001have a quorum and call to order start our meeting with our Pledge of Allegiance and if our Junior board member will please start that for us thank you all right may I have a motion to either adopt or amend the agenda as listed a second right um if you are voting in the adoption uh excuse me the adoption agenda has been first and seconded do we have any discussion seeing none all in approval of the adoption of our agenda please raise your hand is unanimous all right thank you so we will begin our evening with our director's report which is given of course by Dr Adrian battle and it's going to be over our core tenet on identifying and eliminating inequities and it's going to be about act thank you so much thank you and
002good evening chair Elrod and board members for tonight's director's report I'd like to invite to the podium Dr Tina Stinson our executive director of research assessment and evaluation who also be joined by Dr Nelson to give an overview of the most recent act data as well as an overview of the steps we're taking as a district to support our high school students and all of our students quite frankly on their Journey towards taking the act and graduating preparing for their post-secondary post-secondary Readiness as they transition into their post-secondary opportunities so Dr Stinson I will turn it over to you thank you Dr battle um as always good morning good afternoon board members sorry I think I might be getting sick so if I sound a little off um that's probably why uh this is um
003what doctor said Dr battle said about our signature initiatives and our core tenants the focused outcomes that we're looking at specifically are transitions um which touch on numeracy and literacy and really everything else the presentation objectives for you you will hopefully by the end of this presentation better understand national state and District Trends in the ACT data and hear an overview from Dr Nelson of the initiatives rate relating to act and understand the relationship of act with ready graduate I want to start the presentation by grounding Us in something you've likely seen before when we were celebrating our tiva scores in the spring and and summer and these are our act TV scores one thing to note about these scores is that they really measure growth not just from one grade to the next or
004integrated math one to integrated math two but a student's entire High School Journey right so this is measured based on what students are projected to do and what they actually do we were a level four so above the state average in tivos growth for act in 2022 uh and we were level four or level five in four out of the five areas um of course composite is one of those areas as you can see um English is the one that we uh did not score a level four or five in um that is punctuation grammar and things like that whereas reading is strictly reading understanding being able to understand questions about the text so that more the deep understanding of reading um and in that we were a level five what I want to point
005out to you um more than the level one to five I think the growth measure percentile is more important to look at here so you can see um for example for Science and reading our district was at the 72nd percentile meaning our students outpace the growth in that area over and above 72 percent of the students in the state and we were above average in the composite math and reading um so with that I'm going to talk a little bit about the act itself this is the national act composite score average for the last three years this was gathered from the ACT graduating class database that's made available online for anybody to use it's pretty cool for for people like me they've got lots of graphs and charts and everything um and what it shows
006is that for all students um from the class of 2020 to the class of 2022 students have lost a little bit of ground one thing to note is that this is the class of 2020 meaning that these students mainly took the test in their junior year or 2019. so the 2020 data can be re read as largely pre-pandemic while 2021 and 2022 students were progressively more affected by the pandemic um that being said the ACT does not want us to use the data to compare how much learning loss or anything else that's not what what this is about but that's just for context of you know when these students were in school in fact the ACT scores nationally have been going down since pre-pandemic and the ACT uh company has been looking into the reasons
007why uh and 19.8 is the first time it's been below 20 since 1991. right so this is a national Trend we're seeing you can see uh that the black Hispanic Native American student group follows the same Trend though has a lower starting Baseline a traditionally underserved group and low income similarly low income is not the same thing as economically disadvantaged as we Define it here for the state we use students who are quote directly certified meaning they get snap TANF or Foster run away um uh unaccompanied minor things like that uh that's how we Define low income in this particular database it's uh 36 000 a year or under so it's not directly comparable to our data nor do they provide District level data um however they do provide State data so here are the
008state act composite score averages a little lower than the national average but following largely the same stair step Trend except for low income which had a bounce back in 2021. um it's really important to note that this act graduating class database is of all students private and public school students who are taking the test unlike what you might see on the state's website which of course is only students who are in public schools and charter schools so um so you would you would see it being a little different if you looked at their website um and you can take a look at it anytime so those are the state and with that I'm going to talk a little bit about our participation rate and our trends so mnps participation rate has gone from 92 percent
009to 90 percent to 98 percent um over the last three years again 92 percent is lower than it usually was because the students didn't have their senior retake opportunity so if they were sick in their junior year and couldn't get to that test um you know they they wouldn't have tested but still 92 percent uh then we went to 90 percent uh and uh then 98 so a lot more students testing in the 2022 cohort the numbers behind this are 4 307 students in 2020 4 000. in 2021 and 46.62 in 2022. you will notice a few things about this participation rate again now we're back to economically disadvantaged and you can see the trend lines um here uh students with disabilities have the are the only student group that did not meet the 95
010participation rate the state requires in this past year and the reason for that is that the state um decided that alternative academic diploma students needed to take the ACT unfortunately we did not know about that during the years the students were in school and they are not always students who would take the ACT so we are rectifying that going forward so here are our mnps state composite or composite score averages for the years in question um and you can see they follow a very similar pattern to the National averages we went from 18.5 dropped a little bit and then dropped to 17.4 in the past year it's important to note who is included in these subgroups um economically disadvantaged as I mentioned before are directly certified English Learners are those students who have either are
011still currently learning English or have learned English within the last four years so these are relatively new English Learners English Learners do actually tend to outperform other student groups once they've had like six or so years in in all of our other assessments but we have a number of students coming in every single really every day who've not known English and they might come in freshmen they might come in junior um and needless to say testing is a little lower when you don't know the language students with disabilities are students with an IEP any any time during their High School career this is the percent reaching 2020 uh reaching 21 in 2020 to 2022 as you can see it's following that same stair step pattern for each of our student groups our traditionally under served
012student groups are are lagging behind all students but you know making but they're making similar gains in growth and one bright spot in the data is that because our participation rate increased so much even though this percent is lower we had actually 110 more students earning a 21 than we did uh in 2021 there's too many 20s in this 20s and 21s so we went from 1029 to 11 39 in those two years so you can take a like one participation rate is low it's often the students you know who um whose first priority is not taking the ACT um so we actually went up from 2021 to 2022. and with that I'm going to turn the floor over to Dr Nelson to oh wait I have one last thing the ACT tivos again so
013even though you were looking at those patterns the stair step patterns these students did outperform the expectations that they they had when they were coming in so each cohort of students is slightly different and we can see that these students are still making growth over and above where they were expected to be and with that I will turn it over to Dr Nelson to talk about the Act and the ready graduate context thank you Dr Stinson and thank you board members for your attention and time this evening as we talk about act I want to start by reiterating that when we talk about act we want to situate that assessment within the larger scope around preparing all students for College and Career so the state of Tennessee or the Tennessee Department of Education has established
014the ready graduate criteria for for how students can meet this designation for students across the state of Tennessee to meet this ready graduate designation they must meet any of the criteria that are displayed on the slide here so they can either meet the designated score on the ACT or the SAT or they can complete for early post-secondary opportunities or episodes or they can complete two episodes and earn an industry credential or they can complete two episodes and earn a qualifying score on the National military Readiness assessment I know I've spoken to you recently about our work around episodes a lot of good Traction in that space But as a reminder early post-secondaries when we hear that we think about the courses associated with advanced placement International Baccalaureate Cambridge Ace local dual credit Statewide dual credit
015dual enrollment coursework associated with industry credentials and clip so again a lot of positive traction is happening in that space around episodes and I'll highlight some of those things later in this presentation but much of a focus this evening will center around our strategies for ACT score Improvement so on the next few slides I'll point I'll point out several strategies that we have added to ensure that all stakeholders can be aware of and involved in how we are improving act performance ultimately ensuring that all mmps students are on track to earn that ready graduate designation so the strategies outlined on the following slides serve as highlights for what we hope to be some of the most influential ways in which all stakeholders can engage in our AP act improvement work of course other strategies have
016been implemented and connected to this work but I hope to highlight the things that we think will have the most impact so first we have established an act steering committee that is comprised of five senior support Hub leaders and a representation a representative from the ACT organization this steering committee meets regularly and provides insight and guidance around implementation of all aspects of the mnps pre-k through 12th grade act strategic plan Additionally the steering committee also ensures that District policy and procedure around act Improvement strategies are in place and in alignment with other District initiatives second we have an act support Hub committee which is a robust Committee of about 24 support Hub Personnel representing multiple departments this team collaborates regularly and drives the implementation of the action steps that are included in the Strategic plan
017this group also creates practices and procedures focused on supporting stakeholders with the three primary areas of the Strategic plan the three primary areas of the Strategic plan include improved data use improved instruction and communication related to the ACT and third we have an act principal advisory committee this committee includes 10 principles representing elementary middle and high schools this group provides the administrator perspective on all needed resources training and messaging around the ACT this group also provides feedback on the implementation of various practices and procedures that have been communicated from the support Hub to the schools in terms of supporting Educators we are excited this year that we have been able to form an educator act educator Academy this is a new program that is designed to educate a cohort of educators representing all tears so
018any mnps educator had the opportunity to apply for this program and then the selected participants are engaging in multiple training opportunities throughout the year to expand their own knowledge around the ACT then these educators will have three primary goals those goals include identifying opportunities for embedding tier appropriate act related strategies into their own professional practice developing and delivering professional development programs for their colleagues and assisting in the design of asynchronous PD programs housed in Schoology apologize for that chart there but the next thing uh the Bold part there should say each school has ACT leads each principal at our high schools have identified one school administrator to serve as their school's act lead in addition to being the primary point of contact act leads develop the school's act Improvement action plan this action plan includes
019analysis of the school's prior act data the development of a smart goal for increasing the number of students who are in a 21 or higher act composite score and action steps that key stakeholder groups will take to achieve their goal furthermore the ACT leads are responsible for leading all School level act Improvement strategies as a whole one of our key strategies for improving student performance on the ACT is ensuring that we engage as many stakeholders as possible in relevant and meaningful professional learning opportunities so some of the key to professional development opportunities are listed on this slide during the summer of 2022 act leads and ACT prep teachers received platform training for Mastery prep true score Mastery prep is the primary platform that we use for act in the district through this platform training stakeholders
020became aware of how the program functions and they became a way acquainted with additional resources such as the ACT prep pacing guide and the ACT prep grading recommendation document for all Educators in the district we have made a decoding the ACT professional development opportunity available training will provide a deeper dive into the ACT test so that participants can better understand the test structure how act assesses content knowledge and how the test is scored during our professional development day on August 4th of 2022 our district mnps act coordinator delivered breakout sessions to targeted groups such as science teachers English teachers and gear up Nashville personnel and then coming in a few weeks from now on January 30th our mmps act coordinator will deliver a one hour act Basics webinar again for any mnps educator who wants
021a better understanding of the test in order to support their students we have formed an act professional Learning Network which is housed in Schoology this group is created primarily to support High School teachers who teach one or more sections of the credit bearing ACT prep course this resource includes several relevant supports and serves as a primary communication tool so that those teachers can talk to each other and have a direct line of communication to our act coordinator finally we have a schoology course that is in development this will be an asynchronous PD opportunity for any mnps educator and this online course will provide an opportunity for those participating to get an overview of the ACT test explore each of the tested content areas and train Educators on best practice for accessing and analyzing act data
022this course will have targeted options for particular audiences such as school administrators school counselors and teachers supporting English Learners or students with exceptional needs we have several supports that are in place and will be added in the next few months to support student preparation for the ACT as I mentioned Mastery prep is our act preparation platform this this platform is available to any mnps 11th or 12th grade student in the district so it serves as the primary curriculum for our students enrolled in ACT prep courses however any student can access this platform at any time for independent study or additional practice for the ACT here we also created the the guidance I referred to earlier an ACT prep course pacing guide and Grading recommendations this resource is intended to provide Clarity around what those ACT
023prep courses look like so there can be consistency across the district the pacing guide includes options for multiple variations of that course so we have first semester courses we have year-long courses and then we also have second semester courses courses which are unique because the ACT Falls right in the middle of second semester however providing that flexibility allows schools to offer the version of that course that best meets the needs of their students in the next two months pending the school board approval of the Mastery prep contract amendment that is under consideration this evening each high school will be able to offer an act boot camp these boot camps will be funded through Gear Up funding grant grant funding or through local funds through the College and Career Readiness Department so this is a great
024opportunity for students to get very targeted support in preparation for the ACT test that's coming up in March schools will select their own dates and manage Logistics directly with the Mastery prep organization utilizing our existing relationships with Community Partners such as Martha O'Brien Oasis Center College connection and mmps gear up we are offering a four-part webinar webinar Series this spring for students that will provide an Insight on the four act tested subject areas these webinars will also outline subject-specific test taking strategies and we will have Spanish language translation available provided by connection on Americas and we are excited we've been able to provide every mnps high school and every mnps middle school mmps or a Tennessee act GPA Banner which you see a small screenshot of here it's a very large Banner which we have
025a sample of in the back of the room but these banners display the top 25 colleges and universities where our mmps graduates attend and the GPA and act requirements for each of those institutions we hope that these banners will serve as a useful tool in all of our middle schools and high schools so that all stakeholders can enhance the College and Career culture in those schools and provide a targeted tool to support advising students around their post-secondary options I'll take a few moments to highlight additional ongoing supports we have a Weekly mnps Newsletter this is sent to multiple stakeholder groups such as the ACT leads the ACT prep teachers all of the Committees and is placed in the mmps principle of connection this is a useful resource that houses information about act data PD opportunities
026Mastery prep platform updates and other pertinent information we have an act page on the mmps website this page is designed with parents and families as the target audience and includes quite a bit of useful information including insights on each of the ACT subject tests access to an act parent webinar free act preparation resources and general information around the test the district's act strategic plan can also be found here on this webpage and under consideration is act workkeys excuse me this is an assessment that provides quantifiable evidence of a student's preparation for entering the workforce After High School graduation students are assessed through the national career Readiness certification process now although students would still be required to take the ACT official assessment this is another option that is funded fully through the Tennessee Department of Education
027that would demonstrate career Readiness for any of our students as I started off with Act is one of the ways in which students can meet ready graduate designation however students might also meet the readygraduate requirements by participating in early post-secondary opportunities there's not a preferred method for how students meet the ready graduate designation so we are very deliberate around providing support in all areas and we have made significant progress in the area around Equity around early post-secondary opportunities this slide shows a few of the ways in which the support Hub is engaged in ensuring more students can meet the ready graduate designation Beyond just the act or sat composite Benchmark score our peer education research partnership with Vanderbilt University has been 18 months of work so far where we are addressing several research questions around
028Equitable access to early post-secondary opportunities within and across mnps high schools so far we have conducted preliminary research and we have drafted a research brief which demonstrates our quantitative findings so far a qualitative study component of This research study is currently underway to hear from a variety of stakeholders around how decisions are made surrounding episodes collectively the results of our peer partnership will strengthen the case for why and how students benefit from taking early post-secondary courses this spring the support Hub will be providing high schools with clear master schedule guidance maximizing episodes in all high schools will be one of the priorities for high schools building their Master schedules this year we will host individual meetings with each school team so that they can examine their options and we can make recommendations around additional episodes
029that they may consider offering of course we all understand it's impossible for all schools to offer all episodes so these conversations are more about strategically identifying which opportunities could have the most impact overall part of this conversation also will center around coursework offered in earlier grades so we'll focus conversation around Advanced academics offerings in middle schools and in ninth and 10th grade with a specific focus on refining the elements of honors courses so that we're best preparing our students for subsequent episodes policy 4.205 was enacted last year as a result of State legislation this policy requires that all episodes offered in a school are posted on their School web page letters also go home to families during the registration process directing them to notify to notify them where all of the ebsco offerings are located
030on the school web page these letters are translated into the top languages in our district to ensure all families can receive this critical information and I'm most excited about that last bullet there we have a new ready graduate report this is a report where we can internally pull data to show which students are on track to meet their ready graduate designate designation based on the courses that they have completed or are anticipating to complete more importantly we can identify students who are not on track to meet the ready graduate designation so schools can be equipped to identify which students to Target for specific conversations around meeting the designation so I'll conclude by asking that all of you continue to advocate for uh for to support us in in this work and to advocate for the
031investment in our ready graduate plan as you review the ACT results and engage with constituents please take into account the full context of what we see in the data relative to State and National Trends and ultimately I hope that you continue to partner with us as we convey all the steps that we are taking as a district to improve ACT scores to increase student access to early post-secondary work and to ensure all students can be on track to be ready for College and Career options as always I appreciate your service and your attention and your time and I will turn things over back to miss Elrod Dr battle do you have anything to add no I think the um only thing I want to add is just kind of underscoring um our tier one instructional
032support around content to really support our students and performance on the ACT we've talked a lot this evening about specific testing tests taking strategies and preparation for the ACT which we know a lot of research around when students get to high school our inability to move the needle with act performance and so while this is not the entire act plan that you're hearing tonight it was important for us to update you on where we are given the context of our ready graduate data with clear strategies based upon where we are and the plans that our our schools are creating so just wanted to give that additional context that you know tier one instruction is critically important to this work but we also have to equip our students with the strategy of attacking the act as
033well and other considerations around how students are able to achieve the early post-secondary opportunities that are directly tied to our ready and graduate status so with that chair Rod we will conclude and turn it back over to you thank you so much do I have any colleagues that have discussion or questions it's Tyler okay um so if we look back at slide 14 where we're looking at the schoology professional Learning Network the ACT prep course pacing guides is that I assume in addition to their curriculum and how is that integrated into how students are learning and are our teachers having any say in how to make sure our students are having access to the actual content as well as this how are we balancing that Dr Nelson yeah thank you for the question so the
034ACT um Pace prep pacing guide was created to supplement the curriculum that was already in place prior to this year teachers were kind of on their own and developed in determining how to best utilize that platform that the district has provided to them and so the intent this year was to provide more structure around how to actually pull the resources down and to integrate that into a structured system for supporting students and in developing their act skills and so the initial draft or the initial work so far has just been providing that structure for teachers so that they have that resource and then the schoology group of course provides that line of communication so teachers can continue to communicate to us at the support Hub where there might be needed refinement and or adjustments and
035then I know I know that it is necessary to make sure our students know how to take this test it is absolutely necessary it just is sometimes kind of sad that we have to try to balance actual content teaching with how to take a test and again I know we have to but I wish we could have more time on content because that's what we're supposed to do um so again looking at um I was looking over so we passed a new Equity policy um in August and so I was looking at some of those numbers and our responsibility and planning and one of them the number three one is that we're supposed to work with students families in the community to identify and eliminate barriers to achievement opportunities for academic success and social and
036emotional learning so I was just wondering how are we incorporating our students and our families into this kind of stuff I know that we have the web page but that was really the only time I heard about parents and families um thank you we've talked quite a deal about that engagement and voice firm our all of our stakeholders so Dr Nelson I'll let you respond specifically to some of the Avenues by which we're gaining Insight from families and being responsive and the supports provided sure from the support Hub level um last year we started a parent webinar Series where any parent could access that and then we posted those recordings online so that they're still there and anyone can access them from last year those parent webinar series we're helpful in terms of just kind
037of laying out what the requirements of the ACT were just digging into those components a little bit more schools specifically have a lot of attention in this area and support such as Gear Up and some of our transition work have really laid out some we we call them many different things but it might be an episode night it might be a FAFSA frenzy it might be ACT prep night but there are school specific supports that of course we lean into and we provide resources where we can and then beyond that we I don't I can speak to I guess as supposedly the the parent University component will include some aspects around College and Career Readiness which we will provide more information for engaging our families and community members and how they can best understand and
038support this work yeah and another specific strategy through our student director student cabinet we'll we're also in the process of getting aging feedback for from our students particularly you know we have a lot of seniors that are a part of that group their experience to help us prepare students earlier for the act so that's another agenda item that is coming up for us to gather more insight but again getting our parent groups awareness but also feedback students teachers like we're really trying to build a comprehensive approach to making sure not just their junior year not just their senior year that we're engaging my stakeholders early and frequently so that we can know exactly what the needs are Miss Tyler you also mentioned that you know the difference between the Content Mastery versus attacking the test
039so that there are things that we can do early on to help set our students up for better success again not teaching to the test but just making sure that our students are aware of what their um going to be sitting for their junior year and for their retake opportunity in in their senior year so that is something we're paying attention to making sure we're getting that feedback what's working what's not working and providing the necessary resources and tools for everyone to be successful hey great I'm glad to hear that there's a it's a loop it's not one way that you're also you know incorporating feedback from them that's important um and then if we're looking at the number four in our Equity plan from responsibility and planning you're supposed it says that the director
040will establish and make public available plans and procedures to implement Equity goals plans and procedures shall include measurable goals with clear accountability for actions and oversights so I was just wondering do we have measurable goals what are they and um how what what's our generic plan to reach that particular measurable goal yeah let me be clear about this we have an act plan for our district in response to where we are we're talking about a component of ready graduate so here's where we're situated right now we're this goal is really around already graduate status we are talking about act because the state just released the ACT data right before the break we have yet to receive our full and complete list of data around ready graduate which includes early post-secondary opportunities there's four ways for
041students to meet their ready graduate status and so until we have that data it's critic it's it's difficult to set any additional goals We Believe based upon our own internal tracking that once we get those early those ready graduate data points from the state that you will see a good representation of students who've met the measure based upon the act the episodes so on and so forth and so we're at a place right now that there there's really not a need for us to set an arbitrary number because that number is going to come through our state data which in turn helps us measure the number of students who are meeting 21 on act the number of students who are obtaining four episodes or two episodes in the industry certification or sitting for the ASVAB
042and so it's important that you know as we push for measurable goals in these spaces we don't set arbitrary numbers we have accountability targets from the state that we must hit year after year in order to continue to move the needle in this space and so as soon as we have that additional I don't think we've the last time I checked we don't have okay as soon as we receive that additional information we will share that back with the board and those annual measurable objectives that are provided by the state okay um and then so that you're anticipating that soon ish it's all along the state's calendar so who knows got it I would have anticipated them months ago but we we don't have them um to date and you know to to not to
043defend where we are with the the state release of the data it is very complex I mean we are creating systems to respond to our current ready graduate status and that requires not only our district but the state to create measures of success around act around all of our early post-secondary opportunities around industry certifications around ASVAB and so everybody's kind of moving in the right direction but it's going to take kind of Shoring up data systems and the lag in data if you will to make sure that we're responding to the appropriate data because this data that we talked about today represents cohort 2021 correct 2022 so so the egg again a lag in the data that we're even looking at today thank you 2022. um and then I guess within that once we have
044those numbers from them are is the plan going to be to also break it down into our different groups to make sure that we're meeting the needs of the absolutely we're always looking into our subgroups in fact what Matt was mentioning is the work at the school level is so critically important because we can deal and look at a large District number all day what matters most is what does that what does that impact what is that outcome for students at an individual basis and so if we know our students are projected on track 421 or not we've got to have plans at the school level to make sure that we get students where they need to be and or that they're Meeting those early post-secondary opportunities and are we going to do a review
045of you know where are we offering our episodes are we making sure that it's it's available at the schools that's our daily work uh you know one of the things that we're when we talk about metro schools reimagine part of that work is shearing up those Pathways we want to make sure that if we have a early college or if we have an IB School or we have an a a a pretty intense portfolio of advanced placement courses that that is represented throughout the cluster throughout the pathway so we're preparing students to not only have access to those courses but to be successful in them as well thank you I know that that's been a focus of yours I just want to make sure everybody else did so so um making sure that we all
046understand that we are paying attention to where our students and and what are their needs how can we meet them in a way that is equitable so I appreciate that and I think that might be you say you don't have any further questions I think yeah I'm just making sure um uh oh the yeah I did have one other question and it was just a kind of procedural when you were talking about the three-step plan you said we're going to improve data use improve instruction and then I missed the last one improve what was the last one um those are the three primary areas of the ACT strategic plan the third area is communication and like communication strategies around act related I all right just want to make sure I have that down thank you
047thank you Elena yeah okay hey um this is just a comment um so I'm a junior so the ACT is definitely like a big thing for me right now and just prepping for it and I saw like a lot of good stuff and so I'm really excited just to be able to like see more resources and materials but the only thing about it is I saw a lot of it was very like self-paced very asynchronous and I think that's great but I also feel like I would like to personally see more act integrated into the school day and I know that there are ACT prep like actual credit courses but my school doesn't offer that and so it kind of it it gets put into the different classes and so like my English teacher does
048the English part you know and for me I feel like it's not really it's not really what teachers want to do teachers don't really want to spend instructional time on ACT prep therefore I don't think we're really getting it's kind of it's kind of getting put on the back burner or it's kind of like the bare minimum so that they can hit that act requirement because they still have to teach their content and especially for the episode classes who who's content is not directly correlated with act standards and state standards so for me like in my math class the stuff I'm learning in math will probably never be seen on the act so when we take time to work on act stuff it kind of It kind of like you're kind of losing time so
049I kind of wish that if we could have a more standard like across the district for high schools and how we can integrate ACT prep or even just the ACT prep course in every school because I know some schools have it but I don't and so I feel like I wish that we could I could have you know something just really specifically geared towards act instead of teachers kind of using class time to do that because I don't think teachers really want to do that so I don't think we're really getting it the way that we would well I'm glad you lifted this because we um and this is something that we can for our I'm looking at Dr Springer for our students cabinet we actually do have a crosswalk of act standards to content
050standards in courses and essentially you shouldn't feel the difference right because what we've taken the time to do with the ACT has also taking the time to do and what our teacher leaders have been trained in is taking the content standards given the course that you're enrolled in and cross walking it to act Readiness standards um what what your teacher leaders have access to is based upon your performance on a specific standard they can almost give you the equivalent of what that looks like on the ACT and that is something that what I'm taking from your feedback is that something we could also share with student it so that you can see the crosswalk that happens you're right that not any test is going to cover every standard that you have in class and the
051act's purpose is a little bit different from what you will see on TN ready or end of course exam or an advanced placement course if if you will but there is a crosswalk that your teachers utilize because they do want you to be successful on the act as they're planning their lessons out but that is something that we can make even more public transparent so that students can see that crosswalk and know why you're experiencing the content that you're experiencing in your classroom on a daily basis so it doesn't feel like a stop and start so you're not feeling like you're preparing for your end of course exam the first half of the class and act the other half we are working to make that a more integrated approach so that you can see those
052standards come alive albeit it's not going to always be 100 because of the intent of the two tests but that is something we can share more widely as we're moving forward thank you Erin um so this is all um very helpful to see in great information I was on the tivos scores I want to just go back and ask a quick question there you know we have uh four of the five areas I think that were either level five level four or level five and the one um English that is at the level one I don't necessarily understand I probably should the difference between English and reading um and what we think might be impacting the level one on the English versus uh some of the other assessments and would love to know what y'all
053think about it absolutely I think um Dr sensing you um talked a little bit about the difference between the English portion and the reading portion if you want to reiterate that and offer any additional context no this guy any additional context around um because we've really dug into our English language learner population and the time that they have prior to taking the test and there's a percentage of students we know who have a very short amount of time to prepare and performance given the English versus the reading portion of the ACT um the English as opposed to the reading is much more about the procedures the punctuation the spelling the you know the um the procedures about how you go about uh learning language or you know uh reading uh not reading but how you
054go about language um whereas reading would be more like a passage and you're supposed to infirm the meaning and choose the best answers so like you know what this little split is telling us is that at this point our students are better at that reading for deep meaning than they are for things like punctuation which you know if you look at a student's text you know messaging I think this is something we're going to see more and more of you know throughout the country so it's really the difference between those procedures and the meaning taking and we do see some differences on this we think or we might not have the data disaggregated in this way but between el students and non-el students is that part of what's happening so um we do have some
055ways to look into the performance patterns of different student groups um it's kind of getting it it's getting into the weeds but our English Learners um are making unsurprisingly the most growth um you know they're making big gains like when they are the lowest so the lowest prior student Performance Group is making the biggest gains but um you know when you you know this is a hypothesis so you know don't quote me on this but um you know when you are learning a language the first thing you're not thinking about is question marks in the right place is my comma correct um you know you're trying to read and understand um and so that is the pattern for that group um and you know we I'd be happy to talk to you yeah it's just
056helpful to have a better sense of sort of what we're seeing in the differences between these things and as you had said and Act is one of those tests that is actually more of a reflection of your entire learning um than some of the assessments that we see the state assessments and so Dr battle you you talked a little bit about um the tier one instruction part of this and the improved instruction um can you say just a little bit more about what that looks like at the high school and who's sort of like who's responsible for what and how does it work well this is the the whole um purpose of creating um an act district-wide um playing and having the steering committees in place and having the leads it's because you cannot as
057you've mentioned we've got these one time you know points in time data sets for students 10 ready and of course exam so on and so forth and what you have here is a representation of a student's entire experience and so it's it matters what happens um the the content the students can master in elementary school and middle school in fact if you did an assessment analysis of the standards covered on the ACT the majority of them are content standards that are captured before even ninth grade right so it is imperative that our act plan encompasses um all grades and that we all see and recognize the the the part we play in preparing students content-wise for the ACT you typically will see a lot of the test taking strategies and and the layout of the
058ACT um happen once students get to the secondary space but in order for us to move the needle content wise we've got to double down on our tier one instruction so now that we are seeing what we're seeing here in growth and how students were projected we've got to go back and dig into our subgroups we've got to look at what's happening with our student populations in developing um this we've even done a crosswalk to our 10 ready data and what we're learning there and that one-time measure versus this comprehensive view of the act so my my kind of step back takeaway is that you cannot attack act just at the high school level it requires again our Middle School leaders our elementary leaders to see their role in the content development so that we
059can focus on the strategy around the acts students are moving towards their Junior and Senior year and my last question is just relative again to the a little bit I think um what Elena was commenting around which is um you talked a little bit about different high schools having different approaches are there any of the uh like is there is there some sort of standardization around whether or not ACT prep is offered as a course or offered in another way are those choices made at the school level are they made in partnership with the district leads how how are choices made by school about what they're doing on ACT prep and also on episode prep and or episodes in general how are we it's happening both ways our school leaders have to be empowered with
060creating planes to be responsive to the students that they're serving and so that's why we try to disaggregate the data get it out so that we can see it on an individual basis where our students are where our support Hub plugs in is kind of the pool of strategies that are either recommended or could be leveraged so I.E they can take a ACT prep course some schools have study halls some have kind of a PLT approach to act it just depends on the needs of the students that are being served and the intensity of their support may vary and so we are very much situated in the space where we will offer support guidance resources professional development the vision around what we're trying to do with act so that our school teams can be empowered
061with making the best choices to provide for for their students we have varying schedules types of schedules you know all kinds of academic plans so it's important that we don't do a one-size-fits-all in this space but that we are kind of nimble around what it's going to take to get students where they need to be in providing the necessary resources to do it I I said I wasn't going to ask another question but you just prompted which is like how do we the how do we know what's working like how do we know if different schools are doing different things what's working and I suspect the peer partnership is maybe part of that and I'm just I would assume that that also has within it looking at episodes and the relationship between episodes and acts
062absolutely um I I think I see a smile from Tina up under their mask um because that's been one of our early work plans if you will um with peer and so we're digging in um to that it's a lot we already know but we want to make sure that we're aligning that to our individual students and their unique needs that we're getting those outcomes when you're looking at even this tvos data and the growth scores and you can drill down to student right and that's what we're encouraging our school teams to do I think thank you excuse me thank you breathena okay so I've learned that I got to go before Aaron because we tend to ask similar questions around data um so I'll try not to repeat the questions that I ask um
063that she just referred to um but I do have um one question related to your advisory groups I noticed that you have a you have a steering committee the support Hub committee and then the principal advisory committee um how are you receiving feedback from teachers who are doing the ACT work to see what they're needing to help improve this process to better support students Dr Nelson sure so the not a direct answer to that question but the ACT educator Academy was kind of a first step to engage more teachers in this work so that Academy is intended for teachers from a broad range of experiences so that we can start to tap into to that resource to get the feedback and to understand the the needs but in terms of a a specific teacher steering
064committee or a teacher advisor committee we haven't formed one of those yet simply because it wasn't included in the initial strategic plan but it's certainly on the table for consideration okay and and the same with um parental feedback around um around act and College and Career Readiness um receiving feedback from them on how we can support them as well and getting their students prepared kind of that that full loop of feedback so that we can continue to to push this and pull everyone on on board absolutely that's on our radar and we have lots of ideas in that space already in the works perfect thank you and then I want to go back really quick to the assessment data the ACT data um and and just kind of clarify and I know um Miss Stinson
065Dr Stinson had alluded to it the difference between reading and Ela it's really a difference between comprehension and grammar correct sort of kind of sort of yeah so it's reading the so the reading component is reading comprehension it's like the difference in third and fourth grade between English and language arts that would probably be the best English and like gotcha all right way to put it and of course these things cross one another in some capacity but you know there's a reason they have them set right gotcha um and then I have a follow-up question related to um so way back in the day because I'm only 25 um but about 15 16 years ago I was part of the initial cohort that started ACT prep classes and I'm glad to see that we have
066a lot of programs and a lot of trainings for teachers because we we initially set that up with nothing and we kind of had to fend for ourselves in setting those up but one thing that I have seen and I've seen over the years and we've and Dr battle has kind of alluded to this as well is by the time they get to their Junior and senior year in many cases is almost too late to prepare them for what they're going to get ready for with act so I'd love to hear more about what we're doing prior to maybe in ninth and 10th grade to prepare them for this 11th grade exam um and in you know in middle school as we continue to do so I love the idea that we're looking at that
067K-12 trajectory for College and Career Readiness um but actual preparation what kind of work are we doing um to really address that and introduce that I know prior we had the Freshman freshman seminar classes where we introduced things that would happen throughout their K-12 9 through 12 high school but I would love to can you talk a little bit about so so one of the risks of us going ahead and presenting this data was that we would get that question no no it's a good thing because we want to surface and establish our why around some of the strategies that were taken on now where we're not going to wait until to next school year and so um without directly answer that question what I'm going to say is we have a comprehensive act plan
068you're just hearing today some of the some of the shifts and adjustments we're making um this school year responds to the data that we that we do see so one of our key strategies you've heard a little bit about it today is around our Gear Up work which you know starts much earlier in some of our schools than high school and how we're leveraging you know the boot camps and the the crosswalks and the practice acts to get our students prepared for the real deal once they take it their junior year which is a requirement for students to meet their graduation requirements and so what you've heard tonight does not represent the entirety of the plan we do understand that again you cannot wait until that Junior and Senior year we've got to make sure
069that the core instruction the intentionality from as early as possible is happening for our students so that we can truly get at things like what we see in the growth score around our act English as opposed to to our reading so that intentionality is there I believe our plan is on the website if it's not it's going to be there so that we can dig in and see what we're doing at each of the levels continue to kind of look and see as that plan continues to develop out what we're doing to really support students and and teachers as well to continue to to roll out this process to to help us improve our ACT scores and and continue to prepare our students for College and Career Readiness thank you thank you we'll have freedom
070so if um Dr Nelson is going to add something but like parents if you hear something like act word of the day like that is something we're strategically doing even at our middle schools and elementary schools to get them acclimated to the language on act go ahead Dr Nelson yeah I just want to not neglect the fact that as part of building our College and Career culture across particularly around middle schools the implementation of avid has a component that really tackles preparation for these types of things and so one of the components of the Avid system is that students are exposed to these college readiness assessments earlier and so asthma middle school students as we build the AVID program in our middle schools and our high schools we'll start to see that just kind of
071naturally happen as part of that program as as it begins to expand and grow absolutely thank you for adding that thank you for that I love Avid and I love the work that that it does in supporting students around Readiness and preparation um and and I love the fact that we have made this a district-wide initiative and so I know it was specifically in some schools and not others but it really supports students in getting them prepared in all levels of their learning process so thank you thank you all the next half Frida and then Sharon um I'll be quick kind of what Alana was saying and Aaron um that was one of my questions of how are we integrating this on an everyday basis like can an English teacher take if you're reading Charles
072Dickson Dickens like how do you put that into the test in a act floor mat so you're used to reading it so but you already addressed that so that was something I wonder and then more of a long-term part particularly with the English deficit and the Reading part is this something long term we could think about of when we use promising Scholars of really just having a pure grammar program like it's something where we can teach English better in English grammar um better literature as those kind of intensive parts of being forward thinking that benefit the act and also just learning particularly for English language Learners because English is not a heart easy language to learn but that's something that we can work into just a pure grammar seminar office class because I don't know
073if there's enough work for a class but is that something we can just I suggest as a long-term implementation that's it it's really just a comment more than a question thank you Sharon thank you a couple of times you've mentioned the word just culture so a couple of questions my first let me start over erase all that my first question is like my colleague here I'm not 25 but back in the day we talked a lot about writing across the curriculum so do we still emphasize that even in those non-ela non you know everybody's an English teacher yeah so we're still doing the writing across the curriculum intensively as we sh yes okay I mean when when you anyway I won't go I won't go there but I was going to go to our core
074action tool um and and and what we and we have that for every content area which includes the text which includes the writing listening speaking skills reading skills so that is across the content yes so back to the the that great stuff but for a student who is either not interested in going to college not interested in test taking given again the national rhetoric around standardized testing right so we're kind of kicking ourselves in the tail with our own right our own narrative about standardized testing yet we're wanting the standardized test outcomes to be better but so how are we really getting to the mindset of the student around the test because first of all I'd like to know how many students are represented in the numbers right what percentage of our 11th and 12th
075graders are actually sitting forward and taking it's a graduation requirement so they're all doing what they're supposed to do that's good and so the other thing being again so how are we addressing the mindset because even if so if I have to right with the requirement am I really coming with the intent of doing well well and I think this is something and I just want to add to that Dr battle just for for for the public is you know we get beat up on the outcomes and it's not necessarily A it may not necessarily be completely a reflection of academic preparation versus mindset about the test and so I I'm just curious on you know I don't know that a banner is going to make an 11th grader or a 12th grader who really
076ain't keen on going to college or keen on standardized testing do better on the test so I'm just curious where where is that being addressed I think Dr Stinson alluded to this um and um her comments when you when you kind of go back of act stopped me if I'd get off track Dr Simpson um it did not used to be that it was a requirement for students to meet their graduation requirements in order to receive a standard high school diploma um I would I'm pretty sure about this we saw a shift and um composite scores outcomes participation rate right naturally when you test more students you can expect that you might have a drop or dip and outcome particularly when it's not necessarily your individual choice or desire to sit for the test that
077aside we still do have a need and a gap of awareness so we want to make sure that as our students are creating their transition plans they're clear about what those expectations are set aside that we are sin shifting in our colleges and universities around standardized tests like the ACT we do have an obligation to make sure they're aware of those entrance requirements when they get there so when you hear Investments like you will continue to hear as we're approaching our operational budget season for for things things like strategies like Avid it does speak directly to your question Dr denture and round building the culture and climate creating the access and opportunities for us to build that desire that awareness the connection for our students because regardless of the decision that our students make when
078they graduate I find it our responsibility to make sure that they can do and select whatever they choose because we prepared them to that level and so if part of that is the act performing well then we've got to prepare them properly for for the test but your point is well taken which is why we wanted to make sure in context we understood participation rate 98 is pretty significant right when 100 of our students to some degree must take it we we have a discrepancy with our Alternative Learning assessments it's not appropriate for all students so we'll probably always have a little bit of a gap but when you are forcing students to sit um for um an exam of this nature the results tend to mirror that desire or lack of desire to take
079it at the end of the day because of the goals and the vision we have for the academic outcomes of our students it's imperative that we have a plan in place to support all 80 000 of our students and I want to remind us just a few years ago as I look at mad and David and Tina we we were absent a district district-wide act plan ready graduate plan College and Career Readiness vision and so the team is taking all of that information all those expectations into this comprehensive planning plan so that we can be responsive so we are on a continuous Improvement Journey given the culture and climate we have to build but also improving the outcomes of our students at the same time all right let's bugs Christian thank you um all of
080this sounds great I think my focus is more to the community because I'll continue to beat that drum that I heard Dr Gentry say this may be my second year on the board that schools will wear Community issues Bubble Up and having a four-year-old now in mnps and seeing where some of his peers are struggling with things that he mastered two years ago I realized just how much we as a community really have to wrap our minds and hearts around these kids because communities that are not resourced we can't expect to put resources in a classroom when they get to 11th grade and they earn a 21 or higher on the ACT and so shout out to Noah that Organization for continuing to partner with us push us and I appreciate them even beginning to
081shift their thinking and instead of just pushing the school board and system instead of beginning to push the community at large and saying all right what can we do around PTO engagement parent engagement parent support what can we do to encourage not just our Council our mayor but even our state legislators to invest more before a student a child hits the classroom door and certainly before they hit high school and so I just want to continue to reiterate and this is more for those who are viewing than the Educators that already know this but we've got to do so much more for our students at every turn I say this all the time I didn't earn the degrees I earned because of and I love MLK and that's the school I graduated from but not
082because of MLK or even Tennessee state or Vanderbilt but because of all the different programs that were in the communities over the Summers and weekends that's when I did so much of my learning about matrices even before I got to ninth grade that's when I started taking the act as a practice in the community so community at large we appreciate you just continue to see this this kind of investment in thought and strategy that we're making let's see that and try to match that in whatever way you can and I certainly I want you to know that we would appreciate it off my soapbox thank you for your time thank you I have a couple questions my first question on slide 17 was that we discussed the ready graduate report and that it's a new
083report that's internally going to pull what students are or are not on track I'm just trying to confirm that that report's going to be usable and for this school year yes it's usable now so we are rolling that out to the different stakeholder groups we have already introduced it to our counselors and it will be part of the master schedule discussion so that anybody that's part of those decisions around what courses are offered or which students need to be targeted for opportunities they have access to that data they've never had access to that unless they just went and searched student by student by student so this is a great tool that will guide some of those very important critical decisions but it is it is anybody can pull that right now it's just schools probably
084don't know how to do it quite yet unless they've gotten some of the guiding webinars or meetings that we've had so far um I just want to underscore on student by student so we can see the kind of academic plans of individual students so we can see if they're on track or off track okay consultation with students we're not targeting student groups or something along those lines okay um a follow-up question to that is on slide 15 we talk about the ACT webinar series um and I appreciate you providing those dates and the subject matter are those going to be provided on our newly launched Family University or they provided in some different way how would how would families access that Matt you want to speak to that I can we can talk about Family
085University family community University yeah not specifically connected to Family University yet this is an opportunity for students just like we did last spring so we'll Target through our act leads at each of the high schools the opportunity that's open to any mnpf student so we'll just release those dates and and provide the links so that any student can join those but that it'll just be targeted marketing that way and then we'll of course record those and have access to those for future reference as well which will in the future connect to community and family University the first sessions that we're looking towards in this space we were looking at hosting something in two different quadrants across the city and part of the first engagement is getting feedback from parents so that we can build out
086the courses based upon the need in demand for currently if you go to our website for it you can sign up for a newsletter about that information and also give us your feedback as a parent or teacher or student of what you think needs to be included within that University I speak as a board member but also as a parent that I would like for this type of information to be included within that University so there's a baseline of supports and a baseline of information provided I totally agree that we need to have individual information provided in each School based upon their episodes or whatever their student populations may be but from an equity standpoint I think it's important that we have a baseline of offering to make sure that our communities are aware of
087all the different information and that we're consistent with how we're providing it so I'm glad it's going out and that we're marketing it in the future as we better access it because it is brand new I'm hoping that it can be included there and then um to go back about the goals real quick on page 11. um understandably we do not have this data yet from the state um when we do have this information from the state on what uh they believe our goal should be or what the numbers are that we're trying to hit well we need to update these goals annually or will we be able to kind of stay within a singular area um within those goals are we going to be able are we going to have to keep doing this
088every year for our Equity roadmap or is this something that we can do once and it's consistent for at least some period of time um so when we think about our accountability measures so every year we get our state report card and they tell us where we landed growth and achievement wise this is a part of that entire portfolio the the the change here is that there they've started to build out the ready grad and if I'm not mistaken making changes for for next year's formula is it going to change a little bit how the weightings are or it's going to be consistent yeah who knows okay so uh so so we're early on and this formula around ready grad but it is a part of our accountability measures if you will from from the
089state sure I know um there's a lot of eagerness not just among the board but in the community of making sure that we have these stated goals and so I was trying to see for everyone's work if once we've created them if we will have done kind of that heavy lifting of the original creation of those and then the going on it won't be just a singular action it will be something that we continue to do from there forward that's a sense then you have a response to that um so the way the um the accountability goals work first of all uh we do think that the ready graduate will be coming out to us fairly soon but it might not be out publicly for quite a while um because there is a lot of
090checking like did so and so or a certificate um but the way that those goals work is that the the bigger the Gap the more Improvement you need to make right so if you have a a student group that's performing low your your targets even though they're they may be all like absolutely lower than another group student groups targets it's actually more growth um so that's the way the state is trying to level the playing field just like if you have a 95 graduation rate your goal for improvement is going to be much smaller than if you have a graduation rate of 60 percent you know we're going to ask you to make a lot more progress but um because of the changing nature of the student body um you know each group is compared
091to the group that went before them you know that there is probably going to be adjustments made like you know we we don't want to make the mistakes of null Child Left Behind and say everybody will be perfect we're going to live in you know um everybody's above average um land uh so uh everybody gets a trip so uh you know for the accountability targets and probably for other goals we are going to shift as we see needed and as the state sees needed absolutely and that's why we've got to kind of shift from the traditional mindset around these ghosts goal setting measures because every cohort is unique and it's in itself so when you look at these projections and I'm if I might take this point to just celebrate first of all our students
092outpacing their projections the work of our leaders and teachers and principals this is significant that that our students outpacing outperforming their growth projections by the time they take the ACT and their Junior and Senior year so we can talk a lot about setting goals and measures our students are showing us that they can and they will meet the challenge so kudos to the entire District I mean every teacher pre-k through 12th grade every role and responsibility who whatever the role of responsibility plays a part in act performance this conversation is to level set just like we did with chronic absenteeism we have room for improvement we are on a continuous Improvement journey and so we've got to be able to have the conversations about where we're successful where we're having challenges so we're clear about
093the Investments we need to make as a community to get more of our students across this ready graduate Finish Line that we have set and I'm I'm excited about the fact that there are multiple ways for a student to meet their ready graduate standard that act those early pro-secondary opportunities those industry certifications and guess what Metro National Public Schools is home to all of those opportunities including ASVAB for our students so let's let's leverage this conversation as a springboard into what's next for our students and yes we're moving with a sense of urgency but there are some context around while we're where we are today and what we need to do to move forward so more to come around budgeting and we'll get you the ready graduate data we'll continue to leverage all of our
094stakeholders in this conversation which I hear from this board is critically import to the work as we move forward but let's also celebrate that our students are overcoming a lot and performing at a high standard as well get that we are celebrating that information and that it's not a static presentation that there's been a variety of different ways that we've said that we're going to reach out to students depending on whatever path that they're taking I think that's important to how we try to make sure every student is known and continue to do that and that we're trying to work towards those goals even though we don't have them set yet by the state for us that we're still doing that work and trying to move that ball forward and so I appreciate you both
095providing all this information and my colleagues asking such great questions this evening verthena you have one final one yeah I have a one other question really quick um what is generally the timeline for the state to provide us this information it's January so what what what is the general timeline that we would get this information versus where we are today are you talking about ready graduate all together as opposed to all of it so we typically finalize ready graduate well into the spring as you know I know only that we have an upcoming office hour that is going to focus on ready graduate that's the sum total of the knowledge that I have from the state um we don't have annual measurable objectives in any time in any area from the state right this minute
096right last year we got them in May after the students tested this is a product of covid right like they didn't have baselines in 2020 but there's going to be some changes made to the accountability protocol overall um and actually I would encourage you to investigate some of those changes but um just because to be informed so it will be sometime this spring is unfortunately the best I can do that so so my follow-up question to that is how is the state expecting us to be meet benchmarks that we currently don't have girl and we're January and our kids take a test April in April good but so so let me let me intervene here this is your question to answer yeah I don't yeah so we we are we asked we push to to
097get the information but this is also why we have established things like focused outcomes this is why we have school level data this is why we're drilling down to our students um across our district to give us the best measure and the most up-to-date information around where our students are um and so your questions and points are are well taken we we feel it every day because again we want to continue to move the needle in in the right direction absent of that is why we have focused outcomes for Metro Nashville Public Schools so we we've been able we've got a very strong research assessment and evaluation team that can do some prediction predictions projections they cannot be considered our formal Amos but we we're using the information we we have to set our internal
098benchmarks around our Focus outcomes as we wait for those Amos to come from the state thank appreciate our phenomenal data team that we have in place but I I also have to have to put it out there that we constantly Nashville Metro Nashville Public Schools are constantly getting the brunt of criticism and we're having to meet benchmarks that we don't have by our state and they will be quick to tell us what we're not doing when we don't have those benchmarks to meet anyway and so I really appreciate the fact that we are moving in spite of not having the critical information that we need for our students for our schools and for the work that we need to do within Metro Nashville Public Schools but I applaud our district for doing the work in
099spite of that and so thank you the next thing that I just wanted to bring attention we have brought up Avid and I appreciate you bringing that up if you're not familiar with Avid as board members and as Community I invite you all to go to one their website it's avid.org avid.org to learn more about the work that Avid does to support students I also want to correlate with the fact with Dr battle and the district's mission of every student known the acronym for Avid is advancement via individual determination so it works to truly support each student individually and success and support them in having an individual success plan and the skills that they need to be successful and so I really appreciate the work and the types of programs that we're bringing into our
100district to truly meet the needs of every single student within our district so thank you thank you all right thank you for all of your presentation tonight and of course all the preparation that you did in advance of it thank you all right that brings us to public participation this evening so public participation um is our part where we will now hear from mmps stakeholders that signed up to speak in front of the board during um our time after the director's report uh beginning this evening I am enforcing our board policy about public participation that the conversation needs to be and about an agenda item this policy has been in place since 2017 so it's not something that I'm necessarily changing and it's just that it's something that I am enforcing um but I know
101that that is a bit of a difference from some past practices that we have had since that 2017 standing so it's going to continue as we have it where you have the list of people on the projector or you still have three minutes to speak your comments are to be about the agenda topics that we have in front of us and that we've discussed and of course that includes the consent agenda I want to make sure that I stayed on the board floor that we're going to be having public participation at both meetings so that people can speak about the agenda thoroughly if you only spoke or if we only had the option to speak this week that would of course exclude next week's agenda so there will be public participation at each meeting the
102sign ups are still online as you are aware of you simply choose an item from the agenda as is we will as a board be reviewing kind of the effectiveness of this as this has been the request again since 2017. so we're going to be discussing that uh and going through the motions for this month to see kind of how it works and what the feedback is from there we of course will review that and have additional conversation if needed about that policy so uh as you can see on the up on the screen we have our first people to line up the first person we have is Beverly then we'll have Sarah the Michelle the Nicole then Tanya if you will please line up to have your discussion it appears that all of them
103are speaking about the retention resolution thank you good evening good evening I'm Dr Beverly Waylon schmeller I'm a 29-year veteran educator 16 years as a school psychologist I would like to address the state's third grade retention law all tennesseans are worried because only 35 percent of Tendencies third graders can read on a grade level but retention is not the answer the National Association of school psychologists has examined four Decades of studies that have shown that repeating a grade predicts the dropout rate for students instead of ensuring academic Improvement the dropout rate for students with learning disabilities increases 33 percent after retention the dropout rate for students with emotional behavior disorders increases 73 percent after retention research by Wu West and Hughes concludes that any small academic improvements almost always disappears after four schools years retained
104students usually do worse in the long run and students in poverty and students of color are also more likely to be retained it's not an equitable practice or effective practice so what does retention do a 2021 study by Goose at all notes that retention damages self-concept decreases academic motivation predicts lower social economic status and increases a need for governmental financial assistance another study revealed that students see being retained as stressful as losing a parent or going blind there is a terrible Financial cost at play as well Texas has already tried this method in 2006 they retained 4.8 percent of their students costing this day an additional billion dollars even a commonly used 1977 document the light retention scale notice that retention is a terrible idea if a student is large for their grade is very
105intelligent is learning English as a second language has attended multiple schools or is upset when told about the possibility of retention repeating a grade should not should only be considered if a student has missed large numbers of school days due to a severe illness like cancer or if a student is really young like kindergarten or first grade what about some good ideas why not fund an additional literacy specialist in every Elementary School in a dedicated mental health professional kids cannot learn if they're distressed or disruptive why not provide research-based helps as a prevention instead of damaging eight-year-olds I urge the district to work with the state to make a better plan thanks thank you next we have Sarah Morrison we couldn't make it today I am so sorry you are not allowed to speak on
106behalf of another person next I'm next oh so you will go so sorry Michelle I thought you were speaking on behalf I'm not pretending to be Sarah we do know Sarah so that would be difficult I would pretend to be myself you are allowed to pretend that thank you so much welcome back from break I hope you all had a good holiday um and I'm Michelle Sheriff president of m e a and as you know the general assembly convened earlier today throughout the legislative session they'll consider multiple pieces of legislation that will directly impact our students our Educators and our district as duly elected members of the school board you have the opportunity the right the responsibility to speak with our state senators and representatives about issues that impact our schools no one understands the
107needs of our students better than those here in our district because no one is as vested as we are the third grade retention law is a great concern to parent students Educators and other stakeholders we know that one day and one test should not be the sole instrument in determining a child's ability to read especially when the test has been historically unreliable as you discussed earlier about testing further the law provided no additional funding or support for school districts to assist struggling students we asked the board to unanimously vote in favor of the resolution asking legislators to amend the current law Educators believe the decisions making the decision-making process for retaining a student should be determined by the educational professionals who teach and work directly with the student in conjunction with their family not mandated
108by a state law that circumvents local decision making strong advocacy at the state level on behalf of our district is imperative please let m e a know please know that we are a willing partner in this and the advocacy work and we're happy to discuss with you at any time how legislation considered it the general assembly will be realistically and directly will impact our school district thank you thank you may we have Nicole Valentine good evening mnps board members chair Elrod I know she stopped out Dr battle and Elena and I know I've been using out here but you guys are rocking it my name is Nicole Valentine and my address for my second home is 117 Chelsea Davis Boulevard I mentioned that because I um jokingly say that's my second home because I am
109always there actually just left the library had a good meeting with the stakeholder about getting a grocery store in the community as a two months ago my husband I recently moved into the community intentionally because I love the community so much so my talk is about retention because as a mandated reporter um anyone who works with youth is a mandate reporter I also feel like in the spirit of every student known every child known that we are a mandated reporter for scl concerns as well and so the students and families in Napier are concerned about the retention and so I wonder what it looks like to add literacy supports to the Pruitt Library shout out to Dr Raymond Asia Shandy and Kim who are phenomenal Community workers the library is the Hub if you've been
110to the pro Library you know that that is a place that families feel safe and feel comfortable so what does it look like to add literacy Volunteers weekly in my job unfortunately I left the district this past school year but in my job we have a literacy hour every Thursday and it's great but we need more so what's it look like to have a former retired teacher or volunteers consistently at the Pruitt Library Napier area if you look on Google is the uh it's known as Naper Erica natives notice pseudocon Napier or jcuc it is the largest bear style public housing in the whole country the largest Barrack style public housing and so there needs to be daily literacy supports available as a former teacher mnps on maps has given me a lot of firsts
111and I'm a graduate of the Glencliff High School Comprehensive High School and um I learned so much mnps I also learned how to swim in Napier unfortunately the pool is not open that's the conversation mayor Cooper and Freddie um but my husband and I have a part-time kayaking business where we take youth uh kayaking and swimming in the summer I mention that because it is so important for our students to have wraparound services and supports and so what does it look like also to have the students level texts available at the public library we're not taught in New York City after teaching in Antioch I moved to New York City through the help of principal High and the local libraries had the reading levels of students the students also knew their reading levels um I
112know my time is getting away from me as a mandated reporter this past Saturday students shared with me from Two Rivers Middle School how they do not feel supported by the leadership at Two Rivers Middle School our parents spoke about this last summer and it needs to be addressed Dr Bettina has been a great thought partner and supporter in this but I feel like I need to share with the students are also sharing and so as a principal of this of the largest Barrack style housing there needs to be a change in as well thank you thank you Tanya because that's Nicole yeah Daniel will you please go next thank you good evening Dr battle chair and members of the board my name is Dr Tanya droster and I am a third grade teacher at
113Tusculum Elementary I'm here speaking to you this evening regarding the third grade retention law the Tennessee Department of Education stated that the Tennessee literacy success Act and the Tennessee learning loss remediation and student acceleration Act is to help ensure Tennessee students could recover from the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic and close gaps in students learning in terms of bringing all students to grade level performance this law was severely lacking given the widespread potential of retention of our District's third graders there is no mention of a remedial curriculum for students who are deemed not proficient without high impact interventions research-based practices or an effective curriculum with proven results how will students benefit or make gains in Reading research does not support retention as an effective intervention for gaps in achievement as a third grade teacher I'm
114concerned about a student repeating our current reading curriculum which focuses on certain texts and tasks within each module repeating these could lead to decreased engagement or frustration furthermore a student's engagement and other subjects could also be affected other concerns involve the clarity and execution of this law simply put there are too many unanswered questions by those who are familiar with the day-to-day missions of our schools today I post hypothetical questions and situations to two third grade students who received a letter from our district stating that they were projected to be not proficient on the ELA portion of the TCAP test this coming spring here are some of the questions I asked along with their responses when you think about someone having to repeat a grade what does that make you think one student replied they
115have to redo a grade because they might have failed the grade then I asked what if someone made a law that said the score you get on one test would decide if you had to do third grade over again they replied I would be sad it is not fair because if you try your best and get a lower score you will have to redo a grade one of the students was concerned that the people grading the tests might not know the answers or how students were taught in the different types of schools with different teachers what a great Point by an eight-year-old kids are brilliant what if all the hard work we have done this year in reading such as reading all these great books and writing up to five paragraph essays didn't matter that
116is not nice fair or cool and there can be tricky questions on tests I would feel sad and kind of mad because you worked so hard to try to get to fourth grade to my knowledge no one asked third grade teachers or students their thoughts when it comes to this law maybe this practice should be considered but major decisions such as these are being made after hearing the student responses I have shared tonight let us ask ourselves do we really want our students to feel like failures do we really want them to think all the hard work they do throughout the year does not matter do we really want them to be deprived of spending time with their families or traveling during the Summers where most would argue they would learn more from any standardized
117test do we really want students to feel sad upset or defeated while they're learning I should hope not thank you for your time thank you in preparation of our policy change we did some internal work to have a new sign up process it sounds like inadvertently someone was left off and so I need to ask uh oh Mr Jeremiah you're Mr Jeremiah Wooten yes if you will please approach the podium and if you'll tell us um what you're speaking about give us your comments and then yes hello Jeremiah Wooten live in District Six I would just speak on a couple items um item three on the agenda and then also B 10. I think it's how it's split up perfect thank you um so first item three on the agenda which is the public participation
118and I I totally get enforcing policies I love a good policy um but this clearly isn't a good policy if there's such a huge difference in interpretation from one chair to the next consecutive chair right um I sent you all a very long email about a month ago with a couple suggested actions related to public participation I know one of the things I said was just putting the new board members emails addresses on the website so thank you all for doing that um over three months after they're elected but um another of the suggestions I made was to create a general public comment period separate from what a really public hearings on individual items like you heard tonight five people speaking on on one event um and these could be limited in scope like how
119Metro Council limits general public comments to only one general public comment per Citizen and this limited to every 90 days I think when you restrict people's public comments at meetings to only items on the agenda and direct them to email you instead you're really limiting the public part of public participation as far as I'm aware your emails are not publicly broadcast on m n and channel 3 for the world to see although I would love to watch that show if it were um I disagree with many of the public comments every month um but I come here and listen to them and I hope you all come and listen to them because it's part of the job you signed up for it feels like we're continuing the sentiment of of former board member Jeannie Pupa
120Walker who in a meeting just like this one complained about how she only gets paid quote 500 for this as if she has better things to do with her time well she was wrong you all actually get paid 600 for reading um which may not sound like enough I know you have other duties outside of these meetings but 600 a meeting is quite a lot it's twice our teachers daily rate of pay more than three times the daily rate of pay for Perez cafeteria workers janitors over seven times the daily rate of pay for a substitute teacher so I don't think you're above sitting here for an extra hour on a Tuesday light night and listening to more than five people talk about something you're gonna vote Yes on anyway um second thing item B10
121on the consent agenda I'm sure you won't give me additional time for multiple items so I'll try to squeeze it in um there's two contracts under B10 so I'm speaking really just on the second one it's a contract at least a portion of Nashville State Community College building at the Global Mall for the Academy at Hickory Hollow um 10 months ago we bought over half of the Hickory Hollow Mall so I'm curious why we're entering into a contract to lease for 10 years a portion of a property that we bought a portion of that property it seems like we could just use the part that we the city of Nashville bought instead of paying a million dollars for 10 years to lease it from someone else so that's all I have thank you thank you
122all right so that moves us on to governance issues we have adopted the agenda as listed so may have a motion to approve the consent agenda items as listed grab a second all right the approval has been first and seconded all in favor of the consent agenda please raise your hand thank you that is everybody but I think Dr Gentry all right that brings us to um the popular subject of a resolution regarding TCA 4963115 and student retention most commonly discussed both here on the board and elsewhere as the third grade retention law may I have a motion for approval or denial of that so we can discuss it I moved to approve do I have a second second all right let's have discussion with Emily Masters I would like to read the resolution not
123in its entirety I'm not going to read the law to everyone but um and I also want to state that the purpose of this resolution is to to represent our Collective voice as a board um for those of us who vote in favor of it we are saying we agree with what is in this resolution so I would encourage after I read it for any um if anyone has anything to add to what's already been stated that would be amazing otherwise we can all operate under the assumption that if you move forward and vote for it you are in agreement with what has been stated I realize it could have been much longer resolution than it is um I also want to say that the working title was a resolution in support of students and
124expressing confidence in teachers requesting the Tennessee General Assembly amend TCA 4963115 to allow local education associations to make student retention decisions but Dr severe told me that title was too long to be used in Word document storage so here we have it a resolution regarding tza 496-3115 and student retention so people can read along with it while you are speaking I appreciate it thank you for you for helping me get our attention it's of course also in our agenda packet in case you happen to have that open because you are a very studious uh attendance member it's the next one thank you for digging through all these pages to get to it thank you so much thank you Emily for waiting whereas the Metropolitan Nashville Board of public education is charged with governing Metropolitan National
125Public Schools in a way that empowers our schools and dedicated staff to prepare Nashville and Davidson County students to excel in higher education work and life and whereas during its 2021 first extraordinary session the Tennessee General Assembly adopted public chapter number one now codified as TCA 496-3115 which provides in part that quote beginning with the 2022-2023 school year a student in third grade shall not be promoted to the next grade level unless the student is determined to be proficient in English language arts Ela based on the student achieving a performance level rating of quote on track or quote Mastered on the ELA portion of the student's most recent Tennessee comprehensive Assessment program TCAP test and whereas the statute further provides in section a2a that students quote not provision in ela as determined by the students
126achieving a performance level rating of approaching on the ELA portion of the student's most recent TCAP test may be promoted if and if they go on in the law to give a lot of different Provisions around that I'm moving on to the next Clause whereas the statute further provides in section A to B that students not provision an Ela as determined by the students achieving a performance level rating of Below on the ELA portion of the student's most recent TCAP test may be promoted if and again there is a list of contingencies within the law whereas the statute further provides that a student who is promoted to the fourth grade pursuant to subdivision a to AV or a to B IV I'm not reading these as Roman numerals because I did not do well on
127that portion of any test in school must show adequate growth on the fourth grade ELA portion of the TCAP test as determined by the department before the student may be promoted to the fifth grade so that's the overview of what we're facing he's done 2019 TCAP T and ready third grade ELA assessment data 6 of Tennessee third graders would have been at risk of retention in 2019. let's all remember what hadn't happened yet in 2019 as well whereas extrapolating from that 2019 assessment data and information on the state of Tennessee's pupil expenditures the fiscal impact of an additional year of educating more than 45 000 students can be estimated to surpass 450 million dollars and that's without accounting for funding to run intervention services and when you you can pull up to to see the
128references that I've used when you look at this later online and whereas in understanding that the purpose of the TCA 4963195 is to promote academic proficiency to ensure students are not subject to factors that will inhibit long-term academic growth one must also understand that the execution of that purpose requires individualized involvement from parents teachers and faculty who directly interact with students daily however the current Provisions contained within the statute Grant the State Board of Education the ability to promulgate rules and make the final determination on whether third and fourth grade students will be promoted to their next grade levels based on TCAP Ela performance results and whereas delegating this authority over student retention to the State Board of Education undermines the authority of local education agencies and whereas the decision to retain or promote any
129student to the next grade level May most appropriately and accurately be made by a local body with ready access to consultation with teachers and staff that regularly interact with the student and have complex and meaningful understanding of his her their unique abilities and needs and whereas National studies that estimate the effects of retention across a broader range of policy contexts find consistently negative effects that's also referenced and whereas Moses most other states that have adopted legislation regarding the retention of third grade students have included in that legislation Provisions allowing school districts to promote students who were not proficient in ela as measured by standardized State tests yet showed progress based on School District data I have to point that one out because the emails I'm getting are students are more than a test amen still
130demonstrating understanding of elavia alternative knowledge assessments and measures and whereas student performance May most effectively be measured by consideration of a variety of factors allowing for holistic and individualized assessment of student needs now therefore be it resolved that the Metropolitan National Board of public education urges the Tennessee General Assembly to amend TCA 496-3115 to allow school districts to make retention decisions for third and fourth grade students based upon all School District information for each student and without delegating the final Authority for such decisions to the State Board of Education thank you so much and thank you for helping us follow along all right Abigail I have you as first to speak anybody else need to speak please raise your hand I just wanted to make a few points that we could have also put in
131the resolution um but we're not in there so first of all I want to say I'm very much in support of this resolution and I want to take a moment to thank the speakers and the community members who have been speaking out against this law I also want to add a little bit of clarity you can find a much expanded version of this on my social media Pages um but here's the short version to begin this law only uses one method of measurement to decide whether or not a student is a proficient reader the problem is that their choice of measurement is flawed and their intended outcomes are inflated what this law really does is see whether or not our students are good at taking a test there's some collateral correlation with reading but at
132the end of the day if a student is a good test taker they will score higher than a student who isn't even if they have exactly the same reading capabilities there's a reason why teachers are now expected to teach students how to take a test why we offer things like ACT prep courses why we just had an entire presentation on it it's because just knowing the material is not enough to do well on these tests you also have to understand how they're structured how to logically eliminate potential answers to find the one that the test wants you to choose one of my favorite quotes speaks directly to this I've said it before I will continue to quote it it's a researcher named Susan Ingle she says I have reviewed more than 300 studies of K-12
133academic tests what I have discovered is startling more tests most tests used to evaluate students teachers and school districts predict almost nothing except the likelihood of achieving similar scores on subsequent tests I have found virtually no research demonstrating a relationship between those tests and measures of thinking or life outcomes now despite that the state wants us to use this one test to decide if a student should be allowed to move to the next grade without any consideration for other factors or data from their teachers and families who are with them every day that's extremely problematic and once you realize how Tennessee defines proficient it becomes an even larger problem a student scoring proficient in Tennessee is actually reading above grade level a developmentally on track student who reads on grade level would only score as
134approaching the argument that Tennessee has poor literacy is working from a skewed definition and again that's because this scale that Tennessee uses to evaluate literacy forces a student to be above grade level to be considered proficient this law would make us retain typically developing third graders and to retain a student because they're a typically developing third grader as fundamentally wrong and cruel the difference between approaching or meeting proficiency can come down to one question and like I said earlier that one question can come down to knowing how to take a test on test one test on one day should never decide a student's future we're shooting ourselves in the foot here Tennessee has put the bar so high a child has to be above grade level to meet it and then that's claiming that our
135students are failing if they can't as far as avoiding retention I wrote more deeply about it on my social media today but since our standards are so high even typically developing students will be forced to participate in tutoring or summer school or other methods to avoid retention and with limited teachers or tutors available that means we're straining the extra resources that were meant for the kids who really need that intervention and that's just for the districts who can afford to implement the measures to begin with because the state certainly isn't providing any funding if a school district cannot afford to provide the required extra services that would keep a kid from being retained and the state refuses to pay for it then it's as if those ways to avoid retention don't exist the fact of
136the matter is this law will hurt families of third grade students across the state and it will throw our school systems into unnecessary upheaval it must be amended or repealed thank you anyone else I I may I have Mike on it oh yeah yeah um as a past teacher and of course the chair of the board I'm also the mother of two third graders um and so I would really like to encourage additional parents and caretakers of third graders and younger students to be aware that of course this does not only affect mnps of course our responsibility is to mnps but we are one of many many school boards across the state that have passed these types of resolutions about this law along with the Tennessee School Board Association to ask them to repeal or
137amend it that's because as mentioned in many different ways that it is not beneficial to not only student outcomes but to students mental health and other many other factors that we should consider it will require the work of all of us we as a board will do everything we can to Advocate and work for this as well as our district because there are political pieces to this and non-political pieces like the district can work on but we will need help of individuals to help us communicate with legislators of how this impacts their family be that their summer vacation plans that they need to go visit their family across the country or out of the country that's been long-standing and planned what you know happens a lot for us in South and Southeast Nashville to whether
138it affects their summer plans and the other camps and programming that they want to put their children in whether that's to advance their academic or social or even their sports or whatever it is that their student is particularly involved in but it's going to be important that we have some additional access and work with our community about this particular law you may have seen that it's also being discussed of course inside the newspaper like today there was an opinion piece about it from the state board and we believe that those kind of conversations will continue and so we're going to ask that you work with us as a board to we will keep you informed of when different conversations are going to be happening at the legislature what we will need assistance with what are
139some good talking points that we have and how we think we can be the most effective with it but I ask you as not only the chair of this board and of course on behalf of mnps but truthfully also as a mother of two third graders that we work on this together thank you anything else I was just going to call the question all right all in favor of passing this resolution please raise your hand all right thank you so much it was everybody it was unanimous all right so that brings us to announcements uh district one had to leave District 2 is meet District three right thank you um so I I have something I want to say I've been thinking at the beginning as as the year begins um and admittedly I was
140listening to something on NPR that got me thinking about this that we and what the guys said who was being interviewed was as long as we're breathing we can be agents for change and and I was just thinking about how that doesn't necessarily mean you you have to run for office or you have to get involved with you know your local union it it's any any little thing you can do to make someone else's life better within that you are operating as an agent for change um I also recall when my child was taking High School government class there was a question about you know what should an elected official do and what the answer boiled down to was make communities better places to live and that certainly in my never before run for public
141office never got involved in anything like this before mind what my intention was um as I ran for school board um so with the convening with all of that in mind with the convening of the 113th General Assembly which happened today at noon here in our state I just want to remind I want to offer a reminder of the the way that we within mnps are trying to create inclusive and welcoming environments we're trying to be agents for positive change and we hope that we are um are offering actions that can be replicated by our state legislature as they Endeavor to do the same in this 113th General Assembly and specifically I want to highlight a resolution that we passed in April of it demonstrated the will of the board it passed unanimously we're not
142going to put it to a vote for new board members but I can I feel quite confident knowing what I do about these amazing women it would pass unanimously once again the title of that resolution was a resolution regarding physical mental and emotional support for all Metropolitan National Public School students staff parents and other stakeholders regardless of gender identity gender expression or sexual orientation we went on to assess that we believe it is the right of every child regardless of gender identity expression or sexual orientation to safely access their free K-12 public education we recognize that we have lgbtqia plus employees we value them as members of our school communities we value all of our families we also recognize prohibitions from the local level to the federal level around discrimination based on gender identity or
143sexual orientation and we also within that recognize that creating inclusivity in our schools isn't about any single action it wasn't about just that one resolution but it was about effectuating a paradigm shift through facilitating deeper understanding of sexual and gender diversity I have found this to continue to be the will of the board I have seen a movement in the right direction from my position on the board and I want to applaud our Administration for that because we know that affirming gender identity and expression for youth is one of the most effective mental health interventions for supporting those youth and we know the disparities around their need for mental health interventions and their risk for suicidal ideation and suicide so I bring that up now just to remind us you may well I mean you
144probably do but you may not realize that you know queer people I certainly do I know many and I love many members of the queer community [Music] really now understanding that it has been reclaimed by that Community with pride so I say that to say let's all be agents for positive change let's all remember the most vulnerable members of our communities as we move forward into 2023. that's all thank you four hey everyone um just want to wish everyone a Happy New Year now that we're back and and back into the community and back into our schools um hope you have a successful year um and it is every and you reach every goal and Milestone that you are reaching um that you're reaching for um I just want to add that we're having my
145community meetings we'll restart in the new year we'll have our first community meeting this uh on Thursday January 19th um from 6 to 7 30 and that will be hosted at the Hermitage Community Center again Thursday January 19th from 6 to 7 30 at the Hermitage Community Center the parent advisory Council will be hosting a meeting with parents to discuss the third grade retention law and how you can support your child and any questions that you have around that we will be partnering with the district to host that meeting so that we so we will have all stakeholders in place to be able to answer any questions and provide you any feedback that you need about the third grade retention also we I want to thank personally thank Miss Bailey and McGavock High School as
146well as Dr battle and her team today for hosting Elevate which is formerly leadership Donaldson Hermitage at McGavock High School they spent the afternoon there ate lunch in The Bistro and was served by the students who are in The Academy of hospitality at McGavock High School and we're able to the the leadership team was able to visit the high school learn about the academies and the great work that McGavock High School is doing and so I just want to thank Dr battle and her team as well as Miss Bailey the principal of McGavock High School and her team and all of the students who participated in this event it was a really great event we received a lot of positive feedback about McGavock High School about the work of mnps and and what we're doing
147I encourage community members to please take time to go into our schools it's one thing to hear about public perception it's different when you visit our schools and can see firsthand the amazing work that's happening within our schools so please reach out to school principals please reach out to the district find ways that you can get involved that you can support that you can volunteer there's so many Avenues and we need all of your support this is not just an mnps and mnps families we need the entire Community to come together to support our schools and support our students for the success of our community thank you District Five thank you my only announcement and I'm so excited to hear about all the work that my colleagues continue to do outside of board meetings because
148we fully acknowledge that we don't just meet we have to be in the community and supporting the community and making sure our most disenfranchised and vulnerable um Neighbors feel supported you know that they they have us so thank you all for all that you all continue to do outside of the board meetings that we sit at but with that in mind I'm so excited that Jones padea Elementary School has partnered with Regions Bank and I'm so excited about this parent who has volunteered his time to offer a financial literacy course for families food will be served of course there will be care for students there we want them to have their own financial literacy or their own their own time for student financial literacy while parents are being supported trained and just being allowed to
149engage with one another so I hope to see you all there and if you're in the Pro cone cluster we've partnered with all of the the schools in that area all all of them in 37208 are invited so if you're a parent a Community member or a student please join us Thursday January 19th at five o'clock P.M to hear from Regions Bank and learn more about financial literacy that's it thank you oh you have District Six thank you will you please rate those on but her back sure um I'd like to read District Six announcements on behalf of Mrs Mays um let's see this she is having her District Six community meeting on January 17th at the Southeast library the large community room from 6 to 7 PM her guest speaker will be Ashford Hughes
150mnps executive director of diversity equity and inclusion the topic will be equity in education she also wants to invite everyone out to the Nashville MLK Day events that continue through this week tonight was the first night of those MLK events with the annual convocation on Monday January 16th at 10 A.M at the Gentry Center on the campus of Tennessee State University more details about MLK day and all of the events that are taking place starting today through Monday can be found on mlkdaynashville.com also a special emphasis and education about the annual MLK Day youth Symposium which will be held Saturday January 14th from 9 to 1 30 p.m at the scared Bennett Center Laskey Hall and all of the events are in person this year after a three-year Hiatus due to the pandemic thank you
151District Seven I forgot to say this on extend agenda regarding to a comment about our contracts there is a budgeting practice that Metro Government forces to do as an inter-department agencies and inner authorities if you want to classify that way so some things we do not have choices do just due to the Metro Government accounting practices that we have to follow as a district so just because Metro government owns land doesn't mean that we have say on if it's to be considered for free or at Cost um so and then also this Saturday from 11 to 2 p.m the mayor and our own director of schools Dr battle will be there for a back to school supply re-up at heartbeat Park so this Saturday 11 A.M to 2 p.m at Hartman Park the elected officials
152in that area are providing school supplies because it's halfway through the year and we know how kids are with supplies it's time to refresh their um their Bounty all right thank you happy New Year District day um I just want to say um thank you to miss Masters for the comments that she made and for reading um and talking about the resolution that was passed by this board I do wish I had been here to uh to vote on that resolution and in support of that resolution but I equally as the legislature is coming back into session if you are a person in this state who has uh friends family loved ones colleagues Etc in the queer Community it is a scary time to want to make sure that you are friends family loved ones
153colleagues Etc feel supported loved known seen and protected and I just want to reiterate that um we will do everything we can as a board to continue to protect our students staff and those we love in this community and so thank you for reiterating that um and I'm here for it District 9. well first I would like to welcome our new football coach to the new Lawson high school next year coach Brian Lilly will be joining us I'm really excited to see what he does with the team he's already had some great ideas he's already looking into the community building aspect of it and I'm just really excited about our future um and then also Metro Nashville and as a whole is now collecting looking for a donation of 1 000 new winter coats for
154students and families between now and February 10th so if you want to sign up for that or if you want to know more about it you can go to the nnps website at the community achieves section or you can contact your community achieves director at your school if you have one so we want to make sure we're taking care of everybody and um thank you your board member um I hope everyone had a nice winter break um report cards came out today so I want to emphasize that students are more than their grades and I implore parents to talk to their students and see how they can be best supported holistically in order to finish out the second semester thank you so much um I have to edit mine real quick in my head because
155I had a couple of the same I don't want to say the same thing as my colleagues um we do have as uh mentioned by Dr berthena the MLK Day events are happening this week she called attention to the one that is the Saturday at the Scarab Bennett I also want to make sure because it's about youth that on Monday morning at eight o'clock next Monday morning at 8 o'clock at Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church there will be a youth rally at 8 A.M with the March following at 9 00 a.m as we are out of school on Monday for MLK Day additionally um within my announcements I apologize um I want to make sure that my colleagues know to sign up for their graduation uh dates and conversations within our Excel spreadsheet and I
156sent an email about that today uh to make sure that we're doing that so that we can be consistent and make sure that we're available to those um and if you are hearing information from your communities and colleagues and your constituents of course about the third grade retention if you will make sure that those continue to be sent those questions and concerns continue to be sent to Dr Sevier and or Cameo so that we can combine them for mnps's FAQ and Family Services additionally they're helpful for us as a board to know so if you'll please copy myself and or in Ms Masters for our advocacy work to make sure that we're following up on those things and have those talking points lastly on the 21st in my district there is going to be an
157unveil of the Kurdish Americans of Nashville historical marker that ceremony begins at nine o'clock at the salahuddin center again that's on Saturday January 21st and then the unveiling is to follow and that marker will be at 3904 nolansville Pike you may not know that we have the highest Kurdish American population in America and it's something that we're extremely proud of not only as Nashville but also as mnps and so I of course will be there and I encourage my colleagues to do the same other than that I appreciate you all being here in attendance and of course spending time with us this evening be there no further business this meeting is adjourned this has been a service of the Metro Nashville network if you would like to see this presentation again or for more information
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