website and ability to search the site for the data and information that parents in the community can use to make informed decisions a community that feels informed is a community that will be more responsive to the needs of everyone i'm asking that this board and this administration do all they can to update the website and update the community on what is going
016on in terms of recruiting and retention from our hr department so that they can feel that there's our county is moving in the right direction when people don't have the information then that's when speculation starts that's when conspiracy theories start so i'm just trying to hope that you all will push for more information to get out there and in different ways i understand parents get inundated with a lot of information but if if it's put out there then nobody can say it wasn't provided it can be if it's provided and we don't take advantage of it as parents that's our fault thank you for letting me speak rebecca dunmeyer our country has been in um infected with a disease america the beautiful has a lethal cancer that is metastasizing throughout our entire uh society uh
017including west point critical race theory is a revolutionary destructive marcus ideology that claims america was born into racism and everything about it is racing racist and that it must be destroyed its goal is to turn non-whites into victims who are easier to control and all whites as oppressors children naturally get along with each other and i i wish that we would not use our children to push an evil agenda let the kids alone and let the kids be kids schools are targeted because these extremists have access to every child to spread their dangerous policies we in berkeley county have been duped in four ways i'll mention masks were not mandated by the state and other counties were not wearing masks the bluest eye was put in there without parental knowledge and if parents want their
018children to read that book then read it at home and nobody will object to it number three transgender bathrooms was a virginia court case and had nothing to do with west virginia the name crt number four the name crt and diversity council have been changed but the agenda is still the same a skunk by any other name is still a skunk berkeley county has intelligent capable leaders to fill board positions without recruiting from another state west virginia sandwich between virginia and maryland two states that are the most steep in crt our location in fast growth make berkeley county a prime target for their radically and for brainwashing our children's club of america and [Music] orientation [Music] white people in 2021 governor ralph northern signed into law hb 1904 requiring closing uh companies for teachers to
019get their way did you know that math is also racist i don't remember who said it or where it was said but quote somebody said quote when you put your child in automatically [Music] adults recepts due not for class may 10th the most important vote for the characters will cast is for the berkeley county board there will be four conservative candidates who will be open and honest with no hidden agenda you have a chance to make critical changes as berkeley county goes out [Music] thanks don meyer thank you our next item is the consent agenda contained in the consent agenda are the minutes of the regular meeting held on february 21st we have 15 schools with chaperone requests we have no student transfer requests we have eight curricular and extracurricular trip requests we have no
020past volunteers we have two use of school properties we have the budget supplements and transfers and then we will vote on payment of the bills and approval of invoices separately so can i have a motion to accept these uh contained consent agenda a second second any discussion uh just one question with the fuel costs going up i was just wondering how how that's impacting our budget do we have to pay additional fuel costs this year i know we have a bid that says we pay so much above the winning price now just wondering how the fuel things are how it's impacting our budget mr butts is here i'm going to ask him to respond to that question sure uh mr murphy you're absolutely right fuel costs have gone up uh we do have a derivative
021based bid on what we pay and i believe last month of february our price for these i think was 308 a gallon so it's still considerably less than what's on the open market but it is an increase of what we've been paying prior to the increases well well if if it continues as it appears it's going to continue rising i know we're reimbursed at i think 85 percent of whatever the transportation cost says but that's the next year correct it's 87.5 reimbursement in state as long as you're under your cap and it'd be the next fiscal year not 2023 but 2024. yeah so so we will have to pay the difference this year and recoup the difference next year as long as we don't exceed the cap correct okay so you'll give us an update
022on that uh particular item as we go through this yes certainly as we look into the budget for 2023 we'll be looking at food costs fuel costs utility costs in that process yes thank you sir any other discussion all those in favor of the consent agenda opposed motion carries unanimously and then we will vote separately as an item under the consent agenda but we'll break this out payment of the bills and approval of invoices do i have a motion to accept that so moved second motion in a second any discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously our next item are the monitoring items ms anne lasky mathematics specialist will come forward to present the mathematics update [Music] superintendent murphy dr gilpin board of education and honored guest i am man lasky the mathematics
023instructional specialist for berkey county schools and i'm here tonight to celebrate math in berkeley county schools see if it's gonna be my friend thank you sharon all right so my goal is for tonight is to celebrate the gains we have made this year on mathematics achievement to continue the continued success we're having with the math recovery professional development we want to celebrate our math elites from math olympiad and math field day and also we want to celebrate our secondary math cohort for new uh secondary math teachers and long-term substitutes all right so we're going to begin with our celebrations of the gains we're making in math after my presentation robin lopez will give you more specific details about the data i just want to highlight some positive gains that we are having so in star
024mat all students in grades one through five increased um we increased the number of students performing at or above grade level our uh highlighted group is second grade they had the highest gains so far with 13 percentage points we are piloting a new assessment called let's go learn and we have four schools that are piloting that for us this year and they are eagle school intermediate or tribute intermediate fat creek valley winchester ave marlow elementary and valley view so in those pilot schools grades one two three and four are on track to meet at least one year's growth and currently their growth is 4.7 months at the secondary level we are seeing some great greens there also the average growth with ixl math is what we're using to assess them and they have grown so
025far 4.7 months our highlighted group for this group is the sixth graders the sixth graders are actually gaining 8.1 months of growth and the other group that's having some great growth is 9th graders so they have 5.7 months of growth and 3 out of 4 high schools are on track to exceed over a year's growth this year so plenty to celebrate with our students and their achievement all right so now i would like to talk about what i feel is one of our factors to growth at the elementary level and is due to the math recovery training that we are having for interventionists and teachers so last spring i spoke to you about math recovery which is a professional development that focuses on educator development student assessment and instructional strategies it is not a curriculum
026a set of activities or just an additional program for our teachers so this past january there's a picture of dottie pannell she's now the academic coach at opequen elementary she has become a math recovery champion and this enables dottie to train our own berkeley county teachers in math recovery for much more reasonable cost and of course training in a more timely manner so i'm proud to announce that dottie is the only math recovery champion in the state of west virginia so with that help from dottie all our math interventionists have been trained in the foundation course math recovery course one um she will be training the intermediate math intervention starting next week on course two and another highlight is last summer summer of 2021 the whole entire staff at opekin elementary has been trained in
027math recovery course one so i just want to read some feedback we've received from one of our interventionists so cheryl brooks she's an interventionist in our county and this is her evaluation of dottie pannell's class and the math recovery she states the class provided tools to assess student learning needs in much greater detail than any other math training i've ever received i now understand how to assess students in a way that guides instruction that is specific to each student's needs and that's end quote all right and i also want to highlight another system story with math recovery so here's a picture of patrick pouschak who's the math interventionist ceo pecking elementary patrick began this semester with 45 second graders on his roster so he's been working with these students three to five days a week
02830 minutes each time using the knowledge he gained from math recovery so i'm happy to report that 10 of his students of these second graders have exited intervention so they've met math the math recovery criteria and are no longer in the bottom 40 percentile as the as identified by star math which is huge all right so moving on to celebrate our math elites so i have a few math problems up here i know mr beckwith has already worked on them so um um so these problems are something called math olympiad so math olympiad is a problem-solving competition it's across the united states and across the world students in grades four to eight compete in this monthly contest so these are three problems that were just on the most recent math olympiad contest and i really
029want to highlight these two groups of kids so i have my own unofficial berkeley county math olympiad competition where i take the top 10 scores of each team each month and honor them so since 2015 eagle schools fourth and fifth grade students have excelled at this competition and this is due to their work of on the left my left is mr brian hot and his current fourth grade students and on the right is the fifth grade students and mrs rachel yates so they have done an outstanding job with olympiad and their kids are excelling so i recently asked mr hott why he thought the math olympiad competition was important for his kids and his response was i think olympiad is empowering most of them come to be being afraid and lacking mathematical self-confidence usually thinking
030is saying i can't do that once they see their first sample olympiad problem my reply is as soon as you think or say you can't a section of your brain has already been turned off to the idea instead we need to start thinking and saying how can i solve this so he feels olympiad bonds us as a classroom family and helps to give my students the skills from solving mathematics creatively stimulates enthusiasm and a love for the subject overall and it makes them better mathematicians i think it is fair to say they leave me each year fearing math is significantly less and loving it a whole lot more and olympia is a huge part of it so congratulations to both those groups of kids all right my other group is we were very very excited
031this year that we were able to hold a county math field day last year due to covet we had individual competitions in the schools but this year we were able to bring the kids back together so here are some photos from this year's groups so just a little background students in grades four to eight they complete estimation activities mental exact questions and a written exam in ninth grade they complete estimation and mental exact questions open-ended questions and a written exam in students in grades 10 to 12 complete complete open-ended questions and a written exam the high schoolers also compete in the berkeley county math field day relay in which hedges the high school this year won the math field they cut nest them on the bottom we always i always recognize the top ten at
032each grade level all right so math field day is not over yet on on march 14th um our top three students each grade four through nine and our top ten students grades ten through twelve will compete in regional math field day at potomac state uh the top three students from each from the regional math field day will move on to complete compete at state math field day at wvu on april 23rd all right and my last celebration is i want to continue um celebrating the work we're doing in the secondary level so we all know recruiting mathematics teachers is a is a struggle nationally so for the past two years we've had a cohort for new secondary math teachers that's led by experienced berkeley county school teachers and these lead teachers meet with our new
033teachers and long-term substitutes prior to the start of the year each nine weeks and are available throughout the school year in addition they post their lesson plans pacing suggestions instructional materials and strategy in our schoology group for these teachers and they all the feedback i get from these new teachers is oh that cohort is very helpful this this has really made me feel comfortable and i'm able to help the students and on the right i just want to give a special shout out to since august so prior to the new secondary math cohort since august of 2016 that's a picture of debbie sanders who was retired department chair for martinsburg high school who has been mentoring with me all the new math teachers and long term subs since that time and she's been invaluable with
034classroom visits lesson planning curriculum support professional development anything that i would need or they would need to be successful so debbie is uh officially retiring and so we thank her for all that she's done for us so what's next so for next year we are still um with the success of math recovery we are going to continue working that with that with our teachers we're going to train all the academic coaches next year and any math interventions we have starting this summer we are going to start working with our new k5 teachers on instructional strategies for to be successful math teachers uh we're going to continue our new new teacher for secondary math cohorts and of course the most important thing is something many people in berkeley county hear me say we promote a positive
035mindset towards mathematics and berkeley county schools since we're all mathematicians so thank you for your time and if you have any questions i'm happy to answer them the answers to the three questions would you like the answer sir did you work on that i worked on it but i would say let me i have them for you because i know let me find that slide paper for you so um the first one should be 444. um the second one is 47 and then the last one there are 25 pollen groups so i can send you the solution [Laughter] they're very they're very they're very hard questions and as the kids do an outstanding job on those which uh i saw the pilot program marlow and a couple of winchester avenue what's the have you reached
036a conclusion [Music] we are honest i'll be honest with you we've been working with those and there's a component of matthew so that the assessment is very good very detailed but there's a part that gives lessons to the children on the ipads and honestly the ipads in this program are not talking to each other very nicely so that's a big stickler right now is um if that part doesn't work then the program's not as useful as it could be right so that's the discussion i'm having right now with the company before we move forward and my last question is over the years you know we've jumped from this to that trellis multiplication i think it was called and are we trying to work with ma work in math with the understanding that the parents need
037to understand so that they can help the child and not be frustrated by what they don't understand because it's so we we um and the pandemic has maybe been a little bit hampering but we have um tried to working with the elementary with their parent nights um i think the virtual tutoring that we now have in the evening is help with that significantly so if a parent's frustrated um or they're having trouble they can just get a virtual tutor for their student they can just their child right there that evening they don't have to travel anywhere in fact danica props who we honored earlier is actually one of the tutors on the virtual tutoring program so she's been playing a big role so it's important i mean yeah if we want their support we have
038to understand their their dilemma trying to teach their child help their child especially during that time that we were at home we did a lot with on schoology and videos and to help parents feel more comfortable because they're comfortable when the child's comfortable right so thank you you're welcome any other questions thank you our next item is the quarterly academic monitoring report and this is robin lopez director of account assessment and accountability will come forward to present that sharon i may need help with this clicker good evening president gilpin board members superintendent murphy administrative staff this evening i'm presenting the winter benchmark monitoring report data was collected during the middle of the year benchmark window which began on january 4th and ended on february 14th this data is being compared to the data collected during
039the beginning of the year benchmark window and i presented that data to the board on november 15th our end of the year benchmark will take place april 7th through may 27th so to date we've completed the beginning of the year benchmark and the middle of the year benchmark and then the end of the year benchmark will occur during the dates that i have up on the screen we have placed emphasis on formative assessment to collect data on student learning and to inform instruction as well as next steps for learning for planning as well as planning next steps for learning in math and english language arts and literacy our formative assessments that we have implemented this year are scholastic reading measures in grades one through five next steps guided reading grades k5 and those two assessments
040came with our newly adopted tests which is the scholastic reading star math in grades one through five let's go learn math for grades k5 which is a pilot and mrs lasky went through the schools that are currently uh piloting that program we have ixl for ela and mathematics in grades 6 through 12 and we are doing the psat 8 9 for grade 9 and the psat nms qt for grades 10 and 11 and that data was provided in your notebooks at the last meeting in november however uh our next data point on that will be uh at april 28th so we will actually take the second assessment in regards to those for the secondary at the high school level on october 2017 april 26th uh as i move through the presentation this evening i just
041wanted to point out some acronyms that you'll see on the slides as well as hearing me referring to the data the boi is beginning of the year data moi is middle of the year data and lex [Music] and the lexiles um are majors that are are used universally across the assessments and they serve two purposes they measure how difficult a text is and they also measure a student's independent reading level the first day i want to call your attention to is the scholastic reading measures and this is the comparison from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year for grades one through five and you can see across all grade levels we had an increase um and our most significant increase uh increases were at first grade and third grade and uh
042their hat was growth across the board um when we look at the scholastic reading measures and and we look at that at the scores a little more a hundred points equals one year's growth so when you're looking at this chart it shows the number of students that made gains greater than 99 and then also then you can see in terms of how that has calculated into a percent so if we look over at the total for the district we had 1 457 students that made growth greater than 99 points and that it was for 27 of that our total population but then you can see then by grade level the percentage of students that have made growth greater than 99 points so these students would definitely they're already at the midpoint making that year's growth
043so these these students would then be expected to exceed one year's worth of growth let me ask you okay if we average 1500 students at grade level with 13 i'm counting 13 grades and so i'm looking here i was looking at this earlier [Music] so this just reflects if we have 1500 students per grade just a very small percentage of the total mass right yes but these are the students that are making greater than 99 points in growth so uh the i do have a chart um in terms of the the next steps guided reading assessment that will also show you growth as well students are making growth but these we are just spotlighting right here on the state of the students that are making that are already making that one year's worth of growth
044yeah i was looking i mean 389 and i i thought well what about the other 1100 students that's that was right exactly and as i'm saying you know they are making growth they may not be making growth at greater than 99 points at this point so you'll tell us that in a later slide well in terms of except different assessment because when we're looking at the scholastic reading measures we're looking at students independent reading level and and typically an independent reading level is a year to two years below their grade level because we want them to be able to read fluently and comprehend independently so this is really what's very important about this data is it helps us to match students to just write books so that when they're in the classroom they can get
045that level of practice that repeated practice that they need to become um better readers and continue to close the gap but this this is the cream yes these are the these are the students that are that have made at mid-year okay greater than 99 points um but with that being said we are aware that you know we do have work to do and and and to continue to grow all students this slide is the second assessment that we do with our students with scholastic reading it's referred to as next steps guided reading assessment and this assessment um looks at the student's instructional reading level and this is where we meet the students where they are and the text that the student typically is is using is slightly beyond what they can handle independently so the
046teacher works with students in small groups and provides scaffolding and support through instruction as you can see with this data once again we are showing gains across the board except in one grade level and uh it needs to be recognized that we have made significant growth at our primary levels k1 and 2. all right when we look at this data on this slide once again this is data from the next steps guided reading assessment and this is showing reading level growth so if you look at zero to two range meaning students have gained zero to two reading levels since the beginning of the year to middle of the year 72 percent of our students have grown somewhere within that range 21 of our students have grown three to five reading levels four percent of our
047students have grown six to eight reading levels and one percent of our students have grown 9 to 11 reading levels from beginning of the year to middle of the year as we transition to the next slides we are going to look at the secondary data in terms of ela and when we look at the comparison with ixl you can see that we have made gains once again across the board from 6th through 12th grade but when we look at the average of the ela growth you can definitely see that the middle schools are are doing extremely well at sixth grade and spotlighted sixth grade for math but sixth grade also is is a spotlight for us here with ixl they have made 9.3 months worth of growth since the beginning of the year to the
048middle of the year and then you can see seventh grade made seven months and eighth grade made five months worth of growth when you're looking at the ixl data they look at it and you know 10 points equals one month's worth of growth robin yes so i'm understanding this correctly um all these slides are based on students that are achieved greater than um 99 points correct no that that was only jackie that was specifically to the scholastic reading measures i just want to be sure yeah i'm understanding correctly and why did the 12th grade loose i mean what yeah why does it minus it sounds like the longer they go to school the worse it gets they're diving here should they stay home improve or should they come to school and slide any any uh
049generalizations from the high schools you know that is something that you know when we meet with the high schools and we present the data and give them the opportunity to to ask questions about the data and to try to arrive at answers that will be part of our conversations with them the one thing that i can tell you is that the the practice piece in the and the usage at 9 through 12 is not as significant at six through eight so when it when we take our our mid-year bench when we take our benchmarks i i think that is impacting performance at nine through twelve uh because at the middle school uh i think that the usage in the practice pieces is is being used um more daily than at grades nine through twelve nine
050through twelve it you are using various things uh they they use khan academy to really guide their work and their practice so uh especially at grades 11 and 12. once again you'll see that at grades 9 and 10 the usage in the practice is stronger there at the high school level but as they move up through the grade levels i think that the usage and the practice is a little bit less than in the other grades because they are more focused on on the khan academy and then also the college board um uh practice assessments that they have in place you just think if they have the khan academy then it's helping and i've heard people say that i've heard the high school principles and the middle school principles very high on ixl more so
051than we heard uh on scholastic at the lower grade levels but but that was the beginning of the year it was due and mr murphy i will address that the one thing that i can tell you since i it was a huge shift for our teachers at the elementary level and what we were asking them to do in terms of of assessing um and really and truly especially for that next steps guided reading portion or assessment because that is administered one-on-one with the students but really and truly what i'm hearing when i'm out in the schools and when i'm in meetings and with various teachers i'm the one consistent thing that i have been hearing is that they're saying they know their students much more deeply than they ever had and that they're able to
052make better instructional decisions for those students in terms of the types of text to put in place for those students so i really feel like the data shows that that we are seeing that growth because of the assessments that we have in place and i have also heard uh teachers speaking um now that they're they've gotten accustomed to it and our this last benchmark uh went much smoother than the previous one and they're seeing the value in the data and the impact that it's having on on teaching and learning in the classroom just should we have i i don't expect this answer now should we have a follow-up training for elementary people with the scholastic series that's it that's in place you know that we are going to consistently have joint trainings you know uh
053for our for our new hires as well as our our returning teachers our veteran teachers uh so that they're that they're constantly building their capacity to to understand not only the assessments but then the data from the assessments and and how to use that data to drive that instruction so the goal is that we will continue to provide a professional learning to all staff at the elementary level yes i can also speak to that um it's not just going to be a one and done uh we will have sustainable professional development for everyone not only throughout this year throughout the summer and into the next year as well as foreign futures yes so often when you've received a new reading series or something they did it at the first of the week when you were
054trying to get your room ready and everything else you're unfamiliar with the material and by the time you're familiar with it you forgot what the presenters the salesman had told you and you might see the need for it and adapt to it if you have another exposure to that mrs beckman has done an excellent job of working with scholastic in setting up trainings throughout the course of the year not only for our teachers but for our administrators to help our administrators and to understand the program and so that they have that lens to go through the when they go through the walk-throughs in the classrooms they have a lens in terms of what they should be looking for um as well as um professional learning uh with our coaches and scholastic so we have that
055component in place so we have various components in place with scholastic to support us collectively and not just a one a small group so it's the teachers it's the administrators it's the coaches and those of us at the central office also participate in those trainings as well to build our capacity so we really are collectively um participating in pl and the plan is in place to continue that as mrs miss burkhart said to for that consistency and sustainability um the next slide shows then that the picture of ixl for math for grades 6 through 12. once again you can see that that we had growth across the boards but once again 12th grade it tends to also be a problem for us at um at the high school level but once again as ms lasky
056said you know sixth grade is definitely a a highlight for us uh and then ninth grade is is definitely a highlight for us with the with the math data from ixo i've heard such good things about ixl that the middle schools especially we're in the high schools just brag about it so it must be working well it it really is doing a very nice job and our middle schools have really embraced it and they uh that their usage and then and their practice is is definitely carrying over and transferring into the data at our benchmark assessments and as i said you know at the high school level we do see good good usage at grades 9 and 10 a little more so than at grades 11 and 12. but once again you will see that
057that we are showing gains and that that goes back to the the teachers using using the the results of that data to drive their instruction our star math this is the picture for starmath at the beginning of the year we had 55 of our students that were at or above grade level and at the middle of the year we had 62 percent of our students at our above grade level with the seven percentage point gained from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year and then once again you can see from first through fifth grade we made gains across the board this is the picture of the let's go learn pilot for schools one difference for let's go learn uh is that we do assess kindergarten and we're at star math we're
058looking at grades one through five with the let's go learn we're looking at grades k5 and you can see once again that we are showing growth across the board uh second grade as well um and i meant to point this out previously and i think that ann mentioned it you know second grade was very strong on star and once again second grade is very strong for us on let's go learn so overall you have first second third and fourth grade making at least a half a year's growth so they are on track for that one year's worth of growth a second grade is looks to that they may exceed that one year's worth of growth are we going to see like mr clark davis earlier the school bus school group when i'm finished i'll hand
059it for you to hand out that data for you for your notebook um and went through and sort of highlighted the celebrations uh for math but the one the biggest celebration is that we are closing the gap our data shows that with the ixl in terms of the ela our total average growth uh is five months three schools had over one year's worth of growth and all are on target to make at least one year's worth of growth at the middle school level uh scholastic reading measures third grade is performing the strongest and with our nsgra that next steps guided reading assessment out of 6843 test takers 6655 increased in guided reading levels so these are just a few of the celebrations that we wanted to point out tonight but the biggest celebration is that
060you our data clearly shows that we are closing the gap we are making gains we are seeing growth um with our students and we're not going to be changing tests anytime soon uh in terms of the formative assessments well i mean that was one of the problems we'd take one we did one test and then a year or two later we switched tests we didn't have a consistent growth pattern at this point in time i we are we are planning to remain consistent with um our reading and with the ixl at the secondary level uh as ms lasky referred to you know in terms of making that decision between star and let's go learn and even though the data is very good that we get from let's go learn and the reports are very good
061that there is a there is an issue with the the performance of the platform um the talking i think is the way she described that so that will have to make have a decision made there in terms of where we are going to go with the elementary and the assessment that we're going to use with um the elementary level so elementary math let's go learn versus star is still in flux we're actually looking at isl for the elementary map as well it is an option and it's been so successful oh excellent i think the whole realm for this was the star map it can give us really consistent data and we really couldn't use that diagnostic tool to kind of guide our teaching and the ixl program with the experiences we've had with the other
062grades has been very consistent lots of practice lots of independent work for the students and of course what about the bubble with the virtual year are you seeing that in this data the white i'm sorry the bubble of one year was just virtual last year was all virtual and i mean there's going to be studies on that on that generation for years to come and everything actually on the news this evening on the channel 7 news they were reporting on the the the effects of um the pandemic and the learning loss research tends to say that you know it's going to take us three years to recover you know just in general um but i i feel very positive in in just what we've accomplished from the beginning of the year to the middle of
063the year with our data in terms of seeing that you know when you think about this that mid-year growth you are looking at you know five months that's what you're that's what your target is and you can see through the data that we consistently had that uh almost across the board and so um i you know i think once again um our teachers are doing an outstanding job in the classroom to to really um work with our students and to to continue to move them forward we're going to have to from my time back in the classroom i remember as a teacher from christmas the spring break is a tough period of time to teach the kids they get antsy you have more behavior problems and everything else we're going to have to watch the
064mercury in the thermometer and try to jump in and help them because this is the period that when the teachers i'm worried about the great resignation and people just getting discouraged you know the lack of substitutes uh the people not being able to do their planning period and get ready for other things so i heard one today it's it's just this is a period of time that we have to try to jump in and keep the morale of the teachers up to support for them if they have behavior problems that they need they need to get so they can focus on this period when the children are having what i call spring fever and uh we have to have to help them out i think the one thing with our with the formative assessments that
065we do have in place um it will allow us to to really um know those students and be able to to plan our instruction accordingly to continue to make help our students to make progress so in terms of of the this time period for our students i think these formative assessments are the right tools to have in place to really guide our work and to help teachers to guide their work and it also will help teachers to plan more effectively and narrow their planning because they'll be able to use the data to guide that planning but they're not getting their planning time to plan and that's one of the big concerns it's not cheryl's fault it's it's the shortage of substitutes mr butts correctly told me a couple months ago we took our substitutes from
066the past and made them academic coaches and these other people that are covered related so we're short of substitutes but we have to we have to keep our ear on the rail here and try to help them and be reacting because we're going to have a whole new crop of teachers in the future if we don't and i think ms varchar has has been an excellent support to the teachers and to the principles and and and really um providing the support through the department you know in terms of of assisting with substituting when needed and and she's done an excellent job and really and truly trying to to provide that support from teaching and learning it's evident that the interventionists are helping tremendously so interventionists and coaches and the interventions in the academic coaching has
067been a huge impact on on on the work that's occurring because i have heard good things from principals so about that yes but also self-care for our staff members and a number of our principals have used that patent and some of the methods and strategies he has to help work with students as well as coping with the challenges that we face but we are making achievement think teachers for the most part the behaviors have started to subside a little bit very challenging but uh of course you know when the spring comes they get excited and you know we always have challenges in the spring but i really think we're on the right track we're moving forward um we are trying to provide as much you know emotional support for the teachers in the classroom they've
068done a fantastic job supporting student learning with the challenges we had to face and the substitute shortage so we will continue to do that continue to grow from the high school scores block scheduling uh is is this an adjustment for staff to you know have that i mean i know it's well it is related to the test scores so any comment about block scheduling at the hospital high school teachers enjoy the scheduling as well as the students and we have a student advisory group that we meet with and they they have enjoyed that block scheduling i think it was an adjustment at the end of the year for the teachers because they went from teaching from 40 minutes to 90. um so they had to adjust with that and and i think the students had
069to as well otherwise but for the most part everyone on both sides are very positive about it and it does provide them more opportunities to thank you guys one question please be a quick one i think uh there's always a concern that students don't take the standardized tests seriously i assume they won't think it reflects on them it does reflect on the school maybe the teachers but they think i get a piece of paper with a score on it but it's taking them a report card i assume the data teams and teachers go on a live-a-line basis and look at students and kind of see if that's where they thought what thought they would score that as you might see a student that's been a straight-a math student and they don't perform in the math
070part well at all so you think i wonder if they would take something else was going on or they weren't taking it seriously is it pretty obvious to a teacher that you can kind of predict where the student's score built a relationship with that if going to student and knows that student well yes they would be able to tell how that student would perform some students aren't protesting they might do great one-on-one with you but they get you know independently and they struggle a little bit so yes i think that a teacher can determine that you just just anticipated part two of the question thank you thank you next item are the action items contracted sign language interpreting services mr david dilley assistant superintendent will come forward to make that presentation good evening dr murphy
071dr gilpin and board members don't special ed accepted bids on december 3rd the rfp was to obtain contracted bids for nursing services and sign language interpreters the contracts once initiated upon board approval will run through the school year and have options of renewing up to three years the osc or office of special ed respectively recommends the following contracts to be approved sign language interpreters services from deafnet the better and are only better what came in at 75 per hour and we did not receive any nursing service bids so that is our recommendation recommendation for tonight is defnet for 75 an hour can i have a motion to accept the contracted sign language interpreting services bid at 75 per hour so a second second any discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously thank you
072mr dilling our next item our ipad purchase for pilot schools this miranda ralph assistant director of instructional technology will come forward to present that good evening dr gilpin board members dr murphy and senior staff tonight i'm here seeking approval to purchase 3 000 ipads for our three secondary schools that are currently in our ipad program if you recall last year you approved step one of this pilot which was to purchase ipads for all teachers at martinsburg high south middle school and musselman middle school this year we are looking to purchase ipads as replacement devices for the students in those same three buildings the expected expense totals one million three hundred and eighty eight thousand fifty two dollars the focus of this pilot is to examine how the devices change instruction focusing on the four series
073of technology collaboration critical thinking creativity and communication any questions are we losing many of these devices not just this but are you do you have a picture of what's going on the whole county so there is i mean obviously when we start doing inventory last year was a bit of a struggle with covid the last two years with our elementary levels they always take those back because those students don't take them home but at the secondary level we are doing a constant roll of device checks and they do them throughout the year we collect for this year we're going to collect at the end of the year every student device and do a clean overhaul of inventory for the most part we're looking pretty good there's always that population of student that maybe transfers or
074they drop to home school and we have to do some investigative work our information technology team handles that and a lot of times they're very much a detective and we have to backtrack to find those and get those devices back we're very blessed with the technology that we have we can turn those off and disable them so they really are of no good to anyone and it's funny how when we do that when we put them into that lost mode magically sometimes they reappear fairly quickly so that is definitely a good thing that we have the ability to be able to do you you talked about inventory there's a lot of time involved in that there's a tremendous amount of time involved in that and to be completely honest with you we just had a
075meeting today with the information technology team the team that i work with in on the ed tech side and also our high school tisses that's where it's the most amount of work so we all work together today spent several hours mapping out and planning what that's going to look like we are all about an all hands on deck opportunity where we are going to sign up to go out and assist those schools in making sure that we have a system that works somewhat flawlessly hopefully we have scanners and and rick actually is part of that team and sharon collins they're both part of that team where we are working to just make it easier for our school tisses because we know the job is massive and a school this size how many weeks would be
076involved so what we looked at today we would start collecting senior devices on the ninth because seniors do graduate you know they're they are out of school week earlier a little bit ahead of time there of everyone else so that would be a one week process that we would start that and then the underclassmen would start the week of the 16th so that would be a two-week process that we would be looking at to do that so you're looking at three weeks just to do a school district yes absolutely now we also you know we every school was going to do it a little bit differently some schools may run it through a class say english class we may push into that class and and do the device checks in there and then take those
077back from that class or they may bring them to the library and we have everything set up and we'll house them and store them there's very specific requirements for how you store those devices over the summer and we're working through all of that with the help of principles to make sure that that is happening effectively and efficiently for our testes in the buildings can i have a motion to accept the ipad purchase for pilot schools as described by miss ralph i have one more question sorry um can we vote can we get a motion then we'll go into discussion now discussion on the ipad purchase sorry what are we going to do with the students on the google chromebooks that's replacing so these are actually this set of devices that we would be getting would
078be replacing chromebooks that are no longer in working order as of june they will be shutting down because of the the license that we had purchased for those they will not be usable so these would slide right into that location and then the other schools i think they had purchased like four thousand chromebooks for the other schools i think a couple months ago or so those were in gotcha so we already sell them or we just what we're gonna do with them so they use them for replacement parts they're able to get in and take things apart um stephanie and her team felicia that whole crew um on the i.t side they are masters at using every last piece that we can get because we know that those things are expensive and they're able to
079take screens out and just connectors and adapters and they will use all of those parts now the ipads when we collect those when those get to the point that they need recycled we do a buy back program with those through second life mac thank you you're welcome all those just one quick and this is paid out over a period of this purchase would be out of the esser funding serv three okay and you're talking about the chromebooks being outdated how long did we have you know are we buying things that are that only lasts a year two or three no the chromebooks that we would be replacing have been in circulation for probably five or six years they there is a typical replacement there depending on the device that's what we look at when we
080go to replace them it just depends on the device that we have chromebooks and ipads are on a little different plan there i see 3 000 at 1.4 million so what's that per unit price they are they the item itself is 240 nope let me grab that ninety ninety four dollars they're 294 dollars on themselves and then we do buy the apple care that covers us for three years so if there's anything that happens then we are able to get that taken care of that is an additional fifty dollars something that we opted for with the secondary schools because this is a pilot we did purchase a case that has a keyboard we thought that that was something that would be important for our secondary schools we heard that loud and clear from our teachers
081that they really thought the keyboard would be something that would be instructionally beneficial for our students so we did add that into the cost with this purchase thank you you're welcome all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously thank you our next action item is rfp employee benefits solution mr butts thank you dr gilpin so next month around the corner is our open enrollment for our employees and one of the things that we wanted to do is offer additional services for our employees when it comes to their benefits we put in an rfp and we received two quotes back one from usi and one from american fidelity usi is our current vendor for our workers comp however we we are recommending american fidelity as they are in 34 counties i believe it is throughout the
082state and usi currently does not offer any employee benefit programs to any county in the state of west virginia so what american fidelity offers is during the open enrollment they will meet with every employee who chooses to meet with them and they offer additional services that would that we don't necessarily carry now they can offer long-term short-term disability um section 125 plan services a flexible spending accounts health care savings accounts and other enrollment services and they'll do that not only just during the open enrollment but throughout the year as needed the beauty to that is that their quote from american fidelity does not cost the taxpayers any funding it is a zero cost for american fidelity the way it works is if the employee signs up for a pre-tax benefit obviously they pay less for
083the product because it's a pre-tax and then we the district when the matching social security on that benefit would pay less as well so it's a win-win for the employee and for the school district and again the cost to us is zero dollars so our recommendation is to continue down the path with american fidelity can i have a motion to accept the employee benefits solution provided by american fidelity so move a second second any discussion all those in favor all right opposed motion carries unanimously our next item are personnel actions dr schooley good evening president gilbert members of the board the personnel actions dated for monday march the 7th 2022 are as follows we have four new coaching appointments one is paid three are unpaid we have four renewals of coaching contracts we have three
084coaches resignations we do have some amendments here with the extra duty contracts some names got resubmitted so lines 13 15 and 16 are being removed for only three extra duty appointments we have one extra duty change in status there we have two extra duty resignations two new health care appointments one unpaid educational leave of absence we have one unpaid leave of absence one person rescinding their unpaid real unpaid leave of absence and we revise the date on an unpaid leave of absence we have one new administrative reassignment with some administrative assignments naming emily dugan as an interim assistant principal for eagle school intermediate we have one new professional appointment two one-sevenths fourteen professional residence excuse me four resignations one correction of a resignation based on schools six professional retirements moving to service we have four
085new appointments we have two revised appointments with effective dates unfortunately we have two ratifications of suspension and termination on line 49 uh that is bill uh fellers jr and on line 50 that is william clinton jr we have two resignations of service personnel one rescinding their resignation we have eight service personnel retirements eight or five transfers of service personnel we have two upgrades of service personnel with class titles one new substitute nurse appointment three new substitute service one resignation of a substitute service personnel eight new substitute teachers uh totally uh 77 personnel actions with the superintendent's recommendation that have been amended for monday march the 7th have a motion to accept the professional service coaching and substitute personnel actions dated march 7th summer second second discussion to get the bonus for retiring announcing when's that
086window that window closed we had to receive that on march 1st any other discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously thank you thank you board announcements superintendent announcements good evening school board members i've just got a couple things that i'd like to share with you this evening about activities going on and planned for the future the first is that last week we celebrated read across america with dr seuss and here pictured we've got folks from mill creek the pre-k i'm the smaller painter as well as folks from tuscarora there who encourage students to read some of the more famous dr seuss books we're all familiar with green eggs and ham cat and hat and oh the places will go this is a celebration that originated over 20 years ago in honor of dr
087seuss who passed back at in 1991 at the age of 87. coming up later this week on wednesday march the 9th we are going to be celebrating our school social workers for all that they do and working in collaboration with attendance workers the community in school folks title 1 and the martinsburg initiative and they support many of the social emotional learning activities that are going on at our school both with families as well as with children last year i attended this event and we were fortunate to host its bcs skills u uh and it is sponsored by uh our instructional or teaching and learning department along with our information services uh we've got it planned again this year and it's june the 6th through the 9th and it's a nice collaboration not only where individuals
088teachers make presentations to their colleagues but also we have a wonderful turnout last year was held at mountain ridge middle and we had several hundred teachers uh attend and we're looking forward to getting same type of participation this year thank you to those folks that are organizing it and teaching and learning and our information technology departments we've got the end of the nine weeks coming up here on march the 11th and uh report cards will be then headed home just about a week later i just want to remind everyone we're getting very close here last week i had a chance to go out and recognize and celebrate our spring athletic coaches and i want to commend those individuals because it is a 90-day season it starts started last week with practices and they go through
089the end of may with some of their playoffs and uh culminating activities so it is a fast uh fast end of the school year as we approach uh the end of may reminder also i just became aware of this myself yesterday that the clocks are going to be springing forward uh next uh sunday morning at uh 2 a.m so we'll spring forward an hour i'll give you some additional a bit of daylight at the end of the day and i always remind folks that uh just be aware it's gonna now be a little bit darker in the morning when we are transitioning or moving on the way to school i think that's all i have oh our next regular board meeting is scheduled for march the 21st uh i do want to let folks know
090that we have a budget work session that will begin at 6 00 pm it's anticipated that that budget work center session should last about 45 to 50 minutes and at the conclusion of that work session we will then fold right into our regular routine thank you dr murphy i have a motion to adjourn seconds