001tomorrow uh with nine members present and one student uh schoolboard member. Um we will do the pledge of allegiance and um I had a name I totally forgot. Dr. Angela Shepard Ray, will you please give us the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you, uh, Dr. Sheper Ray, who's the principal at MLK. All right, I'll take a motion to adopt the agenda. Is there a motion? It been moved by uh member block. Is there a second? >> There is a second. There's multiple seconds. Um, all in favor say I. >> Any oppose? Agenda passes. We'll move on to awards and recognitions. Uh, Dr. Battle. >>
002Thank you, Chair Player, and good evening, board members. Um, we have so many outstanding students and educators to recognize tonight, so I'm going to go ahead and jump in. Um, first up is the Dan Mills Bike Bus. Um, the bike bus is an innovative activity that Dan Mills Elementary School rolled out last year to get students to school in a safe and fun way. Students, family members, and staff ride their bikes to school together on Wednesday mornings, occasionally picking up more riders along the way. They start from two different meeting points, and the routes come together about a block from school so everyone can finish the ride in one big group with a lot of energy to start the day. I love the Dan Mills Bike Bus, which is the first of its kind in
003Tennessee because it promotes healthy exercise, safety, and community. This is family engagement on two wheels. It's a fun and productive way for students, family members, and school staff to spend time together. So, um, I'd like to give a few thank yous and a welcome up to the podium. I'd like to give a thank you to Principal Robbie Yates. if you can, if you're here, if you can join us up front. Uh, PE teacher Dalton McGawan and the entire Dan Mills team for your innovation and for your commitment to a healthy and joyful new way of getting to school. So, anybody here who's representing the Dan Mills bike, come on up. Metro and these folks have done something truly innovative. We're so proud of them. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate your support.
004No, it's good. You're welcome. >> Yeah. See, that's what it's all about. All right. So, again, congratulations to all the bike riders for from Dan Mills. We appreciate the entire community support and all the leadership that helps us make these great opportunities happen. Um, so tonight we also have the pleasure of recognizing some outstanding employees who are National Board Certification achievements in 2025. Their tremendous professional accomplishments represent the highest standard of excellence in education and student support services. There are five groups of employees to recognize. Each of these educators and support staff members have gone well above and beyond the standard requirements for their positions to earn or maintain their certification. And we are proud to congratulate and thank each of them for their dedication to their craft and to the students they serve. First,
005we want to celebrate eight of our speech language therapists. These individuals receive certificates of clinical competence from the American Speech Language Hearing Association. Currently, there are 85 National Board Certified therapists serving students in MNS, and we'll recognize the eight newest ones tonight. So, please come up to the area around the podium and face this audience when I call your name, and then hang tight while I talk about the other groups of outstanding employees before we can get a big group picture um and photo of everyone at the end. So, the new National Board Certified Therapists are, and again, if you are here, please come on up. Um, let's celebrate Abby Atkins. Abby, if you're here, Allison Blair, Annabelle Clark, Imani Dixs, Talia Erin, Juliana Meniola, Alicia Nicole Priest, and Alexandra Stanley. All right, they're not
006here, but let's give them a round of applause. Incredible. Incredible. This is just what happens when you have such dedicated leaders across the district. They are all probably still plugging away. Um, next, we want to honor the district's four newest nationally certified school social workers. The LCSSW credential is granted by the state after the candidate passes a clinical exam issued by the Association of School Works Boards. MNS has 22 nationally certified school social workers serving our students. We are pleased to congratulate the following four and again I would like for you to come up if you are here so that we can um celebrate you even further. Um, so let's give it up for Maddie Bernard, Grace Gibson, Melissa Herman, and George Taylor. Let's give them a round of applause. >> We'll have some more
007friends join you in just a moment. >> Congratulations to you. We now want to celebrate a recently certified school psychologist. The NCSP credential is offered through the National Association of School Psychologists. MNS has 55 nationally certified school psychologists serving our students tonight. We are pleased to congratulate Briana Jefferson um on receiving this credential. Brianna, if you're here, please come on up front and join us. If not, let's give it up for Briana. Up next, we're recognizing a group of nationally board certified counselors. The National Certified Counselor Credential is obtained through the National Board for Certified Counselors. MNS has 48 National Certified School Counselors. We would like to congratulate the following three counselors on this achievement. Please give it up for Brie Garcia, Taylor Goings, and Tara Johnson. All right, let's give them a round of
008applause. Last, but certainly not least, we celebrate two groups of nationally board certified teachers. One group has achieved certification for the first time and the second group has achieved maintenance of certification, both through the national board for professional teaching standards. NBCTs may be teachers, administrators, counselors or coaches. The impact of national board certification is significant. Evidence shows that students of NBCTs gain an average of one to two months of additional learning per year compared to peers in non NBCT classrooms. And the impact is even greater for high need students. MS currently has 71 active national board certified teachers. First, we honor five NBCTs who successfully achieved maintenance of certification in 2025. Again, if you're here, please come on and join us up front. Um, we're celebrating um Leonard Brian, Chelsea Demini, hold on Domino, sorry,
009Ginger Kirch Meyer, and Aaliyah Washington Smith and Sonia Wear. So, if any of you are here, please come on and join us up front. As we wait, let's give them a round of applause. Congratulations. And now we honor the newest National Board Certified Teachers. And I should point this out. Only 12 educators in all of Tennessee achieve national board certification for the first time in 2025. And MNPS had eight of them. That's incredible. So, here they are. If you're here, please join us up front. Katherine Dooall, Magd Gurges, Hannah Hawkins, Mallerie McGover, Trisha O'Connell, Ryan S. Vaguio, Jessica Sullivan, and Vera Tidwell. Again, congratulations to all of our board certified educators and staff and thank you for the skill, the dedication, and commitment you bring to your jobs and for going above and beyond to
010achieve these honors. Um, y'all, let's give them another round of applause. >> And we'd like to get a quick photo before you leave. Congratulations. One They're off. All right, congratulations again to all of our National Board Certified employees. Um, tonight we're also celebrating 93 athletic teams from 15 high schools that have won the 2025 26 academic achievement awards from TWSSAA for the fall semester. Of those 93 teams, 24 earned the outstanding scholastic achievement award for a team GPA between 3.0 and 3.25, 25, while 69 earned the distinguished scholastic achievement award for a team GPA of 3.25 or higher. Y'all, those are some pretty impressive numbers and proof that our student athletes are working very hard both in the classroom and on the court or the field. The work ethic, the determination, the time management. There's
011so much to admire in these results. I'm not going to say every team, but I do want to recognize each of the high schools whose teams and student athletes have earned this academic honors. And every high school that has an athletic program is actually represented here. So, we're extremely proud. So, I'd love for the representatives of each one of these teams to um join us up front and please hang out because as I run through them, I want to get a big photo at the end. Um first up, we'd like to celebrate Antioch High School. Woohoo! Cambridge High School, >> East Nashville High School, Glen Cliff High School. >> Okay. Hillsboro High School, Humefog High School. Hunter Lane High School, James Lawson High School, Maplewood High School, Martin Luther King Jr. High School, McGavic High
012School, John Overton High School, >> Pearl Cone High School, >> Straford High School, and Whites Creek High School. So, I want to just point out that the teams winning the academic achievement awards include seven of our boys basketball teams, seven girls basketball teams, eight boys bowling teams, six girls bowling teams, six cheerleading teams, eight boys cross country teams, nine girls cross country teams, five book football teams, eight boys golf teams, five girls golf teams, six girls soccer teams, 11 volleyball teams, three boys wrestling teams and four girls wrestling teams. So, let's give it up for all of our high schools and their major athletes. >> All right. Um board me, do we want to stand behind the We're going to stand behind you. >> Everybody's represented. >> Said we didn't. >> I know. What are
013you guys doing? >> All right. One more round of applause. As you all can imagine, we're so proud of these student athletes for living up to the very best meaning of that title. And we're proud of their teachers, coaches, principles, and athletic directors, too. Um, thank you all for representing MPS so well in competition and in the classroom. Y'all, that is actually very incredible that everyone of our team schools that have athletic programs is represented in this um award recognition. So, pretty incredible. All right. So, Okay. So, again, congratulations to all of our TWSAA academic achievement award-winning teams. Um, and I want to take an opportunity to brag on a few more of our incredible leaders. Um, our school psychologists do tremendously important work every day. They work with students on academic and social emotional
014learning skills. They advocate for their needs. They consult with principles and parents. They help assess and explain test results and so much more. So, I am thrilled to celebrate our school psych psychology services team for receiving an excellence in school psychological services recognition from the National Association of School Psychologists. Congratulations to everyone on this team for this well-deserved recognition of the great work you do across our district. You are simply essential to our work of making sure that every student is known. You meet students where they are and help put them in a position to succeed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for everything that you do. So, we have any representatives here from our team. Can you stand to be recognized and come up front? Come on up front. Let's give them a round
015of applause. >> Come on team. I don't want to call anybody out. >> Yeah. >> Come on up front. A lot of them are at the national. >> All right. Can we get a quick pitch to represent They're watching. They're all watching. All right. Um, so we have another outstanding member of our team who received some national recognition recently. I should have told her to just stay right up here up front. And that is Dr. Debbie McAdams, our executive director of exceptional education. We're extremely proud of the way that Debbie leads. Debbie was named a 2026 leader to learn from um by Ed Week, a leading national publication about K12 education. Ed Week's article is about Debbie's great work over the past 17 years to create a more inclusive, integrated, and impactful environment across the
016district for our exceptional education students. She has transformed this space since taking the job in 2009. Um, as Debbie puts it in the story, and I quote, "All of our students, including those with disabilities, are general education students first, and we should not have separate settings. We're all part of one big community." And the earlier that everybody understands that for our students, the more accepting everyone is. So Debbie, congratulations on a welldeserved recognition of your tremendous work and thank you for everything you do. Can we get another picture? And that won't be the last time you see Debbie this evening. You'll see her um again in just a little bit. Um, so again, congratulations, Debbie. Um, we also want to recognize our very own Magnus Schools director, John Ren, on his recent election to the
017Magnus Schools of America Board of Directors. John, would you come on up front so we can celebrate you? John, as you're coming, I just like to say that we appreciate everything you do to lead our magnet school's work and thank you for stepping up to lead and to represent us at the national level um as well. We greatly appreciate you and all your innovation and your leadership around your work. Can we grab a quick picture? One more round of applause for John, please. You can do so. Right. And finally, before I turn it back over to Chair Player, I just want to share that we um as many of you know, um hopefully we received the Excellence and Family Engagement Award from AASA, the School Superintendent Association, and the National PTA during AASA's National Conference
018on Education, which brought thousands of superintendents and other educators to our city two weeks ago. We took advantage of every opportunity we had over the over those four days to talk about all the good things we were doing and achieving in Nashville public schools. The Excellence in Family Education Award reflects a huge team effort across the district. And it also reflects that family engagement isn't an extra. It isn't an add-on. Family engagement is essential to our work of making every student known and driving strong academic outcomes because parents are our students first and and most important teachers. The award came with a $5,000 check which will use to host a college and career readiness family engagement engagement summit that's coming up on Saturday, March 21st at the Martin Professional Development Sess Center um with sessions
019on budgeting, FASA, ACT prep, and job readiness. That will be from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. with lunch provided. And we look forward to having a great day great day with many of our families there. So, um, we know that everything takes a team effort and we have such incredible leaders, um, in our district. I'd like to ask, um, Dr. Lisa Norris, our chief of student support services, as well as Makita Jackson, our director of family community partnerships, and any parents who might be here from Nashville Public Schools parent and family cabinet um, to join us up front um, for a photo. And as they're coming, I just want to um really celebrate and elevate um the work of this incredible team. Um they are leading with a fierce um fierce sense of urgency. Um
020they are innovating and they're really transforming um how we lead um through the lens of family engagement being um a critical strategy here at Nashville Public Schools. So, if y'all would please help me celebrate their incredible leadership and for a job well done. Thank you. All right, congratulations again to everyone we've recognized tonight. Chair player, that will conclude our awards and recognitions. And I will turn it back over to you. Thank you very much. That's a great celebratory night of all of our achievements to see the great things that we're doing here in Metro Public Schools. We will now move on over to our director's report. We'll have MNS reimagine update and our academic data update. Dr. Battle. All right. Thank you, um, Chair Player and board members. Um, be before we move into tonight's
021presentations, I just want to give a brief update on an ongoing um, legal matter that we've all been following. Um, and I just received this, so I'm providing it to you um, tonight at the board meeting. So today the presiding chancellor um issued a summary judgement upholding the board's decision in the 2024 reszoning of several schools and clusters within the district including the zoning of Fall Hamilton, Glen View and John Bisset along with Napier Elementary to Margaret Allen. Um, while a previous court decision dissolving an injunction had already been issued, allowing us to move forward this school year with the plan, today's decision affirms that we have maintained from the beginning that the board acted within its authority grounded in the plain language of the charter agreement and Tennessee law. Um, of course, we respect
022the judicial process and we appreciate the court's careful review. Um, the court's order clearly grants the district's motion for summary judgement and dismisses the complaint with prejudice. That clarity allows us to move forward with confidence and stability for our students and our families. Of course, resoning decisions are never easy. They're about aligning resources, strengthening pathways, and ensuring every stu student has access to a high quality school experience. This ruling reinforces the board's responsibility to make those decisions in the best interest of the entire district. Most importantly, it allows us to focus on what matters most, serving students well, supporting families through transitions, and continuing the strong academic progress underway across MNS. So, thank you to our legal team, our staff, and our community for their patience and professionalism throughout the entire process. Now, having said
023that, I want to provide an update on our budget process for the 2627 fiscal year following the board retreat last week. Um, as we advance to the next slide, this slide reflects the evolution of our work from FY26 to FY27. Last year, our focus was on stabilizing and sustaining the district's progress. We prioritize transition transitioning strategic investments from ESSER into the operating budget, maintaining continuity of operations, strengthening employee compensation, and advancing comprehensive safety and security planning. That work created a strong foundation of where we are today. For FY27, we are building on the stability with a sharper, more intentional focus in four key areas. These are not listed in order of priority as each is essential to our success. First is academic coherence. This priority ensures alignment across teaching, learning and student pathways from early
024learning through graduation. It creates a system in which standards, instructional materials, assessments, and expectations are clearly connected. Rather than operating through disconnected initiatives, we are strengthening systemwide alignment so students experience consistency in every classroom. When instruction is coherent, teachers have clarity. Students benefit from stronger learning progressions and outcomes improve. This work ensures students graduate ready to succeed in a rapidly changing world. Second is continuity of operations which remains essential particularly as the cost of maintaining consistent standards and performance increases each year. Academic progress depends on stable and reliable systems. Transportation, facilities, technology, safety infrastructure, and daily operational supports must function effectively for schools to deliver results. This priority protects the foundational investments that allow us to maintain momentum and provide safe, well-run environments for teaching and learning. Third is our talent strategy, which recognizes that
025instructional quality is the most important in school factor impacting student achievement. To sustain progress, we must continue to retain, attract, and develop exceptional educators and staff. This includes competitive compensation, meaningful professional growth opportunities, and supportive work working conditions. Our goal is to position MPS as an employer of choice and a leader in educator support. A strong and stable workforce directly translates into better outcomes for students. Finally, positive school support centers on the student experience. Students must feel safe, welcome, and connected to learn at high levels. This priority strengthens school safety efforts, promotes belonging and well-being, reduces exclusionary discipline and deepens family engagement. It reinforces early learning foundations and proactive supports that prevent challenges before they escalate. When students feel supported and known, engagement increases and achievement follows. In summary, FY26 ensures stability and sustainability. FY27
026builds on that foundation with greater coherence, intentional talent investment, and continued focus on safe and supporting supportive learning environments. Together, these priorities position the district to accelerate progress and strengthen outcomes for every student. Over the past several months, my team and I have been engaged in detailed planning and discussions regarding the budget priorities. That work will continue over the next few weeks as we prepare to present an initial budget proposal to the board and the community. This proposal will outline the resources required to sustain our momentum as well as potential investments to accelerate outcomes in the years ahead. This timeline is aligned with the mayor's budget proposal. Next slide, please. I think there's one more slide. No, go back. Sorry. Um, this timeline is aligned with the mayor's budget proposal, which will be released by
027May 1st and will outline proposed investments for MNS and other metro departments. Following that release, we will work collaboratively to refine our proposal and ensure a balanced budget that maintains our commitment to ensuring every student is known. In a moment, I will turn it over to Chief Reita Perry to introduce three presenting groups this evening. Our magnet cluster, signature schools cluster, and special day clusters. They will share their work as part of our metro schools reimagine journey map series which highlights the meaningful opportunities and pathways available to students across MNS through specialized and authentic personalized learning experiences. Following that, Dr. Tina Stinson, executive officer of research assessment and evaluation, will share our screening assessment results and how they compare to national norms. Dr. David Williams, deputy chief of academics, will then explain how we're monitoring
028benchmark progress between fall and winter assessments to guide instructional adjustments and ensure students are building the content knowledge necessary to meet and exceed Tennessee state standards. So, at this time, Chief Perry, I will welcome you to the podium. Thank you, Dr. Battle. Board members, tonight we are excited to share not one, not two, but three cluster journey maps that bring MMPS Reimagine to life. Our magnet schools, signature schools, and special day schools. Each journey map reflects our district's commitment to knowing every student, honoring their strengths, and designing learning experiences that are intentional, rigorous, and responsive to who our students are and who they are becoming. These clusters are not separate from MNS reimagined. They are expressions of it in action, showing how choice, access, and excellence intersects across our district. We will begin with our
029magnet schools. Magnets magnet programs invite students to stretch their thinking, explore their interests, and pursue their passions within focused learning communities. They are purposefully designed to expand opportunity, set high expect set high expectations, and create pathways where students can thrive academically, creatively, and personally. With pride, I introduce the MNPS Nashville Public Schools Magnet Cluster. Greetings and welcome to the magnet cluster. I am Dr. Ken Arnold, executive principal of Head Magnet Middle School, re-imagined as MLK Jr. Magnet Middle School at Head Campus. I am joined today by seven dynamic executive principles in the cluster and together we are the grade eight. Introducing Dr. Angela McShepard Ray, executive principal, MLK Jr. School. Dr. Shelita Sanders, executive principal, Carter Lawrence Elementary School. Dr. Ashley Roby, executive principal, East Nashville Middle School. Dr. Kelly Hargus, executive principal, Q Fog
030High School. Dr. Romy Basser, executive principal, Rose Park Middle School. Principal Myra Taylor, executive principal, East Nashville High School. And Dr. Ashara Neil, executive principal, Meg's Middle School. Supported by our executive directors and board members Robert Taylor and TK Fain. Together as the great eight, we drive excellence today and provide brilliance for tomorrow. So what are magnet schools? Magnet schools can either be thematic or academic. Examples of thematic magnet schools are language immersion, STEM, and the arts. Thematic magnet schools have an have an application process. Academic magnets have an application process with an academic component. Currently, there are 4,292 students that are enrolled in the magnet schools that we'll present today. And that represents 5% of the student population within Metro Nashville Public Schools. Presented on the screen, you will see the five pillars that
031we ground our work in in each that we ground our work in each day. And in this presentation, we will go deeper into those five pillars. Located in vibrant, diverse urban neighborhoods, our magnet schools proudly serve nearly 4,300 students through personalized instruction that both supports and challenges every learner. Our commitment to excellence is reflected in rigorous academics paired with award-winning arts and athletics programs. Students engage in authentic real world experiences where learning is turned into action and advocacy within the Nashville community. These dynamic student centered experiences inspire creativity, build critical thinking skills, and position students for success. My colleagues will share more about the unique opportunities available through our magnet programs. Magnet schools offer specialized programs that cater to specific interests such as STEM, language immersion, international balorate, honors, and advanced placement courses, allowing students
032to engage in enriched learning experiences through hands-on projects and community partnerships, preparing students for college and career. Our schools provide a rich and rigorous learning journey for all of the students in our cluster. Attend Carter Lawrence's engineering showcase and you'll hear their young students confidently explain the design process. Swing over to Rose Park and enjoy some amazing hands-on science and art collaborations. at Head and at MEGS, you may see students engaging in meaningful AVID lessons, prepping them for the premed program uh occurring with MLK and Hume FOG. If you visit our East Side sister schools at East Middle, you're going to see every student participating in the MYP program to prepare them for the IB uh diploma program at East High. And if you happen to have time, you should swing by Humefog and um
033MLK in the first two weeks of May. There you're going to see 1,365 students taking the 3,842 AP tests that are scheduled for just this spring. But the rigor that we provide at these schools, it's not about putting students into hard classes or giving them lots of homework or arduous tests. It really isn't even about STEM or STEAM or IB or AP. It is about helping those students learn how to think critically and creatively so that they may learn to lead confidently and courageously. MNPS magnet schools combine award-winning arts and athletics with academic excellence to develop well-rounded student leaders. At our schools, students shine on the stage, in the studios, and on the field. Our programs earn top honors while building discipline, creativity, teamwork, and confidence. MNPS magnets don't ask students to choose between passion
034and performance. We prepare them to excel in both. Ma Muhammad Ali said, "Service is the rent you pay for being here." Community service and advocacy empower our students to recognize community needs and use their voices to drive positive change. That's why we integrate service to others and advocacy into our school's programming. Through service and speaking up for others, students build empathy, leadership, and the skills needed to be engaged, responsible citizens. When students are given the right tools and opportunities, they grow into leaders who are prepared to make positive changes in the world. So why attend a magnet school? Magnet schools offer more than education. They offer opportunities through the five A's. Advanced academics challenge students to think deeply and aim higher. Authentic personalized learning ensures every student's interest and strengths are valued through action and
035advocacy. Students learn to lead and make a difference. The arts inspire creativity and also make a difference, excuse me, and self-exression, while athletics build teamwork, discipline, and confidence. Together, the five A's create well-rounded leaders. But don't take our word for it. Let's hear from students from elementary, middle, and high school. >> Good evening. My name is Jamala Crockett and I am a fifth grade student at Carter Lawrence in elementary engineering magnet school. I have attended CLM since kindergarten. I'm here to tell you about how my school is preparing me to be successful in school and in in life. At Carter Lawrence, we Lawrence, we focus on designing solutions to real world problems. Just like engineers, we follow the step of engineering design processes to help us guide our work in all subject areas. Last week,
036me, my classmates, and I collaborate collaborated in small groups to develop maker space projects for the Venture Science Center to use in their innovation lab. Clen's guaranteed experience is that we will be prepared for a lifetime of solving problems and critical thinking. It's not just words, it's what we do every day to help us be successful in the next grade and for life. Hello, my name is Chabuzor Okola and I believe that magnet schools are a necessity for the students in our community. I can say this because I've attended magnet schools my whole life and I can definitely say they help shape who I am today. I attended Carter Lawrence, Rose Park, and MLK, all of which were math and science centered schools. I love my time at all three schools. The encore program at
037Carl Lawrence was fun and taught me critical thinking skills. Rose Park introduced me to extracurricular activities like a rocket science club from Fisk, a robotic competition, and a program that taught students about investing in stocks. And during my time at MLK, I learned so much. How to be an effective learner, how to study as hard as possible and strive to excel, balancing both sports and academics. I even became biliterate in German and joined the German National Honor Society. But it's been a minute, so please don't ask me to say anything in German. I'm a bit rusty. But I can say that the experiences gained were extremely beneficial and it definitely showed during my time in college as I was able to handle challenges that came my way. I went to MTSU and got my bachelor's
038in computer animation and I am now pursuing my mers in software engineering at UT. I am also aiming to pursue pursue a career in game development and animation. And now I brought myself full circle currently being employed as a classroom associate at MLK after being considered for both MLK and head. Thank you. >> Thank you Chib and Jamaa for those exemplary experiences that you all shared. Thank you so much. And we'd all like to thank you as well for your support of the magnet cluster. Together we are the grade eight and we are the magnet cluster. Thank you. >> Thank you to our magnet cluster principles and to executive director Snorton for that inspiring presentation. As you heard, each school brings its own distinct strengths. Yet together they form a cohesive pathway where thousands of
039MNPS students can deepen their interests, challenge themselves, and discover what they're capable of. We are grateful for the excellence and dedication that each of you bring to our district. Next, number two, we will hear from our signature cluster. Our mantra is every student known, and our signature schools bring that commitment to life in powerful ways. These schools serve students whose needs, interests, or circumstances may not always align with our traditional model. But yet, they respond with creativity, flexibility, and deep relationships. While each school offers a distinct program, what unites them is a shared belief. Students thrive when learning is personalized and when adults truly know their stories. Please join me in welcoming the Nashville Public Schools signature cluster. Good evening. I am Trelly Lane, principal at Isaiah T. Creswell Middle Magnet School of the Visual
040and Performing Arts. and we are excited to share with you the MNS signature schools. The word signature means a distinctive mark, something that uniquely identifies as a team. Each of us has a signature way of ensuring students feel they belong. We are deeply grateful to our board for creating the space where possibilities flourish, empowering us to serve, uplift, and celebrate the unique strengths of every community we touch. Let me introduce the leaders who bring these signatures to life. Nashville School of the Arts Executive Principal Justin Thomas. MNS Virtual School and Nashville Big Picture High School Executive Principal Brenda Diaz. Early College High School Executive Principal Rodri. Simon Youth Academy at Opry Mills. Executive Principal Carmen Brown. Simon Youth Academy at Old Cochril. Executive Principal Clarissa Zeers. Simon Youth Academy at Hickory Hollow. Executive Principal Billy
041Felman. WA Bass ALC Executive Principal Henry Johnson. And last but not least, Johnson Learning Center ALC Executive Principal Myron Franklin. At MNPS Signature Schools, we believe every student's story matters. We don't just teach, we empower through personalized learning, real world experiences, and clear college and career pathways. Students discover purpose and unlock potential. Here, belonging isn't a promise. It's a reality. Now let us show you how that belief comes to life. Our art schools within the signature schools blend rigorous academic with daily artistic practice. Here the arts are not extracurricular. They are foundational for our students and for their development in their discipline, creativity, collaboration, and voice. At Creswell, creativity meets learning. Art integration lives in every classroom as students explore dance, theater, visual arts, chorus, piano, strings, and band. Recognized as the 2024 arts rich
042middle school of the year and a 2025 school of excellence, Creswell pairs artistic excellence with rigorous academics. Students grow academically, artistically, and socially, building both skill and confidence for what comes next. Serving grades 9 through 12, Nashville School of the Arts is an audition entry high school offering specialized pathways in music, dance, theater, literary arts, media arts, and visual arts. NSA pursues national recognition through creative excellence, but the goal is bigger than performance. It's about developing excellent human beings. Our signature focuses on personalized and accelerated experiences in which students design futures. MNPS virtual school, Tennessee's first public virtual school, serves 6th through 12th grade. With flexible goal-driven learning, students have ability to access honors, AP, dual credit, and career pathways while building independence and confidence. At Nashville Big Picture High School, learning connects directly to
043real world through advisories, projects, internships, and individualized pathways. Together, these schools meet students where they are and prepare them for what's next. At Early College, ambition meets opportunity. Through our partnership with Nashville State Community College, our students earn transferable college credit along with an associates degree while in high school. The Simon Youth Academy, Hickory Hollow, Oak Cochril, and Opera Mills offer transformative pathway for students facing age, health, and environmental challenges. Each student receives a personalized learning plan and leaves not only with a diploma, but with trans a transition plan for college, career, or military service. Scholarships and recognition celebrate perseverance, not test scores. Here, students have been accepted, celebrated, and supported. Every journey matters. Every success begins with a belief. Our our learning centers are rooted in restoration and renewed opportunities. At best, second chances
044lead to new opportunities. Through personalized instruction, real world experience, and character development, students reconnect with learning and grow into leaders. They leave with confidence and renew vision for their future. At Johnson Learning Center, restoration meets high expectations. Blending restorative academics with creative expression, wellness support, and leadership opportunities, students recalibrate and rewrite their stories. Here, success is not an option. It is expected. Now, you've heard about our pathways. You've heard about our programs. But what defines a signature school is not the structure. It's experience. is students who feel respected, students who feel independent, and students who feel seen across every signature campus. Adults with kindness leads with kindness, high expectations, and belief. And now we invite you to hear directly from the voices that matters most, our students. The things that I love most about this
045school is the comfortable feeling, the beautiful teachers, and the great work ethic that everybody has. It gives you the freedom and the space to get your work done when needed, and you get to come to school and see all the beautiful faces here. If you want to attend academy, it's one of the best places to go because it it allows you to to have one-on- ones with your teacher. It gives you more time to learn the things that you need to learn and it gets you out of school as quick as you can get it done. >> Being at Johnson has made me feel most belong and connected by the people that I've met here. We're very loving, welcoming, caring, and inspiring. Not only the administration, but the students as well. We're very kind and
046friendly to each other and always each other when we're here at Bitcher. I like to chase my passion in becoming a secondary teacher. By doing that, I'm able to go to different schools and do an internship. And while there, I get experience of becoming a teacher, classroom management, and also how to deal and handle with kids. The reason I feel like I belong is because I feel free to be myself and the schedules are very nice and no one is talking down on you or anything. And the gift of virtual school keeps on gifting. >> Really, the people the people here are very respectful. The teachers, I love them the most cuz I'm not going to lie, teachers I've dealt with before don't really like to deal with me. But they've continued to keep motivating
047me to keep coming to school, to get my education, to actually do something with my life. And I really like that. >> At Bass, students are given opportunities to grow personally, socially, and academically by participating in social groups and being acknowledged for their grades and attendance. Personally, I'll miss my time here at Baz because I felt heard, known. Teachers acknowledged me and my skills, and I was given opportunities to grow my art skills and my confidence and being able to find my voice. early college is basically getting a preview of the college experience dial in later life. >> My favorite thing about ECS is how welcoming our environment is. We allow everybody the opportunity to participate in different events and games. >> Oh no, I feel uh my favorite thing is about doing the events
048here. I feel like uh we have a lot of events. For example, we're just playing black. Thank you to our signature schools cluster principles and executive director Shelley Menddees. Your presentation reminded us that when we design schools around students rather than expecting students to fit into one design, remarkable things happen. We are proud of the belonging, the opportunity, and the transformation you create every day across Nashville public schools. Thank you, principles. With great appreciation, we now welcome the special day cluster principles. Our special days programs serve students with disabilities who require intensive specialized supports. These schools are built on expertise, compassion, and a strong sense of community. Here, teams work intentionally around each child's goals. Whether that means preparing for a successful transition back to a zone school or equipping su equipping students for a
049life beyond graduation. At the heart of this work is a simple powerful belief that every child can grow, succeed, and live a meaningful life. Please join me in welcoming the special day cluster >> again. So my name is Debbie McAdams and I am joined here with principal Susan Seagull, Carara Meisner and John Mafy who are special day school principal. So we would first like to thank our board members that support these schools specifically Robert Taylor for Merurl, Aaron Block with Harris Hillman and Zach Young with Korah. So thank you very much. So in MNS as mentioned we have three special day schools. We also have two contracted special day schools, but tonight we'll be talking about our two our three metro schools. Um, they form the foundation of commitment to providing specialized whole child education
050for all of our students with disabilities. So, I'm going to ask you to sit back, relax, and watch this great video that highlights our three special day schools. with my neighbor with you later. We can talk about the weather. I can't wait to fall in love with somebody. I'll be post. Hi, my name is Ben and I am a fourth grader at Merl School. Well, at my old school, I had trouble controlling my big emotions. Merlo has one of the best schools me. I learned how to calm down and act with fun with everyone. I use strategies like taking walks, taking deep breaths, and asking for help when I need it. I've also learned how to make friends and get along better with others. In class, I have a lot of fun learning science. Like
051today we're making solar pred. >> Okay, we love that video. That was awesome. Just a little fun fact, too. That song that you heard in the background was actually written and composed by our students who attend our community based transition program, which Cara will talk more about. So, we are really fortunate. I know earlier today we talked about um our celebration about being um a providing a continuum of services for our students with disabilities, but we are so lucky to have special day schools as part of our continuum of services for students with disabilities. And they are rooted in care. They're driven by purpose and they provide a personalized pathway for every student. So, our road map looks a little different than the other clusters that you have seen throughout the many board presentations. Um,
052we know that a lot of our students have to take an alternative path, right? So, our students are at their school of zone and sometimes they just need to take, as I said, an alternative path to reach their goals. Our goals are for our students to take this path but then move back to their school of zone or to their post-secary opportunities as soon as possible. Um, we will go into a little bit more detail about each school. And I'm first like to introduce Susan Seagull, who is the principal of Merurl School. And we think she is probably the longest standing principal at the same school in Metro. So, she's been there for a very long time. She hired me. So, I will turn this over to Susan Seagull. >> Thank you, Debbie. Um, at
053Merl, we serve school uh students K through 7th grade. Our motto is taking control for success in life truly captures our purpose. It's not something we say, it's something we live each day. When students come to us, we surround them with a therapeutic, supportive environment where they can learn not only academics, but the social and emotional skills that help them believe in themselves again. We celebrate every step forward, every moment of growth, and every glimpse of confidence that returns to them. At the end of the video, you heard Ben, a fourth grader at Merurl, speak about his experience at our school. Merl really changes lives. We prepare each child to go back to their school zone, not just ready, but empowered. When our students learn to manage their emotions, strengthen their behavior, and rebuild their
054self-image, they begin to understand that they can take control of their future. That is our greatest joy, watching them realize that success isn't just possible, it's theirs. So, at this time, I'd like to introduce Cara, the principal at Harris Hillman. Another shameless plug. Not only are our students amazing musicians, they make fabulous coffee at our studentled enterprise. It is it is cheap. U I started with Harrisonman as a teacher 18 years ago and I quickly learned that Harrisonman program is much more than a school. It is a place where possibility takes shape every single day. We have the joy to work with students ages 3 through 21 who have significant cognitive, physical, and health needs. And everything we do is built around one simple belief. Every student deserves to be seen, heard, and celebrated for
055who they are. Our staff creates deeply personalized learning experiences through a modified curriculum, adaptive technology, adapted environments, and um something we call the tangible core communication system. We have an example of one of our students using this system in a speech setting. >> No, you are not all done with speech. We just started. Okay, good. I'm glad you want more. >> What you didn't hear him say was that he was all done. >> This system for many of our students is a bridge to their voice. Um a way for who they are on the inside to finally reach the world around them. And some of our students like this young man will use their voice to say they are all done working for the day. And we cherish that because that moment of self- advocacy,
056that spark of personality is growth and another step towards becoming independent. Our students also explore art, music, computer science, and physical education in ways tailored uniquely to their abilities. They participate in therapies and services that help strengthen communication, mobility, and sensory connection. And these threads, the learning and the therapies and the creativity in the community weave together to form days filled with purpose, belonging, and meaningful engagement for our students. We are also home to MNPS's community-based transition program, otherwise known as CBTP, which serves students who have completed high school with an alternate academic diploma. And CBTP focuses on real world learning in community settings, partnering with businesses to help our young adults with disabilities build the skills needed for independent living, employment, and success in post-secary education. In short, we get to help prepare them
057not just for the next step, but their next steps, their applied experiences, their goals, and their futures. And to speak to how Coro does this, here is Principal John Mafy. Thank you, Cara. At Kora How, our students who have significant cognitive or developmental disabilities are embraced as unique learners with incredible potential. Every day, they engage in meaningful learning experiences that nurture both academic growth and lifelong skills, supported by strong related services and a deep commitment to social emotional learning. Our mission is simple and unwavering to prepare every student for lifelong success. Whether a student is building the skills needed to transition back to their school of zone or participating in a work-based learning program, we focus on helping them grow their independence, strengthen their communication, and develop their functional abilities that will serve them well
058in their next environment and beyond. Chiana's journey is one of many stories that remind us why our work matters. She arrived at Korah after facing challenges at her school of zone. Carrying with her both potential and uncertainty. With the rightcl supports, encouragement, and individualized care, she began to flourish academically, socially, and emotionally. Through our work-based learning program, she earned a position at Publix, where she now works full-time. Her success is a testament to what becomes possible when students are given the support, the opportunities, and the belief they deserve. Sha's story isn't uh is just one example of the powerful transformations happening every day at Kora. When students are surrounded by a team that sees their strengths, honors their individuality, and equipss them with the tools they need to thrive, their possibilities expand far beyond the
059classroom. As we continue our mission, we remain committed to creating a learning environment where every student can grow with confidence, discover their potential, and take meaningful steps towards a successful future. The journeys of our students, past, present, and future, remind us that with the right supports, every learner can achieve more than they ever imagined. Now, I'll turn it back over to Debbie. Thank you. >> Good job, John. >> So, these schools are not just educational placements. They are communities where healing, growth, and learning go hand in hand. They provide a continuum of care that addresses the full spectrum of all of our student needs. Academic achievement, therapeutic intervention, and emotional development. I had the privilege of starting my MMPS career at Merural School when I was hired as a teacher 27 years ago. I then
060moved into a principal role for the high school version of Metro. And 27 years later, I am continually inspired by the heart-driven work of our special day schools, the teachers, the paraprofessionals, the related service providers, the bus drivers. If you're ever having a bad day, go visit one of these three schools. We talk about it in our leadership team all the time because it inspires us and it reminds us what we do and why we do it every single day. We're so fortunate to have these schools. They serve as a national model. We have districts from all over come to see these schools because they want to have these schools in their districts. So as part of the MNS dynasty, Harris Hillman, Corah and Merurl, they offer students that guaranteed individualized experience grounded in compassion,
061collaboration, and high expectations. And above all, they embody our district's unwavering commitment to make sure that every student is truly known in this district, not just by name, but by their needs, by their strengths, and their limitless potential. So, thank you for the opportunity for us to brag on our special day schools today. Thank you. What a way to end the three cluster presentations tonight. Thank you to our special day cluster principles, executive director Deb McAdams and executive director David Martin. And I saw over my shoulder Ed Winfrey. Your work truly reflects who we are at our best. Thoughtful, committed, and deeply invested in every child's success. We are grateful for the care, the expertise, and partnership that each of you bring to our students and our families. So tonight we've heard from all of
062our clusters um tonight magnet signature and special day clusters. Each one represents a different pathway but all are united by the same commitment knowing our students supporting their growth and helping them realize their full potential. Please join me in a collective thanking all three clusters for their extraordinary work on they do on behalf of all of Nashville public school students. Let's give it up one more time for all three. At this time, I will turn it back over to you, Dr. Battle. Thank you. >> Thank you so much, um, Chief Perry. Um again, just incredible leadership, incredible things happening um in all three um of our cluster um pathway schools tonight. Um before we move into our data um update, I would like to pause to see if there are any questions for our leaders
063because I know they have a lot to do to get prepared for tomorrow. Um so I want them to be able to transition um ahead of the data presentation if possible. >> Uh member MS. Yeah, just a really quick comment. So, thank you all for being here tonight and I must say that the great aid could start a podcast. Y'all have some great radio voices. Um, I have a special place in my heart for every single one of you because I know a child who has gone through every single one of these schools and it really touches my heart the work that you do. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for everything that you do and thank you for being here. You are appreciated. Uh, member F, >> I was just going to piggyback.
064You actually stole my comment because I was listening to their voices and I was like, they need to do audio books. Um, I would definitely listen. Also, if you all have not done the Hawks podcast with Johnson, I would advise anybody to be a part of that. Um, amazing work. Um, anytime I can brag on the program and those kids, I absolutely do. Um, they they was really prepared and they had some really tough hard questions and just very assertive and I also have done some financial literacy programs there and they're really on top of their game. Um, so kudos to to to those students as well as MLK, Himmfog, all the schools within my district and the schools that with are not in my district. Um, thank you all for all the hard work
065that you all do. Um, and it's it's just remarkable always to hear from the students. I wanted to give baby girl her shout out, but I saw she grabbed a coat and um exited stage left once her performance was done and I don't blame her. Um but be sure to tell her that she did an amazing job. Also to hear from the young man who is now in working within the schools and to be a part also I would love to talk to you. I'm I'm in the tech space as well. So always open to help and and you know whatever questions you may have. Thank you all again. >> Member O'Hara Block. >> Um first I just have to love on Harris Hillman a little bit. Um do please stop and get a coffee
066there when you're in the neighborhood. Uh they do have great coffee and again like also the most affordable coffee in Nashville. Um um and and it is truly um the I think the biggest honor of representing the Hillsboro cluster is also getting to represent Harris Hullman. And to be part of like a little part of that community every now and then is just such a joy. So if you do have a chance to go visit one of the special day schools, I highly recommend it. And um I I can't say enough great things about Dr. Mesler and her team um and how wonderful they are. But the the other thing I wanted to say is just I was really struck by um across all of your presentations just the and now we've been through every
067cluster the incredible breadth of what we do in this school district and the um I've I've done a couple of things recently where I've been asked to talk about uh sort of where we are in education right now policy-wise and what's happening and and this is what makes MNS so unique and special is that we can offer Every single one of these programs, which are incredibly different from one another, every single thing that's happened at every single one of these schools is different and different from the school you're sitting next to and different from the schools in uh the the clusters that are zoned uh zoned clusters. Um, and it's really quite incredible and it is the type of thing that I wish that folks knew and understood more clearly that are in legislative spaces
068and policy spaces that the thing that people commonly think of as what we primarily do. It is true we do primarily do that, but we also do this incredible breath of things and do it really well. And that's just a testament to all of you all and all of the teams with M in MNS. And so I just want to say how grateful I am for the way that we can do that. >> Thank you, Vice Chair Knob Kenny. >> Yeah, I want to give a shout out to I I guess it would it's um Sean Brastead's team who posted on social media today in honor of happy public schools week, but one thing that he said that resonated today for me was um when we say we have a school for every child, we
069mean it. >> Yeah. for every learner, for every curiosity, for every dream in every Nashville neighborhood strengthened by outstanding teachers and built for opportunity. This is public education for everyone. And so I truly truly appreciate that post and I appreciate it even more after learning more about your schools and showcasing the great things that are happening um across our district. This is a testament to who we are and who we can be for the families of Nashville. Thank you. >> Um Okay. And actually member Herald Block, we have not gone through all the schools and all the colleers. We still have more to go. >> Yeah, we're almost there. >> I'm so sorry. >> Talk about the depth of our district. >> Um member uh Elrod, >> thank you so much. So, um, as my
070colleagues have said, our magnet schools and day schools and signature initiative schools or signature schools all provide experiences to match the needs of our students. Um, that's not to say our neighborhood schools don't also provide that, but it's a unique approach and I am glad that we have it. That said, most of my questions are about our um special day schools and I really appreciate y'all being here as I know that that's a conversation we don't typically get to have is about our special day schools. So my first question I would have if I may is typically parents of students with special needs need additional resources outside of a typical resource that other parents or families might need. How do we meet those inside of our schools? Yep. Go ahead, Dr. McAdams. >> Um, so
071we have a parent um we have parent group nights. We actually have one this Thursday night. Um, Cassie Williams does an incredible job with our transition nights. You've had how many so far? >> Three where we're helping our parents who have students that are nearing the age of transition and we start having those conversations specifically at age 14, but really having those conversations starting at prek. Um, so we offer a lot of that. We also hope that our schools are your first contact um to assist parents with the very difficult navigating the special ed as you know it's very difficult um but also any of our coaches can help support um if you need more assistance reach out to any of our directors so we are all here to assist with that and we partner
072with the Ark of Tennessee they're our parent involvement partner >> and you all lead um uh community um sessions as well with other community leaders and researchers in the exceptional ed face. Um the team is there lending um their support to families and just the direction of the district. So kudos to you all. >> It's my understanding that that was one of the first um community kind of organizations for between our schools between a school system and a department of special needs and also families. And so I appreciate that that was probably done under your tenure since I know you've been here since 2009. Um, and so I appreciate that it's been done. I think it's been helpful. Um, I know we heard a lot about it as a board, particularly during 2000 when students
073were not inside their classrooms and there were additional needs that were given and of course makeup of services that needed to be provided in person. Um, inside of our stay schools, what kind of services are provided there that we would not find inside of our neighborhood schools? What would we expect to see different? >> Well, each school is very different and we want to make sure we offer all services in our schools of zones in all of our specialty schools. So, a student can access services in any of our schools. But if that school no longer can serve that child and it's no longer their least restrictive environment, we ask that IEPs look at multiple sources of data. And I'm probably going into too much depth, but um we want to make sure that when
074we're moving students to a special day school and they're taking that alternative path that we have the data to support that and it's the best choice for that child. So like Merurl will typically serve students they serve students K through eight that may have very aggressive outwardly um behavior. Kora how has students who are on alternate academic diploma may have some significant learning disabilities and also some behavioral difficulties. And Harris Hillman is really completely different. Um students typically that attend Harris Hillman will stay at Harris Hillman where at Kora How and Merurl the goal is to get them back to their school of zone once we provide that intensive intervention where Harris Hillman has more of our students with very significant needs um and they'll stay there pretty much for for their entire time and
075then we um educate them to be successful in post-secary opportunities >> and they're there until age 21. Is that correct? >> They can stay until age 21. Yes. >> Okay. Harrison >> and all of and any student with an IEP has that right to stay until age 21. Um unless they graduate with a gened diploma. Once you have a gened diploma, the doors are closed. Right. I mean, I appreciate the I appreciate the uh commitment to the least restrictive environment, not just inside of our neighborhood schools or our magnet schools, but also inside of our day schools. Um and I also want to echo the joy that comes from going to those schools. Um my first experience at Kora was actually I met Dr. Winfrey there and it was for graduation and you could not
076expect um a more joyful environment. Um it was really it was really something to to take in. I I had not had that experience before and ever since I try to almost fight uh to be the person that gets to go to that um to that graduation. And so I appreciate y'all being here. I have, of course, a number of different questions as it is a special interest of my own. Um, but I appreciate you all being here. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Thank you, >> Member Taylor. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all. I appreciate the work that you do. I've had an opportunity to visit at least one school in each of the three road maps. And um I guess I'm the only board member that has a
077school in each of the three uh road maps. And so, um, I've had an opportunity to see the hard work that you all put in with these students. I know that, um, uh, sometimes there can be some unique challenges as well as opportunities in your buildings. Um, and some people don't know, I've had children at, uh, Harris Hillman on and off for about 18 years now. And so I've had an opportunity to uh to be at Harris Hillman, to participate in graduations there, and uh and then to see uh some of the uh the I guess the definite unique challenges that they deal with there. And so I just want to thank uh the administrators that are here tonight, but also uh thank your staff, the teachers, support staff, cafeteria employees, everybody that uh that
078helps make your schools run on a daily basis. I just wanted to thank you all publicly and show our appreciation as a board for the work that you're doing. >> Member Tyler, um I'm not going to keep you here too much longer. Um but again, I concur wholeheartedly with all of the praise that you guys have had lavished on you tonight because it is so welld deserved. And um I too have had personal experience with some of my my own children being at one of our schools and I am just so grateful for the leadership that is there and um that is available to those students and the support that you provide for them. Um, one, my my only question is that um, at some of our alternative learning schools where the intent is to
079get them in an environment where they can figure out how to be their best self and then transition them back to their school of zone. Um, and we have heard from some students who have expressed a higher comfort level at the alternative school than their school of zone and would like to actually stay instead of transition back. So, what are our thoughts? Um, I would just love to hear some of your thoughts on what's the possibility of that, what's the benefit or drawback of that. And I know some of the drawback is is mainly space, but um, just I think it speaks highly Yeah, when you're coming up, I'm just going to keep talking. Um, it speaks highly of the structure that you provide that they feel so comfortable that that's where they would choose
080to stay because that's where they feel fully seen. And so I think that speaks very highly of of what you do to help. Um but yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Promo Franklin, >> that is actually a very good question. I thank you for that question. Um myself and Dr. Johnson run alternative programs and the best way I can answer that question for you is legally. They can't stay beyond the time that they were allowed to stay with us and we just don't have that structure established for uh continued service and alternative program. But we really appreciate that praise. But legally, I have to tell parents all the time they have to go back and hopefully they stay. But what we find some try to come back. But it's it's a legal thing. It's
081policy and we just can't go around that one. >> And then um are you involved in the supports at their school of zone to help them during the transition once they've left or is that completely shifted to the school of zone once the student moves? >> So one of the things that um both leaders have done incredible work around in their teams is um the transition planning. Um so it doesn't just happen when like that it's not like a day um transition. They are truly building plans um as they know it's time for students to transition. Um there are convenings and meetings and supports and we're sharing information around um progress that's been made um supports that are helpful and supportive to students. Um and then there's kind of a monitoring kind of handoff process
082once students transition um back in. The good um news here is that our principles are all um in networks together. So, they continue to discuss um student needs and share like little tips and tricks and supports um that were helpful for students when they were in um what will be transitioning as our success centers because they're just um leading such phenomenal work. >> Vice Chair Nobkiny. >> Thank you, Principal Franklin. >> Thank you. I do have a a follow-up question for our special day schools um around students uh uh transitioning out of our special day schools once they have reached the maximum age. Can you talk a little bit about what that transition looks like? what the age um what's what's the maximum age around transition and and all of >> so for any of
083our students with an IEP once they they either leave us at age 21 they finish out that school year um or once they get a gen education diploma I'm going to ask Cassie Williams to come up here she's our director of high school and she has built the most incredible transition program for all of our students here in metro she oversees our priaths program and our transition school to work specialist. So she her team is amazing. I've you've been my shine all week. So this is great. >> Good evening. Thank you all for having us. Um so we really we have really been focusing on making sure our students are prepared for life after high school. So, in addition to all the supports that our high schools and middle schools provide with the college and
084career readiness, we have also added additional layers of support through pre-employment transition specialists, through our parent transition nights where we're sharing information about community agencies that are available to support students with disabilities after they graduate. And we're having an annual our annual transition fair August 6th at Martin Professional Development Center. We will have about 40 um agencies there that support students with disabilities with post-secary from um employment to independent living services to post-secary education whether it is um traditional colleges or inclusive colleges for our students that have the most significant disabilities and community involvement. So we invite our juniors and seniors so they can be a part of that transition planning process and our parents are also invited. So, please share about our transition fair. >> March 5th. March 5th. March 5th. >> April 6th.
085>> No, but Overton. >> Yes. In Overton is having a parent transition night March 5th. Yes. In the evening. >> And there's so much resources out there. I don't think our parents even understand. Like um one of the presenters at Pearl Cone the other night, they gave out like phones to our students when they're graduate. So, they have a cell phone so they can communicate with their worker and they can communicate with their parents and then they can use like there's an Uber app, but it's something a little different than Uber. there's so much available for our students that our parents just I don't think are aware >> and Cassiey's team's done an incredible job to make sure our families are aware of that and the actual students because we want them to be self-
086advocates. >> Yeah, thank you for that. I I was uh at a presentation where a parent talked or benefited from the transitions um and the special day schools within our district. Um and she just gloated about the amount of support um that she has received over the years. um and the and and how well prepared she feels as she begins to transition her son um who will who is 21 um on out of the program. So, I just wanted to make sure that we highlighted that and acknowledge the wonderful work that happens both within our schools and as students transition out of our schools. And then lastly, I would be remissed if I didn't give a shout out to Carmen Brown uh with the Academy of Opry Mills and the McGavic Cluster. Woohoo. Thank you.
087Um and just just to wrap everything up, um the first graduation I ever conferred degrees were deferred degrees was Bass. Uh and um I will encourage any community member to attend either Bass graduation or one of the Simon Academy graduation. It is rooted why I know at least fe for myself why I do the work that I do. To see that graduation, to see those families and to see those students this beaming with excitement and achievement because we invested in them makes everything we go through politically, communitywise like worth it to see those students excel and thrive. So, thank you for all the work you do with the magnet schools, the day schools. I've heard great things from my friends who have kids uh with disabilities, how much they love the work and the part
088they do. All they want to do is give you more money. And so that's, you know, that's also one of the good things. So to make sure that you are known across the whole uh district and um and to our um signature schools, the awesome work you guys do, I walk to the podcast um but also the things that you do to make sure our kids are seen and known is great. So, I know it's literally a school night and you probably be up in well, you probably be back at school in 12 hours. So, you're welcome to leave um as we go into our next session. Thank you all um so much. Y'all are incredible. See, this is why we put them towards the end because we knew it would generate um um all
089of this. Um if it's okay um chair, as we transition, I wanted to go ahead and welcome up um Dr. Tina Stinson. um she will be kicking off um our data update and then um Dr. David Williams will follow. So Dr. uh Stinson, if you could make your way up to the podium, we'll appreciate you. >> Thank you, Dr. Thank you, Dr. B. Can you guys hear me? Thank you, Dr. Battle. Madam chair and board members, um I'm here to give an assessment update about our fastbridge data and um David uh Williams will follow with benchmark data. Winter 202526 screening assessment results. Um the district MTSS window was uh extended through the 13th due due to the ice storm. uh and over 35,000 students in the grade levels we typically report on did um attempt
090um and finish the uh adaptive nationally normed Fastbridge A reading and a math assessments. We had a very high participation rate despite the ice storm 96.9%. As we've seen in past years, district math scores on these assessments were higher than ELA scores in grades 2 through nine. Um, when compared to results from winter of last year, the percentage of students in the bottom two national quintiles, which we'll get into a little more, declined slightly in both subjects. That's what we want to see. The district is on track to meet its growth focused outcome from for math and ELA and every student group u met winner growth targets on the a reading I mean on the AATH uh and several student groups I won't read them out loud um also met it on the ELA assessment
091but I'm going to get into a little bit of the weeds here but before I do Um, those of you who've been here for a while have heard me say this. We did notice um some issues in the norms from fall to um winter and fall to spring uh over the last couple of years. the data do remain valuable for uh universal screening purposes and we have seen um some of the one of the scores you'll see uh we've seen this kind of pattern for years and we've bounced back on TV and the seer study so I just wanted to acknowledge that so what were our fastbridge 2526 a reading quintiles You may remember that quintiles are simply taking students and grouping them into the top 20% of performance in quintile 5, second highest um
092in quintile 4 and so on and so forth. Typically you would see in a normal school year nationally speaking 20% of students are in each category. Um, so you see a line for the national average and the fall is in gold, the winter is in blue. Um, and you will see that our bottom two quintiles, the lower performing students on these assessments did grow a little bit about two percentage points um, from fall to winter, which we have seen in the past years that I just explained. Uh and uh that being said, we have improved these bottom two quintiles from winter 24 25. So if you look winter to winter, um we're doing pretty well. Ditto on the top end, we see a little bit of a decrease in the quint uh of the percentage
093of students in the top two quintiles. And again um we are still doing better than we did in winter 2425. So moving to a reading achievement by student group. The median national percentile is by definition 50. All it all a median means is that half the scores are above half the scores are below. Um so by definition it's 50. Uh so you can see where our total our all student group is scoring which is 27. This is up three points from winter 24 25 and down three points from fall 25 26. Um most of our students groups are are showing this same pattern. Um um and again we have bounced back each year. We've seen this in the A reading um percentages and then the A reading growth by student group. Um so this is
094based on our focused outcome. Are we kind of on pace to meet it? uh which and this is the percentage of students maintaining their percentile or improving their percentile. So if you're at the 70th percentile, you stay there or move up. If you're at the 20th, you stay there or move up. From fall to winter, that's not our focused outcome. Um fall to spring is our focused outcome. This is just kind of dipping the thermometer in the in the water. Uh and you can see that we are on pace to meet um our growth goal uh for the all student group. Um and also uh the Hispanic student group is um especially doing well. ED, SWD and LEP student groups are also um exceeding this um standard which we don't have a focused outcome about
095this but we do like to break it down so that we can see it and analyze it. Moving on to math again you'll see the quintiles you see the pattern is uh very much like a reading and also like fall um with uh you know just in general but what you also see is that this is showing a pattern uh we prefer to see which is that the bottom two quintiles are decreasing slightly uh in percentage of students um especially quintile one and the top two um decreased a little bit but both of these are in better shape than they were in winter 24 25. So, um, we saw a decrease from fall to winter in math, but we're also seeing a decrease from winter to winter, um, which is a really good comparison and
096good for us to be able to see a math achievement by student group. Uh, this again is the median national percentile. You see that all students are at um a 31 as a median national percentile. This is up one from last year at this time and stable from what we saw in fall. Um all the student groups um you are showing stability in this from from the last two assessments we gave that were a math. And then a math growth by student group. Again, looking toward our focused outcome for all students, we see that we're in pretty good shape with 55.2% of all students maintaining or improving their percentile ranking from fall to spring. And just in in case there are people who are new or don't use percentiles every day like I do, um
097a percentile is simply the percent of students you score above. So if you're at the 50th percentile, you're scoring above 50% of this of the test takers in this test. Um and a little below 50%. Um so uh we want students staying there or improving and we we see that with every single student group um in math. With that, I'm going to turn the mic over to Dr. David Williams to talk a little bit about benchmark data. >> Thank you, Dr. Sinson. Uh good evening, Dr. Battle. Members of the board, you'all hear me? Okay. Thank you. I'm grateful for the opportunity this evening to share updates regarding our benchmark assessment. As a reminder, these assessments are administered quarterly in our schools in all of our tested grades and subject areas. So, specifically in grades three
098through five, that's math, ELA, and science. In grades six through eight, that's math, ELA, science, and social studies. And at a high school level, that's um integrated math 1, two, three, English one, and two, biology, and US history. The analysis I'm sharing tonight will include um grade three ELA and math, grade seven ELA and math, integrated math 1, and English two given the importance both uh the stakes on those tests and the content that's necessary to ensure students are set up well for what's next. Um I have provided similar benchmark updates to the board before and tonight I've taken a slightly different approach in the information I'm going to share. I I was going to have you all do a couple of benchmark items yourselves and then Dr. Battle edited that out. Um so we're
099not going to do that. However, I did look at our benchmark performance from last year to this year comparing quarter 1 last year, quarter 1 this year. Similarly, quarter two last year, quarter two this year to see uh if there are any trends or patterns. I also looked at all of the available standards report from the state over the last several years going back as far as 2021 to see if some of those patterns and trends held up so that I could um see what does this tell us about the content that our students are learning. So with that I want to jump into third grade math. So some areas of improvement here you can see on the screen um 3MDC5A I won't go through all of these but uh this is critical for understanding
100how to calculate unit u area square units uh in terms of there being a single unit squared. Um that item was assessed in TCAP in 2022 and then again in 2025 not 23 and 24. So that's another important point I wanted to make to the board that even though we assess we teach every standard, it's not always the case that all of them will be assessed. Um but overall we've been doing fairly well. Uh the next one is about rounding whole nomomas to the nearest 10 or 100 using place value in the number line as a strategy to do that. Um we have also improved our performance over time on TCAP over the last four years. This item has been worth two points. Um and we have seen success and we want to continue to
101maintain that. So some opportunities uh for improvement. Um this first one is about classification of shapes based on their attributes specifically looking at quadrilaterals. I do want to point out that this is sort of a terminal uh thread across the standards this terminates in fifth grade. So even though classification of geometric shapes sort of bins in fifth grade it is important but it's only worth one point. So that importance you can see reflected on TCAP but it does show that we still have some work to do uh to ensure we're capturing those points that are available to us. 3085 is about applying properties of operations like associative distributive uh as strategies to multiply and divide. This has shown up the last few years uh as much as two or three points on TCAP. We have
102been improving in this area on TCAP over the last four years and we want to continue that trend. Shifting over to ELA, some areas of improvement. Again, looking across uh two years worth of benchmark assessments. Um the code here is important. I can just point this out. RL is reading uh literary text. RI is readingformational text. K stands for key ideas and details. So, we can see it it's the second uh standard in those reading uh strands. So I just for sake of time I'll just kind of group those together if you will because they both revolve around the idea of central message key and supported by key key ideas and details. Um these have ranged on TCAP historically from anywhere from uh three to five points. Overall we have been successful but there are
103still plenty of opportunities there. Um for um the next set CS stands for craft and structure and so we also know that those have ranged between three and seven points. Our historical performance on TCAP has trended slightly down. So seeing this improvement on benchmark is encouraging and positive. So some areas of opportunity um 3L k3 describing characters in a story that's one part of the standard explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events. So multiple things going on with this standard. Um for this particular standard, we have seen that they've raised anywhere from five to eight points and our performance uh across those four years has been fairly stable. So there are plent plenty of opportunities to continue to improve in this area. For uh the next standard, the IKI is integration of
104knowledge and ideas. Uh we've seen one point on the last several years of TCAP um but it was not tested in 2024. shifting into seventh grade math uh geometry standard here. You all know that seventh grade math is my personal favorite. Um know the formulas for area and circumference of a circle and use them to solve problems. Uh so we've seen a great deal of success here. Uh got my notes out of order. This was an improvement. uh we did see this has been on the TCAP last four years anywhere from one to two points and our our performance on TCAP has also trended positively and I'm seeing that as well on the benchmark 7RPA28 about recognizing and representing proportional relationships and deciding whether or not uh they are absolutely uh important uh to note
105this is critical for understanding proportional relationships which is the foundation for understanding linearity in general uh particularly when you get to slope triangles. So this is also really encouraging to think about where our kids are headed uh when they get to high school. Our performance has been quite strong and um the points available anywhere from 1 to two. Some areas of opportunity. This one is interesting because it's also in that RP domain. Uh but this is about going from graphs necessarily to equations which is really the most sophisticated abstract representation of the relationship between quantities. So this is an opportunity that we need to continue to push in. Uh this has appeared on TCAP each of the last four years. Uh the point value has increased over time going from one to two and the
106data still shows from benchmark this is still an area we need to continue to work on. 7S 7NS A1C um is really as the number uh systems expand uh we're taking what we've learned about addition and subtraction say with whole numbers natural numbers and now we're extend extending that understanding to rational numbers um which is what this standard is about. Um this has been simply one point on TCAP. Uh and our performance has fluctuated over the years, but this standard is absolutely critical when you think about what's important uh coming later on in high school. Shifting over to seventh grade ELA. Um analyze the relationships and interactions among individuals, events or ideas in a text. So looking at the true complexity of the text of for this one again we've seen where um this is
107worth about two to three points and we usually do perform well on the standard. So we want to continue to see that trend. Shifting into areas of opportunity for seventh grade ELA for so for craft and structure standard 4 notes. This one is interesting. It's worth paying attention to. This has not been on the TECAP the last two years, but it was on the three years before that and it was worth as many as three points. So again, not always assessed. You can't really guess. You're responsible for quality instruction and rigorous teaching and learning to ensure kids are prepared for whatever they they encounter on the test. Uh the next standard has been uh anywhere from three to six points on uh TCAP and our our performance has been overall uh fairly solid. Uh but
108this is another area we want to continue to improve in. Shifting to high school now and again we do have some middle school students taking integrated math. Uh but this is a high school uh credit course. Certainly uh LLE LE stands for linear and exponential. So this is at the heart of IM1 where they're comparing the difference between linear and exponential functions and relationships. This has appeared on each of the last four high school EOCC's with multiple points attached to them. Um FIFA A1 is about interpreting functions and here this is really critical. They've learned about the idea of mapping inputs to outputs but they're formally using function notation here in high school for the first time. Uh this has had two points consistently. We have had a posit positive trajectory since 2022 and we
109want to continue to maintain that. Uh but our benchmark data here underscores and validates that areas of opportunity. um want to point out here that this standard has only been worth one point on the 2023 EOC that we have seen. Uh but we do want to ensure that our students are prepared to respond to this. I want to point out that asterisk you see here um the first one in the standard means it's a modeling standard. That means that all the problems students will encounter will be in a word problem or a contextual uh situation. So that's just an important uh point to point out. When I looked at the analysis between last year's benchmark and this year's benchmark where the all the standards were assessed across both years, I didn't see any regression at
110all. So that means that our students have um and although it's a different cohort, looking at the same standard, same scope and sequence, I did see better performance this year overall. Um from benchmark one to bench uh yeah benchmark 2 2425 to benchmark 226. Shifting over to ELA. Um, notable areas of improvement. Again, looking at benchmark benchmarks last year to this year, analyzing how point of view and author's purpose shapes the content and style of a diversity of texts. These values have ranged um actually this has not been on the last two OC's but was on the three uh before that. Our our performance has been strong and we want to maintain that. Uh so for CS4 this has been worth up to four points on the EOC but our performance again has been strong
111and we want to maintain these trends. Shifting over into areas of opportunity where we need to continue to work for K2 determine the theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development. Provide an objective or critical summary. Um every ELA class I've secondary ELA class I've been in this year. That's one of the the main goals is continue to like write an objective summary. First read get the gist. Write an objective summary. So something we're continuing to work on. Um this has been ranged anywhere from three to eight points. Uh but our performance has been consistently strong on our EOC. So a couple of key takeaways. Uh this is something I've talked to the board about each time when we talked about item types. Uh and that was maybe new learning for some
112of us where where if we've taken tests in the past as adults, they're largely going to be multiple choice. Students now uh have multiple choice, multiple select the secondary space, middle and high school. They may have what are called technology enhanced items or they have to drag and drop or they have to do a drop down or inline. Those can be complicated. It was it was very obvious when I first started analyzing these in uh three years ago. We're in our fourth year of analyzing benchmark information. Uh that the the multiple choice still had the highest success rate. the more complicated non-traditional items were students struggled. I'm pleased tonight to say that there was no clear pattern. When I looked at year-over-year, when I looked at content, there was no clear pattern. Sometimes it was
113a case the multiple choice had the greatest success. Sometimes the multi select had better success than the multiple choice. So, I think that's important to point out. Maybe there's a level of comfortability that our students are experiencing with this. But also important from an instructional standpoint that I can get past the hangup of the item type and get into the content and diagnosing if there's a misconception. It's not the item type that's that's hanging up the student to be successful. There's something else going on there with the problem, whether it's the language or the actual content. So, I felt that was an important point to make. For ELA, success is highly dependent on the passages. So, the passages are going to be diverse. they're going to range in complexity and different features about them make
114them complex for different reasons. Some of the things that we're seeing are when perspectives shift that can be really challenging for students or when you have a narrative but there are flashbacks and so there are temporal shifts that's also uh very challenging. So uh what we see is not necessarily a pattern across standards as much sometimes as there's a group of questions related to a passage and that passage could be particularly challenging for students overall. when I was again looking at benchmark uh performance from last year to this year and then again triangulating that against the state assessment I did see that the our overall standard level performance is lined up very consistently with what we see on TCAP and EOCC. Um in general I would say that our students are making progress learning content
115where it matters. We still have work to do certainly, but the overarching point I want to make about point values is even though we don't define students by the test and we don't certainly play games with test to get the number of points. Um, but the the the point that I want to make is that content generally is more critical for college and career and that tends to show up more heavily weighted on our state assessments. So, it's not about chasing points, it's about focusing teaching and learning on content that's most critical. Finally, here are some next steps. So, as we continue to finish the year, we're heading into spring break and then we're going to enter into our testing season. Strong message from the Division of Academics and Schools is to continue to maintain
116a strong focus on tier one instruction. Just a a quick note here that our our benchmark 3 actually started today and goes through next Thursday, March 5th. Our spring MTSS screening window is April 13th through May 15th. Given the data that I information that I've shared, again, our schools are equipped with just the exact same level of detail and information and insight into student performance and they're continuously monitoring their assessment data against their theory of actions to drive cycles of continuous improvement. For our focal areas that I've identified, uh we have equipped leaders within the division of academics and schools so they can better be equipped uh to lead teaching and learning in their buildings. We do provide stu supporting student success documents every year. Those are revised every year to make sure that our
117educators are well informed with um what's expected on the test, how then how to help students be successful while continuing to maintain a strong focus on tier one instruction. And then the final point that I want to make is whether it's in the tier one uh teaching block, whether it's in PLT, whether it's finding before after school Saturday, we want to maximize every opportunity we have we have to connect with students and um support additional learning. And so with that, uh Dr. Battle, I'm going to turn it back over to you. >> Thank you so much, Dr. Williams, and um Dr. Stinson, board member chair, if there are any questions, um we would love to respond. >> All right. Anyone interested? I knew that was going to happen. Um, other than member Heroblock. >> Okay,
118we'll go with Cheryl Mazize first. Member me. Sorry, I won't be all day because this is going to take a while. >> No, I have two questions. >> I just want to uh say that this fascinates me. I'm a data junkie. And one of the things that I really love about this is this took me back immediately to my days in algebra. I did so much better on reading. uh math problems than I did on equations because reading is just one of those things that I love to do. And so whenever I had an opportunity to read through a problem, it was uh I was much more successful. So I get excited too, Dr. Williams, when you start uh presenting on this because I'm looking at this integrated math like, "Oh, I bet I could
119solve this problem. I bet I could solve that problem because it uh it provides a passage." But one of the things that concerns me about the uh ELA um situation is that one thing that I learned is that if a student is reading a passage that is not uh something that their experience is uh that they're they're familiar with in their own experiences then they tend to not do so well. So I mean not that we could magically change that but that's just an observation. But thank you. Overall, I just I started getting into this and I'm like, "Yeah, this is pretty cool." So, I appreciate that. Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Stinson. >> Member O'Hara Block. >> Okay. My questions are simple. Um, so off of the the I think I asked like
120the same two questions basically every time we get a presentation like this. Number one, what I'm getting from what you presented, Dr. Sinson, is that we're roughly in the same place we were at this time last year in terms of growth. everything looks on track and the kind and we never want to say that we're gonna take the foot off the gas or anything like that, but like we're in a we're in a position that feels comfortable compared to prior years. We still want to push the gas and go further, but is that roughly correct? No one ever wants to say yes, but that's what the data is. >> Let Dr. Sy respond. You know, I think, you know, >> there are no areas that I saw that were either marketkedly up or marketkedly down.
121Would we rather have marketkedly up? Sure. But we're not having marketkedly down either. >> I mean, I think this um Come on up. Um the data that you um were able to dig into tonight does help us understand where we are comparative to either fall or this time last school year. But we're always in continuous improvement. Um a school board member. I'm not going to freak out. I feel comfortable. I want us to push harder, but I feel comfortable. That's my point. >> It's trending. Thank you, TK. It's trending. >> Yes. But I do want to point out that we are doing a little better than last winter. And that is kind of something that, you know, we we do want to see, right? and um you know our fall to winter to spring that's
122our focused outcome but we're also trying to make year-over-year improvement and we are seeking that >> well and and that's significant as well because we've consistently had increases in student outcomes and so the bar >> is in some way I mean is reset um year after year although >> the way this is measured is a little bit different um but we because of that we do want to see some improvement um um at the meteor point. >> Exactly. Yeah. I I I know that anyway trending sounds like a um and and then the other question is actually for Dr. Williams and again I think I ask like roughly the same kind of question. >> Um >> when you run through this stuff I'm always like I I like understand about half of it at best.
123Um but you understand it deeply and people in schools deeply understand oh the students in my school are not doing well on this particular standard measure etc etc and can break it down in that same way. Is that what you mean when you say we're equipping school leaders with the ability to do this that like at every single school they could have the exact same conversation you just had with us? >> Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. Is this on? >> Yeah. It was quiet. Absolutely. And I I think that's an important thing like the transparency that we have really tried to push with these assessments is you can see the question you can see how kids responded. Um so I've given the example before if it's a multi select and the correct answer is ABC and the
124I can see the kid who chose ABD that's they didn't get the point but I know that they're close. So now it's a small refinement then they just missed that question or they missed the standard. >> Um they can look at depth of knowledge. They can look at the passages like it's it's all there available for educators. Um I was having a conversation with one of our executive directors of schools of yesterday the high school and they've at at one of their schools they've just gotten down to the item types and try to pinpoint where where are kids having trouble is the passage is the item type is the depth of knowledge. And so they're having sophisticated conversations about what's needed best next to move their students forward. >> And if an executive director notices
125that that conversation is not happening at a school, what happens next? if the executive director notices it's not. >> Um, >> you you you mentioned a successful one. Are there any that aren't having those conversations at that point? >> I don't think so. I think I think I mean we're four years into this and we have >> we have focused on instruction and and a focus on having this data available that I know those conversations I can confidently say those conversations are happening with our EDS and their principles at their schools. Um the last thing, the item types thing was particularly interesting to me. The no clear pattern of success based on item types, it feels really important that educators y >> in the classroom understand that because that means that it's not about the
126test, it's about the teaching, >> right? >> Yeah. So just I'm I'm sure you all are making sure we're getting that message out very clearly. >> Yeah. It was a big aha for me when I was looking at all this because that the first time I was like, "Wow, there's no clear pattern." Um and that felt yeah it felt important for sure. >> Also important to have the same person and team doing the same work year after year to get to that level of depth. So thank you. >> Yeah, one other kudos to David and his team. Um one of the kind of upgrades that they've made is um they've been identifying exemplar um lessons um of our teachers um in our schools um that our professional learning network with our executive principles have been
127digging into. um it's actually been um really fun um to do and so kudos to David, his entire team for um doing the heavy lifting on the front end um to create that kind of professional learning experience um of our teachers and our classrooms um digging into our curriculum to help move the needle in this space. So thank you >> member El Rod. >> Thank you. Um I don't necessarily have a question. It's more of a a comment, I guess, to piggyback on the several years of d of looking into specific question types and um how that seemed to be of particular interest to our board. I haven't had the chance to look back through my past notes from we've had this meeting at different endeavors. Uh my memory serves me though that the uh
128what was it called? drag and drop used to be a real issue for our students. And so I find that I do find that really interesting and I wanted to say that I appreciate you bringing this up to us. Um as not only is it seem to be of interest to the board, but it does help in response to I know I think the last time I had a specific question of like how are we doing test prep on these different types of um question patterns and so it looks like that has been successful and I appreciate that that's been provided to us. Thank you. And I'll just say I think it's a level of comfort comfortability. I do want to say though that there are certainly some instances where some more of those complex
129items still are students continues to struggle, but it's not a matter of every single time that's the case. Right. So there are certainly cases where the drag and drop is more challenging than the multiple choice. >> Sure. >> But if I go across grades and across content areas, that pattern is not all does not always hold. >> Got it. Yes, ma'am. It's not the It's not the crutch, >> right? >> Um, the other thing I wanted to say that I appreciate and hope that continues within these presentations is how you have these notable areas of improvement and of opportunity. For example, on um slide 49 for grade 3 ELA, it's less it's listed as an improvement which includes fables, folk tales, and myths from diverse cultures. I remember in our past conversations about benchmarks, it
130was actually an area of opportunity if I'm correct. And so it's interesting to see that that's been um not only identified, but it's also been focused on and how we have tried to focus on it. And so I appreciate that we've have that detail of uh material as well inside of our presentation. And I just wanted to say thank you for that um and presenting it to us. >> Thank you very much. >> Member Tyler. >> Yes. Um, so I was looking at the the ELA success is highly dependent on the passages. Um, is that across all grade levels or is it are we seeing it more heavily in one or the other? >> We we do see that pattern pretty consistently across all all grades and I was actually talking to our secondary uh
131ELA director uh recently and and even in when you get into the secondary and high school space, they're just longer. So stamina becomes an issue. Uh so it's the type and the length of passage. But when you're looking at like the pattern of item types, I can clearly see depending on the passage, the group of items that are aligned to that passage, there's clear differences in performance. >> Okay. I mean, that would make sense to me. Um, and I know you mentioned something like uh some of the passages when they focus on like flashbacks or point of view change or something that that really can trip up some of our students. Have we taken that information to consider how we are using some books to supplement in the classroom so that we can have maybe
132more clear examples like maybe don't start with Faulner but find somebody who does a lot of shifts and point of view some does a lot of flashback shifts where that you can actually have those discussions >> within the curriculum. >> Yeah, I think that's a I think that's a good idea. I'm going to just make note of that because again I think our team feels confidence that our that our HQIM exposes students to a diversity of text. So then it's a matter of are there particular text within our curriculum >> that um that our students need that extra work on. Um one thing that we talk about is giving kids competence and confidence to attack text regardless of if something they're familiar with as was mentioned or not or its length. Um and so we
133feel that our materials have a diversity of text. If there is a particular need to supplement, we can we can work, you know, to do that at the local level. >> Okay, great. And I also just want to put a plug in to not shift away from full books or full plays into adding more smaller passages, but to stay with the context of reading a whole entire novel to get that full understanding. And that's yeah, that's just my personal thought on on what actually works best and sticks with them the longest. So, >> thank you. >> Anyone else? >> All right. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Williams. Thank you, Dr. Stenson. We really appreciate the work that you do and allow us to do our work and as I affectionately say, uh, nerd out on
134data because that's the real work we do to make progress. Um, now we'll move on to public participation. There is no one who signed up. We have no one for we have no board reports. Uh since we didn't have any committee reports, we will now move on to governance issues. Um may I have a um a motion to approve consent agenda? >> There is a motion by and second. Um all in favor say I. >> Any oppose? All right. Um All right. Uh, student board member, do you have anything to say? Okay. All right. Um, be no further business. This meeting is adjourned. Stop. Stop. >> Okay. Sorry. Now we'll move on to reimagine school update school naming. May I was there is there a presentation or do you need a motion? >> No. Are
135you standing for a particular reason? Sean >> pleasure of introducing this topic. Uh this is more of a communications thing. Anyway, so as the chief of communications, I get to present. So uh in your agenda packet, uh is included sort of an outline of what we're proposing here. This is something that's been adopted since 2023. Um it's been in process uh MLK and head as part of the uh I'll just read my remarks. Uh on the agenda tonight is the board's adoption of the renaming plans connected with metro schools reimagined pathway realignment for head magnet middle and MLK junior magnet first presented in 2023 as part is a shift of fifth grade from middle to elementary schools. Um, as a reminder, MLK has operated as a 712 school and is transitioning to a 912 model
136over the next two years with increased capacity in the high school grades. At the same time, Headmnet has been partnering closely with MLK to strengthen their alignment and create a more seamless pathway between the two schools. Um, updates have been shared with current and prospective families throughout this process. Tonight's vote formally adopts the associated school name. So MLK's official state name has been Martin Luther King Jr. School. U and moving forward it will just be designated Martin Luther King Jr. High School which in a lot of ways it already has been. Um head will transition to Martin Luther King Jr. Middle at Head Campus reflecting both the pathway alignment and the school's history as head middle school. And so, uh, as noted in your board agenda packet, while both schools will continue to use the
137word magnet in their branding, um, the official school names that we present to the state typically do not have that in there. So, um, so that's what's up for the vote and we welcome a motion. >> Thank you. Is there a motion to, um, approve or confirm the new name the name >> to confirm? >> Um, there's been a motion by member Maize. Is there a second? There is a second by member Herald Block. Any discussion? See no discussion. All in favor say I. >> Any oppose? It passes unanimously. Now be no further business. This meeting is adjourned. This has been