001show now. Great. Um, we've got I think four items to cover uh five colorcoded uh because uh Dr. Walker was helping me organize this meeting. Um you know how part of our I said our uh what we do is health stuff, right? Health and and you know we had a big talk in in September. I'm excited to follow up on some of the results from that. It took me a while to work on that. Um that one the first one actually is is just compliance and we have to do is report every year. I sent it to you all uh just to see if you had any questions but it's just something we had it's required of everybody. Then um we have this requirement to review how we're using federal funds. Um I won't say
002I was make a joke but I won't. Uh how we're making federal funds and so Dr. Walker will go over that. Uh then uh February feedback. we get lots of uh great information from folks and so Dr. also cover that and then finally she'll uh end up with some community based accountability stuff and and at the end I will thank folks whose term is up and they will be leaving us and we'll be getting new people down if you ever wonder like why am I on this and how long am I here uh parent terms are three years uh staff terms are two years and so uh student terms are a year right because you you come back student terms are a year and then trustee terms are a As much as I know Tai
003wants to come back, uh this is generally people's favorite one. I think the committee on the board. Uh so we'll get started. All right. Now, um this is the portion where I just go over this wellness plan. And you'll recall I sent you an email and had a little link and said, "If you had time, please read it. See if you have any questions." Uh and this is kind of what it looked like. to explain what that is is um we're required uh state law requires every district to set goals in four areas. Nutrition promotion, nutrition education, coordinated health and PE and then BA uh school-based studies to promote both staff but also I mean student but also staff wellness. And so what we do is then each campus principal is responsible for implementing those
004goals. it's my job to make sure they do what they're supposed to do. Uh and then uh you guys are the one just reviewing and I report out and that kind of thing. I ultimately the law also requires me to share that report with the trustees. But um I want to make sure that I that you all don't have any questions first before I do that. Now we talked about this I think in the February meeting also. You know we have nutrition guidelines there rules for kind of what we're supposed to give kids and that kind of thing. And I I think it was in February where I I revised them. I didn't change it, but I just kind of rewarded it so it's more clear. Well, that's part of this, too. So, nutrition guidelines
005technically is a subset underneath that. And so, every year I remind the principles to tell the teachers uh what the rules are. It's really primarily issued elementary um because kids in high school end up doing what they want anyway about what they want to eat as well as usual. Um now so the goals essentially in the in the various areas we set goals about communication so people know what's going on in the cafeteria and what kids are eating. Uh physical education as well is we're especially proud of the elementary physical ed programs because when you get kids thinking about nutrition and physical education when they're young, they're more likely to push that through as they get older. And so our elementary teachers do a great job a lot of that. Likewise, keeping kids uh active.
006Eating in the cafeteria is a big deal in terms of the state stuff because of course that's where you get your nutrition if you eat breakfast and lunch at the school. Uh you all have been through cafeterias at the various levels. It's just it's I mean it's loud and we it we have to work hard to maintain order, but we really do hard uh to work hard at that. this year or for the last several years in the elementary levels, we've had uh monitors, right? We've hired monitors. They're just there for half part of the day to do that to help. Next year, because of budget cuts, we're not going to have outside monitors to do that. And so, we're working here with the principles or the principles working through how our existing staff can
007make sure we're there cuz kids have to sit down, be able to eat, and that kind of stuff. That's I spend a little time on that just because that's a change we're going through. The report you saw, that's for this year. Uh, next year will reflect those changes. Uh, so you saw it. I just covered real quick what we're do. Any questions about what you saw or about this kind of requirement. All right, I'm ready to go to the next thing cuz I'm kind of excited. It's not a huge huge It's like a threeminute video. Um, but snack lights. Well, before I get to the video, in September, we discussed I did kind of an educational thing about the snacks that we sell at Cambridge, Woodridge, and the junior school, right? In terms of nutrition,
008I also kind of did research to say what kind of uh pediatrics say and that kind of stuff and and suggestions. and we all had conversations and the feedback I got from this group was well um given what we offer and also given that we know that parents can limit whatever their kids buy at the snack lines um it's probably not a good idea like to start banning certain things but it is probably a good idea to add more proteinrich items. The second thing you all gave me feedback about was I don't know that parents really know how to like set those restrictions. So could you do some kind of education for parents to do that? Well, I'm excited to report back. It took me a while, but working with Ephrain in their office, the
009first thing I just said that actually I forgot that was a slide. So we added a variety of things right off the bat. It didn't take long for Ephra to work with his suppliers to add uh some jerky. I think we didn't sell that before. Some nice yogurt. My wife actually likes that kind. String cheese. Uh this is cheese cubes, veggie cups, and fruit cups that uh wrote, you know, the variety changes based on what's available and the seasons. So, those are the things we added pretty quickly. Uh chef uh uh Frank, do you have a sense of how those are selling now? You know, the the beef jerky was a popular hit as soon as we put it out there. We were probably averaging to start maybe anywhere from five to eight um meals
010or items served per day uh at each campus. It's probably dwindled down to about three to four different items. Uh the yogurts took a bit, but they kind of ramped up. Now they're about four average at every campus. The fruit and veggie cup was surprising. It stayed at about it's a little stagnant about one to two per day uh that we've been serving. And the cheese cube and the string cheese maybe two to three. It fluctuates. Sometimes we saw none for the week. It just depends on, you know, the kids what what they look for. The jerky was a big one. It kind of tapered off a little bit the last month, but yeah. Well, I appreciate all your work to to find those options to add based on our feedback from last time. So,
011thanks a bunch. Now, I'm excited to uh unleash a video. Right. So the question the feedback that we got was um if I'm a parent and I want I'm curious about what gets sold in the snack lines and what the nutritional value is how do I find that out? Well that exists in one kind of way uh in in the system. The question then the next question is well what if I want to limit that? Well that exists it's in a different platform. And so I worked with Ephrain and his and the his his supervisors to just kind of research kind of what exists now. what do we use? How do we use it? And that was a fair amount of conversations. And once I figured all of that out, I worked with Julianne Matonis,
012our uh director of communications, and Casey um Vieiraa, our part-time videographer. And I asked them, can you just make a like a short video that just kind of shows how do you do it? Right? And so I'm I'm excited, but it's just like it just shows those two things. So don't get your hopes too high. Um but I think it's it's helpful. My what I'm going to ask you guys to just real quick kind of tell me my sense is I have this ready. So I'd like just going to send it out through Monday mail or whatever with principles unless you guys feel like I should wait till the beginning of the year cuz you know at this time of year it was like we're done with the year and I don't want to think
013about a new thing. So I hate for it to get lost. Of course we could do it also in the fall as well but I just want to get your take on. So here's the video. Our Elmo Heights ISD cafeterias at Cambridge Woodridge and the junior school offer a variety of smart snacks available to students as alleart purchases. These snacks meet nutritional standards and include baked, reduced fat, and proteinbased options. Visit the Neutri Slice website for your school cafeteria to learn more about the snack offerings, review the nutritional information, and even search by special diets or allergies. To get there, visit [Music] ahisd.neutraslice.com. You can also go to the homepage for your child's school and look for the quicklink icon for menus. Select your campus and then click on smart snacks. You can click on
014the individual items to review the nutritional information along with any allergy or special diet information. You can also click on the filter icon on the top right of the page to filter offerings out by allergy or special dietary needs. Smart snacks are available daily and parents can determine when, if, and how often their child can purchase them. To place restrictions on purchases, parents will need to log into their school cafe account, which is also used to add payments for meal plans. Create and or access your account by going to schoolcafe.com/alamohheitsisd. Click on purchase restrictions to set up how often and which days your child should be allowed to purchase smart snacks. Once you set up the restrictions, you're good to go. Those preferences will remain unless you go back and modify them. If your child
015has allergies or other dietary restrictions, make sure to work with your school nurse to document those needs. That information will also be shared with cafeteria staff. If you have additional questions about Smart Snacks or your child's meal account, please contact your school's cafeteria manager. Tada. Good job. Yeah. And so, uh, it's, you know, straightforward. It tells you where to go and it tells you what to click and so now you know. So you guys think I could just ask some principles to put that in their Monday mail? I would do it now and do it. Yeah, do it both every year at the beginning. I've seen ours ramp up recently where I'm adding a lot of money lately. So I That's learn how to figure it out. Yeah, everybody gets friends and they want to
016want to be the big shot. Okay. Well, thank you so much. So I'll do that then in the next week or so I'll talk to principles about sending back. Thank you so much for the feedback. I hope that's helpful going forward. Frank, I have a question. Has there been any talk about um partnering with the PTO's to help with the lunch monitors at all? I know Highland Park, the parents actually serve the meals. You know, the principles are working on the plan. I just don't know what that is. I presume that's one of the options. Sure. But I don't quite know what they're doing yet. Okay. Yeah. Uh okay. So that's we did that. Great. Well, thank you so much. Now we're ready to hand it over to Dr. walk. Are you ready? I'm ready.
017All right. Okay. That's for you. Thank you. So, this first part, it is a compliance part, but we're going to reframe it in a way that I think will be meaningful for us here in Alamo Heights. Ty, you've already seen this. We're going to talk about federal programs. Um, so I'll hand this. You can just lead the whole thing. Chime in as you want. Um, so let's start with this. Federal programs. We've done a lot in Almo Heights educating our community about school finance, but federal program and finance from the federal government that comes to Elmo Heights, we don't spend as much time talking about. So just find an elbow partner near you. What do you know about federal programs, not school lunch, but federal programs that support academics in public schools, specifically on the
018heights? So just turn and talk for a minute about what do you already know about federal programs? How are you? that come in. Federal level. Good. All right. I'm going to pull us back together in five 4 3 2 1. All right, someone tell me something you love. What do you know about federal programs, Martha? Great. Thanks for volunteering. What do you know? Well, I know I already have like I know part of the dual language the bilingual program is absolutely great. See, you were a plant because I knew you'd know that. Um, what else? Anyone else? Something else you know about federal programs? It is absolutely fine that it is crickets because I am going to school you up a little bit about federal programs and there's a quiz at the end. Just kidding.
019All right. So, we're gonna start by just anytime we talk about fiscal operations or finance, there's a few key things we always put on the table. One, Alamo Heights because one fund it it's all a complete ecosystem of all the different funds. So, you all know we sent back 22 million Robin Hood recapture. 86% of non-recapture is for payroll and that any federal grants, there's no such thing as free money. And so, everything does have um requirements to it. And one with federal programs is it has to supplant. It has to be above and beyond what we're doing with general fund. So, I can't pay for one teacher uh in first grade out of federal when the other are all gened coming from general revenue. Does that make sense? It has to be above and
020beyond. And that's called supplement not supplant. So, I'm going to tell you a little story. Two districts, San Antonio, about the same size. So, one Alamo Heights were 4700 4,800 students. This other local district is about 54. So, they're a little bit larger but about the same. They're not a north side is what I'm saying. So I'm going to spend my time today talking about some of the bigger federal grants that we have got we received each year. The first one is title one which supports struggling learners and academics math and reading. We got 389,000. This local ID local ISD got 2.4 million. Title 2 which supports professional development of all teachers. We got about a 100,000. They got 363,000. Title 3, which is bilingual education, we're 33,000. They're 128. Title 4, which is safe
021uh schools, safe well-rounded students. We're 31,000. They were 160. So, all of this is because all of the methodology for any federal funds is based on the demographics of the students in that ISD. This does not mean we do not have bilingual students. We do not have struggling learners. But the amount of funding we get, so when I said it's all in an integrated ecosystem, you put that with recapture, you put that with other state funds, like it just creates a perfect storm of not a lot of funding to go around, but we do get some funding and we are very judicious about how we use those funds. I'm going to walk you through that. So the first one is title one. This is the exact to ensure that children have a fair equal significant
022opportunity to obtain a highquality education. We don't qualify for you'll hear schools defined as a title one school. That means they have over 80% of their students who qualify for free and reduced lunch. We don't have any campuses that have 80% of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. But we do qualify for a smaller grant program called targeted assistance which means we get to choose where do we target the assistance and we choose early intervention. So this is just K to second grade specifically it has been targeted at Howard and Cambridge. It's based on the percentage of economically disadvantaged students and we focus on early math and early reading and the salary and the money has primarily gone to supplement instruction interventionist special programs for students that are identified. The remaining funds some of
023you may have seen like uh books and breakfast events with families. We've done game nights. That's what those funds go for. The second is title two and this is all professional development for our teachers. It's on every campus. We've used it to pay for professional learning communities, small groupoup instruction, dyslex dyslexia, GT content and content area knowledge. So if we have new math teachers and we need to develop some content level expertise, these funds are used for that. So, this is a fantastic grant that can be used to support professional development across all campuses, pretty much across all things. It can't be used for anything required. So, like Kristen, who's our district testing coordinator, we're required to do a a professional development for teachers on testing. This can't be used for that because it has
024to supplement nothing that's required, but things that are above and beyond. Title three. This is our entire like for all the emergent bilingual students and I think we're sitting at 8% of our students. We have $33,000 a year. And so this thanks Lori has been specifically used for training on writing and math for emergent bilingual students. We have a summer language academy that all of our language program teachers attend. When teachers are working on translating things or writing curriculum in Spanish, it can pay for that supplemental for those teachers, parent engagement events, and when we need material specifically in Spanish, it can help pay for that. But $33,000 doesn't get you very far. The last one is title 4, and this is a unique grant. It's probably the newest to come online, 8 years, 10
025years maybe. This is to support safe and healthy students and school campuses. Again, 31,000 for school safety. It's not a ton of money, but it has been used in the po in the past for Car Solace, mental health, school safety co-op, drug dogs that come onto our secondary campuses periodically, crisis go, which is a communication platform, uh, and then Mindwise suicide prevention. So, that's what we've used the money on. So, it is helpful for things that aren't required just to help us make sure that schools are safe. Any questions about that? All right. Uh, Perkins is CTE, rocketry, incubator, fashion design. Um, I know I'm uh education and training. All of those CTE programs, those are expensive programs. $34,000 a year. And so this of course in no way covers all those expenses, but we've
026used this for um incubator has to do an annual has a curriculum. We purchased that with these funds. Systems go, which is our rocketry. We purchased that curriculum. We've done training for CTE teachers. We purchased minimal supplies and materials. $34,000 is not going to get you everything you need to build a rocket. So, we rely on other funding sources, but that's it's primarily on things that repeat every year so that we have a stable funding source for that. And we do pay a stipen for our teacher who's there at Friday Night Football Games making sure the jumbotron works because it's kids who do all of that, all the instant replay, but there is a professional there working with them and we pay for that. Okay? So, we try to be good stewards with it. In
027addition, we have learned to become much more aggressive and assertive about chasing down other grants. These are just some of the other grants. There is a school safety grant. We were able to launch early college because we secured a grant for that. Um, we paid for some vertical alignment through a grant. Computer science, we have a grant for that and our teach program. And just I don't know right before spring break, Heather McFarland and I pitched to the charity ball association for a grant there to support CTE as well. So if you all know of grants like we are happy to write them and and go for that as well just to get creative in finding other funding sources for our programs. So I'm going to take you to the future of federal grants and
028there's not a whole lot that I know but I'll give you uh something that I do know. We were randomly selected for program validations, which is long form to say we were audited for federal programs. And so we submitted all of our information. They quickly came back within days saying, "Can you clarify this one point?" We submitted up that documentation. And then we got a form email that said, "Due to changes, it will take us over a month to review all of these documents." So, I don't really know what's going to happen here, but uh special education, all of our funds for our special education students, the title 1 2 3 4 I just went through, it's all managed through federal department of ed. He Trump did sign an executive order to close it. The
029staff was cut. It does require some congressional approval. So, we're in this weird limbo world of we've always had these funds that support ongoing cost. Systems go rocketry curriculum is an annual cost that I pay for with federal funds. So, we're watching this carefully. It may be that funds will continue to flow. It may just slow down. It may be that funds are reduced. So, we're in a weird limbo world now. We won't get planning amounts. Usually we get them March, April for the next year and we'll see if that's on track. So that's a whole lot to say. I don't really know, but we're watching it carefully to see what happens with that because that will impact decisions we make going forward for next year. All right, remember we started in the what do
030you already know and I said there was a quiz. Here's the quiz. So turn back to those elbow partners. What idea, what detail or idea really stood out for you about federal programs? Like what'd you learn? And zoom out. What questions or topics are you still thinking about or questions do you have? So, I'm going to give you two minutes just turn and talk. I threw a lot at you about federal programs. What'd you learn and what are you still wondering about? [Music] But this is a timer. overall demographic. There were Heat. Heat. All right, you got 45 seconds. [Music] [Applause] services cannot go away. That's good. Oh, I sense a lot of conversation. So, I'm going to pull this back together 10 seconds early. All right. Um, tell me something that you learned today
031or something that's still kind of circling that you're wondering about. I guess when I look at those Yes, absolutely. When I look at those numbers where you're comparing our district to another district that doesn't have that many more students and I understand they look at demographics but when you go present that at the federal level or the state level how does anyone justify and say that that makes sense like I when you look at those comparisons like and they I guess that's where I'm still like how do how can they justify that but yes yes total agreement there yes yeah it is it's something that uh just knowing we get federal funds, but when you hear about people saying, "Oh, they they're just a wash in in federal dollars. They get so much." It's not
032it's not our case at all. Um what else? Joseph and I discussed that if the services go away, then we still have to pay. Like wondered what happened like the if federal funding goes away for special education, we still have to provide services. We would never have a student in our campus, in our schools, not receiving services that we have made a commitment with their family to provide them. We would just have we'd have to find a way to pay for it. Yeah. Thanks, Kristen. Anything else? How hard it is to be in this position right now because if we already, you know, know you're not getting the money, then we will be moving on to finding what the solutions for it, which we're very good about that. Like, let's move on. But being in
033this limbo is like if not, you know, like you're just waiting for all the pieces to fall and and that's a hard part. Yes. Yes. All right. Any final questions about this? I will say I do feel like as a district we have uh been good stewards of our federal dollars with this and really targeted for things that will be high leverage within our programs. and um we'll just keep an eye on it on what happens going forward. Thanks you all. That was our federal compliance required meeting. All right, we're going to move on now to the next section and these two parts are going to go together. The first one's going to be an overview. How many of you participated in February feedback? You filled out a survey. I love that. Brian, your hand's
034not up. It should be up. Okay. Um thank you for that. teachers who are in the room. Um, you got all of the feedback from your students as well. So, not only did you provide feedback, you got feedback as well. I'm going to give you an overview and then you guys, I am going to give us some talk time with the results. That was these big stacks of paper that Lori brought in. You've got an option. You can look at it online or you can look at on paper. Um, but I think having the overview frames it because the entire document is 56 pages long and there's no way we're getting through 56 pages. So, stop me. You all know I'm going to keep going and you're going to pause if you have questions or
035comments. So, February feedback, we'll do an overview, a few highlights, and then talk about next steps in general. And then we're going to dig into give you some time to dig into all of it. Now, we have a whole system of surveys in Alamo Heights. We start the year with fall feedback, which is only to students grades three and up, and it's asking their perspective and feedback for their school as a whole. How safe do you feel at Woodridge? So, it's more general uh building level feedback. Then in February, we have a survey for staff, a survey for families, and a survey again for students. But this time instead of giving feedback about Cambridge, they're giving feedback to their third grade teacher at Cambridge. So it's a little bit different. That is incredibly unique. Universities
036do this where you give feedback rate my professor, but the fact that we're doing it from third grade on is pretty unique about Alamo Heights. We have topics that we ask every year. School safety is always there. And then there's topics that I call ad hoc. This year it was bond communication. That was something we're asking this year. It won't always be a question, but it was important for this year. So we had about 1,800 parents, 3,200 students, 500 staff. It was slightly lower. I think maybe 200 fewer parents this year than last, but still higher than where we were before pandemic. So a really robust response rate. Overall, we saw several things that had just a general trend in pos positive response. All of the most of the questions, it's a liker type. There's
037two strongly agree, agree, a neutral option in the middle, slightly disagree, strongly disagree. So, if you pick one of those top two, I call it a positive response. Some days I strongly agree, some days I just agree, but all of that is considered a positive response. So for parents really we saw some nice uh growth in terms of positive responses for grading and safety up four percentage points about grades accurate reflection of content mastery specifically driven by the high school change. Remember we put in a bunch of changes last year about multiplier and class rank and so we saw really nice improvement at the high school level with those grading questions. Parents less worried about violence and ah doing well in the area of school leadership. Students went up six percentage points on how clear
038are you on how to report bullying? How fair is the school's grading system? Up four. And technology helps me learn from the point of view of a a student up four. And then staff saying uh solid at 98% of our staff being satisfied working at Almo Heights. Y'all we asked this question in February. February, as we've been talking about budgets, it's been on everyone's mind. So, the fact that we still have 98% of our staff saying they're satisfied working here, it came out in other ways, but this to me is the like you can hold both. I love my job and I wish this, this, and this would change. You could hold both of those. So, new questions. High school cell phone policy, brand new this year. So we ask about cell phone. This is
039high school uh teachers. How well do you think cell phone policy is being followed by students? Almost all students follow the rule. Most students follow the rule. That's pretty strong with only 17% saying many students break the rule despite uh reinforcement. And then zero is it's not being followed. So yeah, there's still some redirection, but overall really strong. The important question to me is this next one. Since no cell phone policy started, how has student focus and engagement changed? Significantly, somewhat improved, no noticeable change. It's made things worse. Like that's the whole why that we're redirecting and going through all this because it's improving focus. And so that was really positive to see from the point of view of high school teachers. I call this areas of additional information needed. You know, you all know
040me well enough to know like I love me some survey questions and they'll tell you the degree to which students strongly agree or disagree. They can't tell you the why. So, this question was to students. If you catch yourself using a device for non-school related activities, what's the most common reason? Like why? Number one, the green is I'm bored. This kind of teal is I feel the need to check notifications. Blue I don't think it affects my learning. Gray is it's a habit. I don't even realize I'm doing it. And yellow is other. Look how many other. So that was an open-ended where if you put other, you could go in and say what's the other? There are over 5,000 responses because remember students gave it to every single teacher. And when you read this,
041you see a lot of Well, there's a few. My parents were texting me. There's a there's quite a few. I'm listening to music. And then there was this one that to me is our point of intervention. I finished my work. I finished my work and so now I'm on my device. That we need to change that system. That's our point of intervention. So this is it is fascinating to read and what I like about this is when we ask students to give feedback to their whole campus it's easy to go well that's not me as a teacher that's someone else on my campus. This question students gave feedback to individual teachers. So, Professor Miller can look and see exactly what his kids said and each individual teacher can now reflect on because sometimes there's a
042difference when you're like, I never let kids go on their phones when they're done. And then you read what kids say, you're like, oh, okay, this is what my students are saying about my class. So, I think that's going to be a high lever piece of information because it's concrete. It was like and students are this is confidential like they were very honest. that to as a followup there. Uh another one following on the parent perspect uh perspective of technology in the classroom. This is instructional technology is appropriate for my child and that took a dip. Last year was 80% positive response. This year 73. But then you come to this question that says how much time is your child on a device from your perspective? Look how much I don't know. So when I
043look for what's our point of intervention, it is that we're not doing a strong enough job communicating with families so that they know how technology is doing, how technology is being used, what are their children doing with technology so that they can determine if it's appropriate or not. That to me is the point of intervention here. Um, additional information. Remember I said we asked staff about this in February when the heat of budget conversations were going on. One of the things and teachers, you can tell me if I'm right, but it has always been a strength in Almo Heights is people love their colleagues that they work with. They love their English department, love their math department, love their prek department, love their heights department. And it has always been a top scoring item. We
044ask teachers, how helpful is collaboration? It dropped from 88 to 81. How positive are the attitudes of your colleagues from 70 to 57. Now there's also a difference in how are you feeling at this moment in time. Like this was in this moment in time. This that is not necessarily who we are. Like I'm guessing James, you still think your department are rock stars and you love collaborating with them. Absolutely. Yeah. So, this is more a reflection of what people were feeling, but it's honest. It's rough out there with all the talk about budgets, and that's where we saw it come through. Right spots. Look at this. I almost ran out of green ink here. How smart is your teacher is basically what this question is asking. Does your teacher know what they're talking about?
045Look at this. 94%. And this goes through high school calc BC. like this goes through everything. Strongly agree, somewhat agree. My teacher is knowledgeable about what they teach. Fantastic. This has been a huge uh piece in terms of professional development this year about annual appraisal appraisers. Appraisals went from 48% positive last year to 55. Uh still work to be done, but nice growth there in one year. Parents, how likely are you to recommend Alamo Heights? We're at 97% positive here. So, next steps for us, communicate. We continue to analyze like I do a correlation between survey factors and student growth to see what are the factors in the survey that most influence academic um outcomes. And then all of this goes into campus and district planning for next year. So, that's how all of this
046is used. And I end this part in the way I always end, which is just feedback's a gift. And sometimes you get the gift you want, you get diamond earrings. And sometimes you get the gift you need and it's a close steamer. But we hear things that we need to hear. And so it is always a gift. I will also say that remember I said Almo Heights is unique in having students give feedback. Um, our instructional coaches go through the feedback, format the reports for each teacher and eyeball it in case there's any student out there who just blast. You mother, we just take that out. But this year, out of thousands, there were two comments that had to be deleted. Two. We leave in constructive responses. Teacher, you talk too much. We leave those
047in. But anything that's just And so the fact that our students are mature enough to give feedback to all of their teachers to me says just volumes about um our students and how much they care about their teachers and their teachers care about them. Because if you felt like your teacher didn't like you or hated you and you didn't like them and you get an anonymous opportunity to tell them what you feel like you could see someone going rogue on there and our students do not and I'm impressed by them every year. All right. Any big questions before I turn it over and we're going to talk about results. All right. So, this is a weird shift from this beautiful surveys, but now we're going to talk about some button busting. All right. Just go
048with me here. Button busting. Data is a lot like mutton busting. Sometimes you ride, sometimes you slide, and sometimes you just eat dirt. You've been to the rodeo. Go ahead. So, we're going to watch this 46 seconds. All right, Christine, how do I play the play button? I can do it. Okay. All right. Only a few more nights of the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo. Tonight's Mutton Busters did not disappoint. Let's get to the highlights. Ladies, look at him. That's kind of what the end of your feet feels like for all of us right now. [Music] All the way around this. What a ride. Congratulations. The six-year-old is tonight's mutton busting champion, scoring a 9 for that ride, which is a San Antonio best. All right, so here's what we're going to do in
049groups of fourish, whatever works for where you're sitting. You're going to look for affirmations. Where did we stay on for 8 seconds? Where were we able for a great ride? Considerations. Where did we slide or we ended up in the dirt? And then I always ask for just holistically, are we on track, adjustments being made, support required, or in crisis? And we've I'm giving you everything, you guys. I'm giving you all 56 every question that was asked. Here's my ask to you. Uh this is transparent. This information is out there. Please don't post it on Facebook. Please don't because any I'm giving you the information in context. We're going to have discussions about it. Anyone could pull any single question out of there out of context and it could become a negative headline. So I
050am trusting you that we need your feedback. You can't give us good feedback without the information. But I am asking please don't post it out of context. But we've looked at pillars one and two. You've got the questions in there. But I asked that we look at some areas we have not talked about as a DEAC. So that's pillar three. This is student well-being and safety. It's pages 18 to 36. Don't freak out. There's only two questions on a page. So it's not like it's it's robust reading. Or pillar 4, which is engaged and well-rounded students. That's 38 to 41, not 414, by the way. Uh pillar five is engaged community. I have messed up these. Well, you see the start page, don't look at the end pages. Those are typos on my part. And
051then the last one is high performing faculty. So, just choose pillar three, pillar four, pillar five or six. You may not get through the entire like well student well-being has uh positive relationships and it has belonging. You may not get through all of it. Just pick a category and read all of the surveys about that. I try to group them so that if we ask the same question of teachers and students, those questions are right near each other so you can see it from different perspectives. So, choose something that's of interest to you. Um, you can either I think I've got 14 copies of we call this the encyclopedia. It's got a little bit of everything. Or you can scan this and look at it on your phone. Either way is fine. I'll pass some
052of these down, but I didn't want to print 50 copies of this. Does that make sense? So, you're going to get with a group. You're going to choose a topic that is of interest to you. You're looking for what are we doing well? Where can we improve? And overall feedback to the district. Are we on track? Do we need to make adjustments? Support required. And you guys, I'm going to give us a good 15 minutes here. [Music] We go to Yeah. Choose a any pillar that's interest. And if you've got questions, raise raise a hand and Frank or I'll come around and answer. I'd say 835 increasing a% pretty good. Um Mercedes same thing for the next one and say exactly the [Music] same next one. Did you guys advised a lot of our meetings,
053but it's been I think we have one more towards the end of the year. So that I don't know how that also decreases. Yeah, there's a compiance piece of how often and how [Music] many I get. I feel like teachers are not I feel like parents are more inclined to be if my student isn't doing good in school because we are head and shoulders above form. I perform faculty where other districts students feel how much you value clearly knocking it out of I feel like that doesn't I'm curious with that when you're reading this question and you're sitting in English what are you thinking about if it's a value like what does that look like what's your thought process for answering that question I feel like most students one low me included for some of
054my classes. How how am I going to use this in college after college? And so I think like the most useful classes are like English one because you need to learn how to write and that's always going to be like a factor and then like some I feel like when students will be like okay when am I going to use how to like map for instance how am I going to like take a derivative and then take an anti-erivative whatever when am I actually going to use that like going on so I feel like that could be a spot where it's like if I don't see it of value when I'm going to use this in my career or in college, why would I take it? And that's probably like less at the high school
055rather than the other three because if you know like I'm not good at math, I don't need to take this hard vice versa. There's I'm sorry. There's always a difference in just the general well and I think I wrote something on my survey positivity of elementary students compared to secondary like there's just and you'll see it in there you'll see chair and then junior high school not indicator of junior you can't always responses to a third grade everything's great and so that's why I think looking at it from prior year And also as a [Music] kid based on your grades or But [Music] sometimes having worked before just how much we are trusted to teach the way we do. That's good. I've never had my parents. That's where you know when there's back school night
056and you're sitting and everyone in the room are talking about here's how I teach this, here's how I teach this sitting in that classroom for seven days. You just say that about one of the guys because teacher and I also think there's like a certain bias that they like don't want to admit that it could be their student. So I think they're more inclined to play on the teacher. I mean that's not my I feel like we're really like by define just being able to say my child needs to be actively doing things with their hands and the teacher is lecturing that I know. But really high school that we're just out. find it boring after 45 minutes. I keep that in because teacher needs to hear that if you say that's not [Applause] anything's
057[Music] also right [Music] [Applause] after I think so. And I think this is Everything Heat. Heat. I feel like this year last Another Was it that I think the biggest Power. [Music] Heat. Heat. supposed to enjoy. Security [Music] All right, 2 minutes left. We got 2 minutes. [Music] Did you guys looking at Everybody. [Music] You [Music] said we section something where We overall circle. All right. So, I'm going to pull us together in one minute, but I'm going to ask each group to share out what you reviewed, what was an affirmation, what was a consideration overall. If you looked at belonging, positive relationships, whatever that category or if you were able to look at the complete pillar to do you feel like Almo Heights holistically is on track adjustments being made which means we're aware
058of this and already doing some things we need to let those changes happen or support required which means we need to direct some other resources be it time energy people uh materials or wow we took a big plunge here and we're in crisis this. So, you've got about 20 seconds to figure out what you want to say to the whole group and we're going to start over here and go around the room. Just a quick quick just update for the group. positive. All right. We're ready. So, we're going to start. We're going to start over here. Go around. Wherever you got is right where you're supposed to be. If you looked at the entire thing, fantastic. If you spent your time all talking about one question, that's absolutely okay. Wherever you got right where you're
059supposed to be. But I'm going to start here with this group. You guys tell us what did you look at affirmation a consideration and overall where would you rate Alma Heights in that area? We looked at pillar six a high performing faculty. Um, affirmations is just an incredible amount of uh thought that our students uh placed on our faculty that we are uh that we have incredible teachers and then on the teacher side that we have incredible colleagues just the amount of professionalism is far and away amazing. Uh considerations a lot what what you were talking about Dr. Walker is uh when this was taken there was a lot of uh questions and uh everybody was still either raw or a little bit unsure what was going to happen with finances. So that was the
060positive attitudes of colleagues and how positive is the working environment. Again have to put it in context of when this was taken. So that's where I saw most of the difficulties and I think we're right on track as far as high performing faculty. It's it's an amazing district and uh all these results proven. Thank you. All right. Going around you guys over here. You want to share? What did you guys look at? We looked at the how much do you value your learning in this class for the students and then for the parents? How well do the teaching styles of your child's teachers match your child's learning styles? Um our affirmation is probably for the how much do you value your learning in this class? it still went up 2% from last year. And I
061think especially in high school where it becomes really subjective what you value based on what you want to do in your life, still seeing it that high at 86% is good. And then our biggest takeaway or consideration that we had is for the question saying how well do the teaching styles of your child's teachers match your child's learning styles. Um, we thought that the reason it was so low is because parents might not know how well the or know well of the teacher's teaching style or they're just simply looking at a student's grades and seeing their grades not that high. Maybe their teacher isn't teaching them as much and not and I I just think teachers or parents are more inclined to um blame teachers more versus their own kids because they they might not
062want to take um blame, I guess. And so I think that should be our a student question is how well do your teacher's teaching style matches your own learning versus a parent question. And overall where would you put and overall I would say we're on track just that minor adjust adjustment we made. Thank you. All right moving on. Okay. So, we looked at pillar three, student wellbeing and safety. And so, when we talk about affirmations, um, we were looking kind of at Woodbridge, sorry, at Howard, I guess, uh, as the example under student wellbeing and safety. So, that was kind of our affirmation like just across the board. It looked like um Howard parents felt that the students were safe. Uh, they really felt that someone was there at the school was able to help
063them and they really enjoyed the school as well. So, we noticed that also. um just kind of under how well do administrators create school environment that helps children learn. So um that was very positive. Also when we talk about considerations we looked more um at let me get to it under a sense of belonging and so that's where we noticed especially with teachers so how well is ah doing with belonging and inclusion. So, um, we see the red there. So, we know that there's a drop. Um, not significant, but there is a drop from 2024. Um, and it's still higher though than where it was in 2023, but, um, we know that that was more at the high school than anything else. And then kind of the junior high also. Um, still for Woodbridge and
064Cambridge, it was kind of on track. Looking though from the student perspective though of how they felt that they belonged at the school, um, the high school was still pretty low. Uh again this is higher overall positive response than what it was last year but uh not getting I guess that sense of belonging from the high school students and we were just wondering why maybe what that change was. So uh remember I showed you next steps one of them just veral uh further analyzing the data we do take that and the one that kids do in the fall it does bring in like their grade level demographics. So we can analyze it and see is sense of belonging is it not as strong for students who are served through special education or emergent bilingual or
065incoming freshmen compared to 12th graders. So we do again we're always looking to not just you know sending out rather scatter interventions but can we target it and so that helps us figure out is there a difference in how students are perceiving a sense of belonging and we were wondering that just because you know obviously with Cambridge and Woodidge they're separated they have obviously a higher sense of belonging and it's when they move to junior high and it's a different um environment different um you know kind of climate for them and them trying to find themselves find their way and then try to build and forge friendships and so I think maybe that's where they have that loss of sense of belonging. This is where we start our business. Yeah, that's good. So overall, where
066would you put on track adjustments support required or crisis? We were saying um overall on track um and as far as with maybe um not really adjustments but maybe some support is just looking at that sense of belonging kind of breaking that down a little bit more to understand why it's helpful that way. Thank you. All right over here I'm not sure where the group start and end. Yeah. Perfect. Um okay affirmations. What did you guys look at? Oh I'm sorry. we were yeah five the engaged community um I mean it's very clear that teachers feel respected and parents are proud to have students in online heights like that's clear across the board um and then I thought we thought the considerations the school views publication I think that's really interesting how many people don't
067read that and that could be a money saver if we deleted that from being printed that it's been sent out. That's got to be expensive. Um just in comparison to how many people are following along electronically. Um that was really I think that's really interesting that less than 50% are reading that publication. And then um we also thought just one thing that stood out to us in the way teachers felt at the different schools as far as like respect and parents. Um, it's so interesting that Cambridge there there was a there was a more less feeling of being supported and respected by parents at Cambridge in one instance more than the high school. Thought that was really interesting. So, um I don't know what you do with that. And then um but overall I I
068think very much on track. I mean the positive response overall is Thank you for that. That's good. All right. over here. So, we did um Hello and we were talking about we're pretty much on track, but there were a few concerns like uh one was the um safety when you're saying how safe do you feel in school, especially at the high school, middle school, the same because it was kind of like from the parents and the students. So that's a little bit concerning that you know I was thinking like if you don't feel safe learning is not going to occur. So that was something that we talk a little bit about. Um same with the uh uh if someone from school will bully you online um you know from the students that 15% even though
069it's lower is still you know you don't want that that um the students feel that they can still be bullied. Um we had a discussion about um how often do your teachers seem excited to be teaching your classes. So I saw it from the because you know she was saying that for her you know to be excited maybe being silly or being too wooy but especially with my junior children but I was seeing it from the point of you know excited about teaching the subject matter and that giving the information to the students. So I I thought if the students still feel 20% you know 32% that is kind of like once in a while and to me that was and 40% in the other one sometimes once in a while that to me that's
070a little bit problematic. So it's just seeing what and the last one is uh the respect for diversity a a huge discrepancy between the parents and the students in the response. So the parents felt like okay yeah it's value but the students uh especially high school and middle school they felt a little bit like uh you know some or sometimes so good all right anything else I noticed on pillar six I'm on page 55 if you're following along campus and district leadership I'm just reminded of data you have to look at uh the various variables that can play into this how much your school leaders care about you as an individual. This is a teacher response question and noticing the difference by campus. And I'm reminded at the high school, two new assistant principles at
071Woodridge, new principal. Um what I would expect to see is that yeartoyear moving forward that that those numbers would move uh more into the dark green because I do believe we have excellent people. They're just new in that position. Um and so the teacher feedback and questions on page 55 as well as 56 kind of show that trend. But then when you ask parents, how well is AHISD doing in the area of school leadership? Uh we probably worry more about this as teachers than the parent, they're they're really excited and overwhelmingly positive about how we're doing. So just those variables. I love that. What a great example of the importance of looking at data and context. Thank you for that. All right, last group over here. Um I was looking at pillar four engaged and
072well-rounded students. I was excited to see that so many students, 83% of the students think that teach their teachers are motivating and inspiring. Um, and the the next one following along, they're willing to participate in class and that they value the learning. 86% positive value their learning in class. I think that was very inspiring to see. Any considerations or where would you rank this overall? Um overall I think it's very positive. So on track I mean on track. Sure. Especially in this day and age when you were addressing the other question about like teacher perspectives and that I mean it's a tough time to be a teacher right now. And so to know though that that's not coming maybe across to the students like that they are still we're we're maintaining a professional base in
073kind of tough times. I love that. Thank you. Thank you all for looking at this and uh I think it's important when you look at this, you can always find something where you want to get better. Like that's how we are. There can be 10 things that are great and we're going to focus in on the one or two that aren't. But when you look at all of this, and there's a lot, it really does make me feel proud of where we are. We're always striving to get better. It is a tough year as Cheryl said, but I'm proud of who we are as a community and the way we do just what we do today, which is we come around a table, we look at information, we talk it through in an honest way
074and continue every day to move forward and get better. Which is why when I ask for your feedback, there's not an option that says perfect, we got it, we're done right there. The best we can get is we're on track and on track means striving to do better every day. So, thank you all for your feedback. Um, again, you there's no way you read all of this. You're welcome to take it. If anything else comes to you later, you can send me an email. Again, I'm just going to reiterate, please, this is for this DEAC community right now. Trustees have seen this. Campus principles have seen it. Um, but right now, it's like, let's keep it here in context. So, I appreciate all that. All right, Alfado, back to you. Well, I want to thank
075you all. Each group was so uh thoughtful about thinking through things. Uh, and I want to give her an applause. Can we do that for Jimmy always does such a she's always so thoughtful about how we interact with information. And now uh I want to we're going to end by thanking folks like I mentioned uh James you've been a great job done a great job. It's always a pleasure to see you Cheryl as well. Likewise Stephanie who wasn't able to make it. And how about our students? They really dug into this stuff and I really appreciated uh Dr. Ashenzo interacting with you all especially in this last portion. Thank you all so much. You're always so good about uh just giving the student uh perspective on things. So we appreciate you all. And then Ty,
076thank you for being a a trustee member. Uh now I wait I just want to say thank you all and please know all of this does get to the board and we do appreciate you. Yeah, thank you all. And so fortunately that's the way it fell this year. We don't have uh any of you parents uh rotating off. So appreciate that. Appreciate you all. So that's that officially we are adjourned at um whatever time it is. Thank you so much. Y'all have a great 15 minutes early. Have a great rest of the school year. Yeah. Well done. All [Music] right. Hey, I was saying number structure robust. Yes.