001The May 19th, 2025 board of education meeting is called to order and I welcome everyone present. The Witchaw public schools will be the premier district of choice and inspire each student and staff member to thrive and become future ready within the greater community. This is a business meeting of the board of education and we are pleased that you have taken the time to join us for the roll call. All board members are present except for Hazel Stabler who uh has an excused absence. So for the first item, Latona, normally consent, we do go over it at a prior meeting, but since this is a special meeting, we did not have uh a prior meeting for consent items. So I'll entertain any questions from the board at this time. Knock. Oh, yeah. I just wanted to
002bring up I have a conflict of interest with uh Destination Innovation. I'm a part of their uh board of directors. So for the uh consent vote, I won't be uh voting at all. So okay, we can pull that one item and then you can vote on the rest of the consent items and then we'll vote on that. Okay. Separately. Do you know what item that is? It's on a page. It'll be on diligent. The number is 211. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Are there any questions about consent? Stan, I move that we adopt the consent agenda except for 2.11 on diligent. Okay. Motion made by Stan. Second. Seconded by Julie. All in favor, raise your hand. Motion passes. 6. Uh and then is knock do you want to you have to step away for the I
003move that we adopt uh the designation innovation formally rise up for youth agreement. I second the question. Okay. Uh motion by my stand seconded by Melody. Go ahead Melody. So it's really I'm supportive of the uh move. Just wanted some clarification how it is that we have simply well how it is that we are now calling rise up for youth destination innovation they are two totally separate entities um just yeah what's the detail on that Dr. has that answer for. All right. The two rise is going underneath the destination innovation umbrella. So, we needed to amend the contract. So, the destination innovation is the parent company in the agreement and not Rise Up for Youth because they're merging in into the same one the same. So, it'll still be the same services provided by Rise
004Up for Youth. It will be with a just with a new name. That is that is what I and I are these on? Yes. Doesn't sound like it. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So, that that is what I needed to have clarified that they're actually now becoming Well, Rise Up for Youth is literally merging with Destination Innovation. Correct. And any services that they provided will now be under the name of Destination Innovation. Okay. Yes, that's sorry, I didn't know which one. Yes, that is that is that is correct. Yes. All right. Rise up for Youth will be one of many services provided underneath Destination Innovation, but we need their name on our contract. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions? Seeing none, all in favor raise your hand. Motion passes 5. Somebody please knock will
005be welcome back. Okay, Lona. Next item. Building needs assessment. Looks like we're going to pause for a second for technical difficulties. Kelly. So, we'll have two presenters for this one. We'll have Eddie Lol, CFO, and Gil Alvarez, deputy superintendent. Uh because the building needs assessment is a mixture of budget priorities and state assessments as far as uh what the legislature is required for this process. So, um they have a presentation put together for us so that we can um look at both of those things. Look at the trends in the needs from the buildings and look at the uh assessment results. We've already seen them. Uh these would be from last year. So, these are 2024 assessment results. With the changes to the test, we we don't have the 2025 assessment results and we won't
006have them until October. So, Um, so this is last year's results which we've already seen, but uh the requirement is to do do this annually and that's what we're doing. So whenever we're ready, we'll have we're actually going to pop the presentation on the district's landing page under minutes and agendas or not. Um, but we're going to display it here for you guys. Okay. Okay. Well, I'll try to keep us um on on task through slides today. Um, so my name is Addy L. financial officer for WTO public schools. I'm joined today by Phil Alvarez, our deputy superintendent, and we'd like to just summarize um all of the information that we acquired this year through our building needs assessment process. So, um this is an important stage of our budget building because in order to
007adopt our budget, we have to reflect in the minutes that um the board has reviewed our building needs assessments. Um that we've the barriers that are in place currently to keep students from achieving proficiency on state assessments. Um, and then we have to answer three questions. And so we're going to give you kind of just the first stepping stone of that building needs assessment process this evening. Um, so while it is a milestone in terms of our district's budget, it's also very heavily based in academic achievement, which is why I needed Gil's help today to go through some of this data. He'll be reviewing um last year's state assessment data and then reviewing some goals with you all as well. So um we're kind of in the middle of our budget journey and I'm excited
008to jump into building needs assessments today. So um this is a state statute KSA 721 1163. Um this came out three or four years ago. Um the state had always required a building needs assessment, but this process, this uh legislation just formalized the process for us. Um it requires the um we have to have all of our building needs assessments published on our website. So you can go to our website today and find every individual school um their their building needs assessment is available. Uh we also have to reflect in the minutes that um you all have reviewed your building needs assessments and I hope you all have received those very chunky books. Um the file is actually too large to share via email. So um there was a link provided to each of you
009as well. I know it's hard to go out to the website and click on individual schools. So um those books are by district to help make it easier to guide you through your own locations. Um if you need any more information from me on building needs assessments, I'm happy to provide that at any time. Um so we have to reflect that you've evaluated those building needs assessments. Um and then we'll demonstrate how it was used in the approval and adoption of our budget. Um we'll do our review of state assessment data today and then we're going to answer three questions. What barriers must be overcome to have all students achieving proficiency? What budget actions um or recommendations should be taken to address and remove those barriers? And if budget actions are implemented, estimate the amount
010of time to take for all students to achieve proficiency above level two. So um we the the statute requires us to answer all of these questions. Every attendance center has to complete one of these forms. So, every single building principal has gone through a lengthy process and collecting feedback to answer the questions on their building needs assessment. Um, we've published it on the website already and and you guys have been provided the books. We also go a little bit deeper with our engagement through this process. We mandate that every building principal host a site council in order to collect feedback on one area that they believe is a barrier to their students achieving proficiency. And so they meet with that site council to discuss um what those barriers might be and solutions to those to
011overcoming those barriers. They have to meet with their building leadership teams to collect feedback from those groups on um on the the students in their building and and what kind of um budget actions they could potentially look at to put into place in their buildings in order to overcome those things. So they have to fill this out on an application where we're able to centralize and collect and make those nice pretty books. Um, they also have to request a corresponding budget item. So that way we know what's a priority to them. They've identified it through their needs assessment. It's based in evidence. And so when we're reviewing all of the budget changes for the upcoming year, this process does help to give every building a voice in that budget process. And so I do enjoy
012that factor of it. Make sure everyone has submitted and requested something that's important to them. Um, backed in data. So, um I think it's super helpful in this process to kind of look how we do budgeting generally for for staffing in the district. Um most of our budget is spent on people and so it's very natural that when principles and building leadership teams are going through this process, they're requesting people to help overcome their challenges. And so I want to give you guys a basis in how we um budget and staff our schools. So at the very bottom of the pyramid is our core services. And that's you can think of a building principal, a custodian, a front office clerical staff, a first and first, second, third grade teacher depending on how many class sizes
013you have in your school. We staff those things automatically, right? So, um that's not something that building principles are assessing with their needs assessment. If we have a school, we're going to put K through K through five teachers in there. We're going to give it the um that base level of resources it needs to be successful. the next stepping stone of processing um budget requests for staffing is special education. We have to provide special education services um and so staffing for those uh those IEPs and all those required minutes is something that we do automatically regardless of a building needs assessment. So as soon as an IEP is assessed um and staff is needed in a building, we're putting a vacancy out to be filled. So where principles are really coming in is that next
014layer which is meeting the needs of atrisisk students. We use this term a lot. It's a it's a fund that we receive money for. Um we get the money for for this particular fund based on free and reduced or free free lunch kiddos. Um but this is generally what that next layer of students need that's not mandated by special education services to help them overcome their barriers to success. And so some of the things that we have in our budget today are tutors, intervention programs, um additional intervention curriculums, summer school, extra classroom supports like para educators, um behavior supports, counselors, social workers, psychologists, all of CST, you may you may hear some of those positions referred to as CST teams. Um so that's that next level of service that we provide our students um to
015help meet th the needs of those at risk kids. Um so anything over and above that is invested into achieving the uh strategic plan goals and so implementing programs to improve academic achievement, improve graduation rate um or where we look to next for staffing opportunities. So we really focus principles on kind of that third layer of that pyramid um when they're going through their building needs assessment data to make requests for their buildings. So uh you may Can I ask a question? Sure. Um the base level, the first level that you talked about relative to principles, assistant principles, custodial staff, just that that office staff, that base level. How how do you distinguish between like building size? Um it depends on every building, every community, all the services in each school are different. And so
016obviously some things like class sizes, a kindergarten class, um we have standards and board policy, we are far below those. Um but we're always assessing class sizes to make sure, you know, do we have enough teachers in that building? Do we have too many teachers in that building? Every school needs a principal, right? Um so automatically every school gets one. Depending on enrollment, they may qualify for an assistant principal. Depending on programming, they may qualify for more counselor, social worker support, a behavior interventionist. It just depends on some of the like ESOL programming, special education programming, um the different demographics of the building, how much family and community engagement a school may have. Those are all factors that impact staffing. Custodial is kind of square footage, right? How big is is the building? Um so
017it depends, but in general, there's kind of metrics and um when that when that comes into play for us to reassess. So you like kind of have like a guideline sheet to follow that. We sure do. We review every single position in our budget every single year. So, uh, multiple people get eyes on it and, um, make sure one that it's enough. Um, and we do find schools that maybe need an extra section of a grade level because their class sizes are too large. And so, we'll we'll add a vacancy to the list. So, we've got eyes on um that all the time. That's why you have such a excellent budget office to do some of that work. And I would add in um although we have guidelines, there are some some outliers that we
018are this year and specifically we're evaluating um some bigger elementary schools that didn't have assistant principles, those sorts of things. Um, I think it goes back to the idea if we can get to a a level of efficiency that we have kind of optimal staffing where, you know, a three or four section elementary school like we've talked about, um, where we're not having to share a PE teacher or librarian or a a social worker or something like that. Um, it helps the whole system if we can get to that level. But, um, I'd say it's a it's somewhat of a work in progress. I know Michelle and I have had some conversations about, you know, uh, not all not all buildings are equal, right? Not not all buildings a building that is located at, you
019know, Broadway and Lincoln. Do they intersect? Yeah, they inter close. Anyway, that that neck of town is different than one that is at at Ridge and 13th, right? Those are two different uh sets of challenges and and all sorts of factors. So, um, it's not as easy as just saying, well, here's the number. That's what we're going to do. But I do think the standardization is is what we've what we're what we're trying to get closer to as we work forward. So, thank you. Perfect. Okay. Well, I'm going to get my laptop back up while I'm speaking. Um, but we kind of went over those who are those at risk students. And so this is actually defined in statute um which students qualify as um identified as at risk having at risk criteria. So not
020working on academic grade level um not meeting necessary requirements for promotion to the next level or um graduation as an example. um insufficient mastery of skills, been retained, high rate of absenteeism, repeated suspensions, so behavior incidences, homeless or migrant students, English language learners, social emotional needs that cause the student to be unsuccessful in school, dyslexia, um and foster care or d uh students receiving services from DCF are all examples of um statute that defines what an atrisisk student is. And so I want to go to the next slide to show you what that means for Witchaw public schools. Um so in 2023 24 we had 80.6% of our students identified with one or more of those specific atrisisk criteria. Students who qualify for free and reduced lunch was 79.8%. That's why a lot of times
021um state funding mechanisms use that free that free lunch percentage because in general those equate very well to students that have and face additional barriers to their success in schools. For Witchaw public schools, the barriers to success are great. 80.6% of our students face at least one if not more. So, um I I thought that was helpful in context of um reviewing our building needs assessments. there are a lot of barriers to address and we can't address them all in a year where we're still recovering from a budget deficit. So, um but we're going to get into the details of uh what we have been able to accomplish this year. Um but I'm going to kind of go over some summary details of um what principles have told us on some of the higher arching
022categories that are encompassed in this building needs assessment. So, um, this year I was able to do a comparison between last year's data and this year's data just to give you some context of how things are moving. Um, and so the first one we're going to go over is curriculum needs. So 10% of buildings last year said curriculum is not appropriate or adequate. That did not change much this year. 11% of buildings said it's not appropriate or adequate. So we're doing pretty good on um, curriculum, I would say. Um, moving into technology. Okay, this one I specifically wanted to call out because this is kind of the first full year I believe of a newer adopted tech plan. Um, we did use ESSER funds to uh infuse our system with onetoone technology as we've hit
023that esser cliff and we've had to roll back some spending. Onetoone technology for every grade level is not something that our capital outlay fund can sustain. And so we're seeing that in our building needs assessment data. Last year, 16% of buildings said technology um was not appropriate. That number has grown significantly this year to 35%. Um and anecdotally, I think it's putting equating the reasons why we may be seeing that number growing um are apparent. We do not have enough funds in capital outlay to support all of the needs for technology that our buildings um believe that they want. So, moving to staffing. This is another one that has been fairly consistent through the years. Um, so this is going back to having adequate personal personnel and staff uh to meet the needs of the
024school and the needs of students. Essentially saying that all of our teachers are highly qualified, highly qualified and licensed. Um, some of this has to do with vacancies in buildings. We've got a a number of special education teaching vacancies. And so when buildings have one teacher vacancy during the year, it does feel like their staffing is not adequate. And so that's why you see this number between 33 to 34% over the last two years. Um when vacancies are at play, that causes barriers to success because you've got staff covering, you've got a long-term substitute supporting a classroom. Um we, you know, made headway with filling a lot of our vacancies in in closing schools. We still have vacancies for par educators, special education teachers and all these things need to be filled for our principles
025to to feel that the the bud budgeted positions that they have um are are making an impact. So um we're going to jump into facilities needs and I don't think this will come as to a surprise to any of us. Um and so as we've kind of done some work to rightsize schools, the first question on facilities needs, is there adequate space in your building? um only 17% last year said no that there's not adequate space. Uh that number is growing a little bit. Um and some of that has to do with the fact that we've right sized some classrooms, rightsized some schools. So 30% uh this year said there's not adequate space in their building. We're going to jump to the next facilities question which I think tells the story of 2025. Um this
026question is are there necessary repairs and adjustments that need to be made? We thought this number was high last year with 58% of buildings reporting that they have repairs that are needed in their buildings in order to remove barriers for their students to achieve success. This year it's almost 80%. 78% of our buildings are are telling us that they need repairs um and they need support in terms of facilities. So this number has another one that's grown significantly um just since last year. We do our best to summarize this. These building needs assessments are very detailed and so as you lay your eyes on them, there's a lot of information um and principles were very thorough this year. So I'd like to take an opportunity to thank them for their hard work. Um this is
027a very value added task for us and it tells us a lot of information. We do the best we can to summarize a very high level overview of um some of the weeds of those building needs assessments. And so these are these are some of the kind of canned responses that we give for um what are the barriers that are existing. So um I've put them in order on this slide from lowest to highest in terms of the number of buildings that stated that that particular item was a barrier. And I'm just going to jump down to the the bottom couple um where more than half of buildings reached out to say this is a um this is a barrier that that we need to overcome. So child study team ratios is something we hear
028every single year. This year 42 out of 83 of our buildings said that they need more child study team support. Um child study team if you recall is the the counselor, social worker, psychologist in a school that are providing an array of um student supports for our kids. Paraprofessional training um any we we've got high turnover at the parah educator rank. So training for paras is important. parent and community involvement. 55 out of 83 of our schools reported that parent and community involvement is a barrier to achieving success. And then attendance and truency, the number one response. Um, and that's been consistent for the last several years. Getting kids to school on time, you know, butts and seats for classes is the number one barrier uh to being able to teach them. If we're they're
029not in their seat, we cannot teach. And so it's no no surprise that 74 of our principles said this is a barrier. We've also done our best to summarize um the how how principles and building leadership teams have recommended we overcome those barriers. The number one response um again not a surprise is teacher and staff recruitment and retention. And this is something that the board has always made a priority through the negotiations process and uh making sure that we are passing along as much um compensation to our uh our employees as possible. But many many schools said retaining staff, paying staff um especially those more challenging, hard to fill jobs like special education, ESOL, and intervention um were top of the list for things that we could do to overcome barriers. mental health and social
030emotional needs. That kind of goes back to the child study team. Um there's many barriers in our schools today and overcoming some of those those behavior needs. Um I'm sure you guys hear about behavior needs in schools frequently. And so having resources to address those needs instead of always having to grab a principal. And that's what some of our smaller elementary schools who don't have an AP. Um we have many two section elementary schools. If you have a two section elementary school and a student is exhibiting behavior, your principal is is dealing with behaviors all day. They're not doing instructional leadership, right? And so when we think about uh the efficiency and the impact of a small school versus a school that has an AP, has a full-time CST team, um it's definitely different in
031terms of how much support we can put in each one of our buildings. um parent involvement and and support. Again, that was the the second highest item that principles identified as a barrier to success. And so getting parents and communities involved in our schools is something we could do to overcome our barriers and attendance issues. Chronic absenteeism and tardiness are frequently mentioned as well through um your building needs assessments. So those are words I'm sure you will pull out in your research. Um and overcoming attendance issues is challenging. We just got to get kids to school. So, um, at this time I'm going to turn it over to my colleague who's going to jump into some state assessment data, which is kind of the the next piece of reviewing building needs assessments. But I'd like
032to pause here just to see if there's any additional questions on the information so far. Okay, great. One thing I want to throw in there, um, we have a process, uh, where the team gets together to review budget requests every year and we really use this as our lens as we have these discussions about what do we decide. Obviously, there's, you know, to steal a line from a wise person, you know, we can do anything. We can't just, but we can't do everything. Um, so we make determinations about them and there was a lot of requests for something about attendance and truency, right? Whether it was a a clerk or a person or a position or something. And so we're going to pilot some things next year to to work on that because that continues
033to be an issue. Um, parent involvement and support. You know, we've we've added back a position that Wendy Johnson has been doing this year uh for parent support that will continue again next year. um this conversation we're having about community schools, that's another investment in this. So, I just want to make sure you all see that this isn't just a you know, an exercise we go through to check a box and we move on. Um it is the bureaucracy of it that's created at Topek is cumbersome. We could probably do a different almost better job if we could do it our own way, but whatever. We're going to follow the rules. Um but it isn't it is meaningful, right? That's the point. this is meaningful. Um, we hear from the buildings, we take this back,
034we look at it, and we evaluate it, and we do make decisions that align with um, what we hear from the buildings. So, I don't know if you want to say anything to that. Well, and to add, I mean, this is we hold ourselves accountable with this data as well because if it's if something if someone is making a request to add something at a building and the building didn't say it was a priority and they didn't need it, um, we're not going to add it. So it it adds a layer of accountability as well. U making sure that we're addressing our barriers, we're making thoughtful requests for how we're going to overcome those and that we're focusing on only those items. So thank you. Um to your earlier point, uh Addie, that every building
035is different. Uh and then just some additional to what uh Superintendent Beldelt is is speaking to and um that it is a process and that we do you district leadership does use this as a you know as an informer you know that it informs you on what is going on and what teachers and other staff members are are seeing that's going on in their building. When I read through some of them, um, I did see where there were buildings that literally did give the same answer as other buildings. Um, why does how does that why does that happen? I know it's easier uh to do that to just simply lift a piece. And I mean, I do it if you if something fits. It's it's what I'm thinking. It's it's easy. But I'm just saying
036um in terms of unique not uniqueness but individuality of how it is that each building is actually completing these what's the process and if site council that was the other question site councils it sounds as though are integral uh that I think I heard you say that site councils must be a part of this process that's right there are some buildings that do not have a site council so when that's the case, who is it that substitutes in for that community or building input? Um, I would I would maybe clarify. Every school has a site council. The involvement that they get on their site council may not be um to the level that we're looking for, right? Including parents and students and community members, but every school this year was required to have three site
037council visits. So they're they're still doing the things for the site councils. Um certainly I think every principal would holler looking for more community support on their their site council. Right. But I thought okay so I'm I'll find it. But there was there are buildings that say their council is not maybe it was is not engaged. So that's I mean so some site councils may only be staff, right? So, you've got building staff or students, parents, um they may be looking for more parents and students and community members. Um if they're not able to find the participation, they still have a site council. It's just maybe more limited feedback with staff. I um so I'll take a minute because I think you had another question in there about um just the process of how they
038fill these out. Right. So, every principal does this individually. They're welcome to collaborate in groups to um to come up with some of the barriers and how they might overcome those. But if you go back to um the summaries that we have on the barriers that exist, there are four. You're going to hear the same things repeated over and over because most of our schools are identifying the same the same top four things, right? CST, paraprofessional training, truency, and parent and community involvement. So, hearing those themes ring across most of your building needs assessments is not surprising. Yes. Um, and I would anticipate seeing some of the same language. And then the actual form itself, parts of it are pre-populated or like drop down classes. That's right. So, so they're options, right? Right. Got it.
039Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes more sense than those kind of big long narratives that are in there. That would be what they actually type in. Got it. And that probably won't be exact, but yeah, if you see overlap, it's because they're options. Okay, very good. The most important part really where a lot of this information is coming from section nine under other data. So that'll be the last the last questions that are I read through the majority of the buildings that I was looking at and Yeah. Right. But the other questions they are the you see a lot of overlap on that. I hope that answers your question. It did. Yeah. Okay. Good. Okay. I'm going to turn it over to Gil. Uh good afternoon everyone. I get to share with you
040a little bit about the data and the numbers around state assessment uh in this particular to meet the statute. But before I get into that, on this particular slide and on the screen is the performance level descriptors, which is hot off the presses. It it was just voted on by the Kansas State Board of Education last week. Um that this will be tied into the 2025, the spring of 2025, which is the one we just finished the state assessments, even though the state assessments have changed a little bit, just like Kelly said earlier, and I'll kind of describe that here as well. So, members of the Kansas State Board of Education approved new performance level descriptors for the revised 2025 state assessments during their May meeting last week. This provides clarity on what the state
041assessment will actually measure in the future. The revised performance level descript descriptors were developed and reviewed by Kansas experts and educators over the past year. So these performance level descriptors will provide a foundation for setting cut scores that identify the level of proficiency students achieve on the assessments. The current descriptors which were originally developed in 2015 emphasize the students college and career readiness. The updated descriptors were clearly will clearly reflect the assessment measures the students ability to demonstrate their knowledge and skills of grade level content or grade level standards. So the new assessment uh the one we just finished up the 2025 assessments have new test items and is shorter is kind of the difference between what it has been in the past. uh the changes are meant to lead to a better testing experience
042and updating these tests. The performance level descriptors and the cut scores are also required by the US Department of Education. So during the state board's July meeting, members will be presented with recommended cut scores developed by 140 or around 140 Kansas educators in preparation for a final vote in August. So we'll know a little bit more of what those cut scores will be uh for the future as we go through. So that was just a little bit about the new performance level descriptors as well as some of the changes to the state assessment. And I do see Melody has a question. Yes. And so, um, Gil, how do the cut scores relate? And how can that how might that change outcomes in terms of these actual performance levels that are assessed? Well, dependent on I
043guess that 140 group that will be getting together to determine what those cut scores. if right now if you score 300 for example on the state assessment you get a level three and there's different cut scores. So depending on uh where uh students scored this year on the 2025 they will take the summer to determine where those cut scores are. So it may not be a 300, it may stay the same. Who knows? It may change. It may be a 280. It may be a 310. Um so I'm sure they're going to have some work cut out to determine where that is which could then eventually determine where they fall in level one, two, three, or four. that may change from the past state assessment. So that that could occur uh if that's what the
044team or the committee uh determines during their summertime when they're looking at cut score changes. And so do they look at median scores? Do they look at um what do you not do they look at where it's there are multiples of this type of answer? How do they how do they get to the point where they're going to change that cut score? Those are very good questions and I don't at this time have the answers to how they're going to look specifically at that whether it's a median or are they going to determine it by looking at everybody's scores and determine where those levels are at afterwards? I just don't have that information at this time. Understand? Thank you. Yeah. All right, let's get into the numbers. Um on the next slide or on the
045screen you see the district state assessment scores and you have seen this uh in the past as well um since our the last time we've shared this was the 20 spring of 24 state assessments our current 2025 ones we do not have that those scores yet which won't come out till the fall of next school year. So you can see I we have about four different years worth of data starting with the 2021 and I and that's in red in particular and what you're looking at the top table is the reading or ELA state assessment the bottom table is the math uh by each of those levels and in 2021 if you remember that was the year that students came back into remote learning. Um so we had just a few dependent on uh if
046the if their needs were needed to be met they would they could come in and towards the end of the school year uh we had to have students in person to take the state assessment. So that one the reason why it's in red is not all students participated in the state assessment that particular year. So just wanted to highlight that in particular. As you move down to the 20 2122, the 22 23 and the 23 24, you can see the progression or the progress that was has been made um to mitigate learning loss uh from from our students during the pandemic and and just focusing in on the 23 24 school year. The green means we were moving in the right direction. So level one, the goal of the board was to say we want
047to reduce uh or decrease the percentage of students in level one on the reading and the math state assessment by 1% to 5% annually. In this regard, you can see our level one we reduced and it's in comparative to the previous year the 22 23 school year. So from 51.5% to 49.6% 6%. That's why it's green because we decreased the amount of students in level one, which is the right is right on track to what we want to accomplish. As we move down then to three and four, if you add levels three and four together, that determines proficiency according to to what uh people share. When you hear proficiency, that's level three and level four. Even then level three compared to 22 23 to 23 24 we went from a 14.9% in level three up
048to a 16.1% and then level four from a 3.8 to a 3.9 is why it's in green because we're moving in the right direction. So um great opportunities and and obviously we have a focus on literacy for a long time now especially with letters trainings as well as a lot of other strategies to engage kids in learning around not only the comprehension of reading but also the foundation of decoding and word recognition. So we're really seeing the progress there as well and we're looking forward to the progress being made even on this year's state assessment even though it may look a little different. Math uh you can see there's some green there as well. Uh level one we reduced. It's just not at the same rate um as our reading was. And then you can
049see in level three we actually took a little dip in math but specifically we our focus was literacy. Um, that doesn't mean we're not doing math because numeracy is important and we want to make sure that we continue to provide the knowledge and skills necessary for our teachers that are teaching the math content in order to continue to see those numbers increase just like our literacy numbers h have been moving in the right direction as well. However, uh we did reduce level one and we did increase level four which was the highest level uh in math as well. So that's kind of a little bit about our district state assessment scores. The next slide in particular is going to be our reading or ELA proficiency results, specifically comparing the 22 23 school year to the
05023 24. And I'm just paying attention to the two-year trend, the percentage point gains or losses in particular, just to share some of those highlights. Third grade reading proficiency increased by 2.4 percentage points. You can see that in the green at the very bottom for third grade. Obviously, third grade is one of our goals that the board shared, but specifically looking at decreasing level ones, but also trying to increase proficiency for our third grade readers, the young readers. But with all the work we've done with word recognition, decoding, and letters training, and the the the intentional focus on literacy, you can see it's paying off with that with a bigger jump of the 2.4 uh percentage point increase in proficiency, which is outstanding. Another highlight is our seventh grade reading proficiency increased by 2.7 percentage
051points. So our seventh graders in 2024 also increased at a higher at a higher rate. Can't really pinpoint why that one was. Uh except for just continuing to focus on on our reading and literacy. Uh but even our intervention classes may maybe there's opportunities to close the gap uh in some of the students that may not have been on grade level but in their intervention classes then they they're catching them up uh to fill those gaps. So, but most most of those are green. You see the one that's not green is the sixth grade class, and we may attribute that to the transition from fifth to sixth grade um as well, but it's only a 0.2 decrease or loss. Um but it's the only grade level that showed a a decrease. So, we're we're excited
052about where we're headed for the proficiency results as well. Next one is math. So our math results are not as green as we saw in the literacy uh but being transparent with with our our numbers. Uh we did see uh some greens in eighth grade, seventh grade, some increases in particular. So highlighting our eighth grade math proficiency. The reason why I'm I'm highlighting that one is because one of our interim goals is focused on uh decreasing the number of students in their eighth grade math assessment because we know it's important to to to pass algebra 1 in nth grade. So we want to make sure that our math is is doing well. So we're excited that at least 8th grade had a 0.9% gain which is was a focus of ours as well. Uh but
053we definitely have some work to do in some of those other grade level areas in particular. And I did want to highlight and point out too during this the 2024 state assessment our those fourth graders uh were our what we call our pandemic kindergarteners. So they're the ones and the only reason why I will always remember that because my youngest daughter is actually in that grade level that cohort that are now fifth graders that had just got their fifth fifth grade promotions and now going into middle school going into next year. But during this time it's the fourth graders. So we are paying a little bit closer attention to that particular cohort to make sure that they're not falling so much farther behind as well. So the next table that you see on the next
054slide is going to look at level one impact. So we're just looking at level one. We're not looking at proficiency in particular. Just wanted you to notice that you can see the specific uh green shown which will show you that that is a gain which means we need we want to decrease or reduce the number of students in level one from the 2223 school year to the 2324. Um some highlights there our third grade reading per uh percentage in level one decreased by 3.8 percentage points and got below the 50% mark as well. So, both of these are great milestones um as we look at our reading and literacy and how third grade is continuing to improve and show growth and progress. Another one's our 10th grade. If you notice our 10th graders, how much
055they improved by the 5.9 percentage point decrease. Um so, we were excited about that as well. But the majority, once again, the one uh grade level that showed a little dip was our sixth grade. Um, so we will continue to monitor that group as well to make sure and in hopes that as they continue to move through seventh and eighth grade that we'll see some improvement there as well. So looking at our math level one impact uh once again a lot there's a lot more green when we look at level ones because we definitely want to get our students out of level ones. Just highlight fifth grade math percentage in level one decreased by 2.0. That was our biggest gain that we currently had. But we have our sixth grade once again and our fourth
056grade class which is the class that we want to keep continue to monitor that showed a little dip, but for the most part a lot of it was green when we look at each one of those grade levels. Uh this slide I'm going to have Addie kind of explain kind of different look at what we just looked at. We looked at numbers. This slide, this line graph kind of shows a little bit of different trend. So, I'll turn it over to Addy to kind of share what this is showing us and what they've done over the last um several years, but we've talked about ways that we can visualize this data differently to see how it can be um how impactful it can be if we just maybe put a a different um a different
057look to it. And so, I know it's really tricky to follow tables of assessment scores and um while we're trying to chat through some of this information quickly. And so what we tried to give you was a view of how much this district has turned the ship on state assessment scores over the last few years. And so that very bottom line, that was our assessment score trend level for students that were proficient on um state assessments after COVID. Uh we were going down and um not making gains. And so the to turn a ship of this size to invest in a district of over 46,000 students with over 7,000 employees, it takes a big lift. Um it takes a couple years to do it, but I hope that this visual will show you the next
058two lines up above the 2022 23 trend line. And this was after um a couple of years of esser investment into learning loss initiatives. Um it's going the right way, right? So we turned a very large ship in a very short period of time uh back in the right direction. And then if we look at the trend from last year's state assessment data and we start to project out how that's moving um not only are we starting in a higher place but our elevation is going up as well. So this was to just help show the timeline of all the challenges we've overcome by making strategic investments in things like letters um things like using funds for learning loss initiatives. We turn the ship big time and I hope that this visual helps helps to
059demonstrate that a little bit more clearly. So is this improvement and math or ELA or both? Like is this the percentage of students that are proficient or this is ELA? This one's districtwide ELA. Okay. Just to throw this out there as part of the conversation that really isn't part of the needs assessment, but it is. Um Rachel and I were just having lunch the other day with with some people and we were talking about the impact of COVID and the closing of schools and all of this stuff and um I am fortunate enough and blessed enough to to live in a literal um child development center called my house. Um, so when we closed schools in 2020, I had a 16-year-old, a 14-year-old, a 12-year-old, an 11year-old, an 8-year-old, a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a
060baby. Um, yes. Well, I was just doing it before I I spoke. Um, the impact that that shutdown had had a completely different effect depending on the developmental stage of the of the kid. And so I I think you know Gil spoke about the kindergarten class, but um specifically my uh late elementary middle school kids have just had a different upbringing and a socialization and all of that kind of stuff. I mean I I think it's easy to say this was five years ago the impact is over. But I would tell you on certain cohorts of kids that's true. The the the impact has been different. Um on other groups I think the impact is still very very real. Um, and so we're doing great work. We see these scores going up. Uh, but I
061think it's easy to to to just dismiss it because, oh, that was a while ago. Um, you know, I would speak to and I think all of us could speak to that it's real and it continues to be real. If you were 11 and 12 years old when you had a shutdown and you didn't and one of the most sensitive times for socialization in your life and you didn't get to socialize, um, that's going to continue to have a different kind of an impact on you. um hopefully not your entire life but possibly uh but definitely in your school and academic world. So um the needs assessment doesn't show you know COVID as a direct line to any of this but I do think um until these until Gills kindergarteners all the way through we'll
062probably still have some residual from that over the course of the next few years. So anyway, just wanted to lift that up because I think um we don't want to use it as an excuse, but it was, you know, a once in a generation, once in a century, you fingers crossed um sort of a situation that um is going to continue to have impact. So um I want to just add on to what Knock was asking. Is it the percentage of students percentage of students proficient overall? Yes. ELA. ELA. Got it. Thank you. And the division is at number three, level three. Um, three and four. Three and four. Well, yeah. Three and above. We want to move people out one and two, right? Like proficient in math. We could. Yeah. Okay. I'd love to
063see that. Gil, I think is the next slide you. Yes. Yeah. Nope. Capture captured this. I want to make sure I don't have my computer up so I can't see the power. Nope. You're good. Thank you, Addie. Appreciate that. Uh, our next two more slides of data and numbers that I wanted to share. And this one is going is more of a comparative district outcome data. But before I I go through, I I definitely want to focus and highlight the Witchaw public schools. This is not meant to uh focus or highlight any other district. So, you're going to see that there's not specific names up there. So, if I if you if you need or want some of that information, I can I can share that at at a different time. But for today's presentation,
064really just wanted to focus and highlight our WPS and how we are comparative to other districts or other schools, particularly in our in our district, especially with some of the information that we hear in the public uh around uh our whether we are achieving at higher levels or achieving at low levels. Just want to make it clear that our staff, teachers, support staff do a phenomenal job and we are truly grateful for the work that they do each and every day. um they are doing they're working magic in the classrooms to see the data that we currently have. Um so this will relatively speaking give list give us a little comparative on how we are or what our data looks like compared to other districts. So the so on the screen is just ELA and
065reading assess assessment scores and I have urban district A and I have an urban district B. So we'll just look at those two in particular. So, in other words, I put two districts, and none of them are going to ever look just like WPS anyway. We are the biggest district in the state of Kansas. Uh, these districts may have half of of the enrollment that we have anyway, but their demographic data is very similar. They're at risk students or the percentage of atrisisk students um are as close to us as as possible within our state. And then these are uh sorry, these are Kansas school districts. Kansas, that is correct. Yeah. All of them are Kansas school districts or Kansas schools. Um so you can you can kind of see the level one and the
066comparison there at level one. Uh you can even look at all the way down to level four. Um it's not they're very similar. And going back to Add's presentation about the barriers as as well as the percentage of students that at risk makes a difference when we look at how we how we're starting a race. Some are already have a head start and and others are just now getting off the starting blocks and it is our job to close that the opportunity and achievement gaps to make sure they catch up and that's what our wonderful staff is doing within our district to be able to do that. It does take a little longer and it does take more resources in order to educate students at that 80% mark that we talked about at risk students
067or even free and reduced students. So it takes a little bit more uh to do that and we're doing that through progress and growth. Uh not necessarily just saying because we're and we we acknowledge we're not at the achievement level we want to be but we are sure making it making it there. Um and that's what that's what we should be celebrating uh in regards to the Whistler public schools as well. uh if you now if you go from the urban district A and B to the suburban district A and B the reason why I shared those two uh in particular because we are our goal was uh that the number of students proficient would reach 50% by 2030 and I just wanted it to be to be known that there's even the more affluent
068suburban districts are not at 50% they are working hard to get there too they're working hard to get to all students uh as well but I I just wanted to make it clear that um there are few districts in our state that are already at the 50% the threes and fours now. Um so I just didn't want I didn't want people to think that oh we're so far off because we're not I mean we're we're headed in the direction we want to be where those suburban district A and B are but they're not even at the 50%. But I'm sure they're they're working their tails off too to get to that particular level. But I just wanted to show now I don't want to mislead you either. There are some districts in our state that
069are at 50% or above. There are a few that that are there, but this is an example of those that are still working on it as well. Gil, I can really appreciate the detail that you've shared here. this. I appreciate the comparatives because uh it just really does place in well it gives me a um a better understanding and respect for how hard we're working in order to condense and or reduce the the gap and to get to at least to that 50%. Um there are some reasons why we are where we are. Um we've talked about them. The barriers, the demographics that our buildings have. Um how does how do how does that compare to let's take the suburban versus the urban? But how does it how is it in comparison the type of
070student that we um educate when you compare to the suburban and I am talking about uh those students that have disabilities, those students that may be in uh need some ESOL um services, uh those students that are free and reduced lunch. What's is there what is the comparison? I I would just say I don't have the exact numbers, but they would be they would be reduced in in their percentage of students that are in special education reduced for ELLL English language learners and they would probably lower in the total uh free and reduce category as well. So if we're at 80%, I'm just making this up because I would have to go back and look at theirs, but they could be in the 30% as an entire district compar comparative to our 80%. They may
071have we were at 80% as Addie showed for at risk factors. They could be down as low as 20% of one or more at risk factors. Um but we can look into that too but it's significantly lower that these suburban districts uh e the ones on the screen but also across the state do not have the higher the high numbers of at risk criteria that we have for our students here in the Witchaw public schools which is which intensifies um how we teach correct whom we're teaching and um and and so it does cost us more for one yes it does you know there are just so many factors and variables that come into play that no one wants to listen to when they're looking at the scores when they're just straight, you know, looking
072at, you know, the scores that are in front of them. They don't factor, they don't want to factor any of that in. Correct. They're saying apples and apples and we know that it's not just apples and oranges, but it's like mangoes. Yeah. And apples. So, that that's correct. and we're sitting about 20% I believe 20% ELLL and 20% students with disabilities I believe is where we're at or at least very close to that which is which is higher than some of these suburban districts as well. I'd be curious about the uh like the WPS comparison to like just the uh urban district average, not just like A and B, but like urban districts like say like CD and I'm also curious um does the Council of Great City Schools like do they do any um
073comparisons when it comes to proficiency scores because I can imagine like the standards are very different state-to-state, but yeah, the it's a good question. the the only real tool we have to do that comparison is the NAPE test which is is somewhat minimal as far as the the sample size per state. Um I'm also not sure what the status of that is at the federal level because um that'll that whole department got cut. So I don't know if the Nate test will continue but that that's really the best way to measure that. And we do have um I'm trying to think of it as that or SAT but yeah the the council provides a annual report to see where you stack up with everybody else there that um I would have to dig but we
074could find that for you guys. I think it is interesting. Yeah the uh sorry last thing. Yeah, the suburban numbers don't um surprise me. Again, not not an excuse, but I think just um uh like you know on soio economic status and class and just uh level of family um and parental involved huge predictors of you know quoteunquote academic um achievement doesn't surprise me the uh differences if you will between you know suburban district A and B compared to WPS. But again not not an excuse but again something that um uh we have to be very mindful and cognizant of addressing. Thank you, Knock. This next slide is really comparing our WPS elementary, this is ELA and reading as well. Uh so this is all WPS elementaryaries data. U comparative to some private parochial uh
075elementary school A, a private parochial elementary school B. Um and and the reason why this this is important is because this is all tied into schools that mirror our demographic or are the at risk criteria. There are private and parochial schools that are very high above 50% proficiency. Um and you can find them across the border all over Kansas. But there are some private and parochial schools like the ones that are on the screen that that have high numbers in level one or very comparative to what we have. Why? because they have the same demographic depending on where that school is and who they're serving the high percentage of students that have at risk indicators. So people want to just lump it all into um private and parochial which if you look at as an
076entire district yes they would be extremely high but if you dig down deeper you would see that some some of the demographic makeup that is similar to ours and our scores are very similar. So Stan and I'm sorry with that previous slide and this slide what is the difference between A and B just different different schools like uh for this one suburban was district A there was a suburban district A versus a suburban district B two different districts and oh okay so you just so A stands for you didn't group A you just picked a I just picked a a school district state that okay that was sim as similar as you could get to us correct on demographics and then you and then you took another one. I didn't know whether A was a
077larger private school than B. Okay. No, they're they're they're obviously these school and these are individual schools on this particular slide. So these are very small 100 to 200 enrollment that you'll see for this particular school. Okay. I just want to make sure now if I looked at other schools that were in a more fluent area, their their test scores would be different. I'm trying to show a trend in regards to depending on who you're serving matters. Yeah. And it and it's different type of teaching, different type of resources and different and maybe a longer time to close those gaps as needed. So So Gail, I can help with uh Melody's question from earlier. Um I was doing some of the digging while you were talking. So just for example, the suburban district B um
078that in the 2024 you add the threes and fours together. So there 39% proficient. Um we were about at 19 or 20% of proficient. Um that year this year they're at 28% poverty. So 28% free and reduced lunches where we're about 80 and 3% of their student population is uh English language learners where ours is 17 12 21 21. So again to the point not disparaging they're doing great work. Um but uh those are different challenges, right? So just wanted to point out those particular areas just to put just a relative comparison. Um kind of help sometimes when you can compare where we are to to others across our state. Okay. So I'm going to take it back over from here. We've just given you a lot of data. data from your building needs assessments,
079data from state assessment scores. And so what we're going to do for the rest of our time together today is just review the three questions that we have to answer as part of our budget process. We're not going to answer them today, but we're going to review them. Um so the first question is, what barriers must be overcome to have all students achieve proficiency above level two? Um the table on this slide are responses that we um gathered about three years ago and we haven't changed them substantially. What I will be sending each of you with today is this worksheet as well as some blank spaces. So you can let me know which ones you believe are still barriers in our district. Um but also give you the opportunity to add or clarify any barriers
080that you believe may have presented themselves over the last three years as well. Um, these are pretty broad categories and so I want to make sure that we are able to workshop it in some capacity to make sure that every everything that you all believe is a barrier in our district, we have the option to capture that and to report this back for our district's response on what barriers must be overcome. So I will send you with that worksheet today and I'll need it back for July so we can um finally publish all of our uh BOE responses to these questions. The second question is what budget actions, recommendations or reallocation should be taken to address and remove these barriers. So I want to um the the difference between what actions should be taken and
081what actions can be taken are two very different things. Um and that goes back to the the wise Susan Willis's uh phrase of we can do anything with a billion dollar budget but we can't do everything. Um, and that is still true. We we have the opportunity to impact kids and put services and programs in place that no other district has the opportunity to just because of the size of our budget. Um, but we can't do it all in a year of a um remaining budget deficit. Um, we can't address every single one of the budget actions that principles indicated they would need in order to overcome their barriers. But we can start. And so what I've provided to you on the slide are some of the budget actions that we were able to take
082this year um to start to get some of those uh requests from buildings into place. So recruitment and retention of highly qualified staff um that was the number one barrier to overcome addressed by principles. You'll cons continue to see that our largest investment every single year is through our wage package with our unions. Um and so that's something that we prioritized again for fiscal year 26. Um we were able to add some counselor, social worker, psychologist, and behavior interventionist positions. Um making some part-time positions full-time where possible, looking at reallocations to give certain schools um a full-time person by adding someone somewhere else. And so we were able to make a number of those changes to get more CST in our buildings, which was our number one request from from principles. Um we are also
083uh trying to pilot some community school work, working on that attendance and truency issue, working on that parent and community involvement um barrier. So we'll be piloting some things out and trying to come up with a framework um that we believe is that we're able to implement with fidelity um that will work that has proven success. And so that's work that will take place in the next fiscal year as we come up with solutions to addressing those two barriers which are are very difficult to um to conceptualize. Every school is different and their needs are different and unique and so coming up with a pilot that will support all of our programs and our students and our families is challenging, but it's work that we'll be doing next year. Okay, we'll move on to question
084three and I will turn this one back over to Gil. Thank you. Question three. if budget actions are implemented, estimate the amount of time it will take for all students to achieve proficiency above level two. So, just to kind of recap what the board has shared in the past, that's that's kind of bullet point number one there. And then we have some recommendations and new goals for number two. So, I'm going to kind of tie those two together. Uh but response to bullet point number one a in particular last year we shared the district goal would be 50% of students performing at proficiency which is levels three and four by 2030. We also knew that we would have three years of data to look at this particular trend then re-evaluate if needed. So we wanted
085to uh make it a point to re-evaluate is the trend that we're looking at is it time for us to look at a more realistic attainable type of goal because are we going to reach to 50%. So that's what I wanted to talk about here briefly. So in the spring of 2022 after and we've we saw all this data already spring of 2022 we had 17.9% proficient that's threes and fours of our students. In the spring of 2023, we had 18.7% proficient, which was a 0.8 percentage point increase. It was moving in the right direction, but it was it was a small increase. The following year in spring of 2024, which was basically what we just looked at the last year that we have state assessment scores, we had a 20% proficient, which was a
0861.3 percentage point increase. So just to share that we started with 08 we jumped even a to a bigger rate of increase to a 1.3 but if we if we were to try to stay at a 1.5 or even a 2% increase we wouldn't hit the 50% by uh 2030. We would need a 5% increase every single year. Even with this new change, new cut scores and all that. We would need a 5% increase every single year to get to that 2030. So, we're recommending, which is in number two, uh the recommendation would be that the district goal is 32% of students performing at levels three and four by 2030. This would be a 2% increase each year to get to that goal by 2030. That's just a recommendation. Obviously, there could be discussion and
087I know Add's going to share next steps uh because you may be thinking, well, we want some other other thoughts as well, which is completely okay. we just brought the realistic aspect of the goal. Um so we're not just saying that we're going to get to 50% by 2030 and we're not the trend is not going to get us there u per per year. Uh we also don't know what the new state assessment cut scores are. So once we get that data, it may tell us a little bit more too on what what we may be able to look at in regards to an increase or goal in particular. So that was kind of tying in 1 A and 2 A. Now I'm going to jump into 1B and 2B that on the screen. Uh
088so the response to bullet point 1B. The board set a goal to decrease the percentage of students scoring a one from 51.4% in 23 to 49.4% on third grade reading state assessment by spring of 2025. Uh we met this goal in our 2024 reading state assessment results. We actually decreased the percentage of students scoring a one on third grade reading by 3.8 percentage points from 51.4% to 47.6% when our specific goal was to get to 49.4%. So we actually exceeded uh the goal that that the board had set for uh decreasing students in level one on the third grade reading which is outstanding. So once again applauding our staff for doing great work. So, the new goal that we're wanting is to start now at the 47.6%. Since we beat the 49.4%. So, we want
089to start at 47 with a uh 3% a 3 percentage point decrease from 47.6 to 44.6 on the spring 2025, which is the one we just took. So, we're hoping to see that we'll continue with decreasing uh the percentage of students in level one on third grade reading state assessment. So, that kind of explains the goals that the board had set previous and to maybe some new looking at some new goals or some new recommendations uh moving into the new uh building needs assessment moving into the future. Okay. So to wrap us up, I just want to touch base on what our next steps are in this process before we open it back up for questions on um some of these responses we have to give as part of the building needs assessments process. Um
090so I want to make sure each of you has time to read over your building needs assessments thoroughly in order to um answer questions one of what barriers exist and to properly evaluate what budget actions need to be taken. Um and so we'll take the next couple of months to the next month and a half to review that information. Um, I will give you a worksheet to go through and indicate barriers uh based on that table we reviewed previously and add any additional ones that you believe we should list on behalf of Witchaw Public Schools and I will need those responses back from each of you by July 7th. Uh, the board meeting on July 7th. Um, we will review the the district administrative administration recommendation for the responses to question three. So, two new
091goals were provided to you today um to set a more realistic goal by what we can achieve uh by 2030 as well as establish a new interim goal for third grade uh ELA reading assessments. Um and we'll work to approve final responses to these questions by our August 4th board of education meeting. Um and Gil and I are happy to take questions and comments and discussion on these topics. Now, st um going back to your comparisons, Gil, uh between suburban school districts and private schools to us. Uh I'm going to try to inter u channel my inner knock here. Uh I probably ought to run this by him first to see how if I can word this correctly. I also wonder if there's a way to give the board a comparison between our school district
092and the school districts that make who have tripled uh I think there may be even one school district that has quadrupled our effort on the investment we make into facilities. It'd be interesting to see again That's why I should have probably talked to Knock first. But, uh, is there a link between these assessment scores on districts that are not shy and are aggressive on investing in their facilities versus the districts? I think we're like one of the lowest uh on in the area on the investment in our facilities. And so that'd be interesting to see if there's any link between uh investment in facilities and test scores. So when you say investment, are you does investment equal mill levy? Are you talking about the amount? Pretty much. Yes. Unless you can think of a uh
093another item that constitutes an investment that maybe isn't beyond mill levy, but I would think that'd be primary would be the primary one. And in the second one, I just have a quick thought on whether or not when we uh put when we're trying to get a more realistic goal, uh those Julie and I were on when we first talked about 50%. And we knew it was very aggressive. We knew that was going to be very very difficult to achieve because we saw that it we saw that it was anywhere from 1% 2%. we were in order to get to 50% we were going to need 5% jumps and uh I'm not sure if we could do that but I'm wondering if we could put in there the district goal is 32% to 50%. What
094I'm saying is don't so that that way we give a range that way we could still kind of tie in to what our original goal is and then we can kind of gauge you know if we're if we hit the 32% good but if we hit 37% that's even better and with the I I don't want to completely give up on the goal of 50%. I realize it's probably not going to be by 2030, but I'm just wondering if we should maybe insert a range instead of that one specific 32. That's just kind of thinking out loud. Thank you. Thank you, Stan. Melody. Um, so actually what I want to do is just is pull out a building specifically and and ask some some questions on kind of theoretically look at how we got there.
095So let's look at Bostic and I'm just looking at their um their demographics. So, their demographics are fairly representative of our district demographics. I mean, not quite, but um certainly close. Not the free and reduced lunch. There's they're at 50 and I'm looking at I'm thinking that this has to be 2020 324. So, um, free and reduced lunch that's 50% a little over over 50%. Um, they're knocking it out of the ballpark in terms of, uh, how they're actually successful on on our on assessments and uh, and attendance versus chronic absenteeism. um just how do we model these buildings? How do we model these buildings? And I know once again, no building is the same. I mean, abs absolutely the environment's different. The culture is different. I'm not I'm not saying that, but I'm just
096saying some of the things that they're doing in this building. Kudos and hats off to everyone because I know we're working hard as a district, but I'm just pulling Bostic out as an as as just one example just to ask potentially uh how we might be able to model some of what is going on there. And and their per pupil expenditure is less than quite a few of of the uh of our other buildings. Mr. Superintendent. Sure. Yeah. I I think there's that's a complex question and a and a complex answer probably. Um multiple factors the the global nationwide data would show that one of the one of the biggest indicators of um predicted success is poverty. Right? And so there's a trend line with kids growing up in poverty, with kids struggling academically and
097and not struggling academically like you can't learn. Struggling academically you can't you may not be at this standard yet if that makes sense. It does. Um you think about our high uh English language learner population um that it takes time for them to learn the language. you're not going to be if I were to go to Cambodia, I would not be successful on any assessment right away, right? It would take me time to learn the language. Um, and our kids are no different than that. So, um, so that's a that's a factor in it. I think other specifics for that school is is a magnet. Um, so there's a an increased desire for um a certain kind of a school for those parents. um even those parents that are living in poverty or kids students
098that are living in poverty currently. Um and I do think there's something to uh good leadership, good teachers, right? We know that one of the best things we can do in any building is put a great leader in charge. That isn't to say that the buildings that struggle with their data don't have a great leader. Um but it takes a certain mentality to really build a school, drive a school forward and expect uh high outcomes from kids. Um so I think that's a lot of factors. Um I think that the controllables for us are a great leader and great teachers in front of kids. Those are the controllables. Um some of the the non-controllables are attendance. um you know the other at risk factors the ones that we see on the list those other at
099risk factors most of those are outside of our control u when a when a student shows up on our doorsteps um and so we do our best that we can with the kids that we get absolutely um and moving them forward but I think you're asking a good question and that how do you know look at success and how do we replicate success right that that's a good question to be asking how do we do that and so what's the sped population at I know it's a magnet but is there a sped uh population at aostic? Yes. I mean it's 16% of the students. Yeah. Okay. And there's a mixed abilities mixed abilities program there too. Okay. Which factors into that. So Okay. Yeah. just my wheels are turning, you know, just trying to to
100figure out how we can do things what's possible. And I do believe that the community school pilots that we're going to be doing, uh, thank you, Gil, will definitely um produce some some positive outcomes. I'm looking forward to it. looking forward to having that piece. Yeah, I had a very similar question, Melody, on what are we doing for looking for best practices? Are we looking at the schools that are seeing the biggest gains? They might not be performing uh at the level Bastic is necessarily, but we're seeing great gains and great strides, but not just at the building level. We celebrate teachers in their classrooms that have great progress. And so, are we looking at some of those individuals and buildings to see what are they doing to make that difference? Because I think one
101of the things that I kind of have to think about often is even though we're not where we want to be, are we heading in the right direction and those schools and classrooms that are seeing great gains, but they're still not their numbers aren't where we want them to be. That's something to be celebrated about and they're obviously doing something different than what they had previously. And so I think that should uh be highlighted and attention given to that Stan. Yeah. And I think also is just like we identified third grade reading um for success for graduation. Just like we targeted uh eighth grade math for graduation. We should be looking at this to see is there direct ties to like I'm just comparing the chronic ampism at this school versus another school. They only
102have they have 18.1 which is still seems way too high for somebody like me but yet you see another school that's at 33. Is there an identifying a piece that both what Diane and Melody are saying, is there an identifying piece that really points out? And maybe maybe it is leadership, maybe it is chronic absenteeism, maybe it is something else that we're not picking up here because this is a lot of data. Uh but are we really are we diving into identifying those markers that really make a difference? So yeah, chronic absenteeism, we have data that shows if you are not in school, if you have a high chronic absenteeism that your state assessment scores, okay, more than likely will not be where we want them to be. So we we kind of show that
103as part of our resources that we have for families that that are their child is missing a lot of school to say well their performance is going to decrease as their chronic absenteeism increases. So we do share some of that and that makes a difference. They need to be there. They need to be in school in class to learn in order to increase their own student learning. And maybe that's why on uh we instead of the wording where we say developing a community school framework to engage parents and community involvement, maybe we need to be more specific in that category of saying and this means attendance and tardiness. I and I I I will say I was at a end of year PTO meeting at one of the schools at the end of of the
104school year and I asked the general question at the very end of that PTO meeting. I said why do you feel and this is these are barriers are out of our control. I said, "Why do you feel at this PTO meeting there's three of you when there should be 20 25 of you?" The answer back to me was they were very honest and they said, "Listen, we feel we our parents feel they have played by the rules all these years. They have went to school. They have taught their kids to read at home. They've engaged. And what happens after high school, this is again out of our thing, is that even though they play by the rules, they are stuck in 14 hour $14 an hour jobs. They are still not being able to pay
105their utility bills. They're still not able to pay for child care. And they're like, okay, it wears you it wears you down. And it's like you basically end up you have followed the rules. You have done everything right that society and the school districts and the city governments have told you to do and yet you still can't get ahead. And I think that's one thing that we have to acknowledge as a school district is that there is another barrier out there that is um what is the future like for wage earning in this country? And if it is poor, there's going to be a less willingness to dive in to making sure your kids's there every single day because they're beginning to think what does it matter and we need to start talking aloud about
106those types of issues. I'm glad you said that, Steve, because I do think um you know, we we talk about attendance and accountability on the parent end. There's accountability on our end, too. And that accountability, if we're going to say future ready, that they really are future ready, right? They're ready for the future. And for me, in a most foundational way, and I believe we all believe this, um this is democracy. This is the American dream. And I know that sounds very high flulutin, but our kids, if four out of five of our kids need us to help them get a a good quality of life, then that that's a huge responsibility for us to to pro provide that and prepare them in a way. Um, and I don't think the future ready centers are
107the beall endall for everything, but I think that is one route um, where you can systematically and directly get into a pipeline to a $23 hour job at 18 years old if that's what you want to do. So, um, we've got a lot I talked at the last board meeting about a lot of our kids that are going to college and super successful and and we need to continue that work too and have that high level of rigor. that for that student that doesn't want that route, we have to do better than a minimum wage, right? We have to do better than that. And and we can I think we've proven that we can. We need to continue to build. Yeah. And our future ready centers, uh I know we have u real concrete examples
108we can give the students saying that if you think about this field, if you're interested in this field, here's what you can expect to earn hourly or yearly. And I think that is something that we need to keep stressing as well. Oh, not Yeah, thinking of all the uh board presentations uh this year, this I would say has been my favorite. Um so, thank you Gil and Addie for that. I especially um appreciate the comparisons um uh year to year, but especially uh school district to school district or um entity uh to entity. I really appreciate um all the sentiments and rem remarks uh my colleagues have made. I I think it it in many ways reminds me of like, you know, the district has a strategic plan, but there's also um this broader conversation,
109you know, what does our community's uh quoteunquote strategic plan look like? I think that's where u where the community schools framework can come in is in terms of like thinking long term um you know for students that graduate from W public schools like hey what's a percentage of them that are making living wages what's the percentage of them that are not living paycheck to paycheck on rent or um um you know dealing with economic inequality and economic uh insecurity and you know what's a percentage of our students that are civically engaged not just in the sense of voting but especially giving back to our schools, giving back to our uh community and being involved in PTAs, being involved in site councils, uh being involved in like just you know uh whatever advisory um functions and
110roles uh that we have. Um I guess the uh um the only other thing I want to elevate of course um so recruitment and retention of highly qualified staff through wages and raises um adding counselors, social workers, psychologists and behavior intervention positions. So investing in our CSTs and our behavioral support infrastructure and then developing a community schools framework to engage parents in community involvement in schools. And of course like there's not a silver bullet uh to how do we improve academic achievement, academic outcomes, lifelong success. But I do want to elevate uh this particular study. Um high dosage tutoring is uniquely effective in helping students learn, including when implemented at scale. A recent analysis by University of Virginia and Brown University analyzed nearly 300 randomized control trials and found that large scale tutoring programs yielded
111months of additional student learning per year. Uh though effectiveness diminished as program scale beyond a thousand students. Even then large scale tutoring results were stronger than educational interventions like summer school class size reduction and extended school days. So again that's the uh especially like as we're um crafting hey like based on this building that's needs assessment what's a response I do want to elevate the importance of high dosage uh tutoring especially um high dosage tutoring that you know can utilize uh AI in a responsible uh way the last question I had was for u uh Kelly so earlier you mentioned that u there's a lot of bureaucratic obstacles when it comes to the uh building needs assessments and I guess my question is like hey if u if school districts did have more uh control
112and oversight or just like more decision-m like what would u like a perfect building needs assessment process look like? I don't know if I could say perfect. One of the things that we've noticed on this one, um, and we we may be able to just make this decision, this change ourselves, but you can see the the pie charts about the facilities and the pie charts about the academics, and they're really two different discussions. And at times we get um, you know, we'll say, well, what do you need, principal? And the principal will say, well, I need a a cafeteria that I don't have to share as a gymnasium. Okay, we know you need that, but that that isn't the barrier to your state assessment scores going, right? that we understand that's a need, but that
113isn't the need. So, do we have a separate needs assessment for this facilities conversation? Um, and and and the space space in the school, uh, hallway size, playground acreage, like all of these other things that we don't always necessarily dig into maybe that hap, and I'm making this up, not perfect, but just like that happens in the fall and then in the spring we talk about now academic needs. What about these academic needs, right? um that taking taking two different stabs at it, so to speak, might make more sense than putting them all together. But these these questions are very prescriptive, right? And we know that if we, you know, don't cross a tea that we'll end up on a on a website somewhere. So, we we want to make sure we're following the rules.
114Uh but at the same time, um the people that made those rules weren't users of the system, right? They were not schoolboard members. they were not uh schoolboard school employees that created this structure. So um we're making it work as best we can. Um the questions are very prescriptive. The process is very prescriptive. It's not bad. This is what we need to be doing, right? And I appreciate your comment about the good conversation. This is this is the conversation we we should be having consistently as a district and as a school board. Um but does it need to follow this timeline and these rules and these set parameters? um that that would be where we could free up maybe some latitude on it. But yeah, I don't know if you guys have thoughts on it,
115too. But timing is clunky, right? We're reviewing with you today 23 24 state assessment data to plan for our 2526 budget. True. So, um the the timeline and tying it to the adoption of a budget is is funky. So, um, we we could be doing this in the fall when we have 2025 state assessment data, but and we couldn't, um, you know, hold our budget on the line for it. So, but this work is tremendously valuable. I hope our administrators and any building leadership team member, any site council member, um, acknowledges that their feedback and their input does go to a greater good. It does give us great data to use and work off of and make decisions off of. So, it is valuable. We could do it in a different way. we could stand
116to not have so many required assessments. Um we spent a lot of time doing kind of various needs assessments for different segments of our business uh over the course of the year and so trying to come up with a better process. It's something we could do um true but it takes time and people to do that. So but this is a it's a valuable process. It's just a little funky on the timeline. So one of the things I saw repeatedly in the needs assessments was training for paras and I don't see that on some of the budget actions that we can take. So is there a plan to have more professional development training for our paras that work with students day in and day out? I don't know the answer to that off the top
117of my head. I know we have talked about that but since it's been highlighted we'll definitely continue to have the conversations to allow because there there's been a lot of conversation especially at district in services to provide professional learning for our paras and what that would look like. So we can definitely focus on that moving forward. We we did do more we did with our funds we did a tremendous amount of par educator training. We had summits over the summertime when they were off calendar. Um it's tricky because we only have so many working days with PAR educators and those days are very very valuable to building level and district level inservices. Um and so adding training certainly is something we're always trying to work into a paras calendar. Um we used er funds to
118do it. It was something that ended with er funds. We have a lot of paras. We have like 1300 paras between special education ESOL reged in service all the things. Um a lot of paras to educate. So, it's it's certainly challenging and we do do it. They do get training. Um, but the number of days that we have are limited and the cost of adding it over a non-count contract day is expensive. You know, most of our budget goes to staffing and adding more staffing days is a is a big lift. It's just one of the things that I've seen repeatedly. Kelly, you mentioned having pilot programs for chronic absentee. I know we did a pilot program uh the last two years with a digital version of that. So could you explain are we expanding
119that or is there something different that we're adding? I have not talked to anyone about expanding it. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know either. Okay. Yeah. We we have thought we have well Rob has mentioned um using some of our internal mechanisms to be able to do that same thing um through co-pilot or AI or synergy or whatever. Um the the budget requests though were more specifically for human beings. So a person to do the work of either calling or porch visits or navigating with families. And we do this in pockets. We do it some we work with PAO and other groups to do it also. Um but to to create more of maybe a systematic job description of okay here is an area that has high chronic absenteeism or you've
120you'll see at the January meeting we'll do an attendance report and we've been using the average daily attendance numbers um because there it's a little different way of looking at it than the chronic absenteeism but you know what are the what are the buildings that are struggling the most with it and could we put a person there um whether that's office clerical something like that some sort of support human being. Um that seems there was a lot of asks for that if I recall a lot. Um so that that's the pilot we were thinking of is could we could we try that with four or five people add a couple positions see if it does you know turn turn the the the number down it has an impact on that system. So um we're we're
121in the process of I don't even know where that stands but we're in the process of working on that. So I'm not sure about the everyday labs and if we'll continue that or if we'll I expand that or whatever. I can get back to you on that. Okay. So Okay. Very good. And I'll look at I know we we have identified some schools to start the pilot for community schools work. So beginning stages. So, if we're going to get the state assessment data in October time frame, would it be a reasonable request to revisit this again with the updated information and then you guys can give us an update on some of the changes? We we have not voted on this yet, so we're not we don't have the established changes that we're making, but
122if we have a an update in November, could we have an update on exact changes that were made and maybe we would have some data from August to November? Yeah. October to see are we seeing a change in attendance rate, are we seeing a change in chronic absentee? Just to get some preliminary results back on that and then we can have an update on the state assessment data. Can we do that? We don't have to do a full-on building needs assessment, but update on some changes. We can definitely do that. Okay, Latona, did you got grab that? Put that on. I'm also hoping that the state assessment scores will come in even earlier than October, but we're just we can look at the calendar and probably the October, November time frame would probably be the
123best. That way we can get some attendance data in there. It's a very into the calendar year. also work. Yeah, we'll we'll look at the calendar and and figure out what best we can do for that. So, and one one thing to clarify, right, we make budget changes and some of the things we discussed today were actual budget changes that are going into effect on the budget that you'll be adopting in August, September. Our budget changes every day, every single day. Um we reviewed over 300 budget requests um just a couple of weeks ago in order to get this data ready for you all. We are doing budget changes, staffing changes, um increases to contracts every single day. And so stopping, you know, capturing all the changes that have gone in at a point in
124time, we let another month go on and there's been there's already been a tremendous amount of effort put into something else. And so the budget piece is like a snapshot. I just like to clarify that's a snapshot. the work being done to address and make changes happens every single day. So yeah, and I appreciate that reminder. I think sometimes when we talk about things happening in two, three, four, and five years, then we kind of forget about it. And every year it's like, oh, and in five years from now and in the next year and five years from now, and so the more we can go back and give the board and the public an update on here's some changes that we're actually making because you guys as staff know those changes inside and out,
125uh, the rest of the public doesn't always know that. And so that's that's really my intention is to just give a give a little snapshot but keep reminding everybody that the budget changes uh that is a fluid process especially with the district this size and so I appreciate the reminder but uh the more we can update the public on exactly what is what is happening and what the changes are that we're doing to address the needs especially when we don't see significant changes in the scores. Um, I don't want people to get discouraged over time with that. Uh, and so the more that they see we're responsive to the needs, then um, hopefully that will be better for us. So, thank you. Okay. Uh, any other questions from the board. Okay, seeing no further questions,
126Addie Gil, thank you very much for your presentation today. Uh we appreciate the hard work that went into this and to all the other staff members that put in a significant amount of time to give us this information and to get us to this point. We appreciate that. Do you have anything else? Okay, nothing further. I'll accept a motion for adjournment. Second. Motion made by Stan, seconded by Melody. All in favor, raise your hand. Motion passes 6. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.