001Michelle, are you about ready? Okay. It's 5:00, so we'll go ahead and get started. Good evening. I am calling to order the special board meeting for Tuesday, February 10th. Mrs. Shope, may we get a roll call? Yes. Carol Fox. I'm here. Tom Hankins. Amy Leavy. Megan Miller. Present. Brian Nichols. Here. Joanne Rule. Here. One more call for Tom Hankins. And one more >> you hear me? Yeah. Yeah, now I can hear you. Okay, and then one last call for Amy Leavy. And Tia Johnson. Here. All members are present except Amy Leavy. Thank you, Mrs. Shope. May I get an approval of tonight's agenda? So moved. Second. Motion by Brian Nichols carried, second by Carol Fox. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Please rise for the pledge
002of allegiance. Mrs. Shope, is there any public comment tonight? Yes, I have one email and one in the room. Thank you. I forgot to bring my disclaimer. Do you have that? Do you have one a copy of the disclaimer? Um Oh. Thank you. Board of Education meetings are conducted for the purpose of carrying on the business of the schools. The board as a representative of the body of the school district of Beloit wishes to provide an avenue for any individual to express interest in and concern for for the schools. Accordingly, the public is invited to attend any sessions of the board or any meetings of board committees. At every regular board meeting time is set aside for the personal presentation of individual or group comments. The Board of Education asks that each person wishing to
003speak during this time complete the public comment card with the information on it. We ask that you give the comment card to the board secretary and approach the microphone. And please follow the board policy 187 public participation at board meetings. Thank you for your time and your courtesy. Go ahead. Okay. Do you want me to read first or in the room? Oh, let's do the ones in the room first. Okay. So, the first one I have is Carrie. Testing. Will this work? Great. All right. Thanks. Okay, I did get it working. Now you make it double. Two. Okay. All right, good luck. Uh good evening, president and members of the board. My name is Carrie Frank and I'm here tonight as executive director of Beloit 200. And I'm here for one reason tonight, it's our
004kids in Beloit. Beloit 200 represents business leaders, employers, and community partners who are deeply invested in the long-term success of our city and especially [snorts] the future of our children. One of the most consistent challenges we hear from employers in Beloit is the struggle to attract and retain talent. And when we ask why, the answer comes back again and again, our school districts. Families care deeply about education, companies do, too. And right now our schools are holding us back. The urgency could not be clear. Public data shows that Merrill Elementary some grade levels are reporting 0% reading proficiency, zero. If a child can't read, they can't do math, science, graduate, as literacy is a foundational skill everything else depends on. Tonight I'm here to ask for a unanimous unanimous vote for the Hendricks Family Foundation
005proposal to provide $2.5 million in literacy help. For anyone considering a no vote, I ask of this. Please be prepared to explain what alternative plan you have that delivers the same level of support at the same scale in the same time frame at the same financial cost to the district. If there is not a stronger plan ready to launch right now, then the responsible vote, the leadership vote, it's yes. I've also heard concerns the effort reaches just a limited number of students, but whatever we whatever students we help today, we help today and that is a step forward. And it's not just individual students, it's working with teacher capacity, strengthening instruction, creating tools and impact in classrooms that will last years to come. It will help us retain educators, attract new teachers, and it will
006improve outcome for generations of kids, not just one group. After three failed referendums, I ask you to consider this. What do you believe this community will do if you turn down $2.5 million in outside support and then come back asking for help? Trust matters. Credibility matters. Partnership matters. And what I want to say plainfully and respectfully, that this community is watching. Not all of us are loud or posting on Facebook. Parents, teachers, employers, and neighbors are watching quietly and they're paying attention to who stands up for our children when it matters the most. Votes like this, they don't fade away. They become part of public record and they shape trust for a community. There is no downside in trying and there's no cost to saying no. Vote yes and give our kids a chance. >>
007Mrs. Show And is anyone else in here in public? Nobody else in the room. Just one email then. Okay. Whenever you're ready. Okay. The email I have is from Juan. Here's where I'm at. The Hendricks Family Foundation has offered a 2.5 million 3-year literacy pilot for one Beloit elementary school using open literacy with on-site support from Skyrocket Education. This is a real program with real resources, not a vague promise. The foundation asked for a unanimous vote. That's unusual, but not unreasonable. They funded a pilot here in 2014 that was ended early. If I were them, I'd want assurance that the board is actually aligned before investing millions again. >> [snorts] >> As Lisa Ferset said, a no vote isn't neutral. On turnover, I understand the concern, but turnover is constant in public education. Boards [snorts]
008change, superintendents change. If Beloit refuses to act because leadership might change, then Beloit has effectively decided to never make big decisions at all. Some turnover is actually healthy, stagnation is not. On volunteers, community tutors are valuable, but Beloit already struggles to recruit consistent help for basic day-to-day needs. Expecting volunteers to replace the impact of a 2.5 million program is not realistic right now. Volunteers are not a substitute for this offer. They can be a complement. On the call to pause for a needs assessment and strategic plan, this is the key point. In schools, a delay is a year, not weeks, a full academic year where kids keep falling behind. Here's the distinction that matters. Strategic plans are for steady improvement, slow, long-term for districts already on a clear trajectory. Literacy intervention is for immediate remediation
009for students who are already behind and need help now. Right now, Beloit does not look at a look Beloit does not look like a district in steady improvement. It looks like a district that needs urgency, not another planning cycle. If literacy is truly a problem and all signs suggest that it is, then the district needs to act now, not study it for another year. Kids don't get that time back. This decision This decision should come down to one question. Will this help kids learn to read? If the answer is yes, we owe it to them to move forward, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's fast, and even if the donor isn't universally liked. Thank you for your time and consideration. Juan. And that's the last. Thank you, Michelle. The next item on tonight's agenda
010is the Hendricks Family Foundation discussion. The purpose for this is board members requested an additional opportunity to discuss the proposal from the Hendricks Family Foundation regarding literacy. Dr. Anderson, I'll let you lead us. Well, first of all, I want to make it clear that I think that the school district of Beloit has many exceptional staff members throughout that are working hard for our students to achieve each and every day. Um One of the things that I said about student achievement is I think that in order for us to make achievement, we need a stable staff. We need a stable staff and leadership. We need a stable staff as far as um our teachers. Um yet at this point of the year, we still don't have all of our positions filled. We are working on that.
011So I am strongly in support of this proposal. I think that what this is doing is giving an opportunity for some of our kids, and this is nothing against the staff that we currently have. But we know that at least by the measures being used now our students are not achieving at the level we want them to read at. This is an opportunity for us to try something that may help some of our students. If some of our students get ahead because of this program that may not have got ahead without the program, then at least those students have made progress and we've helped them. So, I am strongly in favor that the board go ahead with this because I think this will be a benefit for our kids. And and I will agree with
012Mrs. Frank. I honestly believe that if this is a no vote that the passage of a referendum in November, April nothing is impossible. I don't believe in impossible, but I will say that the chances of achievement um will go drastically down. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. In terms of buy-in and and engagement from instructional leaders in the district, can you share any reflections on that? Right now, we've had first representatives from Skyrocket and from Open Literacy talked with our principals. Right now, of our six elementary schools, four of the elementary schools are interested in pursuing this program should it become available. Two of our buildings are not. One is Hackett and as um is was explained to me, the reasons for Hackett's reservation is that they did a um virtual learning project last year that did
013not go as they had hoped, and the staff are a little reticent to try that again. And um Ursla from Todd didn't think that she was ready so she did not feel that Todd would be interested. All other elementary schools said that they were interested in pursuing this. Uh right now, I the BEA and some staff members are meeting with Lisa Ferset and a representative from Skyrocket and Open Literacy to learn more about that. But I but I would say right now, we do have schools that are interested in pursuing this um if that opportunity becomes available. Thank you. You've talked to Mrs. Ferset and the your administrators about the selection process for choosing the specific school. We know that if this is approved by the board, that there's an will be an application process
014and we'll take a look. At this point, I think there are four schools that will fill out that application, and then we will just have to take a look and determine where we, you know, where do we think this fits? I mean, one of the things that you're going to want to take into consideration is if we continue to have student decline over the 3-year period and we have to close elementary schools, what impact would that have? Um because this is a 3-year pilot. So, I would say that, you know, I know that uh uh Merrill is extremely interested. Um and in fact, I don't I would say that I'm I'm not going to say that they're most interested, but they have a large amount of interest in this program to hope that it would
015benefit some of their students. And they have class sizes in which 60 slots would take pretty much first, second, and third grade, so it would be covering. However, it also is our smallest elementary school, and if we are in declining enrollment, which we are, if that were to get where we had to close down an elementary school, I'm sure that Merrill would at least be on the list for consideration. So, I mean, I think we we were going to take that. But I think that what we'll do is um once we have the applications in, we'll sit down with each of the buildings and their staff and try to make a determination where we think it would it would best be situated for the next 3 years. Thank you. There were some concerns with the
016school-wide bonuses that are part of this program. Um and I understand that Miss Ferset is meeting with the BEA next door right now. Um is there anything more that you can share with us on that? Well, one, I think they're leaving it um the Hendricks Foundation is leaving a lot of those decisions up to us. I think in listening to the conversations, one of the things is this I think would be bonuses for an entire school. We are doing the Skyrocket staff development that is school-wide. That's not just individuals that are teaching the program. That's school-wide. I've always believed that we are all in this together, so that as people are making progress, this is a team effort, not just an individual effort. So, though there are no specifics, and I think those are things
017that we would talk about with the board, with the BEA, with the staff at the school um to come up with what do we what do we think is the best option um over that 3-year period, but my belief is that it would be looking at rewarding, for you know, all the residents of the school maybe with additional stipends for extra duties so that if you had to come in on a Saturday to learn something maybe to make some of that but these are all things that need to be decided later. They haven't been decided yet but a lot of I think the decision-making power is um basically will be the school district's decision. Thank you. The offer is contingent on successful negotiation of a partnership agreement satisfactory to both parties. Are there any thoughts
018about what items we would need as part of the partnership agreement? I think the one thing we'll want to take a look on is what are we how are we gauging success? In other words so if we're looking that you know, is this program being successful for our students? I think we'd want to lay out in advance what does success look like so that there'd be a clear definition so that at the beginning everybody would know this is how we are gauging success. This is how we're measuring it. I know that open literacy and that has you know, things within it but I think we would want to come to an agreement so that when we're saying the students are making the program was successful or not successful, we would have agreed upon metrics at
019the very beginning. That's I mean in taking a look at it, I think that's probably one of the things that strikes me we'd want to have agreement on. Thank you. Anything else before I open it up to board members for questions or comments? I know there was some thoughts what about our current board policy so I did not read every policy but I went through all of those that I thought might you know, and we have some policies that deal with that a little bit on the edges but I couldn't find any policy that basically wouldn't allow the board to participate. Okay, thank you. Are there any board questions or comments? Um I was wondering especially about policies and the financial stuff. Um seems to me they were talking about paying directly to the providers.
020Um is >> [sighs] >> how do we account for that? Is is is it just an outside gift? How you know, how was that was one of the policies that I was wondering about and how how that would work. Um yeah, it was kind of the financial pieces that I was more concerned about. I mean we have a policy on a policy and a rule on public gifts to school. That's the closest that we have if we consider this a public gift but even that you know, lays out the general format not the specifics. I think you know, we'd want to um basically determine how the money you know, will certain amounts of money be going through our books? If so, then I know that we'd want to make sure that with the Department of
021Public Instruction we are coding those appropriately to be reflected in our in our books and our budget. But again, I think some of these things are things that we will be able to work out. I mean do we have all the answers now? No. But I think all the answers will be able to be determined before the project will be put in place. And that does bring one other thing. I know that um uh Mrs. Fox wanted to know about you know, could we put this in other buildings? In other words, this is for 60 slots, could it be expanded beyond that? So here's my budgetary answer that I will give you and I've given every board. Whatever your number one priority is I can make that work. But that usually means that something else
022has to be cut or reduced. Now, I don't know if we said we want to do this in two buildings, we wanted to buy another 60 slots. I don't know exactly what those costs would be but if the board determined that this was their number one priority for the upcoming year we can make that work but something else is not going to be in the budget and it all determines is how much one thing costs, how much I have to take from someplace else. But I always want boards to know is yes you can we can always make your number one priority work. It just means maybe two and three have to be reduced. Yeah, I was when I was thinking looking at some of the title one and AGR money and some of those
023kinds of funds that yes, they'd have to be reallocated and reconfigured in a different way. Um but I wonder if some of that might be a benefit. Um if we can provide some of those kinds of things and um I do know we wound up rolling over a significant amount of the AGR money so that might be a pot that we can we can look at. Um my other questions you know, is like how do I phrase this? We we need better outcomes and we need you know, things that working for our elementary schools all of them whether we accept this or not it's like what kinds of things are we going to be looking at or working with for all of our buildings? Um you know, this one building will have an opportunity or
024if and if we can expand it to two, I still think that would might be a great idea. Um but you know, what what are we going to help and provide for some of the other buildings? Um and I was wondering too about like school-wide bonuses and some of those kinds of things if other buildings come up with plans and are having being successful there. Um maybe we need to offer that as well if we're allowing that to happen in one place. So um and I I was the one that really asked for this meeting. I just like we've been talked to a lot so my feeling was that we needed to talk so >> [laughter] >> and and and come up with some of the questions and ideas we might have about you know,
025if we accept this then then what else? Um because we need we need things to be moving for the district. That's that's why they're offering us this opportunity is because we need things to be moving for the district. So Dr. Ann Thank you. Any Any other questions or comments from board members? Ms. Miller Thank you. So um couple of clarifying points and then I did um prepare some just some thoughts and some context that I think we should consider. Um I just want to clarify two things about policy uh that Dr. Anderson just shared. So um just in the interest of understanding process, I I have read and I just reread now um 840 and then 840 rule one. Um it would be my preference and I don't think that this would in any way
026inhibit any kind of timeline in in any meaningful way. Um I'm not comfortable generalizing about I I think it can be a like a 5-minute meeting to just like include language about private stuff. I'm not trying to create a barrier. I just want to be really clear here. Um I'm not comfortable with like putting the cart before the horse, we'll figure it out later accepting something that we don't have policy to accept. So a request that I have to the board um and I guess to Dr. Anderson to whatever extent that you'd be involved in developing a policy would just be like can we add like a line or two to the existing policy 840 and 840 rule one just to make this completely above board. Um I just think that that's a process piece
027that's important and like you know, you were just saying Ms. Fox like you know, give or take in this current situation it's just something that we should just have anyway. So that's just one piece. I'm wanting to clarify though in board policy 840 paragraph four. Let me just go back to it really quick. Um because I'm just trying to discern out like this bonus piece. So I just heard you say that like it's kind of up to us like what we do with the skyrocket piece. I think I just need a little clarity. Um it says all gifts and this is just going back to the policy. All gifts, grants and bequests will become district property segregated as trust funds to be used at the discretion of the district unless otherwise specified by the donor
028in the bequest. So does that sentence as written right now sort of like envelop the entirety of like this the skyrocket potential bonus situation or do we need a little more clarity? I don't know. Can you Can you speak to that if that's Is that okay to have Dr. And Okay, go ahead, please. Well, I can tell you that I've worked with um this is not this is a fairly common policy. What this policy was generated for is that when someone gives a gift to the school and we've had gifts of property, you know, sometimes gifts of money and what what it is is that once it becomes the school's property, then the school has the decisions. So like if they gave us weight machines which has happened, I've actually received them. They become the
029district property. When we no longer want to use them, we have the method to discard them. We don't have to go back and give them. That's what these policies were originally created so that when you were given something, the understanding was then it was yours and you got to make decisions with that. Uh now, the way that I think and I do the reason I think this is different is that I think there are certain parameters in which this gift will be given and I think the acceptance of the gift is the acceptance of the parameters. Okay, so you believe that this part of the policy as written covers all those bases? Because of just because of this line here unless otherwise specified, is that right? No, I didn't say that. >> Oh, no, yes,
030help me understand that's why >> No, I didn't say that. I said this policy when it was written and this policy exists, it was probably copied from the old because it looks like a new old policy was designed someone gifts are given to the district, they become the property of the district. That's the acceptance of the gift that you know, I said with this particular one and I don't know that this policy covers cuz this is not really the same type of gift. The way so I mean if we're going to modify or change, I think because what this policy was written for is not the same as what you're being offered right now. There's differences. As I mentioned, I think with the a proposal the gift that you're with the dollars there comes stipulations
031and I think that if you accept one, you accept the other. So, it's for 3 years, it's for 2.5 million, it's for 60 slots. It's using open literacy and Skyrocket. You know, I think those are the things that are already committed. So, I think if you accept the dollars, you don't have the option to say well, we don't want to use open literacy on second year. I think the conditions of the gift when you accept one, you accept the other. So, yeah, it definitely sounds like we are going to want to make sure we hash this out in policy and like for example, something now that's coming to mind listening to your clarification which thank you so much for that. Um if if like this is the precedent and there's there's these specifications, I mean
032like Ms. Fox was just saying and I and I think I just want to clarify cuz when you would ask last time about like can we extend this out? I think you were talking about Skyrocket more so than open literacy, is that right? Either, but yeah, Skyrocket was the one yeah. >> Yeah, that well that was my takeaway. I just don't want to misrepresent. So, like you know, like if if we are if these services or companies or contracts with these companies are being donated to us with those parameters. I I just I guess like we just need something in policy that distinguishes like at what point is there agency in the district to to sculpt an MOU with those donated services and I'm not saying that we should or shouldn't do anything different. I'm
033just saying like there has to be a policy for that because otherwise what is stopping us from saying well, you donated this and now we have you know, the ability to to use it this way or that way. So, I just think in the best interests of all parties involved, it's important to have that clarified in policy because one of our main jobs as a board is to like set policy. So, I'm I just think that's something that we need to chew on and I am not coming with specific answers. I'm with the policy piece, I'm really just here with questions. But I think those questions should be answered. So, Can I Please. Um I was it's a foundation um gift and then apparently there's been other school districts who've received foundation gifts and we
034should be able to look at at how they do that. And um and then people, you know, they um and when we work on the agreement, we would need to work on you know, because they said they wanted to pay the providers directly, that's fine. But the bonuses and those kinds of things would need to come through our payroll. Um so, we need to make sure that that is clarified and how how that works. So, um I'm sure Stephanie can fix that up for us, right? >> [laughter] >> But you know, just making sure that all of those things are in place and like I said, they've they clearly said like Oakland worked with you know, foundations and and they were giving money and so some of this has been done other places. So, um
035and the Hendricks Foundation may actually have more information about that than we do. They can help us work that and then we can figure out what policies we would might need to have in place to support that. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. You know, with um especially with Juan Romero's letter you've already went through this once because according to and now this is long before I'm here, but you know, but if you did have an agreement at one time in the past where the Hendricks Foundation entered into an agreement with you, he mentioned 2014. You must have had something at that time either a policy or something that you referenced to because now I know from his letter that you ended that um agreement early, but there must have been something that you had in um
036either policy or practice that allowed you to do this. So, this does not sound like it's the first time you've already been through this once. Thank you. Um Ms. Brian Brian Nicholson. Okay. Well, I can tell you that we're not going to let a policy or lack thereof hold this thing up. Um it yeah, we can we can get together with with Hendricks Foundation and see if they have a policy that they've used before and we can work with Steph. We could we could work with Stephanie on the on the uh financial workings of that you know, to make that policy work. But it's you know, we're not we're not reinventing the wheel. We're just we've got to tweak some things. Dr. Anderson, I think you brought a good point. This policy was probably written
037you know, by NEOLA or somebody whatever and we can work with the WASB and look at look some if there's additional policies. I haven't looked I haven't done that yet. Um but we can do that and uh you know, it doesn't it doesn't take it doesn't take too much to pass a policy. So, um we can be ready well before we need to be ready. So. Thank you, Brian. Megan Miller. Thank you and just again on board member Nichols as I clearly stated, I'm not in the interest of creating any barriers, but we we do need to I just want to clarify since you brought that up. Um my follow-up question um just with the what you with with this 2014 thing. First of all, none of us were at least that I know of.
038I don't know board member Johnson, were you on the board when that I didn't think so, so I didn't want to speak for you, but yeah. Um none of us were on the board, Dr. Anderson when that occurred. So, I think um unless there is somebody in the district with some institutional knowledge on like what the district's processes were for that, I think it I think what Ms. Fox and what Mr. Nichols just shared um about like looking at other districts that have similar policies and working with the policy guidance from WASB would be awesome ideas just to make sure we're doing this correctly. Um to the point about the 2014 situation, I believe that was a position that was donated. Um it is possible because I wasn't on the board or I think when
039that was in effect, I I don't know about that date, but I was working at Blackhawk Tech, so I wasn't like at the district, but I worked with the person that they were employing. Um so, somewhat familiar with the timeline there. Uh there was a lot of confusion about who that person reported to. It sounds like there was like a lot of like sticky icky situation there about like you know, procedures and protocol which just actually like makes the point we really do need some clear policy and practice for how this stuff works so that it has the potential to work well. Um and that's all I think needs to be shared about that specific situation in the context of this conversation. Um one more financial question and I don't know if Ms. Elwood, I
040don't want to put you on the spot, so like feel free to decline the spot, but I would just be curious to know now or or before this comes to to a vote. Um is there any potential based on how things are coded um you know, by the state with different with different funds and you know, for this to impact adversely the district in terms of equalization aid or or anything like that. I guess I don't know what I don't know about the financial piece, so I just wanted to kind of create an opportunity to discuss that. So, to code the funds for donations, those would go into a fund 21 and run the expenses through there as well and there's no effect on shared costs in fund 21. So, no effect on the equalization
041aid property tax piece. So, fund 21. Okay. That is so helpful. Thank you so much. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Okay, I do have some other like clarifying points and questions to bring up that have to do with academics, but I want to make sure that I'm like a share bearer with the floor here. So, I can yield if people have other questions about stuff that's unrelated to that. Joanne or Tom? Do either of you have any questions or comments you'd like to share? Can you hear me, Tia? Yes, I can. Yeah. Yes, I can hear you, Tom. >> No, I I I don't I I don't um Um actually Megan asked my my question on on shared revenue, so I was glad to hear that, Megan. Thank you. And I'll just listen. Thank you. Thank you.
042Mrs. Rue. Thank you. Um I've talked to some teachers in the district that are really interested in um having this opportunity um presented to them. And so um that made me feel good. I'm excited to hear that the BEA is talking to them, too, because the bonus thing is something that is a little bit tricky and we want to make sure that people are compensated fairly. And um outside of that, nope, that's it. Thank you, Jouhain. Ms. Miller. Thank you so much. Okay, so I've been um you know, weighing a lot of this out and I I am initially, you know, I'm certainly interested in providing additional opportunities for, you know, caring adults to do meaningful work potentially with our students. Um there's there's a lot of there's just there's a lot of like little
043pieces here that I think, you know, I think we're doing a really good job tonight raising a lot of these these issues and I think like I think just to Dr. Anderson's point, too, there's a lot of opportunities that for things to just sort of to be ironed out. I just I do want to make sure like with the policy piece, for example, that we, you know, at least get off on the right foot with some of the stuff. Um one thing that's really sort of unsettled me about this entire discussion, um I just like, you know, kind of got some clarity on over the weekend as I was sort of thinking about this and I think I want to take the opportunity here and I'm curious what what all of us on the board
044feel, uh you know, and think about this. I think the the narrative or the dialogue around this one thing is going to make us like a significant difference in literacy is is dishonest. I don't think it's a bad thing to do. I want to be really clear about that. Like to the point of like, you know, I've 5 years being a reading interventionist. Reading intervention is is critical. Absolutely and open literacy is certainly is like a high dosage tutoring program. It's there's a lot of not a lot of research, but like all of the recent research cuz it's newer stuff. Like, you know, it's it's well constructed. It's well built. Um but I think we're doing a disservice in our messaging to the community by representing what we might embark on as as as a
045board in this partnership as something that is going to create a significant change. And I want to just kind of like, you know, talk through so I so I did a I did some research that I'd like to kind of talk us through briefly. Um so like if we ask the question like, why are there reading achievement gaps in Boyd? Um the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Jouhain's going to smile and nod with me because you I'm sure are very aware of this. Um has issued a number of reports. Two of the most prominent ones um are called Early Warning, Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters. The other one is called Double Jeopardy, How Third Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation. And I have shared these links with the board
046and if you guys want my little notes here, I'm happy to share those, too. Um to summarize, while I do have more, you know, detailed information and what I can share with you, both of those reports came to the conclusion that the root cause of reading achievement gaps nationally is poverty and issues related to poverty. One of the four main recommendations absolutely has to do with and I'll read it uh straight from the report, prioritize, support, and invest in results-driven initiatives to transform low-performing schools into high-quality teaching and learning environments in which all children, including those from low-income families and high-poverty neighborhoods, are present, engaged, and educated to high standards. So like that's that is our locus of control and and nobody is is saying it shouldn't be a main that should be our main
047priority, a thousand percent. That recommendation, though, is couched in three other recommendations as well as bodies and bodies of research pointing out that there has to be federal and statewide investment into poverty for for us to see significant impacts. In fact, one of the quotes from on page 16 of the Double Jeopardy report states, "Schools and parents cannot by themselves bring about these changes, period. Federal, state, and local governments will be essential in the development and funding of efforts." And then in the quote continues. So yes, this can be a both and. These both of these I'm really impressed and for various reasons like, you know, with with Skyrocket, Open Literacy absolutely has advantages. I think especially for second grade it would be huge. Um but I also don't want to misrepresent or be dishonest
048with our community about the potential impact that that can have in and of itself. So I think that's that's an important point. So like when we ask the question, will Open Literacy improve our reading scores? There is one report that was um mentioned in the presentation from 2 weeks ago and it was um validated um externally according to the report from the CEO by a group called CRPE. CRPE stands for the Center for Reinventing Public Education and it is primarily funded, as far as I was able to read on the internet, um by the Walton Family Foundation. Um the reason I point this out is that there are many philanthropic efforts that have occurred since those Casey Foundation reports were released that focused only on the sort of pointing the blame at schools pieces in
049order to deflect, and this is an assumption I'm making, from the things that would would politically conflict with like we don't want to be taxed more to invest in in poverty um mitigation efforts. So CRPE is is privately funded and even in the CRPE report, and I just want to be really fair here, where the where the strong outcomes were were on their i-Ready internal benchmark assessment and they they they it was a gain of 1.3 additional months of learning, which is pretty standard for intervention. Um there are some interventions that, you know, you see upwards of like 1.6, 1.7, and higher. Um so it's not that that's not good. It's not the only um it's it's not that remarkable, to be honest. Um and that's internal benchmarks. The other piece that they cite is
050the DIBELS ORF, the oral reading fluency. Um gaining up to 9 months of additional learning. That is out that is really impressive. That's outstanding. Where I get concerned is even with this one externally validated report, it goes on to say that there are mixed results, so we're not necessarily seeing transferability to state tests. Only 30% or so, and I can't remember where I learned this from, so please somebody feel free to fact-check that, of the um third grade forward exam is decodable text. So while the phonics gains are are foundational and absolutely important and it would a hundred hundred percent be worthwhile the effort to help second graders with early reading fluency. So I'm not saying that's not an important effort. But my point is is that's not going to cause like a huge significant
051growth on its own. So do philanthropic reading initiatives really work for all students? If we look at the contract well, here, I'll I'll skip that part and go right to Rogers Foundational Baseline Report, um that was initiated with these philanthropic efforts in as far as I can tell, looks like around 2014-2015, overall Oakland School District had 38% reading at grade level proficiency. If you look on their version of WISE Dash today, which you can get to at ousddata.org /public-dashboards.html, you can see that overall right now, it well, not right now, but the 2024-2025 data is only at 40.1%. So was there growth? Yes. Was it significant growth? No. All of that just to say, if we decide to move forward with this initiative, I am excited for what potential positive outcomes and differences we can
052make for students. Absolutely. I want to make sure that in our narrative as partners and as school board members in our community, we can't say that this will be an end-all, be-all significant change maker. Could it help children? Absolutely. Will it change um the scores that we just had a public commenter um kind of railing us about last week? No, it's not going to significantly change those things. So I just think that as we consider this and we look at the actual data in Oakland where where these initiatives have been and and are currently being piloted and tried for several years and we see that there's not like tons and tons of transferable growth there. Um we have to really change the conversation, I think, as a community about what can we really do meaningfully
053to help families? And if we go all the way back, and I'm going to conclude with my my comments now, uh the other recommendations from the Casey Foundation report, which are have been validated over and over again since it was published, develop a coherent system of early care and education that aligns, integrates, and coordinates what happens from birth through fourth or sorry, through third grade, so children are ready to take on the learning tasks associated with fourth grade and beyond. And to be clear, that recommendation talks about external systems to the school district. Um I want to applaud uh like the Literacy for Life initiative, for example, for taking that on so beautifully and continuing that work. Like that's a recommendation. Another recommendation, encourage and enable parents, families, and caregivers to play their indispensable roles
054as co-producers of good outcomes for their children, which translates to healthcare, affordable healthcare, affordable housing, affordable nutrition for for families. That is their second recommendation. Their fourth recommendation cuz I had already read the third one, find, develop, and deploy practical and scalable solutions to two of the most significant contributors to the underachievement of children from low-income families, chronic absence from school, and summer learning loss, which within our certainly are our high priorities within our district, but we've seen time and again, like requires community partnership and and entities outside of our district. So, in conclusion, as we deliberate on how and whether to move forward with this at this time, when we take this on or don't take it on, we have to make sure that we're clear it's going to take more than a program
055or two programs to make a significant change that we want to see. And if we're really serious about making these changes, which I am, then we need to be very intentional, work outside of just the parameters of our school district and really engage all hands on deck as a community. I keep hearing that this is urgent, it's a five-alarm fire, it's going to continue to be until we really support families meaningfully in the way that they need to be supported so we can see the growth that we want to see in our kids. Mrs. Fox. Um yeah, I don't know that anybody has terrible unrealistic expectations. We're looking for improved outcomes for our students. And um I think, you know, again, we continue to talk about the literacy piece, uh um but the Skyrocket piece,
056I think, will help us get there as well. And I didn't hear you read recommendation three, which is prioritize, support, and invest results-driven initiatives to transform low-performing schools into high-quality teaching and learning environments, which is what Skyrocket's all about. Um so, I think um we need to continue to work overall for the district to do that. This just gives us an opportunity in in to help one one school. Poverty is a huge issue. I get that. Um but we can look just down the street, and their their results are significantly better than ours, and they're 63.7% economically disadvantaged, and we're 69. So, um yes, you can make a difference if you really put the effort in there. And I again, my concern is what can we do to, you know, this will give us an
057opportunity for one school. We need to look for opportunities for all, um which is why I keep talking about, you know, opportunities to expand that to some of the other um schools. And we don't have to make that decision when we say, yes, we're going to do this, but we need to look at that. Um and continue to look at that because we need it it needs to it does need to be bigger. Um we need to thank them for giving us an opportunity to um uh to do something. Um but we need to do we need to continue to do more, and and involving the community and working on all those other recommendations is our job. Um and we should be working on all of those things. Thank you, Mrs. Fox. Ms. Miller. I
058could not agree with you more that the issue of poverty in the greater Beloit area is a huge concern, and what that does to an individual um psychologically, physiologically, what it does to a family, all of it is so incredibly detrimental, and it makes it it it's a lifelong generational disadvantage imposed on people that part of the reason why I'm here is because in I want to help stop it. I want to help turn it around, and I believe in my heart of hearts the key to getting out of poverty is education. If If I did not believe that, I would not be here. And the first step in having a strong education is having a strong reading ability. Um to echo Mrs. Fox, I I have not heard anyone say that this is going
059to be the panacea for this school district [laughter] of Beloit. I wish it were, but I am I'm realistic. I know, this this is going to help a small part, and we will be able to see and get reports from the the superintendent and the administration on how it's going, and um gauge as we go. Um should the federal government and the state be paying and funding education more and more adequately? A big H, yes. >> [laughter] >> A big H, yes. Um absolutely. We right now don't have control over that. Um if we individually, this board you know, we have the right to vote and and do that, but as a board, you know, we can write letters to our congresspeople and whatnot. Um we have very little impact on that at this time.
060This is the system we have. We have to work with within that, and um I don't see this as an either/or in terms of exploring other programs and looking at other um tools we can use to help improve education, um reading, writing, literacy, but a both/and. I don't see why we can't start this program and follow up um because Beloit's poverty rate, I have one record of Beloit having a poverty rate of 24.8%. Um another record, the Beloit female unemployment average from 2010 to 2012 was 16%. I mean, this when we look at how this disproportionately affects different demographics, it convinces me more so that we need this. And for what whatever reasons the offer came at this time, for whatever reasons the offer came at as this amount, whatever, that's that's not I'm not
061privy to why, but it's here before us, and I I'm I think we should accept it. I think we should accept it, and whatever happened in 2014 or in the past, I see this as an opportunity for us to try to establish positive relationships with community members, um community organizations, not you know, um we all care for our for our our students and our children, and I just I I really hope that we can come to an agreement that this is important. Unfortunately, over this last year, our district has seen some of our lowest reading scores, um I I think ever. The district-wide, our 24-25 reading we had score for third grade, and third is the the reason why I'm using third grade, it's the benchmark that is used, we had 15.8% meeting grade level
062expectations. Compare that to Milwaukee. Now, Milwaukee is considered, oh my gosh, look at how poorly Milwaukee is doing. They're doing better than us. That same group, third grade, the Milwaukee school district had 21%. Statewide was at 50.8%. Statewide, 50.8% third graders were at were meeting grade level expectations. We are at 15.8%. There's no reason why this should be so. I am a woman of color. I grew up in poverty. I learned to read. I love to read. And there's no reason why we should not give every student that opportunity. Brian Nichols. Thank you, Board President. Well said. Um I was just going to say, I you know, I I agree with both of you, you know, poverty poverty is an issue poverty is an issue, but an issue that can be overcome, and it has
063to be and it has to be reading is has to be the foundation. If you can't read, you can't write. If you can't read and write, you can't do math, you can't do science, and you can't supply jobs to the community that that you mentioned, uh Mrs. Frank, and so um we have an opportunity. No, I don't know that that was ever said that this is going to change everything. I don't think that was ever said, but it's a start. We got to start some way and the numbers you just shared, I poured over I poured over all this stuff all day and yesterday and I could find no reason to say no. The numbers are the numbers. Yes, we have great teachers, we have great staff. I know we got a lot of great
064things. The academy thing, we got a lot of great things going on. But we got to teach our kids how to read. I knew how to read before I went to school because my mom taught me. But the only way we can change this this stigma is with education and that's what this is all about. And if we say no I'm going to say it, we're idiots. I'm speaking for me, too. Thank you, Mr. Nichols. Ms. Miller. Thank you. I think that language is completely inappropriate at a board meeting. Um furthermore, excuse me. I said that was very inappropriate at a board meeting and your >> of order. >> response was you're welcome. >> Ms. Miller. Thank you. Please vote. >> Um yeah, anyway, my comment that I wanted to make um while even though
065this meeting has suddenly turned extremely uncomfortable, um is I did want to Ms. Facts, you brought up some really excellent points. I did just want to clarify. When we're making comparisons to TLA, there are there are parameters that they can require of families and like we were just kind of talking about, you know, the number one impact on student learning in school, of course, is our teachers. Um but outside of school, it's families. So, being able to to require family engagement does not create an apples-to-apples comparison and I don't in any way when I like I am happy for success when it happens here, when it happens. This is they're our kids in our community. So, I don't I don't want it that to be taken any kind of way um because I like we
066need to celebrate and support all of our kids in our community. I also just want to be cautious about making decisions based on what is not an apples-to-apples comparison. So, I I did just want to kind of clarify that point. >> Um can I speak to that? >> Please, yeah. Um it it to me it's amazing. I mean, that they had 63.7% at Lincoln Academy our high poverty students. That means we have a lot of our high poverty parents who are choosing to go there because they're not feeling like they're getting what they need here. And your point was that we can't be making all the progress that we need to do without you know, if there's no support for our high poverty kids, which is why I pointed out that statistic. I don't know
067that it's exactly apples-to-apples, okay? But they're our kids and they're choosing to go there and we need to you know, we we need to do better so that they just choose to to stay with us. >> [laughter] >> I agree and so just to to finish and and actually I appreciate your comment because um the point about like what we what we do know like from also from evidence-based practice and research, what does overcome poverty in schools is collective advocacy. And so the ingredients to collective efficacy, it's John Hattie's work and I don't remember the date it came out, but I have the book, I can bring it. But Google it. We love John Hattie, collective efficacy. Um so, when a teacher believes about themselves that they have everything that they need and or like
068regardless of what those those kiddos are coming in the door with, um we're going to shut the door and I'm going to get them here regardless of the path we need to take to get here. We're we're going to get there by the end of the year, right? The other ingredient to that is a well-resourced school district because as as heart and I'm I'm sure the educators of us on the board can speak to that, you know, you can live and die for your kids and and be there all you know, doing all the things and if you don't have the resources that you need to provide that education for that student despite your efforts, you're not going to necessarily get across That's that's not what the data says. That's not what the study says.
069So, if I can just finish my point, as I'm hearing us I mean, I am I am a reading teacher. I there's there's certainly no dispute with any comments made about the importance of reading. I'm a big fan of Horace Mann who literally, you know, that's that's his that's That's where it all starts, right? That's the father of public education. Um education is is liberation, right? And so given all of that context, if you're looking at what what do we need to build capacity in the School District of Beloit, you need the resources and even though as one of our speakers this evening mentioned, we've had I don't what like three failed referendums with the tagline of money doesn't solve problems, I think you just kind of made my point. You when you have a
070building that is well-resourced with with wonderful educators like I have no doubt exist in TLA just like they exist here in the School District of Beloit, that collective efficacy magic works. You're literally seeing it in the numbers. It works. It can work here, too. And so to Board President Johnson's point, it it's it's certainly a both and and not an either or. When we talk about what what what is our moral imperative as a board, like what do we need to be doing? It's not to it's not to go on a year meaningless planning piece, it's to engage in strategic leadership, which is to set vision, set metrics, and engage in the work. The program chasing programs and you know this is a principle. You're smiling cuz you know this is a principle. Programs can
071be helpful but they come and go and programs do not make the So, again, you can have a program that's successful. If we are doing our due diligence as a board, we're not going to get excited about programs as much as we are going to get excited about um just the strategic leadership piece. Last point about the data that I would like to clarify based on comments that I have heard. If you go to NAEP and just for those playing along, that's our you know, national you know, achievement you know, education people, right? So, if you go it's here. Just nationsreportcard.gov is where you can find this information. Um you'll see that in 1992, the average scores the average score was 217. That number stays steady-ish. Took a dive in '94, but stayed pretty steady
072until um until it starts to sort of it it dips down at 2000. It starts to go back up and then starts to decline again and now in in 2022, which is the last data available, it we're back to 1992's average score, which is 217. Um What the reason that I'm bringing that up is because Board President Johnson, when you talk about our forward exam scores and all of these scores, there has been a huge and massive push on phonics and fluency in these in these years that leading up to and can certainly continues today. Um the forward exam though and these scores are not generated simply on fluency alone. So, like explicit instruction in foundational phonics is absolutely critical. It's an it's an equity piece. It's it's essential. But that's not all there is
073to it and so I'd have to look at Milwaukee and things like that. I think it's incumbent on our board who has all expressed a lot of passionate support for the importance of literacy here this evening to also take a both and approach to what we're resourcing our students and our teachers with to make those meaningful changes because it cannot just end at phonics. Um there has to be like really deliberate instruction and support around comprehension and unfortunately with that 20 ins and things like that, a lot of that's gotten lost in the shuffle. So, I'm wondering if as we continue our discussions on on the 17th about whether or how we adopt these initiatives, if we can extend in the spirit of like being earnest in this work, the conversation around what can we
074do strategically to make sure that our students get the and our teachers get the resources that they need to support our comprehension pieces. What types of family engagement, what types of attend like all of those things coalesce together. So, again, the conversation really should not end here. Um but yet, thank you. Thank you and for clarification, it was the forward ELA reading that I was that I was referencing. Mrs. Rue. All right. So, So, I was a teacher 2000 to 2023 here. And when I first started with the district, we did have phonics and grammar and everything interwoven into the literacy curriculum we used and then we slowly moved away from it. And we um we were we were encouraged more and more from people um at central office to move away from those things
075and more into um comprehension. But we left behind the systematic phonics. And we haven't really gotten it back until 2024 was when ARC rewrote their curriculum to make their phonics more systematic and they're they're continuing to fine-tune it to make it a good solid program. What ARC has always done well at is their um vocabulary, the deeper knowledge stuff, the comprehension stuff. So, so if we put the the good phonics program with the good literacy comprehension, deep understanding, we will eventually get there. We also have students that missed out on that because they were part of the people that were in my kindergarten class and the kindergarten class after my kindergarten class. And so we need to help support them now. As a classroom teacher, um in my room, um I have a number of
076students in the room that I'm in now that need extra support. If I have some way to support them, that I can support other students, then everyone does better because I'm able to focus on what I need to do for the students that are in front of me and I'm also um thinking about how much we have to assess our students, our lowest students, we assess them more often. And so if we have an and I'm not sure how the district would use this program. Like I've gone back and forth in my own mind thinking about would we use this for our lowest readers and just have them be part of it all year? Would we use it for our students that are just on that that cusp and we can push them forward and
077instead of it being 60 kids, it could be who knows how many children? The classroom teacher would not have to be doing all of that assessing though and so they would be able to reach the other children in the room. Um another thing I like thinking back on on the years, um the history of our district, there was a great push. Um I would say like 10 years ago where we walked away from science and social studies in our lower grades because the thought was we are going to we are going to spend all day doing English language arts instruction and math instruction and that will help our scores. But guess what? That doesn't help comprehension. And that's part of what we're seeing now, too. And so now we have programs, we have curriculum for
078literacy that are good. We have we have lots of information that our students are learning in in science and social studies, it's woven in with our art curriculum as well. And we now have a good um systematic phonics program. We have a group of kids that missed all of that. And on top of that, we have a staffing shortage. And and that if you don't have support staff in the building, that is I use the term it's unsustainable. But you you can't keep asking teachers to do all of these things and not give them the support they need. And so we don't have those people right now. So this is a chance to to like I mean it's yes, I will say it is not as good as a live person in the room with
079a reading degree, but it's something and it's better than nothing. It's better than the teacher trying to spin all the plates and keep it all going at the same time. I also I like I I haven't done a ton of research on all of this, but the the rocket program, I think their goal is to build collective efficacy. And so I I think that's why both programs were brought at the same time because one without the other, I mean the the literacy program is just a band-aid if we're not strengthening what we have um as far as our structures and supports behind the scene. Um I was talking to some teachers just today that they're like we just want to be our best. We want to be better and so like whatever we can learn
080that will help us be better, we're I mean that's why we go into teaching. We want to help kids and so whatever I can learn to help kids, that's what I'm that's what I'm willing to do. So. Thank you, Mrs. Root. Mrs. Fox. Um Yeah, well Megan, you were talking about, you know, things like resources and building capacity and those kinds of things. And and I think in in a lot of ways we do have some fairly good resources. We've been told we have a pretty good reading program and we have other kinds of resources. Our biggest issue is staffing. And when we talk about a program that will help build the culture and climate of the school, I think that might actually help our staffing issues because we need to be working on some
081of those things. We people are leaving and I don't know that they're necessarily leaving because of the the salaries. I I think they're leaving because of the school environment and we need to to work on improving those things. And you know, what I saw with with the skyrocket was that it would help build capacity. It would help with the culture and climate, which would would help us all the way around with a lot of things. And I went to Horace Mann school, so don't be bringing up Horace Mann to me. >> [laughter] >> Thank you, Mrs. Fox. Mrs. Root, did you have another comment? >> No, I'm sorry. Mr. Hankins, did you want to weigh in? Um no, I'm just very I think we should be I think we all are very grateful for the
082Hendricks Family Foundation come forward and and let us and going back to I think one of the board board members said, no matter what happens tonight, our focus, well, hopefully it lasts longer than tonight, is on literacy and how we need to focus on it. But I do believe with this we'll get past with all my hopes and it will be springboard into this our district focusing on in the elementary grades, not only literacy, but getting to numeracy also, but literacy first. So I just I'm just grateful to the Hendricks Family Foundation. Thank you. Thank you. And before I turn it back over to Dr. Anderson to wrap up, I will remind everyone of the school district's school district of Beloit mission. Our mission is committed to excellence and strengthened and enriched by diversity, we
083prepare each student to compete, contribute, and thrive as an admirable person in a rapidly changing world by engaging students in a wide variety of high quality, relevant programs in partnership with families, schools, and the stateline community. Our vision is preparing and inspiring each student to succeed in life and contribute to an ever-changing world. Further, I want to remind all board members of our board collective commitments, in particular the first one, which reads, "Student academic success and well-being is the primary focus of the board. We commit to providing necessary supports for the administration that center on high expectations for equitable achievement for every child." I know that we may not all um agree on a lot of things, but I would hope at the very least we can agree on wanting to do what's best for
084our students and making things continually making things better. Dr. Anderson. Since I'm so shy, I'd like to start off with repeating what I started at the beginning. We have so many dedicated, hard-working staff in this district that truly come to school each day wanting the best for their kids. One of the issues that's been discussed that I think is getting in the way in our achievement is that we have not been able to fully staff our schools, which is one of the things that we're going to work on. That being said, this is an opportunity. I'm grateful for the Hendricks Foundation for putting forth this opportunity to us because if this allows us to help more kids than we would have been able to help without this, that means those kids are going to get
085ahead. And that's what we take a look. If we can help even one more child succeed than what have succeeded without this, then we've had success with that one more child. What is that going to look like at the end? That's what we're all going to be evaluating along the way. I look at this as more than a literacy. I look at this as a partnership because I truly believe for education to go forward, we need to make partners. We can't go this by ourselves. We are not an ivory silo that has all the answers. We need to work with the community and the various partners in the community. This is one opportunity that we have. I believe if this is successful, it will open the door for other opportunities. The more partnerships that we
086make, the better it will be for the community and our students. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Before we second, I actually had a request for the 17th. If if could we if as a takeaway for next steps, is that okay based on what I heard? So we can be prepared or do you just want me to like email or Um yeah, please email. >> Okay. Yeah, no, that sounds fine. Email Dr. Anderson. A motion to adjourn by Brian Nichols. Is there a second? >> Second. Second by Carol Fox. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We are adjourned at 6:18.