Brenham ISD Board Training 10-30-2025 6PM Meeting

001order. Uh, no one signed up for public comment today, so we're going to go straight into our team of eight training. Uh, we have, uh, ESC6 school solution specialist Ronnie Knox will conduct our team of eight in EISO evaluating improvement student outcomes training. Turn the floor over to you, sir. Yep. >> Okay. A quick B bio about me since I haven't got a chance to present to you before. I'm in my third year with uh region six. Before that, I taught at Sam Houston for 10 years in their ed leadership program. I trained people to be superintendent. Before that, I've been in Nacadocious for about 15 years. I still lived there. Uh, uh, did superintendent, assistant superintendent, was even a special ed director for a while. And then before that, I spent the first 20

002years of my career down in South Texas in Victoria. I was a football coach for a long time. Uh, and got tired of winning, I guess, and decided to go be a principal. uh and it did that for a while. But I'm excited to be here tonight. I want you to open up your folders and we'll do some housekeeping right quick. So on the right side of your folder, you have a uh thick handout. It doesn't have all the slides in it, but it has slides in there that there'll be things that you want to take notes on, uh keep in your memory, things like that. Behind that are two evaluations. one evaluation that has seven questions on it belongs to the service center and then there's one evaluation that's just on the content that

003will go to TEA and they want uh they're getting a lot of uh feedback on this presentation u primarily because it's three hours long uh but also this presentation can cause you to think about getting on the management side of school operations instead of staying on governance. So they want to make sure now I will share with you you are the last board in region 6 that is going to be trained on this particular ISO. Uh this is ISO 2024. Starting in January, TEA is releasing ISO 2026. Uh, bad news is it is a full three-hour presentation, 93 slides, but the good news is ISO 2026 is 133 slides. So, at least you're not here for that one. You will have to take that by November of 2027, though. So, that will come along. It

004is an important training. This is the only training that we do that comes straight from TEA. The slide deck is from TEA. The script is from TEA and I try to stick to it as close as I agree with. Okay, I might venture off a little bit, but it is a good training and it is a big priority of the commissioner and the legislature because it deals with student outcomes. That takes precedence right now at TEA over funding. It takes precedence over school safety because if you have great student outcomes, all the other things fall in place. So, as we go through these slides, if you have questions, stop me. Okay? There's going to be a break point about midway through that you can stretch your legs, go use the restroom. By all means, take

005care of yourself, though. You don't have to wait till then. You get a phone call, you're not going to bother me. take your phone call, but come back so I can give you credit. No one should have to sit through this twice. Okay. Uh, so let's move on. Why do you have to do this? Well, it's actually codified in law that all school board trustees must go through this training over influencing student outcomes at the board level every other year, every two years. and it's under Texas Administrative Code Chapter 19 tax 61. Chapter 61. Before we get too much further along, you're going to see up at the top of the slides Texas Administrative Code and some of the slides will have Texas Education Code. So, what's the difference? If you see Texas Administrative Code,

006those are rules or regulations that were written either by the State Board of Education or the Texas Education Agency. They are not laws, but they carry the same weight as far as school personnel. You have to follow them. If you see Texas Education Code at the top, those were passed by a legislature. In this case, these laws were passed by the 87th legislature. Have you guys had your 89th legislative update? Did y'all sit through that yet? >> Okay. So, the 89th legislative update, that's the group of laws that were just passed by this session, and there are 133 of those. 133 seems to be a magic number in Austin right now. So, as part of your training before your next election, you need to get that update. Okay. And we can come out and give

007it to you as well. >> Yeah, you can do it online. Yeah, definitely. So, in the law, what they put was there's three major areas that House Bill three covers. It's early childhood literacy, early childhood math, college and career military. That's all the accountability system is built around those three tenants there. And when I say early childhood, we're talking about third grade. Now, obviously, your accountability is built on more grades and more areas. And we'll talk about that, but those are referenced in the law. And for boards, this training is schoolboard behaviors correlated on how you can help improve student outcomes in two areas. setting specific quantifiable goals and also adopting plans to improve these goals. All right, remember you're just adopting. You don't have to write the plans. You don't have to do the

008testing. You don't have to go in the classroom and teach. You're just adopting. But in order for you to adopt a good plan, you have to make sure it meets all the tenants. And that's what this is here. Okay. So, let's set our learning space. We talked about your handout. When I put a slide up there, if it refers to your handout, you'll see that icon on the slide and you can go. Now, unfortunately, sometimes the slides and the pages don't line up. We talked about the administrative code and the education code and you'll see facets of that throughout the presentation. Uh now this is designed this training is designed to do in large groups and so they have a lot of share with your partners to expedite tonight. I would like to treat us

009all as one big group and you're all partners. So if I ask a question instead of us breaking out into little groups let's just all answer. Okay we can do that. And then the very first part of the presentation, we're going to talk about the building blocks of accountability. So it starts with the TICSS, the Texas essential knowledge and skills. That's what we teach. Okay. Then we'll talk a little bit about the STAR and a little bit about the student success tool that's in House Bill 8 now. That'll come out in 28. But the star is how we assess what we taught. And then we'll talk about the A throughF accountability system. That's our grade. Grading how we taught what we taught. Okay. And then down at the bottom, it usually will give you a

010slide uh that you can refer to as well. So if you look all the way to the left up here are all the required trainings that schoolboard members have to have. Is anybody in their first year? Okay. So, you have to have 10 hours of framework and stuff that falls in framework are open meetings act, public information act, cyber security, school training, all that good stuff. Then everyone else has to have five hours of framework. So, it could be any of those in the middle. It could be another team of eight training. And then every other year you have to have ISO training. Now the good thing about ISO training is you get three hours of credit for it and then if everybody shows up you get your e extra team building three hours. So

011you really get six hours for three hours credit. What they're doing with the new ISO is they're expanding it that if you sit through six hours of training, you knock out everything on the left side in one setting. Uh and so we're thinking about in the future uh next spring offering some Saturday sessions if board members want to get it all done in one setting. Think of SLI in just one day instead of spreading it out over multiple days. everything else in the middle, whether you're new or old, you do have to have those every other year. And then, uh, my new member, introduction to the Texas Education Code, you have to have that within the first 90 days of your election. Clay, are y'all November or May elections? >> May. Okay. So, you've got

012some time. All right. So this whole training is built off of research project that's been going on since 1997. Okay. In the early or late 80s, early 90s, TAS started a research project seeing how can teachers affect change in the classroom. You know, we didn't always used to take state testing. When I first started teaching, every now and then we would give the California Achievement Test, but there was no state testing. And then TABS came along. Bonnie, you probably got to give Tabs, Texas Assessment of Basic Skills, but didn't really have any bite to it. It was just, okay, here's a test. And then we evolved and we started realizing, wow, maybe our teachers need a little help in the classroom. And so they started working on how can we improve teaching not only in

013the district level but how could universities improve the teachers that we're sending out. And then we started taking a look in the mid90s in principles. And so if you got a principal certificate like I did it says mid-management on it because that's what I was expected to do when I became a principal in the early 90s. Manage the school. I wasn't required to be the instructional leader. I was supposed to keep the kids safe and let the teachers teach. If you look at a principal certificate certificate now, it says principal, but it's really an instructional leader. And they started studying what impacts could principles have on student learning. And then in 1997, the state board of education said, "What can school boards do other than what we've always asked them to do?" You know, three

014main jobs of a school board. Adopt the tax rate, pass the budget, hire and fire the superintendent. It's been that way forever. But our academics were falling off. And so, what could we do? Because you guys control the purse spring strings. What could we do to bring it in? Now, I'm going to share with you an urg urban legend that I don't know if it's true or not, so don't repeat it, but how many of you heard of Marlin ISD? It's not very far from here. It is a school district. They were the first ones ever taken over by the Texas Education Agency to come in. They let go of the superintendent. They dismissed the elected board, put a conservator in there, and appointed board members. They just recently got out of tea takeover. All

015right. They were in it well over 15 years. That long. What happened? Well, when people from TEA came down and started saying, "What's going on?" Because to get taken over by TEA, it's not just one year that you're really bad. It's five years in a row. Well, Marlin was actually seven years in a row of really bad scores. So, think of a whole generation of students. And when TA came down and finally said, "What is going on down here?" Not one of the schoolboard members even knew why they were low performing. And what's worse is they acted like it was not their job. Hey, how are you? Come on in. They acted like it wasn't their job. And so we get Commissioner Morath in now and he says everybody's in the boat. If you if

016you don't know about Commissioner Morath's history, he was a former board member of Dallas ISD and he's a very active board member when he was on Dallas ISD and that just can't settle. So he took this research and he started studying A-rated schools. Now they weren't called A-rated back then. They were called exemplary and I drove around a little bit before I came here and you guys on the side of some of your schools have exemplary and recognized and things like that from our previous system. Now it's A through F and we'll talk about why did we we switch. uh we started studying A-rated schools and looking at behaviors of their boards and then they started looking at F-rated schools and behaviors of their boards. And what they found was all the A-rated schools and

017most of the B-rated schools had these five things in common. They all set visions and goals. If you were to look at some of the F-rated districts back in the day, let's take Bowmont ISD, you couldn't find a vision anywhere. This was before websites, but if you looked at their strategic plan, no vision. So, they found that school boards that have visions and goals and work with their superintendent to make those come true, A-rated district. Then, they looked at progress and accountability. Being an A-rated district is great, but let me tell you this. It's harder to stay an A than move from an F to a C because our whole accountability system, and we'll look at this, is built on growth. And if you're at 98, you don't have a lot of room for growth,

018but you still have to make sure you don't drop down to a B if you're an A. So progress and accountability, they weren't in the weeds, so to say. But if you asked them, "How are your schools doing?" They could tell you, "Well, hey, we just had a report on our benchmark scores." They knew something. They had systems and processes in place. Their teachers understood what the Brennham way was and it was working. And they understood how to move from here to here. and that even though I'm a kindergarten teacher, I my job is just important on STAR results as a third grade teacher. And so they had those in place. Now I will tell you a lot of people misunderstand when TEA takes over a district. They think, well, it's because of academics. More

019districts are actually taken over because of financial ineptness than over academics. There's one in North Forest ISD, uh, which is, uh, northeast of Houston, doesn't exist anymore. Not because they were low performing academically, they couldn't manage their money and so they got shut down. You have to have systems and processes in place for everything because everything is accountable now. Then they looked at advocacy and engagement. And these schoolboard members were true representatives of the community and they were out in the community doing the community's work, doing the school's work. And then the question always would arise, so who do you represent? Well, everybody, you represent Brennham ISD and the folks of Brennham in the outlying area if they're in Brennham ISD. Do you represent the people that elected you to get here? Yes, you do.

020You are a representative of the people that elected you, your constituents. But who do you advocate for? Where does the advocacy part come from? You actually advocate for your students. And that seems so easy. Yeah, I am here for students. They pay me a lot of money to sit here and advocate for students. No, y'all don't get paid. >> I wish. >> So that Yeah. >> So what that means is you guys are here because you're here for student growth and student achievement. You're here to represent the community that put you here. That seems so easy until they come into conflict with each other. You guys set the tax rate. You know, y'all are looking at Are y'all looking at a bond or a Vader? >> Both. Okay. All right. >> I'm not going to

021burst your bubble, but you're probably not going to get a 100% yeses on your vote. Okay. There's some people out there that don't want their taxes increased, okay? For any number of reasons, but you know, you need this for the best of your students. And that's where the conflict happens. You always have to search your heart, but to me, you're always an advocate first and you have to advocate for those kids that don't have advocates and you have them here in Brennham just like I have them in Nacadocious. So that's where the ad advocacy and engagement come in. And then finally, the other part of my that I go around, not just in region six, but go around deals with synergy and teamwork. I'm a divorce lawyer. I go in and try to say, "Okay,

022six months ago or two years ago when y'all hired each other, y'all were fine with each other. What happened that now the superintendent wants to leave and you can't? You're putting for sale signs in his front yard. What happened?" And so we start talking and communicating. And I find that A-rated districts, they communicate. Even when it's hard, they communicate. And if you look at these boards and superintendents that have gotten a divorce, it's not that they stop talking because I'll talk to both of them together. They're talking. They quit listening to each other. You know that conversation where, okay, I'm I'm ready. You stop talking because I got some really good comebacks. That's what happens. The same thing can happen from your principles to your teachers to your students. Talking is only part of it.

023You got to listen to each other. And the thing I love about students, whether they're kindergarteners or seniors, but primarily kindergarteners, they will tell you whatever it is they're thinking. You know, if you're wearing something silly, they have no problem saying that looks really silly. If you'll just listen, they'll give you the answers. But they found that those five things make A-rated districts. There's a strong correlation and I looked at the research and I can tell you this there is no F-rated district that we have in the state right now that the board is considered high functioning or A-rated strong correlation there. Now, if you want to know what the framework is, there's a hyperlink there, okay? Every year, and what I'm going to tell you tonight, if you're not doing it, it's okay. There

024is no school board police. Just start doing it right now. Okay? Every year, Mr. Krennic, you're supposed to disseminate the framework out to your members. All right? So, if you haven't done that before, get Debbie to print it out or you print it out and just give it to them every year so that you have it. And here's the reason why the state board of education actually updates this thing. So, you want to be current, okay? And you at least want to know what you're responsible for. The other thing I wanted to share with you as we're talking about this, this is just research from across the state of Texas. It's not looking at Louisiana or Oklahoma or New Mexico or Massachusetts. So everything I share with you tonight was research done in T from

025TEA about Texas schools. Okay. So we talked about the things we're going to hit on. The most important one is effective board practices. So if you were to boil that big chapter 61 down into a just a paragraph, this is what it would say. The board of trustees and really focus on trustee. Uh that is going to be the new push from tea. Now you're not just a board member, you're a trustee. Why does trustee carry such a more powerful connotation than board member? ownership. >> Ownership, accountability. As a parent in Brendom, I'm trusting you with my child. That's the most precious thing I have. Okay? If I don't have children here, I'm trusting you with my finances, my tax dollars. So, as we evolve into 2026, you're not going to hear the word, at

026least from the state level, board member anymore. You're going to hear board trustee. Okay? But skipping down, you shall provide oversight regarding student achievement and strategic leadership. Okay, I really looked at this really, really close when TA put it out and nowhere up there does it say manage. You don't have to manage the school. You have to provide oversight. That's why you have Clay here to manage it. Okay. So this right here, we'll focus on the middle later down the presentation, but here are the five pillars put into a process. If you look at B-rated schools, they may have five pillars, all five in place, but they're may not be operating at 100%. Okay? If you look at a C-rated school, they're probably missing one or two of the processes. For example, they're probably missing

027systems and processes, or else their scores would be better. Okay? And that's as we get down into the weeds of this presentation, you're going to see that the accountability system is built to take poverty out of the equation. So whether you are in Lake Highlands outside of Dallas, one of the richest school districts in the state, or if you're down in uh La Hoya, Texas, which is down in the valley, which is one of the poorest in the state, everybody can make an A. Everybody can make an A. And I'll show you some uh recent scores that show that. This is just you're going to see this slide at the end. There's not a test, but this is what you have to walk out knowing. Okay. So, what do you want Brennham ISD to produce?

028I gave you an easy one. Hopefully, everybody that goes to Brennham ISD in 12th grade and stays here will graduate. Is that enough? What's what's the next step? >> Productive members of society. You want to build more jails, you know. Uh you would like them to go off and get post high school something, you know. So engaged citizens. How many of you grew up in Brennham? Okay. How many of you got here as fast as you could, you know? So, that's what's makes a really well-rounded board is you have like my board in Nacadocious. They're called bins. Born in Nacadocious. We had some bins. >> You have Bobs. >> There you go. See, we had some bins because we have Stephen F. Fost State University there. We had some college professors. I'll share some stories

029about that. And then we had some moveins from out of state and they all brought different points of view, but go back to advocacy. They all wanted us to have engaged citizens. We didn't want our kids leaving Nacadocious and never wanting to come back, you know. Uh and of course we talked about productive members. So, how do you know that Brennham ISD is producing productive and engaged graduates? >> You see them good. >> Do you see them come back and want to work in your schools? That's a that is a great sign. >> Most of our teachers are >> that is that is wonderful. Most of my teachers in Nacadocious, we called it the loop. They would leave us, go about a half a mile down the road from the high school is where the

030university is, stay there four years, and come right back to that same high school. It was called the loop. And it was great because we could start training them when they were freshman in high school if that's what they wanted to do. Our paras do the same thing because they want to live here. And so the best way to know is our system working is are your best coming back? Okay? Not just the ones that couldn't make it in Houston or Dallas or down the road at College Station. Are your best coming back? And how do you know that you're playing a role in that other than just at graduation handing out diplomas? How do you know you're playing a role in that? Well, do you know what your accountability rating is? Do you know

031what teachers are saying? Do you work with Clay and Clay give you reports on updates and things like that? So 10 years ago, no more than 10 years ago, 2010, we came up with this plan called 60 by 30. 60% of the citizens in the state of Texas by the year 2030 were going to have a college degree, an industry certificate or military service. That seems so easy in 2010, 20 years later. I mean, we're almost at 2030. I went and got my driver's license renewed. It's out to 2035. I was like, "Oh my gosh, not sure I'll still be driving in 2035. I hope so." But that is amazing how fast 20130 is going to get here. So, let's see where we're at. Look at the far right. This is last year's numbers. We're

032not quite at 60, are we? We're at 36. What's even scarier is we didn't improve over last year. Oh, at one point over last year. So, if I look just at the end, I'm like, "Oh, man. We're going to miss this one." Just like we missed No Child Left Behind. Do any of y'all remember that one where by 2013, every third grader in the state of Texas would be reading on level? We missed We drastically missed it. So, where do I see hope? Look at eighth grade. Eighth grade reading. Finally, we are making progress and we're above where we were before CO hit. Now, math is going a little slower, but at least we made gains over the previous year. So CO hurt us much more than we anticipated and the recovery from CO is

033taking much longer than we anticipated and so where's the disconnect? TEA has not said, well, we're just going to stop raising standards. No, they keep raising the standards. It's our job to close that gap. And that's why you hear things like 1416 intensive interventions so that we can catch these students up because look over at the far left at the uh third grade. So let's share a little bit about third grade. When this slide came out, this third grade was in preK when COVID hit. They never got to go to school. Then their kindergarten year was all online and then in first grade about halfway through the governor lifted the ban and we got to come back for the spring. Then they were in second grade. So they've never really been in school, but now

034they're starting to make some gains and we're actually above in both math and or not math in reading and math. So we're catching up. So, who are going to be seniors when 2030 comes? It's this year's freshman. I believe it's this year's freshman. Yeah. No, next year. >> Eighth graders this year. Yeah. So, this group of eighth graders that are reading at, you know, below grade level, we got to do a lot to catch them up. A lot to catch them up. And a lot of people think, well, you know what? We'll put them in CTE programs. And I love CTE programs. I was part of school when we really messed up and introduced the 4x4. Any of y'all remember the 4x4? >> So, the 4x4 was a plan when we decided every student in

035the state of Texas was going straight to college. And we kept that in place almost eight years. seven years, way too long. And what it did was shut down our CTE program. So now we have a tremendous shortage in electricians, plumbers, welders, all the trades, construction. We're hurting. Now the pendulum is swinging back again. And that's what I tell people about education. All the research is like the Texas weather. If you will just wait five years, the pendulum swings back. five years, everything I'm telling you today may not even exist. We get a new governor, a new commissioner, a new platform, but just hang in there. But what we're doing now is we're pushing people, you don't want to go to college, that's fine. Go into the trades. But something I always tell the people

036when I go out and visit CTE programs, do you know that auto mechanics their textbook is at a higher reading level than the English 4 textbook? The if you were to compare, it's called Lexile levels. Auto mechanics is much higher. >> There are pictures. Yes, there are >> people like me that knows >> there are well and and I told, you know, a principal the other day, I don't want the guy working on my car to kind of know what he's doing. >> I would like him to get it fixed the right time. You know, same way with my doctor. I don't want him to kind of know. So, I don't know if we'll hit 60%, but at least we're on track now. We're on track. And as a board, that's where you come into

037play. Are we offering a well-rounded choice in electives? Or do we still have the remnants of the 4x4 where everybody's having to go this route and you don't have a choice? And do you know what year you get to select what your four-year plan's going to be? It's not your freshman year. >> Eighth grade. And I think back I I have seven children. They're all much much older now in their 30s and 40s, but I think back to when they were 14, well, they all wanted to be professional football players and and and none of them reached that goal. Uh but thinking at 14 what you're going to do the rest of your life, that is that's some serious thinking. >> Go ahead. >> Question. >> Yeah. So back to the graph I was there

038before this is Texas. >> Yes. So in my mind it comes out okay is is that an accurate expectation of students now as far as looking at 100% mark or is Texas underperforming all the other students and or is anybody hitting that mark across the board uh as far as we're living third grade is that or is it just the Texas education system you know or are we the norm across the United States? Okay. Academicwise, we are in the top 10 across the United States. Academic wise, pay-wise, we're number, last time I looked, we were number 48. Now, with the big raise that just came out, we're going to move up. Uh, you know, everybody always compares themselves to California and Massachusetts. Those are always the two highest performing. But the problem is you have

039to take the same test to get the results >> and we don't always take the same NORM reference national test. Uh this is was a goal put in place I believe because we missed No Child Left Behind so bad that we put this in place just so we have a direction to go in. But is it realistic? Is that realistic for today or >> I wouldn't say right now, but when they put this in place, 60% seemed like a low deal. >> You know, it seemed like, wow, you mean to tell me in 20 years only 10% above half of everybody is going to have one of these things? >> It's a much harder road to plow than what we thought. Is it the right one? I think it is now because before 2010 when

040we had the 4x4, this goal would have read high school graduates will earn a s within six years a college degree. Then that would be it. The industrybased certificate, the uh joining the military, none of that would even be in there. So I think we're headed in the right direction now. yesterday. So, what an awesome opportunity. >> Yeah. for that specific number. So I feel like we're really ahead of the game this so we had the opportunity just and I are part of the CT one of the things three different ways that they they follow the path that they can actually come out starting next year which is something that we hadn't done before. So, it was just a great and it was weighted higher to where if they did follow that path, the school

041district got rewarded for that. >> There's a financial >> kind of a win-win for the students, for our CTE program, and then also for the district that >> I think they'll recalibrate when we get to 2030 if if they and a lot of depends. It depends on who the governor is because he appoints the commissioner. If we have the same commissioner, I think they'll recalibrate this. They'll take a strong look at what effect did CO have because remember we didn't forecast CO when they set these. Uh how can we get to 60 and was 60 realistic? I mean, only% of kids, >> right? >> You're right. >> Yeah. >> The industry certificates are huge now. >> Really huge. Yeah. Uh, you know, it's hard to convince uh some of our students that live in Big

042Sandy ISD, which is on the Indian reservation. It's hard to convince them to go to college because they can go into the trades and make twice as much as what their teachers that are teaching them right now are making. >> It'll be interesting to see how this this chart is affected in the next few years. Your last two columns are are class of 2018 and your final column class of 2013. So you know seeing class of 2014 that is kind of coming in at the end of co and class of 2015 it's going to be highly affected by co on their >> on their certifications college careers. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out over the next couple years. less and less. >> I I think what we want to get out to

043them is a high school degree may not be enough only by itself, >> you know. So you have to keep that in place. Uh you know when this was created AI wasn't even on the screen >> you know it was not. So I can promise you this by 2035 there will be jobs that we don't even know about created and there will be jobs that are no longer needed as well. You know, that's that's one of the it's not up here, but that's one of the disturbing statistics right now is the college graduating class of 2025 are having the hardest time finding jobs of any graduating class up to that point. Uh because they didn't get a degree in what's needed right now. So, you've got to get it that degree. That's what's needed. But

044it's a great point. Uh, so how do you increase your performance? You can't do it alone. And to be honest with you, your teachers can't do it alone. Clay can't do it alone. There's a group that if you don't have their input and involvement, then your stool is only got two legs. What group would that be? Parents. Parents. If you don't have input from the parents, then the teenagers, it's real important from 7:30 to say they go home at 4. But the other hours, well, school's not that important. You know, when I took over in Nacadocious, we had a huge migrant population. Huge. Moved in. School was not a priority for them. they would come and pull their sons out in the middle of the day if they had a roofing job they had to

045get finished by night. We had to really work with that to change that that mindset. And so it's important that parents understand what school's about and you can't take it for granted. You cannot take for granted that parents understand the importance of school. Okay? And also keep in mind some of your parents may have had really poor experiences in school and school's not a good place for them. So you've got to make it better for them. But if you look at texaschools.gov and you want to compare yourself to any school district in the state and I always caution people compare your school yourself to schools that look like you. And it's not necessarily your athletic district and it's not the schools that may be surrounding you. There are actually a set of like schools out

046there and it's predicated on one factor, socioeconomic status. >> Okay? >> Find the schools that have the same socioeconomic status that you do and you can compare apples to apples. Okay? But if you were to look at this, you could put in Brennham ISD, you could put in the campus, and it will pull up any charts you want on your performance. Okay, it also pulls up uh, you know, are you A rated, B- rated, C-rated. Okay. The thing about ratings, there are just as many four and 5 AF schools as there are 1A rural rural schools that are a resources doesn't have anything to do with it. Okay. So, next, one of the things that they're driving home that they found was expectations. If you put expectations on students to achieve well, this is one

047of the things the research proved, they will meet those expectations. Not just in that grade, but look what it says. Later in life, they were more likely to attend or graduate a college. They had higher earning potential in 2025. Not just because they went to college, but because they finished something. There's a lot of power in grit and grinding through and finishing something. So, you have to have high expectations because the one thing I learned from all my years in education, and Clay probably knows this as well, students will meet exactly where you think they will. If you think they can't perform because they come from poverty and they've got a split home and their brothers and sisters were a bunch of oh goodness, they will meet your expectation. But if you walk into a

048classroom where that teacher says, I don't care what flavor you are, who your parents are, this is my expectation. You're either going to meet it or you're going to have a rotten year because I'm going to push you instead of pull you. Okay, that is so important. And the research shows kids want that. They want that expectation for them. So that's where you come into play. You get that phone call from the teacher that says all these new things they're putting down from the central office. My kids can't do that. Why don't your kids deserve what these kids deserve? You know, I I hated the term, well, they're from across the tracks. hate that term because it's it's you're not being racist out of your mouth, but boy, your intentions are very racist. All kids

049deserve high expectations. Okay? All kids do. So, why do we have STAR? Why do we assess? Why do we put kids through this? It's not because we believe in torturing children. The reason that we do assessments is to gather evidence on what they've learned. And believe it or not, the assessment is really not for the kid. It's for us. It measures not what really how they learned. How did we teach? Did I do a good job teaching or is there an issue with our curriculum? because the test is written way up here, but I'm still using papers from 2008 that aren't way up there and that's a big hole there. But this is where a lot of districts mess up. We are very data heavy in Texas. Very data. With the computers, we can pull

050up kids test scores down to the single question and find out why they missed it. We really good. We're really good at analyzing data, but we haven't quite gotten to the point where we put legs to it and act on it. Here's a perfect example I had in my district. We're going to change the names to protect the innocent. Okay. So, Ms. Alpha has been in that town. She's a Ben. went to SFA, came back, has taught at our school that's a title one school, 97% poverty, but she is that kind of teacher you want. She hugs the kids. Christmas is wonderful in her class. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. She for seven years straight never had a passing score on star as a class. So we start getting pressure from the state going, "What's going on

051here?" We take a look at it. She was that kind of teacher that was really, really good relationshipwise, but not academically. And you have to have both. You can't have someone that's just a all brain and no relationship. So, my principal of that campus, the lady's been there almost 37 years, goes, "You know what? Let's just move Miss Alpha down to first grade. They love hugs and that way she won't hurt us." And he was a newer principal and I wanted him to learn this on his own instead of me telling him that. So, I let him move her down. Well, we assessed first grade. worst scores we ever had in first grade were Miss Alpha's class because under our new accountability system, you can't hide people anymore. So, you've got to work with Miss

052Alpha. You've got to get her skill set up on the academic side because I don't believe there's any teachers that can be thrown away. If you've gone into teaching, it's not an easy job. That's why we have the highest leave the profession rate after three years of any industry in the world. It's teaching. So you work with that kind of teacher. But we have to act. I can't I couldn't as a superintendent just sit there and go, "Yes, I know Miss Alpha has bad test scores, but she's a hugger." No, you have to act. You have to act. Whether it's coach them up or help them find other opportunities. Okay. As a board, what's your job? Well, your job is not to go talk to Miss Alpha. That's Clay's job. But your job is to

053be that support system for Clay when the whole community starts getting upset because you've moved Miss Alpha. So keep that in mind. That's a huge role that you will play. So, in the Texas Education Code in chapter 39, they have three things that they feel like the STAR will do. One, it will show where you need to continuously improve student performance. I can tell you this, the STAR standard for 2023 is much harder than the STAR standard for 2018. They redid the whole accountability system and made the test harder. And that's what all those lawsuits were about. Why we didn't have scores for two years. So continually improve. You have to eliminate the achievement gaps. That's a federal law, but it's also a really good idea. There shouldn't be a huge gap in any of

054your student groups. Okay. And then finally, you have to prepare students for postsecary success. Whatever they think that is. We've got to quit telling people your only route to a better job is college. But I can tell you, you have to have something if you want to get a good job. Okay. Go ahead. >> That was an aspirational goal. >> Yes. So reality how how has it start? >> STAR started in 2003 and then it was revamped in 10 and then in 2018 and then they just redid it. So the law was aspirational. We are getting better at improving student performance up until 2023. the effects of COVID have stagnated that. So, we met that. Eliminating the achievement gaps. We're not we're not doing that. The gaps are getting smaller, but it's still the same

055student groups where the gaps are. So, we've got to do a better job of that. We are head and shoulders better preparing students for secondary success. And that's your CTE programs. uh you know dual credit with universities and colleges that wasn't a big thing 15 years ago. It was there but it was only for your upper level kids. Now any kid can do that you know uh in Nacadocious I started what's called early college high school. So you take a freshman and we enrolled them with us but we also enrolled them in Stephen F. Austin State University. So when that kid graduated, he had a high school diploma and 60 hours of university credit. But you can do that with Blind as well. I know Angelina College has it as well. It's getting them a

056head start so that they are, oh man, I've got to go to Blend for two years before I get No, man. You go there for a semester, you're done. Start working. So it it really helps. But what they have decided those are the three targets we're going to keep working on because this is in law now. Okay. So let's talk about the A throughF system very quickly. Texas did not invent the A throughF system. Depending on who you listen to, Florida takes credit for it and Arizona takes credit for it. Okay? But we made it better in my opinion. So it is codified in Texas education local law law. That's what the 39s are. And when they built this law, they wanted three main goals. Very first goal, it had to be fair for all

057schools. All schools had to have the ability to make an A. Whether you were heavy strickling with poverty and a lot of students that may not even speak English, if you did a good job, you can make an A. Okay. Second part, it had to be rigorous. It had to prepare our students for beyond high school and above. So I became a superintendent in 2000 starting a new century 21st century and everything was titled 21st century. We had 21st century learning 21st century grants everything was 21st century. I started giggling about 2017 and 18 because we were still preparing for the 21st century and we were we were 18 20 years into the 21st century. But what they know now after studying cohort after cohort after cohort, you've got to raise the bar. It's painful,

058but you have to raise the bar because when your this year's seniors AI existed when they were in junior high, but I bet they didn't know what it was. And now, look, it's taken over everything. Some people advocate, let it be the teacher. So, you've got to keep raising that bar. But the thing I think they did the best was they made it transparent for the public. All of us went to school and all of us know an A is great and an F, oh, we're going to have to talk with our parents on that one. It's so much better than exemplary recognized because you're going, "Okay, why are they exemplary?" Now, a parent can look up not just how their school's doing. You can drill down to the student level. I can look how

059Billy did it, my Billy did in class. And it helps me have better conversations because now parents are starting to hold their teachers accountable. When you guys do the 2026 training in a couple of years, you're going to see a lot of dot plots where parents are moving their kids from low performing teachers classrooms to high performing teachers classrooms. That happens all the time. I want this teacher, not that teacher. And you know, I didn't honor all of our teachers were good or they wouldn't work here. What's starting to scare me as a former superintendent is you're starting to see parents moving from this school district to this school district because all the data is out there now. And there's no more minority majority rule law where you can't transfer to other districts. If they

060have a transfer policy, you can put your name in the hat. So, just keep that in mind. Any questions over accountability? All right, let's get through this pretty quick and then we'll take a break. So, there's seven criteria in our accountability system. I'm just going to have you look at number four and A reflects that those students, it's not in your handout, it's in your uh PowerPoint. A reflects that those students aren't only going to perform well in K12. Whatever postsecary they do, they're going to do well. C was the baseline. All right. If you're a C student or a C district, you're not horrible. You're average. Okay. Because of the new accountability system, a lot of districts that were A's and B's dropped to B's and C's. Didn't mean you're horrible. It just new

061system. The most important one for our teachers was the system will remain static for five years. Five years. The biggest complaint from any teacher will tell you, I don't have a problem with testing. I'm a good teacher. test my kids. The problem with us in TEA was every year they would move the goalpost so that you didn't know what was the passing rate. Under the new laws that were just passed, now TEA has to release the passing rate two years before the test comes out and it has to stay the same for five years. So our teachers can get, all right, this is easier to do. This is obtainable. I know what I'm supposed to teach now. Okay, but those are the important things in the system. So why do we refresh the system every

062five years? Because learning changes every five years. Remember what I said about educational research. That pendulum swings every five years. Okay? What our seniors are learning now, some of it didn't exist when they were eighth graders. And what our first graders are learning now when they get to high school, 80% of it doesn't exist. Now, George Washington's still going to be the first president, but boy, there's a lot of other things that won't be true when we get there. >> Yes. >> I get to ask, but what what what would something like that be? >> Something that we may not know. >> Yeah. I was just while I'm saying only you know kids uh so in computer programming when I first became a principal and we brought in the apples we did a program called

063BCIS that is an outdated program now they don't even use it anymore do you still use it? >> No I took it. >> Oh you took it. Okay. >> Yeah. It's in your tech that doesn't exist anymore. >> Uh but just think of things in our everyday life. I used to be a Netflix subscriber. I would get the disc. >> Yeah. >> In my mailbox. >> In the mail. Yeah. >> You don't do that anymore. It's that type of thing. You're always going to have your basic math, your algebra, and everything. But that can change as well because when my parents they went to school in the 30s and the 40s when algebra was introduced in the 50s it was called new math. They had never had that before. So we're introducing things in education.

064Uh and things are going away. And that's that's the kind of things uh I still have I was a history teacher and an English teacher. I still had my map from my coaching history days when there was the USSR doesn't exist anymore, you know. >> Yeah. Or >> Yeah. You know, it it's that kind of thing. >> You know, perfect example, the kids in school now, most of them never really saw the space shuttle fly. If you think about it, you know, and on the other hand, most of the kids in school now have never been alive that the internet didn't exist, you know, and so that kind of thing is changing. You know, electric cars, you know, I still think I used to watch George Jetson and his little flying auto. Now that's a

065reality. They're going to eliminate things that no longer make sense. And so in school, we have to stay with that. You know, >> I think that is sometimes we're parents and we think that school is going to look like and feel like it was when we were in school. That doesn't exist anymore. But it's also important for the parents to understand that it's it's something that's important for the kids. We don't need text and we have a lot of When I used to be in the system, we had a lot of complain about that. My kids can't learn math because y'all won't send home the textbook. Well, at that time, but things change over time and I think as as a community, we need to make sure that it's not bad. It's just something that

066you know the parents like my generation or whatever. We have some in my generation who never learned how to use a cell phone >> or because they didn't need it or or computer or anything like that because they didn't think they needed and then they are learning stuff that they don't need. And so there's there's always this need for us to make sure where we're headed. We may like or not like it. >> It is where you're heading. Well, you know, and in in every industry, it changes, you know, you're in the oil field, Mr. Krenic. I never heard of fracking until a few years ago, you know. >> Okay. You know, I have a I have a one of my sons works for a company in Houston that writes programs for oil drills. And

067it's just one of those deals. It's changing all the time because you have to do it in business. He always tells me there's three things. You can do it faster, cheaper, or better, but you can't have all three at the same time. And so same way with school, you know, we have to make sure, but there are some things that don't have to change. The culture that you guys want in this school, that doesn't have to change, but it has to adapt to your students. They have to understand why. Go to an&m game. When I was in college, I didn't go to&m, but when I was in college, they did that swaying back and forth then, and they did it a hundred years before that. your good things don't have to change, but you can't

068stay the same academically. And that's what we're trying to get people to think. So why refresh? Because things change. Okay? Things change tremendously. But remember the three goals of any school. Improve student performance, eliminate achievement gaps, and prepare students for success. If Brennan ISD is known for those three things, you're a successful school, you're a successful school. Sometimes you're a successful school. It doesn't matter what your rating is. If your community feels like you do those three things, so we're going to get through that because it's a little bit. So, there are three domains that the accountability system is built on. student achievement. That's how you do on that test on that day. It's the one everybody hates because you don't get a second chance. You don't get to come back and retake it. There's

069school progress. That is the comparison domain I call it because you're going to compare yourself this year to yourself last year or you're going to compare Brennham ISD to your sister schools. And the good thing is about our accountability system, whichever one's better, that's the one we let you take that score. So that kind of helps you out if domain one's not so good. Okay. And then domain three is the federal piece. Now I will tell you if you go and look at a lot of other states, they have a some some of them actually have a local accountability system. All of them have a state accountability system and then a federal accountability system. They're separate. And before this, ours used to be separate as well. You could be doing okay at the state level

070and still be in trouble with the federal government and vice versa. under this accountability system, they're all under one. So if you want to know how you're doing, federal or state, you just look at your A or B or C. Okay? So student achievement, what I want you to remember about student achievement is it measures what a student knows and what they can do. Pure and simple. what a student knows and what they can do. That's the answer to the test. What is a student outcome? It's what a student knows and can do. That is the simplest part. Okay? So, there are four levels on the test, four scoring standards. If I was going to draw a line up there and say these are passing and these are not, where would y'all draw the line?

071There's no wrong answer. >> In the middle. Okay. CA actually draws the line between approaches and did not meet and that is a huge mistake. huge mistake because for five years, longer than that, but since this system came out, teachers have put in their mind approaches is passing. And so they don't understand why you're getting on them when 90% of their kids are at the approaches level when it's passing. But look what happens if a kid is at approaches. He's going to need some targeted academic intervention to graduate high school. Not that he's going to graduate high school with no issues. He's going to need targeted intervention to get that diploma because approaches means you're below grade level. had they changed the words instead of put approaches grade level put not quite there or below

072grade level I think teachers would have realized oh I don't want my kids there so every superintendent I talk to every district I train I tell them if y'all aren't moving the boat goalpost to meets and masters you're going to fall behind because TA eventually is going to move that line over to meets So keep that in mind. >> It does. It does. You know, let's look at a third grader. A third grader approaches means that they don't know how to read. Because in school, kindergarten, first and second grade, the whole focus is we learn how to read. Okay? Now, we may be focused a little on content, but we're learning how to read. Then when third grade comes along, we start learning to read for content. And so, we start learning things like that.

073If I'm a third grader and I'm at approaches, I don't know how to read. And that's a big detriment for me. Big detriment. The other thing I put up here is you see 75% chance, 60% chance of passing even at the master's level. Well, it's a little different than some of you that went to college. Now, if you have to take remedial courses in college, you can use your financial aid on them, but they don't count towards a degree. They're they're not a blowoff class. They're a no credit class. And what we're finding in higher ed is a lot of our sophomores and juniors are getting to that year and they've used all their federal financial aid up because they were having to take all these uh remedial courses. And so you got to be

074careful even saying meats is our goal. We want everybody to be masters. Now is everybody going to be able to be there? No. But I asked districts, what's your acceptable loss ratio? And of course I have to explain it. What do you mean by that? Before I got into education, right during my college years, Desert Storm broke out. So I went and joined the military and went through officer training school and part of before I went into any combat mission I had to do an action review and I had to decide what was our acceptable loss ratio for the to take this objective wasn't how I was a tank officer how many tanks I was willing to give up that wasn't it there it was part of it but not all of it or you

075know time on effort, things like that. It was how many soldiers was I willing to sacrifice to take that objective. So I asked teachers point blank that I look at their scores and they go, "Hey, I had 60% approaches." Yeah, I had 30% that did not meet, but 60% of mine approaches. I said, "Okay, so 30% of your kids losing, that's your acceptable loss ratio." And when you put it in terms like that, they go, "No, I don't want 30% of my kids not to be successful when they leave." I said, "Well, that's what that means." So horrible. Yes. >> This is only one area >> at the secondary level. >> So that's what I'm looking at. But again, that's still the same, right? >> Yes. So you know is this because this is a

076you're forecasting fourth grade. So I guess my question is would this line up or would they have a 75% chance of excelling with that or >> it it does if it does if you're looking at reading levels >> because you have to be able the ASPAB is a tough test to get into the military. So you have to be able to read on that same that we talked about CTE. >> Now we're going to show in just another slide. Elementary is their whole accountability is based only on the test. Middle school is based only on the test. High school though it's broken down. >> 40% is the test, then CCMR, and then uh 10% is your graduation rate. But to answer your question, there was a study done many years ago, but it wasn't done

077on STAR. It was done on tax the predecessor. It was done out of Corpus Christi. And what they did was they followed their third grade students when they were s became sophomores. And there was a strong correlation. If that student passed the third grade tax, they almost always passed the 10th grade tax. because they knew how to read. And what I share with young teachers when I go talk to Sam and everything is we get stuck on the reading test. Oh, well that's the reading test. And we forget that the math test is all word problems. >> So if they can't read, your math scores doesn't matter if they can do the computations are going to be really low. The social studies test is all reading. And same thing for your science. You have to

078know what it's asking. So reading is a big part of this. But yes, if your goal isn't moved up to meet and masters, you're behind. Basically, you've got to start pushing your kids there. And they will rise to that level. They will if you hold them there. So this is the basic breakdown. Like I said, 100% 100% 40 and 20. Graduation rate is huge. It's a federal accountability piece, but graduation rate is huge. We're going to skip through these. So, let's talk about school progress. That's the comparison one. Okay. So, you have part A, which means what was my growth? As a third grader, I did this and as a fourth grader, I did that. We'll talk about that in a minute. And then part B is you compared to your 40 sister schools and

079you get to choose whatever scores better and that helps a lot of districts. So let's take a look at this. Third grade I was approaches. I had a great fourth grade year. I made the school choir. I had a wonderful math and reading teacher. My mom made sure I came to school every day. And look, I'm at meets. I'm on grade level. Wonderful school year. Now, let's look at Johnny. Johnny's the exact opposite. He was at Approaches. Then over the summer, his parents got a divorce and he had to go live with grandma. Grandma was great, but grandma was 85 years old. So getting Johnny in to school every day was a chore for both of them. And so now he dropped down the does not meet. That's why it's not just the teacher. It's

080not just the principal. It's not just the superintendent. It is the whole community that owns these scores. The whole community that owns these scores. Now let's look over at the relative performance compared to your sister school. The bottom line is the poverty rate. Go all the way over to 100%. If you're in a district that has a 100% poverty rate, that means the average family income in the state of Texas, the average family, not just average person, average family is below $23,000. $23,000. That's below minimum wage. But look over here at 100%. Do you see any schools that are F on 100%. No, I don't see any schools that are D's on 100%. In fact, you've got two schools that are 100%. One's a B and one's an A. What that shows you is it

081doesn't matter about poverty. Poverty is out of the equation. When you get points for this, they're comparing you to a school that looks just like you. Okay. So, the upsetting thing is look how many D is in kind of the orangey. Look at how many schools are D's that have 0% poverty. 0% poverty means most average districts when you take your basic aotment and any of the WA that you put on top of that spend between 6800 and $9,000. 0% poverty districts are spending like 12 and $13,000 per student. No excuse if it was all built on poverty, but it's not. Any questions over that? This is the saving domain. If you have a low domain one, domain two can save you. Okay. Get through that. This is just they give you points. If a

082kid moves up, you get a whole point. If they stay the same, you get half a point. If they go from here to here, zero points. They don't take points away. But if you get enough zero points, that's not good. >> Okay. Why did we put the point system in place? Because people wanted to know, well, how many points do you have to get to get to here? And how many points do you have to get to get to there? That's some of the new laws that TA has to share with us. The other thing they put in place that I really like is if you had a student, let's say that he was did not meet last year, but you send him to interventions in English or reading and interventions in math and he

083does do well, he moves up, not only are we going to give you a point, we're going to give you an additional bonus 0.25 bonus points to help cover some of those kids that may have failed. So, that's why it's so important. And I'm going to show you a little later on what kid gives you the best bang for your buck. What kid gives you the best bang for your buck? And then closing the gaps. This is the federal one. There are four super groups. Now, everything I tell you about this domain, take with a grain of salt because the US Department of Education is in a little flux right now. Most of them are gone and I'm not real sure they're even going to be there much longer. They may be incorporated with somebody

084else. But if they stay, the groups that are going to be measured here that have the biggest bang are your economically disadvantaged, your current EBS, which is emerging bilingual, your uh current special ed, and your highly mobile. If you can get those kids to pass, you're going to meet your federal accountability without any problems. Those are called super groupoups. Why are they called super groupoups? Because the majority of your students of color fall into one of those groups. >> Mobile, meaning they change. >> They change their home address. Yes. They could be highly mobile within your district. How many elementaryaries do y'all have? >> Three. They could visit all three in one year. Or they could transfer to this district and then this district and then this district. We had six in Nakedas. Every time

085the two months free rent ran out, we had school. We had change. We had change in the apartment complex all the time. They would go to a new school, get another two months free rent. It can also mean coming from out of state and that is hard because I'm going to show you in a minute how we control the academics in Texas, but we can't control out of state. And that hurts us sometimes on these scores. >> What about special ed when you have a high special ed population that has some effect? >> It does. It does. And that's why the federal government takes a look at it because of the special ed laws out there. What I'm telling people on special ed and what I tried to do as a special ed director is

086you've got to expose them. If they have to take the regular STAR, which all of them except your severe profound, don't, then expose them, but put all your resources in to try to get them up there. If your special ed student is at approaches, that's pretty dang good because they're already two and three grade levels below. That teacher's doing a great job. What we've done in the past is we used to have an alternate assessment for them. So we didn't teach them as hard. We may have had them in the classroom for socialization, but we >> Is that what you're talking >> start off? Yeah. But we didn't Well, the SDAA uh we didn't teach them the way we taught everybody else. We're getting better at teaching them the way. But do you know what

087the fastest growing special ed population is? It's it's not your severe and profound. It's not your autistic students. Fastest growing out there is dyslexic students. And so there is a whole law that deals with training them and you have to have a trained teacher in dyslexia interventions because they can do math unless they're disgraphic. They can do math, they can do writing, they can do it, they just can't read. And so you get them on a level playing field, they can do it. >> So if you're a district, >> no. Yes. >> So if you're a district, you're saying, "Hey, we're gonna invest. We're going to grow our our teacher pool." It's probably into the special education as far as trying. >> If I was trying to hit these marks, I would put money in

088recruiting teachers that are really good in special ed and bilingual. Now, I will say this, those students generate a lot of money for your district. >> So, if you're smart with your funds, you know, you can get the interventions, but if you can get those kids to pass and everybody else does what they're supposed to, sometimes that makes the difference in a B and an A. >> Is the reason for that being super is because the kids who who come into it with something stacked against >> a teacher can there maybe don't have those same should be excelling as well that those kids that mean probably you're doing great is that >> yes if you focus on those groups and they're progressing then you should see you know all tides rise all boats you should

089see everybody coming up if those kids have and and not special ed it's tricky because it could be this or that or that. But if your emerging bilingual students aren't doing well, it may not be language that's the issue. >> Okay? And so a few years ago, we started using something called ELPS. And it's for limited English proficiency, but it's strategies for those kids. And what we found is if we'll use those same kids on our other low performing those same strategies, those kids start coming up too because they're really just good teaching strategies. And the significant gaps in this student's language may be simply because the parents have gaps in their language. It's not a learning disability. Uh so moving on from this a lot of people when A throughF came out were against

090accountability. You know what I have found is if you poll teachers most of them are for accountability. A few are against it when it's for them but most people are for accountability. And what TA found is we have accountability in all our lives. If you want to lose weight, you're probably going to have to do something with your diet. You can't eat Blue Bell every day and expect you're going to lose weight. Okay. People for health, keep a food journal. At 44 years old, I became a type 2 diabetic. It was amazing how my blood sugar went down when I stopped having a Dr. Pepper every day and eating chocolate ice cream at night. I kept a food journal. And that's what you do. So, we all have accountability there. But probably the most important

091one is business. Every day they have a scoreboard. It's called the Dow Jones Stock Exchange. And you see red and green. So there there is accountability in all our lives. Why wouldn't we want it for our children? So, the thing I'm going to share with you about STAR is why it was redesigned. Okay. Uh on the left side, one, two, three, four. And I am going to give TA kudos on this. They don't do anything that's not researchbased. because they get a question all the time, show me where that evidence is. So, they do research before they institute anything. What they found are there are four things that effective teachers do in the classroom. And so, we're going to start writing the test for those four things. And that's what they did in 2023. So

092in effective classrooms, teachers build background knowledge in vocabulary in their students. They expose them to vocabulary. And they found out, you know what, in reading, we're not just going to have little short novels. We're going to bring in science things. We're going to bring in history passages. We're going to bring in some math things. And they found out that that tweaked students interest more. They also found that it's important that students write. Do you know and I was I was still in school back then or education at K12. We stopped making cursive mandatory in school. >> Yeah. >> Took it out. >> Quit teaching it to it. And you know, I talked to a legislator once. He said, "You know why we brought it back? Because we had grandmas calling us saying that their grandkids

093couldn't read their birthday cards because they were in cursive. Whole generation of our kids out there can't read in cursive. Then we got another whole generation that don't know how to capitalize because all they do is text >> and no punctuation. >> Cursive standard criminal generation. >> Yeah. But cursive, it's back now. We're teaching cursive. In fact, one of the programs, y'all, is called handwriting without tears. >> So, it's it's kind of a thing to get them to write again. But they found that if you make a student right, it accesses a whole different side of their brain than just spitting out facts. So now part of the test and the writing in the reading, excuse me, is short answer. So they read a passage and they have to write open-ended questions for it. Okay.

094Next thing they found that good classrooms do is open-ended formats. So, no more multiplechoice. That's all the test is. In fact, they've lowered it down to 75% and I believe in the next reiteration it's going to go down to 50% multiple choice. Because if I make you write what you know, I can tell if you know it or not. If I give you a multiplechoice test, there's 25% chance that a blind squirrel is going to find that nut. So they took that out. But probably the most important thing we did for, you know, generation Z has moved on. Now we're at alpha. Most important thing we've done for this generation is we put it on the computer because that's where their strength is. Not paper and pencil on the computer. So now the whole test,

095even accommodations for special ed kids, is all online. What does that mean for us as educators? We used to give the test say in April, we would get the results in August and then you would get your accountability in September. Now we can give the test in April and by the end of school we have the results. But what's even better, we don't have the accountability, but we have the scores. What's even better is there's a new law that was passed that when the student success tool comes out, the new star, the results have to be returned within two business days. Now, I don't know how Pearson's going to do that because the last time we tried this big innovation thing, we crashed the entire internet in the state of Texas. But can you imagine

096if we take a test in say early April and that week I get the results instead of the last six weeks of school being paperiermâché and how are we going to keep these kids in their seats. >> We can start working with them before they leave us for the summer. If that happens, you'll see a huge change. So here's the other thing people don't know about STAR. TEA does not write the star. Actually educators write the star. Okay? Now TEA has their experts that come in because there is a legal way to write the star. But look at this. Each passage in there is reviewed by educators to make sure it makes sense both academically and contentwise. But then it's field tested in a test of a STAR test. The kids don't know that it's

097a field test and doesn't count. That question doesn't count. And then after that, they put in a rage finding where they go, okay, 80% of the kids got this right. It's a valid question. Or no one got this question right. It's not a valid question for that grade. They'll throw it out and then they put it back with the educators again. This whole process, y'all, takes two years. That's why when they're creating 2028's test, it's already started because they have to research base all these tests and they're always asking for volunteers. You guys, does your district want to take a field test? you know, kind of a prep for STAR because they need people to take this test, but they don't just throw STAR together. It's a two-year process to get that thing through there.

098It has to meet the primary purpose. It has to have rigor, knowledge for skills, individual and holistic supports, and it has to be how effective is your curriculum. So, there's a a new law that was passed that the state board of education gets to approve curriculum and if you use the curriculum that's on the approved list, you get funded. You can use your IMA money on it. And then if you do some more, if you use this curriculum, they'll give you some even more money for it. If you decide right now that, well, I don't like that curriculum on the approved list. I'm still going to stick with what I have. You can still use it right now, but you don't get funding for it. You pay for it out of your own pocket. I

099believe the next legislative session, you will use it on the approved list. >> The testing is it geared towards a certain curriculum? >> It is like a reflective of not, you know, this is this is the one curriculum that really want to see it happen. So, if you're using that, you can make This is the word out there. Pearson is the company that writes the test. You've heard of Blue Bonnet Curriculum. >> Pearson writes Blue Bonnet curriculum. >> So, >> yeah, follow the money. >> Yeah. So it would make sense that if you want to do well on the test, take the curriculum from the people. Now curriculum is >> not >> well and curriculum is is not is probably 30% of the equation. That teacher and her ability to instruct is everything. Everything. >>

100Still based on based on a conflict there. There are a lot of conflicts out there, >> but whatever curriculum you use, you definitely want to make sure your teachers know how to teach it. >> And that's what I found in any of the districts I worked in is that our veteran teachers could teach the curriculum and they had notebooks of supplemental stuff they used. Our one to fiveyear teachers drown >> because we may have an old teacher edition they could use but they usually stay one day ahead of the kids. I would be pouring money into training up whatever curriculum you use that your teachers all of them know how to do it, >> you know, and do that. >> Good. >> And that that's a huge how can the board play a role? That's

101a huge part right there. Making sure the resources are available. So the star there are four tests we use in education. A di you've you've all taken these when you were in school. A diagnostic test is your teacher didn't give you a diagnostic test. >> Oh, sorry. I was shaking my head. I was like, "No, >> sorry." >> A diagnostic test is when you first get into class and she wants to know what you can do. So, she puts down all this test and you don't really know a lot on it, but you know some. That's a diagnostic. I want to know where your starting point is. Formative tests, those are the end of chapter tests. You usually take a bunch of those throughout the year. Okay. Interrum test is what we normally refer to

102as nineweek benchmarks. Okay. The summitative test educational research will tell you out of all four tests that is the worst test to give a student. the worst because you're asking him in April or May to remember everything he taught or was taught going back to August. >> Yeah. >> Worst worst test of the year. >> That is where House Bill 8 and the new testing is going to help in that we're going to do in test. Okay? If you want to, you can do intram test. The other thing that we're learning is it's not just enough for us to test students and get the data. We have to be able to report the data to you guys so that you know where we're at. Okay? So that campus A, you have A, B, and C.

103Campus A is doing well. Campus B is doing well. If C is not doing well, you need a plan for it. so that you don't have the halves and the have nots in your town. You don't ever want that. So, we're moving away from there. There'll still be a substantive test, but we're moving away from that one test counts for everything. So, that was put into law and that was really good. And then I told you everything is based all we do is based on the TEICSS. That's what we teach. Okay. Who writes the TEICSS? The state board of education. And you know, it's funny about the state board of education. They're all elected, but if I was to go out on the street here and ask anybody, "Who is your state senator?" Most of

104them could say, "Who your state?" I even know your state senator. And then most of them know your house rep. But if I as >> Yes. >> There you go. But if I asked him, who is your school board, state school board person? Archer, do you know? >> Tom Maynard is your Yes. >> Yes, >> he is. How many of you knew Tom? Good. Good. Most people don't know who their state board of education person is. You know, mine's Audrey Young. Uh, but I know that because I'm in education and she makes a lot of rulings up there. That's a very powerful group. Think of the relationship of the state board of ed and the commissioner the same way you are with Clayton. Okay? Now, commissioner has a little more power in that he's got

105some laws written that he can buck them a little bit, but that is the relationship. That is a very, very powerful group. And so you need to know what they do. They write the TESS. >> If you want to know, do we have religion in some of our lessons? That was voted on by them. If you want to know, do we teach or we don't teach transgender in our lessons anymore, that was approved by them through the legislature. So that's a very powerful group. What you see up there is every district in the state of Texas. So you can see we don't have a whole lot out in West Texas and they're all kind of congregated down in the valley. Most of them are in northeast, central, or southeast Texas. It's important if we're going

106to have everybody take these alternate time tests that we're all teaching the same. Okay. The problem on TEICSS where I said out of state kids heard us is they're not required to do the TEICSS there. And what we found was in most schools we teach world geography as sophomores. Okay, that's a sophomore level course. In most other states, world geography is a junior level course and they teach US history from birth until the Civil War and then your sophomore you get the Civil War until today. We don't do that. We stick world geography in there. So these kids come in from out of state and they have to take a test they weren't ready for. And so that's why you have to prep them. You got to get them you got to get those interventions

107going. So keep that in mind. This is what an actual TE looks like. Fifth grade TE. Estimate to determine solutions to mathematical and real world problems in view involving the four operations. Seems simple enough. This is what an actual star question in fifth grade looks like. Look at the words you need to know. How many more? >> About if you don't know that about and how many more is estimating and addition, that kid's going to sit there and struggle because those two numbers don't add up to any of the answers. And that's why the math test is more than just a math test. It's a reading test. It hurt. They >> they're going to struggle. >> You know, >> yeah. And see, and then you've got some kids. I just want to get finished. Oh,

108I see two numbers. I know more than. She told me more than. I'm going to add those together. Oh, the answer is not here. I'm skipping it. Go on. It used to be one of our strategies. If you don't see >> and then come back, >> now it's on a computer. It's a little hard. >> Yeah, it's hard to come back. >> They get the submit. >> So, I won't tell you the city, but when I was teaching at Sam Houston, we went into a Rotary club and gave them a fifth grade star test. This was before CO. So this would have been probably 2015. Rotary, doctors, lawyers, engineers, everything. We only had a 40% passing rate because a lot of them hurried through it and saw numbers, but not what the problem was asking.

109This really isn't that a hard problem. The hard problem is the two-step and three-step where they will ask you to do this and then take that number and do this and a lot of our kids get lost there. >> Oh yeah. It's hard because you can't, you know, now you are allowed a scratch sheet of paper but a lot of our kids don't do that. >> Oh gosh. Definitely. Or if you have sensitive issues to the screen. I I started off this session with expectations matter. High expectations for students doesn't start with the teachers. It begins with you and Clay. If your teachers know Mr. Gillantine is not going to accept F, I'm going to teach higher than an F. Okay? If the board doesn't accept it either, that's even stronger. belief that all your

110students can learn at high levels. Okay, I hate that phrase. Well, somebody's got to dig the ditches. Now, every student should have the choice on what they do. Now, yes, we need people to build our roads. We need people to build our fences. We need people to build our homes, but that should be their choice, not because they can't do anything else. And finally, they have to be supported. And it's so much more than just salary. You can't walk into a teacher and say, "Look, I just gave you an $8,000 pay raise. I expect better results." And that's where I use the Blueberry story. So, and it's appropriate for here. Jamie Mueller owns the ice cream factory in Colorado that's a rival of Blue Bell. Huge multi-million dollar ice cream factory. And he was very

111anti-public school in the '9s. Very anti. And in the 90s there was a big push from the Chamber of Commerce that we start privatizing schools because they were failing our kids. And Jamie Mueller was a big leader in that. And so one year a superintendent in Colorado challenged him and said, "Jamie, you make more money than you know what to do with. Come spend a year working in our school and see if you still think we're doing a poor job." So Jamie took a sabatical for a year, left his company in good hands, went to the school, and he acted as an intervention aid was called content mastery. We still have it in some places. The kids would that are struggling are sent to him during class. It's his job to make them better. He

112lasted six weeks before he quit. When the superintendent talked to him, he said, "Well, it's the blueberry issue." And he goes, "Okay, well, explain that to me." He goes, "If I'm at the factory and I get a shipment of bad blueberries, I don't put them in the ice cream mix. I throw them away." He goes, "You got a bunch of bad blueberries, but you can't throw them away. There's no way for your system to work like a business." And he became the best education advocate for the next 20 years. It's the blueberry theory. Okay? We're not going to get better kids. I honestly believe the parents are sending us all they have. They're not keeping the good ones at home so we don't mess them up. So, we can't change the kids. So, what did

113the research show? The adults have to be the ones that change. And the rest of our presentation is going to be about adult behavior, not student behavior. Okay. So, I'm going to take a break now. Take care of yourselves. We're going to fast forward through some of these slides because there's really only three parts I want you to walk out knowing in the second part. What? How many SL uh how many minutes do y'all want? All right. So, we know what the accountability system in Texas is. Now, we know what the uh STAR is about and why we have STAR. Star is gives us data, but data is no good if you don't act on it. It's no good if you don't act on it. And then last of all, we talked about the three

114domains for the APF system. Hopefully, you'll know what questions to ask if you come out of A, what questions ask if you get a B, things like that. So, remember, your job is to provide oversight and strategic leadership. The whole first part was about oversight, making sure you know what those three things are. Now we're going to do leadership. Okay. So we talked about the outside and those five pillars that make every district separate themselves from low performing districts. Now let's talk about the inside. Vision and goals. Collaboratively with Clay. You guys set vision and goals for this district because those yield your student outcomes. If you've got weak goals, you're going to have weak student outcomes. I can promise you that. If you have no vision, you're going to have teachers that don't want

115to stay here because they don't know, you know, what is it? Why are we here? Values. You are a reflection of your community's values. This is the only one that you don't work collaboratively with Clay. You direct Clay that these are our non-negotiables. Your values give you your non-negotiables. If Brennan believes that every student deserves a chance to graduate, that's a non-negotiable. And you have to ask yourselves questions on why students didn't graduate. In Nacadocious ISD, I had a rule that we did not yell at kids. No matter how mad they made you, we did not yell at kids because our kids were yelled at all the time. All the time. And when you started yelling at our kids, you could literally see them shut down. Some of them would act real tough like, I

116don't I don't care what you say, but you could see them shutting down. So, we just didn't yell it. That was my non-negotiable. And it was a non-negotiable for my board. Where I find lacking is a lot of boards don't share their non-negotiables with their teachers. You need to know, they need to know what your non-negotiables are. Okay? I promise you, you will have a much more cohesive teaching staff if they know where the boundaries are and the non-negotiables. And then finally, what we're focusing on this third part, progress and accountability. It's not just enough to know your scores. You have to know how are we getting them better. So that when you're in the grocery store and a mom comes up to you and goes, "I heard that junior high is going to hell

117in a hand basket with their scores." You go, "Oh, no, no, wait a minute. Here's where we're at, but this is with the plan we have in place." That stops Clay from getting a lot of calls. Do y'all have a local newspaper? >> Yeah. Oh, well, >> it's only two. >> Well, you have you have Facebook probably. >> Oh, >> yeah. That stops the keyboard warriors from going to town. >> There you go. >> You You want those questions answered before they get out because what I've learned about the media is they have no problem making up the story if they don't have a story. So, you've got to be able to put good stuff out there. So we went through those three sides. This is the law in a color code. So up at

118the top in gold or yellow is the early childhood literacy and math law. Then if you move over and you have to have a goal for each of those. Okay? Then you move over to the right. That's your CCMR aggregate goal. You have to have a goal for that. There doesn't have to be any other academic goals if you don't want them. That's all the law requires you to. I highly suggest you have more, but not too many more. But here's what the goals have to do. They have to measure every student group under closing the gaps. So all that long list I showed you in those four super groups, you got to take those is into consideration. You have to have at least one district administrator in charge of your HB3 goals. Play is

119that your assistant suit for curriculum or >> chief of academics. She she or he is in charge should be getting reports to you. You have to have specific quantifiable annual goals for each campus and they have to be for five years. We'll talk about smart goals in just a minute. The last two bullets people do, but sometimes they forget the last one. You have to review these annually as a board. Usually it happens in September after you get your scores out, maybe in October after they've had a chance to run. But you have to review them in open session and it has to be an agenda item. Okay. Most boards the secretary keeps you on track and and Clay will get that done. But don't forget to post them. I have to be able to

120find your HB3 goals within two clicks. Okay? You'll find A-rated districts. Boy, they're probably right there on the homepage. Click here for our HB3 go. The Fs, they're buried, but you have to post them on your desk. The other thing and we are actually in year five I believe every teacher K through three has to attend readingmies. Okay. So let me say that again. Every teacher on a K through three that teaches K through three has to attend a reading academy. That means coach Jones that teaches PE at the elementary school has to go to reading academy if he teaches K through three and the principal of that campus has to go to reading. We started this law five years ago. We're still not at 100%. Now, some of that is because we get new

121teachers out of college every year and there's a big fight between higher ed and tea. My deal is why can't we teach readingmies their senior year in college and then they come out and they're ready. Guarantee talk about follow the money. It has something to do with money somewhere. Okay? But you've got to get those new teachers trained. But you should not have any veteran teachers that haven't been to reading. That's just got to be a given. Okay. >> Question. >> Go ahead. >> Did that change back to right the last couple years? >> Yes. >> So change drastically? Well, it it started before that switch back to phonics, but now the focus it's called the science of reading, teaching reading and uh >> instead of the queueing system, >> instead of the three queuing

122system, we did that away. So, this really focuses on that in that academy and we train those people at region six. So, there's three types of goals that we have in House Bill 3 goals. Okay, I'm not going to read all of them to you. I'm going to give you kind of a quick way to remember them. A proficiency goal is how we did. Okay, I want 80% of my kids to pass. 70% of them pass. How did we do? That's a proficiency goal. Okay. A growth goal, you're looking at either a single kid. How did they do from third to fourth grade? Or you're looking at a cohort. How did this year's third grade do now that they're fourth graders? It's a growth goal. I'll give you a big big hint. Usually the word

123grow or grew is in the goal. That's how you know. Okay. The last one is a comparison. Grow. that's taken me compared to another cohort or me compared to sister schools or if I want to see if a teacher is the issue, I'll compare 2018 test scores, 2019 test scores, all from the same grade, same teacher. And it usually boils down to one of two things. You either have a teacher issue or it's a curriculum issue. What we found instead of you know chopping off the head of the teacher is a lot of curriculum is weak compared to STAR standards when we first started this I won't get into a lot of Bloom's taxonomy but think of a six layer knowledge level and down here the very base knowledge is called knowledge the very base

124level and the highest up here is evaluation and synthesizing for years, our curriculum, and it didn't matter what curriculum it was, was written at the knowledge and comprehension level, and STAR begins at the analysis level. So, it wasn't the teacher's fault. She was teaching the book. The test was too high. So, now we're starting to get the curriculum to match the test. So, but it usually boils down because remember, we can't throw the blueberries away. It's either a teacher issue or a curriculum issue. >> Biggest Achilles heel. into it. >> Is it HQIM? >> Yes. >> Highly qualified instructional materials. >> Yes. >> And and the reason it's that because it's been through a process and it's made it on the list of the state board of education. Mhm. Uh but can if those three

125goals are usually where I see House Bill three goals fall. Okay. So these are three examples of House Bill three goals. One's a proficiency goal, one's a comparison, and one's a growth. All right. So let's look at the top one. the percentage of third graders who were below meets grade level on star during the previous school year and who grew at least one and a half grade levels. What is it? Growth. Okay. Now, oh sorry, I'm going to teach you how to break down a go in just a minute because that's a lot of words and if you don't understand what you're saying, you're not going to understand the go. The second one, the gap between average star ELA scores of all third graders who were at approaches grade level in the previous year and

126that of all third grade level who are at meets level. So I'm taking third grade from last year and I'm comparing approaches to meets. What kind of goal is that? >> Comparison. So that means the last one has to be proficiency scored above 70%. Or 70 to 83. So before we talk about goals got to talk about inputs. show I have right inputs and I monitor my outcomes, excuse me, my outputs, then I'm going to get the right outcome. Okay, the right inputs and I monitor my outputs at the end of whatever I'm going to get the right outcome. Okay. So, let's think in the school system. What are inputs? Well, think of it as a game like a basketball game. Inputs. Got to have a coach. Got to have a set of plays. Got

127to have some players. Hopefully, they got a little talent. >> Gotta have a gym to play in. >> Yeah. So now think of it in a curriculum in a classroom you got to have a teacher got to have desk got to have curriculum all those things are inputs. All right. >> Yeah. So those are resources or activities that you invest in that you start out with. Okay. Forget that. So what do we know at the halftime of a game? What adjustments you need to make? >> What adjustments you need to make? If I'm ahead, I may want to stay pressing. If I'm behind, I may want to go manto man instead of zone because I need the ball more often. Okay? So, your halftime gives you your outputs and those are basically the results of

128your inputs. When I was coaching football, I wish I had all linemen that were 6'4, 300 lb. You don't. >> We don't. But if I had those guys, we would line up in a power eye and I would run the football till you threw up because I could crush it. But my linemen were maybe 200 pounds and but we were really really fast. So we read in the spread offense and we ran you to death. Well, if I'm coaching a game and my spread offense isn't working, I'm not going to keep continuously calling that same play. I'm gonna call some other plays to slow the clock down. The outputs are no good to you if you don't make adjustments. Okay. So, now let's start looking at testing. Inputs into your testing program. That is the

129curriculum you're teaching the kids, the times that you're testing in the year, the uh the actual test instrument that you're using. Clay, what do y'all use for interim assessments? Do you make your own or Okay, you know, you make your own. You can use MAP testing, you can use DMAC, Edoria, whatever instrument you use, that's inputs. Okay. What kind of professional development are you giving your teachers to keep up with the new standards? Okay, all that's inputs. You get your first interim report as part of the HB3 plan and you give an interim test that is really a whole year test. In October, I would expect my kids to score about 30%. Because we've been in school about 30%. Okay. May do a little adjusting if they come in at 20%. If they come in

130at 45%, we're going to keep doing what we're doing. It's working. Now, we get into February and I give another interim. If they come in at 30% again, we've got major issues. That is not a good output that I'm expecting because we're more than 60% done with the year and we're still scoring 30. So, you have to be able to monitor and adjust. And I'm going to teach you some questions I want you to be able to ask Clay so that you can get that understanding. Okay. Now you can control inputs and you can control outputs but the one thing you can't control is an outcome. Okay? And here's why. You can't change outcomes. One year we went to the state semi-finals. We were 15 and 0 going in to the state. No, we were

131in the finals that year. 15-0. We ended that year 15 and one >> because we were finalists. We weren't champs. There's no matter how much I could go back and call different plays, we were still 15 and one. I can't change the outcome. So I always tell teachers, work as hard as you can from August until April because after April you can't change. Now you can start doing interventions but you can't change that outcome. So I would rather put all my strength and energy into my inputs and my outputs. Okay. So, we know what an input is. Those are systems, tangibles that you put into the machine. Outputs, that's the result of your input. So, if we were going to switch to a new science curriculum, I hope we would test somewhere in the middle

132of the fall to see is this reaching our standards, but remember out outcome, you can't do anything about it. You can't do anything about it. And that's so hard because that's what you're graded on. But under the new system, some of the outputs may fit into your grade system. But right now, you're only graded on outcomes. So now we want to talk about adult outcomes. There are things that you control. You may not even know you control, but there are things you control. And then there's stuff that the student controls. No matter how hard you try, the student controls that. I told you earlier, a student outcome is nothing more than what the student knows or is able to do. So, you're going to see some examples in a few minutes. something the student is

133able to know or do, it falls to an adult outcome. You're going to be surprised at how much control you actually have in a school system. It's amazing what you can control. Okay. So, let's talk about student outcome. This what the student knows or is able to do. So, you have this in your handout. I can't remember what page exactly it's on. >> I'm sorry. >> 34. >> 33. All I want you to do by the bullets is put a A or an S. Is it an adult outcome or is it a student outcome? Just put A or S. Archer, don't give the answers away. Okay. I don't know if I remember all. >> I'll tell you this. There are two up there that I could go either way on. There they are. All are

134either a a or a d, but there's two. I I don't know. I could see a as going up there. Just remember the definition of student outcome. It's what students are able to do or what they know. All right. So, no wrong answers, only wrong scribes. >> New buildings. Who controls that? >> Adults. It may not fall in there. No. All right. New buildings. I'm going to give you answers. New buildings are adults. Star results belong to the kids. Okay. Students, this is an easy one. Student performance and extracurricular activities. Students own that. What can they do? >> I can go. >> I was going to say that can be adult. I mean, >> tell me why. >> Parents have to get in there. Parents have to encourage them. Parents have to be able to

135provide materials they need for it. So, it's a that's a collaboration between the student and >> true. And the school has to offer the extracurricular. >> Good coach or bad coach. It changes student >> technology program. >> It is adult, but I can see students if you don't offer what I'm taking. What I want, I'm not going to take it. So you get that. All right. This is the one that's missed the most. Kindergarten attendance. >> Adults. >> It is adults. >> None of your kindergarten students can drive themselves to school. None of >> SAT ACT results belong to students. >> Detailed lesson plans. Let's hope that's the teachers. >> Earn student industrybased certificates. That's the one that's it belongs to the students. But a lot of people put, well, that's the adults because if

136I don't offer it, you know, it's a system. Actually, it does belong to the students. Teacher incentive plan, that's all your adults. And of course the last one and it's funny I think they got a lot of push back schoolboard conferences that's not in the new training they took that out. So uh the other thing that they did was instead of calling it adult outcomes in the new training it's called systems health. Systems health. >> Whatever that means. >> Yeah. So this this is probably the most important part of this section. So I want you to zero in with me. Every student outcome has four components to it that it has to have. Okay? The first one is a baseline. You have to have a starting point. And all baselines have to have a month

137and a year with them. Okay? They have to have a month and a year. So, if we were going to write a goal, we would start it today. It would be October of 2025. That's my baseline. Okay. Next, all HB3 goals have to have a target. What do I want to get to? Well, if I'm at 45%, I want to try to get to 70. Okay? They have to have a target. They have to have a population. So it has, let's say, third grade students. Usually populations are going to be grade levels. Okay? But it could be students taking the ACT at this certain level, percent to percent. There's some tricks in there though, so don't get hung up. They usually populations you want to focus on grades. And finally, you have to have a

138deadline. by June of 2030, okay? Or October of 2030. Remember, it has to be five years. So, they have to be smart. If you don't know the acronym for smart, it's specific, measurable, applicable or attainable, resultoriented or reliable, and time bound. Okay? All your HB3 goals have to beat this goal. There are some other things that the board and you own this goal. You own it. You're responsible for it. If things go south, the commissioner is coming to you on these goals. Clay's got a whole another set they're coming to him on. It has to have adult behavior change. Remember my blueberry story? You're going to raise your scores. The kids aren't the ones that are changing. It's your teachers. You own those. Don't have more than five. Three is best, but try not to

139have more than five. Why is that such a big deal? Part of the research that they did was they looked at Stephven Cubby's research on goal setting. And Stephven CVY studied a bunch of Fortune 500 companies in 2008. Anybody remember what happened in 2008? >> Crash. >> We had a crash. And you heard too big to fail. And then you heard government bailouts. So he studied the auto industry, the tech industry and uh what was the other industry? Oh uh recreation and uh hotels. What he found was Microsoft and Apple and IBM never set more than three goals in any financial year fiscal year. If you look back, they've hit their goals every time at 100%. Then he started taking a look at the resorts and the hotels and everything. They set between seven and

140eight goals a year and they rarely attain two. So now remember what happened to Ford and GM? They almost went under. when he studied their goals, they were setting 10 to 12 goals each year and they never obtained 100% of any goal. What happened? It's all about resource allocation, not just money, staff, materials, everything. That's why TEA really, really, really wants you to stick to three to five goals. Okay? So all your goals have to have a baseline, a target, a population, and a deadline. And I would add one more that's not up there. It has to have an instrument. What are we going to use to measure? Okay? You cannot have more than three to five. And you have to own them. So if your teachers come complaining about this goal is too hard,

141you can't shove them off on clay. You should shove them off on clay. if your processes are working and let Clay answer it. But you have to say, look, we support those goals. Okay, so now we're going to speed up a little bit. This is an actual HB3 goal. Okay, and we're going to look for the four comp five components. It starts out the percentage of third grade students. What would third grade students be? Pop >> population. Okay. Who score meets grade level or above on star reading? What would star reading be? >> The instrument. Awesome. Will increase from 45% in June 2022. What would 45% in June 2022? >> It's not the target. >> Baseline. It's where we're starting. So if that's where we're starting, then what would 64% be? 64% your target. >>

142And what's your end date? >> Deadline is June 2027. So let's fast forward through these right quick population baseline target instrument. Okay, now let's look at this again because I want to look at this area right here. HP3 goals have to be for how many years? >> Five. Great. Do they have five years here? Don't count the baseline? 23, 24, 25, 26, 27? Yes, it has five years. All right. Now, look at the percents. Districts struggle when they're writing these goals because not the endpoint goal, it's the intermittent goals. I want to go from here to here. Research will tell you that four to 5% gain is a year's worth of growth. Okay? Four to 5% is a year's worth of growth for an average student. Okay? Struggling students may only one or two% increase.

143What you don't want is a decrease. So, you look up here and you go, "Okay, we're going to go from 45 to 48 to 52 to 56. We're going to go up, you know, about 4% each year. For this district, that may be a stretch. You know, if you're starting at 45 and you get to 64, 64 is still failing. But at least they're making progress. And I said this at the very very beginning and Clay helped me. Our accountability system is based on growth. As long as you're growing, you're going to get good. Okay? The schools that aren't growing are your F schools. They're decreasing or they're staying the same. as long as you're growing. The other things that you see up here, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A,

144A, I, A, H, those are the different student groups. I told you at the beginning I would tell you one group that if you get them to pass, it affects every other score. Anybody want to take a guess? >> AA is AfricanAmerican. They will definitely help you. >> That will definitely help you. That will help you. That will help you on your achievement. >> If you get the ED, economically disadvantaged, if you get that group to pass, you are going to be okay. And here's why. All these other students, even some of your white students, are touched by economic disadvantage. If you throw your resources into there, a lot of your special ed students fall in that category. A big portion of your emerging bilingual fall into that category. If you can get that one

145category to pass, it's going to spread out throughout your entire system. Okay? It's important to know that because look at your special ed group. And I can't change this without losing this slide, but the very first year in the baseline special ed, that's the SC up there, they were at 19%. There is probably no way in five years they're ever going to get to 70%. But help me. What is our accountability system based on? >> Growth. The fact that I grew them even 2% is going to get me points. The fact the next year they went from 21 to 25 is going to get me even more points because why? They're going on the positive side. They're not bringing us down. And so that's why every student group has to grow. They don't all have

146to pass, but they all have to grow. Okay. Now, when we get to June of 2027 and we're not passing, we can't go, "Oh, well, we gave it five years. Too bad." No, we keep raising the bar. We're at 64 now. We're getting to 70 and then we're going to pass. And once we get to 70, why can't we be an a district? You know, and that's what I always ask struggling districts. Why can't you be an a district? Are the kids in your city dumber than the kids over here? No. Do your parents love your kids less over here than they do over it? No. Do your teachers not want to teach? No. Then why can't you be an A? If you would change your adult behaviors, it doesn't matter what kind of blueberries

147you have. Okay. So, we're not going to read Joyful ISD scenario. because they have about 10 minutes. But I want to tell you why it's in here. It's a board that let public comment throw them off track. It's in your scenario. Basically, they spent months and months and months getting public input on their HB3 goals and they did all kinds of research and everything and the superintendent wrote the goals and they felt like they had really good goals. And then during public comment, the newspaper had the day before published the ratings of their school and the Little Bitty's rival school down the street who had much better scores in all categories. And parents came up and started going, "What's going on?" And they even started taking things that weren't on the agenda, which is illegal,

148and just got all blown up. But they finally passed their goals. Okay, they decide we're going to we've worked hard on these goals. We're going to pass them. They're good HB3 goals. Problem was the board didn't know what a really good HB3 goal was and neither did the superintendent because I'm going to show you the goals they passed and none of them meet the criteria for a HB3 go. So let's take a look why doesn't it remember the four components baseline population target endpoint and the fifth one the instrument. So let's look at the first one the number of preap seats in the district reserved for economically disadvantaged students. You can stop right there. Are seats a population? No. >> That's not an HB3 go. That's a system go. Number two, the percentage of students,

149all right, we got students, that's population, who score 1450 or higher on the SAT or 30 or higher on the ACT will increase from 10% in May 2023 to 25% by May 2028. If I first looked at that, I go, that's HP3 go. It's got a beginning point. It's got an end point. It's got a population students. The only thing they messed up on is you can't >> have a baseline. >> Well, the baseline was 10% in May of 2020. Where it messed up is you can't have two instruments in the same goal. If they would have stuck with SAT, you're okay. If they would have stuck with ACT, you're okay. Can't have two instruments because the goals aren't specific. >> And those aren't taking the required test. >> They're not. So, you're not even

150talking about all your students. Remember, our goal is all students. Okay, moving on. Percentage of teachers of special ed who report high job satisfaction. We're doing student goes, so that's an adult go. Okay, that doesn't count. Third graders scoring at means grade level or above on STAR math will increase from 41 to 59. Archer, what's it missing? >> Baseline. >> It's missing a baseline. So, it wasn't a good one. And then finally, percentage third grade students that meets grade level on star reading will grow by 5% each year until August of 2028. We don't have a starting and we don't really have a target. 5% of what? till we get to where that they put this in here to teach you don't pass goals because guess what Joyful ISD had to do they had to

151put on their agenda for the next month revisit HB3 goals and come into compliance. You don't want to be that person. You don't want to be that bored. Okay. So remember we talked about inputs and outputs. Your HB3 goals are actually outcomes. So what are the outputs? They are called goal progress measures. Those are your interim parts. And so what I use for this is simply if I'm going to drive from here back to Nacadocious, I can go one of two ways. I can go to Huntsville, go up that way, or I can go back through Marlin and take seven. Okay? Doesn't matter which way. It's about the same. How do I know I'm going right if I don't have ways? Well, I know I'm supposed to touch this town and I'm supposed to be

152at this town and I'm supposed to be at that town. If for some reason I'm driving and I see the San Antonio city limit sign, I'm off track. >> Wrong way. >> That is what your go progress measures do. They're your checkpoints along the way to your goal. The beautiful thing about this is you don't own those. Clay owns these. Okay, he's responsible for this part. But guess what? They have to have the same four components that a outcome goal has. You got to have a baseline, a target, an end date, and a beginning date. Same thing on the numbers. Never have more than three goal progress measures for each go. Okay. So, I'm going to show you a template. This is a template that TA uses. And this will be the last thing that

153we talk about because I want to be sure I got three minutes. So, up at the top is the same goal that you guys had before. Okay, that's your outcome goal. The goal progress measure goal is the percentage of second grade students reading on grade level will increase from 60% in June to 73% in 27. Y'all help me for a second. STAR begins in what grade? >> Third grade. >> Why do I want to measure second grade? >> Set a baseline. Let me tell you, districts fail because they forget about second and first grade. You want to make sure they're on track because if they're on track, then third grade is going to be a lot easier. >> Third grade, you're already behind. >> You're already behind. If they're behind in second grade, you're behind.

154>> And if you're trying to fix it in third grade, you're way behind. So they started at 60% and they wanted to take their first intrum and they hit 61. They improved by 1% but did they grow? >> Yes. Are they headed towards Nagodocious? Yes. They're not going to San Antonio. So that's great. And if I was to have that would be the only chart on there, you would think, Ronnie's doing a great job as a superintendent. Let's move on. Next item. Let's get to the consent agenda. But that's not all the story because remember, all students have to do well. So look down here at the bottom. Campus one and campus 2. Their star is in yellow because it's at 55%. They started at 55. They're still at 55. Did they grow? >> No,

155they didn't fail. But it should show you some concern that hey, we're not moving the needle there. Now look at campus 2. They started at 62 or they wanted Yeah. 62 and now they're at a 61. Not only did they not grow, they were going backwards. So that's why you have to have all the information. Okay. So I like the colorcoded chart because if you do it by groups, you can really hone in to what group do we need to focus on. They're in the red and economically disadvantaged. They didn't take this training and realize if that group was in the green, all the other groups are going to be okay. So keep that in mind. All right. So, the last thing we're going to do, I'm going to fast forward through this. There are

156all types of questions you can ask that give you your strategic leadership, but if you'll focus on these, you will make Clay's job a lot easier, and you will fulfill your duty of providing strategic leadership and oversight. In the report you're going to get from your chief academic officer, it should tell you where we are. Here's where we're at. How did we get here? Okay. What did we do to get here? These grades scored well. These grades didn't. Okay. What worked? What programs are we using? Clay, give me one of your intervention programs that you've >> used a lot. Do y'all have y'all used 180 before? Okay, let's say you were using read 180. That's me. >> Yeah. Make sure that if you were using read 180 and you're not getting the results, turn it

157upside down. Stop using it. Okay? What did not work is much more important than what did work because your resources were probably like mine. You just don't have a well out there full of money. So you got to spend your money very wisely. And what did we learn? So Clay should be able or his staff should be able to tell you this is where we are. This is what happened. Here are our next steps. And that is so important. the next steps. Some of the school districts I'm working with, we have one or two that are F in region six. They're having to write these huge corrective action plans for TEA. TA is so much more focused on your next steps than how you got there. Because if you can't figure out how you got

158there, you're going to keep staying in the same place. But your next steps will take you out of the home. Okay. >> They is why you have to get >> All right. >> Yeah. >> Appreciate it. Nice meeting you. >> You bet. Nice meeting you, too. So, you have been HB3 this evening. Uh I know it's truly informative to all of us and and we just enjoy soaking in knowledge. Uh education can go down a rabbit hole real quick. Uh a lot of acronyms and things. So we just appreciate it. Uh but uh with no further business to come before the board, uh this meeting is adjourned at 8:52