001e States stands jice good evening and welcome to the April 88th um Dorchester District 2 school board meeting at this time I would like an approval of the consent agenda so mooved motion made by Mr Guthrie do I have a second seconded by Miss Powell any discussion okay hearing none we will call for the vote should be it's not what you say yes it is okay yes there it goes a little bit of a delay thank you for your patience all right and the motion carries seven in favor okay and we will move directly into our district highlights at this time good evening board chair Dr Wimberly superintendent Dr Robbins and board members at this time I turn the podium over to the following individuals to present the board highlights Miss gilia Mercer Brown and
002Matthew Moshe good evening the National Merit Scholarship program is an academic scholarship competition for recognition and University scholarships the program is managed by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation and uses the PSAT nmsqt as the qualifying test for entry into each year's competition each year about 1.6 million students from around 22,000 high schools in enter the National Merit Scholarship competition when they take the PSAT nmsqt approximately 50,000 semifinalists are chosen based on their PSAT score index to continue to the competition they represent the top 5% of scores in their state semi-finalists complete a lengthy application and their school submit academic recommendations 15,000 semi finalists Nationwide are ultimately selected for the National Merit Scholarship finalists finalists make up the pool who are considered for scholarship funds that are offered by their colleges and business partners of the
003National Merit Scholarship Corporation please join me in congratulating the dd2 National Merit Scholarship finalist for this year from Ashley Rich High School Nathaniel burus and Benjamin Perez from Somerville High High School Ella [Applause] ree Ella Reese once again congratulations to our National Merit Scholarship recipients right Dr Robbins Board of Trustees I'm proud to share some exciting news happening within the dd2 literacy Community Windsor Hill Arts Infused Elementary School's fourth grade ELA read 180 teacher Miss Tamar Robinson is being honored with the hmh national 180 award for outstanding achievement in literacy instruction in readed 180 for those of you who are not familiar with the program read 180 is a true Blended learning model model that integrates research around personalized best practices adapted technology instructional strategies based on the science of reading and scaffolded reading support
004Miss Robinson is an excellent example of every teacher on the dd2 read180 team that works hard to maintain and accelerate our District's high level of College and Career Readiness in English language arts we congratulated with this nomination her first words were but this is about the students in Miss Robinson's class it is always about the students the foundation of our class is teaching students about persevering through challenges taking ownership for Learning and being resilient she makes every day about meeting the needs of her students and their hard work shows through impressive growth in literacy proficiency this year hmh received a staggering number of nominations for the 180 Awards among the 400 National submissions a select group of only eight Elementary Educators across the country will recognize as leaders for their field by winning this award
005including Miss Robinson congratulations to dd2 is remarkable to Mayor Robinson congratulations again Mrs [Applause] Robinson and so I am super super proud of you and your accomplishment I really do believe [Applause] thats we are delighted to share the exciting news that three schools within Dorchester 2 has recently received the prestigious ramp ASA model program recognition for the national programs in their school council in departments this esteemed recognition celebrate schools committed to implementing a data informed School counseling program that aligns with the ASA National model the 2024 ramp class includes a total of 138 schools coming from 25 states in the United States with four schools hailing from South Carolina since the programs in cepon nearly 1600 schools Nationwide have earned the distinguished title of rant recognition currently South Carolina has a total of 11 schools
006with the state receiving this recognition the dedicated school counselors at ramp schools have demonstrated exceptional Effectiveness and positively impacting student achievement attendance and disciplinary matters their students St have gained invaluable learning strategies self-management skills and social competencies with significant contributions to their overall academic success we invite you to join us in extending heartfelt congratulations to the outstanding School counseling programs at Ashley Rich high school beachill elementary school and Rollings Middle School of the Arts on this National recognition please invite those School counseling departments and administrators to the front principles we would like for you all to come forward as well congratulations conratulations thank you once again congrat congratulations to these outstanding school for the ramp award and this completes our highlights for this evening if I may while they are walking back to their seats
007and um Dr wber hope hopefully you don't uh come over and slap me uh for speaking up um I do want to um congratulate so that the counseling programs that were just up here I had the opportunity to sit on um the beach Hill as well as the Ashley Ridge um advisory panels as they were going through this process and and to see what they went through I I will just say from my vantage point all of our counseling programs within Dorchester District 2 are already topnotch top in the state top in the nation and then these three schools have taken that to the next level and and what they've gone through is is truly unbelievable so I just want to say thank you for for everything you do and we see you and we
008appreciate you all right great stuff today very exciting and um next up on the agenda we have our public comments on agenda items and we have none this evening and so we will move directly into the board chairs report um and the only thing I have is to remind you all that we do have the scsba day at the capital coming up um do we have the day I think Wednesday the oh yes thank you very much um so I am not sure who all is registered for that but um if you are not there probably is still time and if you would like to attend so just as a reminder um okay and then next we have our board committee reports and first up we have our policy committee um I will hand it
009over to miss Bates yes thank thank you madam chair uh we have several policies today for second reading and several for first so I'm going to start with the policies for second reading we have policy bjr board legislative program CCB line and staff relations CF School building Administration is being recommended for deletion jic student conduct for deletion jic the rule student conduct for deletion jic student dress jic da the rule student code of conduct and Miss Graham if I may um wasn't student dress sent back to committee oh okay I just wanted to make sure we didn't send them okay okay okay well then Madam chair I would like to bring those out of committee okay all right so coming or for the second reading sure thank you so the policies for second reading coming
010from committee we would not need a second do we have any discussion or questions at this time okay hearing none we will call for the vote on that okay motion carries seven in favor thank you Miss Bates you may continue all right and then we have several for first reading however um after speaking with uh Administration it's the recommendation of the committee to send policy e back for further review so at this time I'm going to go over the rest that we will um vote on for first reading today uh that's policy ADF District Wellness CFA School principles building administrators CFC assignment and transfer of building administrators ebab hazardous materials EBC e school closings and cancellations I AE physical education and IH okay thank you Miss Bates again coming from committee we would not need
011a second do we have any discussions or questions okay hearing none if you will please cast your vote okay motion carries seven in favor thank you very much and that is all I have for tonight all right thank you next we will move to our finance committee Mr Guthrie have anything for us this evening yeah so we were able to meet uh I guess had a workshop to go over our budget uh preliminary numbers uh so definitely part going in the budget season this this year and then I guess in two weeks we have our first uh public input board Workshop um April 22nd so invite everybody to definitely be in there and and members of the public please uh we never have anybody show up so we hopefully somebody can show up this time
012and and make some some comments but and that's about it I Barbara did you have anything okay thank you very much and next we have our facilities committee report Mr Farnsworth good evening thank you madam chair uh facilities committee we will be finalizing our walkthroughs Wednesday so Wednesday morning we've got our last two walkthroughs um so moving forward after those walkthroughs um I think the intent is for the committee to come back together and so then we will we will essentially put together a full overview of all of the um all of the walkthroughs figure out projects um that that we all feel are necessary um important and Urgent and then moving forward we'll of course move into any sort of capital requests that we need for those facilities projects bring all of them back
013to the board um wrap it up in a nice neat bow and um hopefully move forward with some uh some good stuff for facilities miss huse anything from your side okay well thank you very much do you have a date set for the um meeting yet for the no okay we do not we'll make sure and advertise that though that would be great we appreciate it thank you very much okay all right next up we have our superintendent report and I will let daughter Robbins thanks Madam chair members of the board good evening what a beautiful day Monday was today um just a beautiful day in doorchester County I'm excited to share with some of the things that we have on the docket for you uh first and foremost uh last month you all uh
014and I talked about the creation of a recruiting and retention task force um we had have assembled that task force had our first meeting on April 4th um it lasted about an hour and a half it was a great meeting um members of the task force um including myself our Personnel Department classified staff members um teachers and even a couple or at least well I will include you miss pal a couple retired Educators as well um on there to brainstorm what we can do to recruit and retain um staff in our community knowing that we are really challenged obviously we have deemed that it's critical for all of our schools to be successful uh in providing and continuing to provide excellent education in Dorchester School District to that we have to have a coordinated and
015concerted um effort to recruit and retain the best and the brightest and so with limited means and resources um that's the challenge of this task force um to provide those ideas and suggestions to the board moving forward um I gave them a little bit of a homework assignment myself as well um Proviso 2023 1.14 of the general Appropriations Act established a Statewide teacher and recruitment taskforce they do have suggestions and so that was in the binder I provided them no sense in recreating the will let's look at what some of the state suggestions are uh some other things we have done is to look at um best practic from other districts across the country and so we're going to try to compile all that information we're going to use our thought exchange as an opportunity
016to um seek out um feedback from our employees in Dorchester School District too as well and again try to have a comprehensive plan that we provide with the board and what that would cost us not all of this is based on salary obviously part of it is salary we're using our salary study to guide us as well um but a lot of it is working conditions and some of the other things that we can consider that aren't necessarily money in nature but make it more enjoyable to be an employee in Dorchester School District too so again it was some great conversation I would be happy to yield uh to miss pal she said in that meeting like I said it was an hour and a half I felt like it was incredibly positive and productive
017good evening I just want to say thank you first first of all for allowing me to be a part of the task force and we have an incredible group of I would say young people because they have young vibrant ideas they're excited about being on the force and they're excited about what we can do as a district in order to recruit and retain at first we were a little slow about talking because we weren't really sure where we're going but once we got started we had to basically say look it's time to go and we're ready for our next meeting the one thing that really excites me is the fact that we're involving our teachers for the many years that I worked as a teacher I never once had anyone come and ask me directly
018or give me the opportunity that the thought exchange gives you so you can put an input sometimes you may say well you know we'll give you a day off maybe we we don't want to yeah we do want a day off but maybe that's not the most important thing we need at that time maybe we just need respect the fact that you really care about us enough to sit and bring us into the conversation and so I'm excited about that and I want to thank Dr Robbins for moving in on this um from the time I met with him before I became truly a member of the board he basically you know that was his goal to make sure our teachers feel appreciated and so I can honestly say that we have a board that's
019very supportive and um I know we're going to do all that we can do we don't have a lot of money yet but wait on it's coming but until then we're GNA give you the best of what we have so we said teachers listen up and be prepared to be wild any questions from members of the board so you mentioned the thought exchange so how you're is how how's that going to work is that going out to it'll go out to just dd2 employees um and what we're not certain yet miss pal and I actually we're talking about it a little bit today on what the openend question would look like and and how it would be formulated we're trying to look at what maybe some other districts and communities have done and send it
020out but the nice thing about the thought exchange is it's not a survey it allows people to have an opinion or a thought so that we can actually measure and Garner what's important to people and what classification of employee they belong in so that we can see those things and that can guide some of the work that this task force will do and some of the decisions and recommendations that we'll bring to the board so um that will be a little further down the road um we're like I said they're doing some homework right now on looking at the state's um task force recommendations our salary study and and some other things I've provided them and then honestly we're going to leverage technology as well the best we can to create documents where we talked
021about three different tabs one is a brainstorming um tab one is a um thought suggestion Tab and I can't remember what the third one there was three of them but it would allow us to then guide our discussion so that they're meaningful and productive when we do get together but we can leverage technology to make sure that we're able to brainstorm and think and and have those thoughts in between meetings for the thought exchange it sounds like it's going to kind of co-mingle all of that like with all of our employees do you think it could be beneficial maybe to break that up by like Transportation because I feel like maybe what would recruit and retain transportation and maybe have a thought exchange for like departments more so than just all employees just I think
022curious and then look for like overlap you know we can definitely look at that I do think the other thing you can do is you can set up those classifications in the exchange itself and I I think it will break that the AI will break that part for you but let me look into that so yeah yeah and I need to clarify one thing I'm so used to looking at teachers as every person that has something to do with those that educate our children and so when I say teachers I don't mean just those in the classroom we have someone that represents each and every area of our district from facilities maintenance bus um transportation you name it classroom teachers as well um our custodial staff everyone is a part of this particular recruit and
023retain and so you could have a cafeteria worker that says something to a kid that really makes that kid day worthwhile uh you may have a bus driver that says something that you know just make their world so much better than before they left home because we don't know sometimes they leave home and they're upset but that bus driver plays a very important role in how that Child's Day go so when I say teachers Educators I mean all of us that have a role in making our kids the best at who they can be thank you I just want to clarify well I appreciate that Miss Powell because I do think that was the purpose behind the task force is to make sure that all employees and so we want to we want to I
024appreciate the fact that you're saying that they are all represented right yes okay excellent that's great okay and then so one other question just thinking about I mean obviously it's we don't have a ton of time left in this school year and I know that salary is is part of the discussion but are have you started thinking yet about will there be certain action items that come out of it I mean things that we hope we will be able to implement by the start of next school year how many have you thought about a timeline and that was honestly one of our um challenges to the task force was to backwards plan and create a timeline matter of fact I think the first thing I said is we're starting a little bit behind the eightball
025some of the salary um um items will be addressed in our budget cycle they will but from my past life we used to talk about um working conditions right and so a lot of the things that we're talking about that hopefully we can assertain out of the thought exchange are things that would um would deal with the working conditions so whether it is the amount of time off whether it is prep periods whether it is you know just a variety of things that would affect um working conditions those those will be primarily the topics that we're probably able to address before the start of next school year but I don't see this task force as having necessarily um a completion point with it I think it's something that needs to be ongoing for us um
026that we look at and we modify you know the things that we're doing so that we can keep at least a quasi Competitive Edge in the marketplace with who we're recruiting I hope that answer your question yes that does I appreciate that I agree I feel like it is going to be ongoing um but I think that the idea is we would have a couple tangible things that come out of it that we can Implement absolutely that's great I appreci I do have one more question so I'm just looking at the list um is there a way we're going to apart from the thought exchange are y'all like going to schools or going where I see like there's more people that are actually like serving in the trenches in some of these positions like maybe
027like an actual bus driver or more more bus drivers or more teachers or I'm like like more in the trenches type level positions rather than some of the higher I mean I think we've got a combination of some of those things but um to start out with yeah it'll be higher level and then we'll work down into that yeah yeah I mean but we had to start somewhere I was just wondering like how do you envision incorporating the voices more of people who are actually like I think nobody's going to know like what they need in classroom culture and climate more than like the teacher that's there day in and day out or the bus driver who's driving the bus every single day so I'm just trying to like figure out how we marry like
028I I think that's a great committee but marry the two where there they're getting more input from the people that are serving well I think that's the thought exchange I think the value of the thought exchange is people you time and space aren't necessarily your Eliminator and so it does allow people to have a voice and a and an opinion and and a thought and an anonymous thought so that you can then look and evaluate those do I think that they'll get be a point in time where we actually have some of those like sub committee meetings with group absolutely um but we're just you that was our first meeting so very very high level right now and then we'll work to some of those things I really not to put all this uh emphasis
029on the thought exchange but people's ability to express themselves and for us to look at Trends will allow us then to focus as a task force what we think we can tackle because you know obviously there's only a dozen of us we'll tackle the most we can but I I don't think it's going to be a silver bullet I think it's going to be ongoing work that we'll have to continue to address I think it's a good thing for us if we can find a success point that it becomes you know our normal way of operating when it when we look at um recruiting and retention because this is is ongoing affair with um our district we will definitely be able to incorporate and put together groups as we need them but I don't believe
030in starting off with a large group because kind of get lost so I think if we have more of a narrow focus with a smaller group and then expand as we have a need for that good thank you I appreciate the support I think it's going to be a good functional group um next on my um report tonight I'm excited um to um talk to you about a potential project that we have going on and so I have a um the ex executive director from the Charleston Children's Museum here and I actually am going to turn it over to Mr Farnsworth to say a few words he brought this idea um to me to take a look at in coordination with summerbell dream and um what opportunities we had so if you want to come
031up I've got your slide deck pulled up and I'll let Mr Farnsworth say a few words please yeah I appreciate Dr Robbins and I just want to preface preface I will tell everyone I I am super super super excited Beyond excited um just to get to this point um and and be able to at least discuss um this uh proposal and so for those who don't know way back in 2012 we passed a bond referendum that was 179 million dollar we built a whole bunch of new schools uh we added some wings we did a whole bunch of really great stuff in the school district um where we are sitting today in this boardroom was part of that Bond referendum um one of the buildings through different iterations um and planning that we went through
032for that Bond referendum one of the iterations we directly behind us uh so the gym the old gym for Rawlings at the time um we did a little bit of upfit on it but it has basically been um sitting kind of unused for the past couple years and so I had several folks from the town of Somerville and and just just different Community Partners approached me um wanting to see if there was anything at all we could do with uh with the school district and and potential other partners and so I brought that to Dr Robbins and so this evening um we're going to hear from Karen and and I'm just again I'm very appreciative um of the potential partnership we have here and um this this is this is a game Cher for Somerville
033for Dorchester County this is one of those things where we're going to look back and say that that was a game changer so thank you for being here oh thank you for having me thank you um board chair wimbley superintendent Robbins really appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you all as you said I'm Karen coltrin I'm the president and CEO of the Children's Museum of the Low Country um we are in Charleston but we're the Children's Museum of the Low Country so we do serve the entire region we do it currently from a downtown location where we've been for 20 years and all quickly run through and introduce you to our organization we're a 501c3 charitable organization started by Volunteers in the community they started in 1995 is and they got it open
034in 2003 Downtown Charleston um today we are governed by a 13 member board uh with a um managed with a experienced professional staff I'm embarrassed to say how experienced I am at this point but about about roughly 17 years in Children's Museum um leadership so um not at the Low Country I've been here for a year and a half I was the CEO at Adventure in Colombia and before that I was the head of the children's museum of Richmond in Virginia for 10 years and I have a great team behind me uh we are serve we've served more than two and a half million visitors from that little tiny downtown location um over those 20 years and the thing that most attracted me to this location is the or the location in Charleston is the
035robust Outreach programs they have they they kind of had to do that because when you're stuffed in a 10,000 square foot building that's only 25 ft wide and 300 feet long it's an old train depot downtown you have to be creative and so that has led this organization to evolve to being out in the community in the school great relationships throughout the Low Country so it's a lot for us to build on um we also are preparing to open our first satellite location in Dorchester County but up the road in St George we will be the first adaptive reuse of a Rosenwald school as a children's museum in the nation and that will open hopefully in the next couple months so we're again we're our board's very proud of the fact that our very first
036satellite look location if you will is um for service um in a community that has not um had access easy access to academic enrichment our mission is to create Innovative learning experiences in our Museum and throughout the community that equip and inspire all children to become creative problem solvers and every exhibit every underlying pedagogy underneath our exhibits and programs all have to lead back to that how are we create creating creative problem solvers so it when I got to the children's museum in 2022 we began a strategic planning process again the board really wanted to lean into who we are our name Children's Museum of the Low Country and that when you're again in such a small location you really have to think about branching out and so um in the conversations um we were
037having about what was going on at the Rosen Ral project it started Us in other conversations that kind of brought us together as Mr farns were said kind of on this path and we Somerville obviously from our vantage point is a very key location it's where a lot of growth is when I look at our membership list who buys a membership to the museum Downtown it's a nice chunk of folks from Somerville every time one shows up in the front lobby and they say where's from Somerville I wish you were closer I said hold that thought we might be working on that so um and that happened and that happened a lot in um on spring break week so um at any rate there's a little map to show a vision of what our board
038sees um as a network of locations and there'd be strength in this network um we are not Adventure we are not 100,000 square feet and then have little museums around we really Envision a network of mostly same siiz museums that all benefit from being connected together we are connected um we have formed since I came back to South Carolina the um Alli South Carolina Alliance of Children's Museum so we do coordinate and work together with Adventure in Columbia and the Children's Museum of the upstate in Greenville um and the Main Street Children's Museum in Rock Hill but we're not any other way affiliated other than our formed Association so the potential site that we just referenced it would be the Adaptive reuse of the Fieldhouse at John messic Field uh we it was funny because
039we sat down and we were looking at aerial views all over of different properties that could potentially be a children's museum in Somerville and when this got pointed out my vice president of education and I both got up out of our seats and we were like I'm sorry wait what there's two elementary schools it's right on the campus we could partner with the school system that closely are you kidding why are we looking at anything else this is fantastic and it got better and better as each step in conversation we've had so um we just this um we want to be in Somerville but boy do we like this location um the advantages of it it lets us partner closely with the district uh that is vitally important to us uh centrally located it's close
040to downtown it's walking distance like I said from two elementary schools currently um lots of parking which is important to us we tend to bring three four five 600 people a day um last Wednesday I got to welcome 1250 people into a 10,000 square foot building don't anybody tell the Fire Marshall um but we uh we can be busy sometimes so parking is is of critical importance the ceiling height in that building was interesting to us too because it allows for expansion more exhibits more classrooms more interactive opportunities for kids um but without an addition it'd be a less expensive way to get square footage to put a second floor so that's interesting to us it also provides additional and creative meeting space and other spaces for dd2 because again that sort of um CR
041cross pollination uh with the school district is very very exciting to us um we think there's some deliverables that we bring if we if we can come here um it this would actually be the largest of um our kind of Envision spaces uh with Hands-On exhibits daily programs we make sure there's something going on all the time uh we offer summer and spring break camps we have we are local field trip destination obviously uh we um downtown we are closed on Tuesdays to the public but that's only during the school year but that's only because we're open for field trips so that's we tend to try to keep our again being in a smaller building we're trying to keep the field trips a little bit separate uh we offer after school programming obviously the birthday
042party event venue is always fun and um but a lot of people don't know we're getting ready to roll out our volunteer training program for high school students too because we don't let them we don't let them get too far away from us they can come back in as high schoolers and learn about nonprofits and and work with kids um in that capacity so we have had uh one cost estimate done on the building that would be um the estimate was it' be about $700,000 to rehab that existing building to so that it could be anything not necessarily a children's museum but just the work that would need to be done on it um it's estimated cost an additional 1.3 million to bring it to warm shell uh status and then we estimate it would
043take about $2 million to go from a warm shell to a functioning Children's Museum so that is what I have for you tonight all right thank you so much what an exciting opportunity does anyone have any questions or comments so is it so it's 2.7 million total that's the no it's no sorry oh I can go back here we go yeah it's 4 million total it's 700,000 that would have to oh I see that yes sorry I broke it out I should have total it that's on me you're fine um yeah it's I just just wanted to show the breakout of of getting the building ready to roll then turning it into a warm shell and then the the and sure no I apologize and and where would the funding for that um come from
044well we're talking about that I have um I am talking I think that there's an opportunity at the state and the um county level for op for some fun funding and also obviously some private funding okay we um did the work in St George obviously we essentially are given a wormell building there but we were able to do that on all private funding it and I don't believe that's going to be the opportunity here um because that was a much much smaller project but I think there's that component has to be involved sure absolutely any other questions well I and I was just going to add I know Dr Robbins has had some conversations um both at the county and state level um funding wise but I do think um you start to think forward
045about the partnership that it creates and the ability to have in-house field trips um is is pretty spectacular I think about our inhouse field trips over to Ashley Ridge to the um a program and and how well that is run and so if we can have this for a different population um again I I just go back to I I think this is potentially a game Cher for dd2 and so I really do hope we're able to um to make some inroads to make it happen um just a couple tag on um comments you know this is the early stages and I know Karen's had several conversations with at the state level and the county level and we've had some as well but also at the county level one of the um discussions we had
046over spring break um Jason Ward came out and I took him on a tour to look at what may or may not need to be done in terms of egress Ingress routes and parking and because we obviously couldn't give up all of our parking um spaces and so we took a look at that on what the county could do to assist to make sure we maintained all that um opportunity for our current you know customers which are our students and our parents so this would be a potential partnership between us the museum and the county possibly the state or do we know is that yeah I mean all the entities that I'm aware of so the county even the town Town um you know a lot of different private organizations lot of 501 c3s there
047there's a lot of interest for this specific type of project um so I think if there's there's a will there will be a way we just have to show that we're excited about it and that we're looking to move forward um and and I am pretty sure we can we can make something happen yeah great any other questions I will say I my children did they we did they did they're grown up now but we visited the um the museum in Downtown Charleston many times when they were younger we had that um annual membership and made the Trek so it's certainly a lot of fun and I've actually been on field trips too with um my kids from you know when they used to go from here so yeah well we appreciate very much thank
048you for the great information and the great potential opportunity to work together thank you I look forward to that as well and we'll work hard to see if we can't make it happen yeah sounds good thank you all right next on the agenda um Jason Walsh is going to present the Fine Art strategic plan but before he presents the Strategic plan um we have technically another District highlight um and recognition and I thought it was appropriate to do it before he presented the plan but um Dorchester School District to is proud to have been selected the title A best community for music education for the 23 24 school year this marks the fourth year in a row Dorchester School District 2 has been awarded this distinction Based on data that includes student participation number equity
049and variety of programs so congratulations goes out to you uh Mr Walsh to our parents to teachers administrators and all the stakeholders in our community that support music education what an H awesome [Applause] honor it's a that's a super exciting award that we've been awarded at least like he said for the fourth time now dd2 has won that five times in total and we are one of I believe eight districts in the state to have been awarded that so we're very excited about that I'm super excited to be here to present two items first to present some District Two highlights I don't get uh to just talk to you guys very often so I want to share some of the things exciting things happen in the Fine Arts um and to secondly ask for your
050approval for our district strategic plan so to start the highlights this year we've had we have slowly slowly started to re to regain our steam after covid and this year we have over 200 individual school performance scheduled so that's that's we are full blast now we are going every every night of the week if you look at our calendar there's generally something happening which goes on to our next highlight this year we worked very hard with our Communications team to integrate our district Fine Arts calendar with the district calendar so if you go to our dd2 web page on the front page you'll be able to see what things are happening in the Fine Arts in the district also if you go to the Fine Arts page uh you can see what is happening at
051any school school um and that night and we worked on that to make it easier for our teachers to be able to submit that because in the past it was a little clunky just to be honest they would send me their um information I would send that information on and then it would be put on the calendar now we created a system where they can sign on on their staff login straight on to the district and they send that to me and I approve it so I still look at all of them to make sure that's not something uh we don't want to have on our district calendar but we approve that and then that goes out so that every parent and every uh everyone can see what we're doing um and so we're super
052excited about that one of the big things that I have been working on and we have been working on as a district is I'm a firm believer in the collective impact model uh and that just simply means that more of us can do more than some of us all of us can do more than some of us excuse me I misspoke so we've been working on some really impactful Partnerships in the community um so that we can say we are as good a partner to the community as the community is to us uh so one of those is is the is the Somerville Orchestra and our organization created a Youth Orchestra it's now in its second year it's uh uh we when I got here we have so many talented kids who are traveling to
053Charleston to be in the Charleston Symphony Youth Orchestra and if you know the first thing that cost you $600 um if you want a child wants to be a part of that it costs you a lot of money ours doesn't cost our kids a penny the second it's all day Sunday so you if you have a child in that you're driving to Charleston you're hanging out all day while they're in practices or in concerts and then you come back ours operates in our school with our teachers who are there um and the way we did that is we offered an in kind statement where we work with them so they can provide a staff they provide a director for that organ organization and we thought we would have about 40 kids and it turned out
054to be about 90 kids that showed up and so we working in partnership with Berkeley County Charleston County and ourselves to now that they have a an additional halftime person and uh so we are super excited about that that meet once a week they've had several concerts um and they have one coming up in about two weeks that will actually be at Ashley Ridge uh High School uh the next the next piece is Public Work Art Center which I'm going to plug if you haven't been there it's um a a uh Museum that's in the old I believe Water Department downtown uh and so when they were first they unfortunately opened their doors in 2020 right in the middle of qu Co so we uh we've been working very hard together to make sure that
055we are integrating that so a couple things we've done with them is we have an artisan residence program that our good friends at the Educational Foundation help us support and so every year they um schedule an exhibition with an educator who then exhibits at their Museum but spends time in our schools so we had a wonderful gentleman from Atlanta we had another person from the upstate and this year we have one that's going to Somerville high school so it alternates between our three high schools and they spend multiple days to create an artwork you if you go to uh Fort uh they have it right in the in their hallway way it's a beautiful Big M mural that they made um the other piece is we helped work with them and the art commission that
056they've created a summer camp uh that they operate they fund it work it's in conjunction with the YMCA but we help get help them to get that funding and we help staff it our teachers staff it and uh and and it's um it is of it does have a cost but they have scholarships for those students we don't turn anyone away who can't afford it and so those are two big things uh that we do with Public Work Art Center and they are fantastic then the Somerville Art Guild who is back on its feet a lot of you who have been around remember a thing called Somerville rocks back in the day where they sold rocking chairs and that funded a scholarship now they do um they do an auction of artworks and they just
057delivered today a $1,500 check to provide scholarships to students who are going to pursue Arts education at the secondary level one of those is named after Mr Larry Barnfield and that one is for a person who's going to pursue Arts education specifically and then the other one is from the summer arts Guild which um is only for they're going to be in arts education uh the other one is the Charleston half marathon we partner with them we have people who are on the it's various things we have people who who help pass out water and they partner with our schools but they generally are work with a group that we spend lots of times with called engaging creative minds who facilitates that is that's their biggest fundraiser um but we also have groups like steel
058drums went out there and played along the marathon group and after they tally it all up they provide that funding provides grants to our teachers like last year flower toown we bought them all new microphones for their stage uh they had some microphones it was it was they had these microphones on the floor that there was one child when they were doing uh what was it Aristocrat Aristocats the one where the cats dance around and so they had a person the microphones they uh had a person a little kid who was moving the mics back and forth so they could pick up the kids and it was a little they did the best they could with what they had so we worked with uh this grant funding to get mics that are actually hung from
059the ceiling so that we don't have uh some Sweet Child who's moving a mic back and forth so that they can have their their um show uh then in town here we have several opportunities it seems like every time we turn around we have another festival or opportunity for you to see our kids and that is by Design uh I I'm a firm believer that we want to make sure that everyone knows that we are a giant part of our community and that dd2 supports our community just as much as that community supports us so the first one is the Italian Feast we had nine groups there um and that's over 250 performers it happens every fall in October uh this was our second time the first time got cancelled because of Co um then
060on March 21st uh We've we had what we call our teachers named it I didn't name it it's called dreamfest is what they like to call it it's one of the dreams uh dd2 third Thursdays uh and they have officially given us every third Thursday in March from now until there's no more third Thursdays in March um and so we had roughly it's it's a celebration through our city and US of um March is youth art month it's celebrated Nationwide it's uh there's a proclamation by our state it's also The National Music in our schools month so they give us that Thursday for us for the city to celebrate both of those things in the schools and for us to celebrate openly uh how how well we support those programs in our schools so this
061year we had we Lots of you put your ribbons I'm so proud of you we got everybody so excited about your ribbons uh we had 30 art teachers um participate with over 225 artworks spread downtown in Hutcherson Square so everywhere uh you went there was artworks either in the window or inside or and we super that was super fun then we had 10 schools represented on Hutcherson Square stage which uh translated to about 300 kids and then five of our Middle School groups Middle School steel five of our steel drums groups performed in the street right there in front of Sweetwater which means if you had to do all the tallying up more than half of our schools were represented on that night and they estimated around between 3,000 and 4,000 people were there that
062night so that's a great thing for us uh this year GT artistic students we um we created a new program lots of people uh know about the Gateway program here in town gateway has been around since the beginning of time it's I think it's like 30 years old uh some of our principles were members of Gateway and so uh one thing we've worked very hard on and and it's and is how we serve our GT artistic students in G in Dorchester 2 uh we've worked very hard to retain those students and to build that program to the point where we were not able to actually accept very many um incoming students because they were all staying so once you once you audition you're elig so we found out that all of a sudden our numbers
063were shifting to where we had huge numbers fifth sixth seventh eighth graders and we were only able to accept 20 or 30 third graders and so um I was decided to be that guy and I split Gateway up into two programs this year one is titled one is called Gateway and that's still for our elementary kids third through fifth graders and then we have a new program that's called pathway so we go through the Gateway and then you go down the pathway way right um and that's far as sixth through e8th grade eighth grade and so those happen on the same we still have our super Saturdays they happen on the same days um but we were able to take that from about 370 kids which maxed out that facility uh we were were at
064Rings Middle School um and now we have two facilities we're at Rawlings and Somerville high school and we alternate the times for those parents who have one in both programs and we were able to basically double the size so we went from about 370 to about 6 605 610 depending on the day so we uh we basically doubled the participation uh for our GT artistic students this year hopefully we're going to keep making that bigger and bigger uh this year Rawlings middle school it's a super popular program in the uh District we had 699 individual students registered to audition and each student gets the audition twice they get to pick two core areas so uh you're you get to pick theater visual art or whatever and so that translated to about 1100 individual auditions for
065the 280 students who are selected uh for Rawlings middle school and so it was uh that we've continued to break that that is a record and we'll try and get above 700 next year so you know that's uh and so that's essentially 35% of all of our fifth graders applied to Rawlings middle school now those are my highlights now I've come with my hat in my hand asking for a approval of our strategic plan so uh we have been working for the past two years on a strategic plan and just to give you the process uh we have we took teachers from every tier and every um and every core area from Fine Arts most people when you say Fine Arts you don't think we are so fortunate in dd2 that we offer everything which
066is fantastic um but you don't realize when you just say Fine Arts that's 12 subjects that's 12 individual subjects when if you break especially if you break art down to elementary middle and high school which are vastly different right um and so that's 12 individual subjects so we had two teachers from every area and every subject area so that we could work together to create this to write this plan um but first before we did that we sent out A needs assessment to all of our uh it was about A four-page needs assessment to all our teachers and went through that data and then we resent a different needs assessment um to all our principles and then we had interviews with some of those key Partnerships to see what they wanted from us and what
067we could provide for them um because you know we really want to be good partners it's not just historically uh Fine Arts folks we're always we're good at asking and we're not super uh good at giving things so we want to make sure that we're good partners that we're providing something to our partners besides a a Grant application and so um we worked very hard on and and worked very hard to establish that we also uh got lots of strategic plans from various different districts in the country and in the state and and we put all that stuff together we had some training sessions for these teachers before we even got together we had two training sessions for the teachers then we had one training sessions for our group leaders so I split them up
068because if you have a large group sometimes it gets unwieldy especially when you're writing something as extensive as this so we had group leaders who helped facilitate that and that took two days we took two full days to write the Strategic plan uh and this is to guide our work as a district uh to develop Fine Arts specific goals and establish our Baseline for creating sustainability for moving forward but both curricularly and curricularly sorry that my Tang got tangled there and um and how do we for funding for those things for recruitment retention how do we do those things to serve our our teachers and our students better um so the hopes are to increased participation provide training for existing teachers provide resources for new teachers increase Partnerships and funding opportunities the outcomes are to
069uh we get new standards this year so we need to create new pacing guides on curriculum uh more student opportunities for all our students and um and the one of the big things is for most of the big um granting opportunities like for South Carolina Arts commission has a district art support Grant we're hoping to apply for you have to have a threeyear to fiveyear District Fine Art strategic plan mocking burn Foundation U is another one CMA Mr Holland Opus Foundation there's lots of huge or organizations uh there's federal grants the professional development for art Educators grants Kennedy Center grants which whether you know it or the dd2 um the dd2 school board is actually a winner of a one of the Kennedy sword Kennedy Center School Board recognitions it happened several years ago but
070that is a humongous award that very you're in fact I believe the only School Board that's been awarded that in the state of South Carolina maybe maybe one other and that happened several years ago so to do those kind of things uh we we have to have this plan so I will I can talk all night about Fin arts and believe me I love to do it but I'm going to take a break and see if you have any questions and ask for you to approve this uh strategic plan okay wow thank you so much um I think before we even get to this strategic plan I think we all should offer you and your team and our extraordinary um Fine Arts Department a round of applause for all the highlights it's super exciting to
071kind of have it all together here and talk about everything that you've done because it's obviously a lot and so we appreciate that I know um that the impact this has on our students really is phenomenal and that's what what makes it so great so thank you again um okay and then now moving on to your um Strate IC plan I know we all had opportunity that was in our packet so we all had an opportunity to look at that beforehand does anybody have any questions about that or any comments I don't have any questions I just want to again thank you so much um you know coming from the background I was an orchestra kid growing up I went to art school I'm a painter a photographer a graphic designer so for me seeing
072the Partnerships with our community and knowing firsthand just the impact it's made in my life and and other children I've mentored like I could not think of a better thing for our students and it just like like as I see you talking I'm just sitting here like this is amazing this is amazing this is amazing and I'm just so grateful because you're clearly very intentional and it shows and the just the commitment to ensuring that all kids have access to that I know it personally changed my life being involved in the Arts um and still does to this day and so I'm just so grateful for you and what your team and everybody in our district does for our students in the Arts so just wanted to share that thank you anyone else have any
073questions or comments okay great and yeah and thank you for your team and you as well work on the Strategic plan because um it was very thorough and I just want to add I was down there for the um display when we had the last thing we had all the Thursday that would be the dreamfest thing on March 21st the dream Fest but they were really having a great time and I'm so proud of the steel drummers because they I used to sub in the um Mr Bridge um steel drum class and people would say all that noise it wasn't noise to me those kids are so mature when they have an assignment that they need to do they don't really need well I don't tell Mr G that but he's got them so trained
074that they go and perform as if he was there they came to us in Mt Hilton Head made us so proud I believe they probably got a standing ovation at least I gave them one because they were so good at what they were doing so congratulations to you and all of those that are teaching in the fine arts department we appreciate thank you very much we have amazing teachers yes I I think we all agree with that okay um um if there's nothing else then at this time I will um accept a motion to accept the Strategic plan as presented by Mr Walsh so moved by Mr Farnsworth do I have a second okay second by Miss Hughes any other questions or discussion okay hearing none then we will call for the vote sorry I
075apologize I was kicked out of the meeting okay and the motion carries um it is seven in favor unanimous thank you very much yes thank you very much we appreciate you okay Madam chair next up on our academic report is an overview of our NWA map assessment data well that'll be very hard to follow there on that presentation so uh Madam chair Dr Wimberly board members and Dr Robbins uh this evening we're going to talk about um NWA map growth um many of you that don't know what map is some of you do that have children in our school corporation talk about uh writ and growth and so what is map um it's a measure of academic progress and so so what people don't realize what map testing is the difficulty of the question is
076how well a student performs on that question so it's adaptive and so if a question if a student gets a question right those questions progressively get harder if a student gets one wrong it gets it gets a little bit easier so it's very adaptive on each student's um skill level and so what we've been able to do and we take uh take this test three times a year we'll take it in the fall the winter and the spring we measure reading language usage and math and so when we take that it's also taken with grades um K through 8 and then also we do have a few ninth graders that will take it those students are below grade level um and then to go on to read 180 uh talking about what Mrs pal and
077Mr Michelle um they're actually getting rid of the Scholastic Reading inventory the SRI and they'll be using the reading RIT um to now Target students that uh read below grade level so we're really excited how that's going to be able to be used together um so to talk a little bit about this um when we're looking at our data um we're very very excited um and today we're very thankful that we have Thad schmink Thad is our data analysis person who bring takes all of the data and breaks it down um for all of our building principles and is able to take that and dissect that and put it in reports but you're going to be able to see that our teachers and our students our support staff have worked extremely hard this year and
078you're going to be able to see that um in the day this evening um many of our principles and our staff have taken it upon themselves to put rewards in for students students are actually taking ownership of their RIT um between um fall winter and spring and they'll throw parties and do incentives for those students to take it seriously because it is serious um this data and this um is tied to um academic standards and those academic standards then teachers can then break that down and it helps them become more prescriptive on what students know what they don't know their strengths and weaknesses um the RIT score is actually we can use it with the edmentum product with exact path it will then put that rit in there and then it will actually give teachers
079a way to then differentiate put students in group on specific skill sets so we're real excited for that that helps our teachers uh to differentiate as well but really excited about this data just to show you a little snippet of it because our teachers have been working extremely hard and trying to differentiate and meet the needs of all of our students so at this time I'm going to turn it over to Mr schmink uh to talk about our data good Madam chair members of the board I just wanted to go over a few brief slides just to give you a little insight on how we look at data a little bit and to uh maybe show a little bit of trends that are happening across the district so as you can see here our first
080chart we're talking about Ela and this is achievement this is basically where is is a person's point on a on a particular ladder and I think what you can see here is over the years from 2000 so for 22 to 24 what we want to see is the lowest Quin lowest quintile um getting smaller and we want to see obviously the high average and average getting larger so sometimes um I think we're very very proud in our district that we're seeing what what I would call pass through so some districts we see the red significantly shrinking but as a result of that the orig is the Orange is significantly growing what we're seeing here is not only is the are the students in that low category shrinking over years but we're also seeing a return
081of the high average and our um our high students also the percentage is growing as well also keep in mind that Ela is one of our strengths um you know when we look across our district when we look across the state um so you know we're very happy to see you know a downward progression um on our low low Achievers and our in our upward progression on our on our high Achievers but we don't just look simply at growth as to where students are so without getting too far into the weeds we always want to look at growth in the sense of if we gave every student a personal goal based on National norming how how are our students doing and we can see here that in our in our growth um attributes here that
082we still have unfortunately lot um higher percentages in the low category meaning low growth meaning students who aren't meeting their goals but the good news is is that we're seeing that Trend down and again we're seeing that pass through that we're seeing our highest our highest groups growing which means every subsequent group below that is is pushing up um please do keep in mind that these are National Norms um and they don't they line relatively well the national norming to our state standards but sometimes we run into a little bit of difficulty with um we're not on the same Pace or on the same place um nationally as other states so it's a it's a little bit harder to make that growth statement as appared to the as opposed to the achievement statement and then
083the big question is so we're monitoring these students fall winter spring as Mr Dy said how does that actually play out what value do we put into that well we see a lot lot of correlation between success and map and how it actually plays out on our state standards for um SC ready so as you can see here over the past three years this isn't map data this is SC ready data but just as we saw Trends in the red getting smaller and the blue getting bigger um in both the achievement and with growth we can see this as well how it plays out on SC ready with every year our percentage of students who are scoring one which is the low category getting smaller and we see that play out where the other two
084categories are getting much larger and also just to kind of give you a little bit more of an idea of how the two correlate basically students are receiving additional Services um whether they're when they're in the low and the low um average categories so we consider a student really to only be on grade level or pushing forward and that I'm sorry that achievement part when they get into that average area so we're really extending read 180 Math 180 a lot of our um interventions down to any student who's in that low low average area and also keep in mind too when we talk about growth that another another reason why we're seeing a significant uh percentage of our students in the low category is the students who are really high Achievers um there's some argument
085out there that um a high ACH aever can potentially struggle a little bit more um than the low achiever in their growth area and we are seeing that nationally but we're also starting to see a recovery in that higher achiever in their particular growth so a lot of people during covid really felt like oh we have to worry um put all of our energy in the students on the low growth side of things on the on the low achievement side of things and that really wasn't um very true so we're very happy to see this trend and we think that um we're going to see that continue to move forward here and follow those National Norms so again we can see it play out and so map is pretty much echoing exactly what's happening on
086our SC ready and so let's take a look at math um math has definitely been an area of our weakness we we've mentioned that before but we're we're feeling like we're making some progress as again you can see here our percentage of students who are achieving this again achievement um that our percentage of students who are starting off or low average again you can see the red and the orange both decreasing and you see um blue and green you know relatively growing as well so again all students are sort of passing through from one category into another into another so we're very happy and very pleased about the progress that we're making in math and again it's not just about where our students are ending up on the ladder it's those personal growth goals and
087I think we're we're very happy to see a re bound Happening Here Again in 2022 you can see 30% of our students not making their personal growth goal we've got that down to about 22% so um we're very very excited about um the growth not only in achievement but it's if you look at the high growth there too the the students in the high average and the high average in the high categories are really making leaps and balance forward so overall very positive and once again everybody wants to know how does it play out for SC ready again it echoes what we're seeing we're seeing across you know all of our years there the reds are getting smaller and our um our blues and greens are are getting bigger we did see a little bit
088of a um as you can see there from 22 to 23 they're small climbs but that is pretty much echoed throughout the um throughout the state but we're very um we're anticipating some good results this year based on some of the growth and the achievement um gains that we've that I've just mentioned so again just wanted to give you some oversite tonight I think people sometimes ask why do you track map why do you use this data because it really does Echo very closely um we actually we do our own internal correlation um we get about a 086 which um if you're in the Sciences point point8 is good enough to uh put a put a drug out on the market um point four is educ ation Al significant so uh we feel pretty good
089about the correlation between the two and um and that's part of the reason why we use that as sort of our thermometer throughout um throughout the year and as well as Mr dhy talked about we're constantly using that to with our mtss to adjust students the the interventions that they get we're talking to teachers we get a lot of great um classroom level data a lot of school level data that really helps to drive instruction as well okay great thank you so much Mr schm do we have any questions yeah I was going to say you actually read my mind because I'm looking at the SC map uh linking data the correlation so Statewide um between 84 and 87% um I am curious so prior to going to the map testing do we know what
090the correlation was whatever we were using before I think it was kind of a patchwork versus SC ready you know that that seems like so long ago for me uh you're talking preo and I have uh still suffer from Co brain so I don't really know exactly what the correlation was um well I know SE ready changed as well yes pretty drastically so I mean most of the products out there are going to have a relatively high level of correlation the only other question I had so on um I and correct if I'm wrong but on the upper grades map is testing for comprehension Ela on the ELA side yes so it's it's it's a mixture of um lexicon it's going to be testing your you know ability to to word choice it's going to
091look at the standards it's going to not only be comprehension but it's going to be asking you about um what do they call that author's craft as well they're going to get into some of the other state standards the interesting thing about the questions is that it's going to pursue the student on a on a variety of topics and it's actually the students are going to get about half the questions wrong that's actually where the the algorithm stops once it starts asking you enough questions and you're getting half of them wrong then they kind of know okay where are you where are you what are you ready to learn so it's not it is achievement but it's also very much a uh diagnostic tool to let teachers know what I'm prepared to learn as opposed
092to what I've mastered learning yeah and so yeah so what it's doing I think then is it's drilling down correct to get to that quintile for that student but it's not solely just comprehension yeah sure no no that makes sense going back but on the lower grades and everybody here is going to get tired of me saying the science of reading over the next few months and that's okay I I will take that one um how does this line up in the lower grades with the science of reading so there are actually two different tests that we use we have a K2 and then a 38 um and so the first one is going to be more about um like like lexicon it's going to be based more on your vocabulary it's going to talk
093about rhyming patterns it's going to talk about all those kind of early Elementary early Ela standards are going to be addressed once you start getting to third grade it is going to transition over more to um reading reading comprehension and those third grade standards of kind of that that shift from learning to read versus reading to learn and so uh that first diagnostic k to2 for example um will actually read some passages to students because it's not so much interested in can you read is again it's can you comprehend or can you um we don't want to know whether or not you read the directions well we want to know whether or not you can do the task where once you get into that third grade portion um third grade and Beyond um unless you
094have a IEP or some other type of accommodation it's not going to be read to you so it does adjust for all that and the great part too is is that it's with map um which is a little bit different than the previous product that we used um is that it doesn't limit a student so they can run the gamut um it does not limit you just to so if you're in second grade it doesn't limit you just to second grade standards it's going to keep you know prodding and asking lots of questions until again you begin to you begin to fail and then it's going to ask it's going to back up and ask another series of questions until you begin to fail and then it's going to figure out not only through what
095you can't answer but what through you what you can answer to figure out where your levels are and it also has a range of standards that it provides us so teachers are aren't just getting back like one score they're getting back a variety of data points that will let them know whether they need to work on their um vocabulary whether they need to work on usage uh author's craft comprehension Etc love it thank you I'd like to add on to that I I know when I used to give map scores or give map test I really did live by my scores because it breaks down like you said whether this math it might be addition or subtraction multiplication whatever it breaks it down it it shows you how weak or strong the child is but
096it also shows me my weakness maybe I was weak if a whole strand of them were not getting multiplication it's it's a it's a real good tool for teachers as well and and and if you watch those scores and you know like in reading or math or any of them like I said it's broken down by each you know whether it's Senate structure whatever you know it's broken down and and anybody that's using Maps the way they should I mean it's very beneficial and it's you know it gives you good a teacher a good plan to work from there there's definitely a reason why hmh wanted to um absorb uh NWA into their into their platform they were definitely the top one of the top assessment groups out there I do have a question and
097you might have touched on this but um just for my understanding and maybe it's an ignorant question why is there such a dichotomy like why why are there it's either they're low with the growth or high with the growth and it's so small in the middle like we have such a substantial kids who are not growing at at all and then a good amount of kids who are growing a lot in both categories like why is it such a split and why are there like why isn't as much a gradual you know what I mean like why are so many kids on the low end of the growth and the high end and so many Less in right so you kind like almost like a reverse bell curve yeah that's a great question um so
098again we can't it would take further breaking down of the data um and what we're going to see are we're going to see different pockets and different groups like I said low doesn't mean low growth up here on this particular chart doesn't mean what our low Achievers are doing how well could be a high achiever that's not growing as much correct so do we like break that down more do we like have that data and information is that something you could bring to us later I'm just curious as to like if it is low growth is it because we have so many high achieving students that are only growing a certain amount or is there like pockets of kids is there low growth kids that are just stuck because we're not serving them properly or
099you know I'm just trying to figure out the big split you know why so there's so many that are high maybe there's just a lot of kids who were not doing well and we doing a great job at them growing and that's why there's so many in the high I'm I was just trying to understand the split oh excuse me no and that's one of the things that we set out to do this is perhaps one of the most high level you high altitude looks down uh you know looking down on on the data but we break everything down um I I mean this is the point where I have to be careful you're you you have you have to be careful you're inviting me to talk a very long time about something that I
100love which is um breaking down all the data but we will look at demographics we will look at IEP performances 504 are gifted all of our different races and ethnicities and that's where we and then we start looking at building level we start looking at grade level we start looking at individual teachers and teacher Pockets so okay it's very telling um and it really helps our building administrators to know oh well in my third and fourth grade we don't have a growth problem but wow look at our second grade here oh and it's a second grade growth problem with math oh and look oh it's these particular kids or you know I always you know um I I always use the whole thing is it you know is it uh chemo or radiation you know
101do we do we need something that's going to kind of help a general thing or do we need to really on something specific and um so we're we're having all of our building leaders are having those conversations constantly because it isn't just a quick answer of oh it's this particular type of kid and it may be for this particular building but not for another for a particular grade level content area and that's why our office produces um massive uh massive uh reports that go out to to principles no that helps me understand it cuz you know obviously we're getting the high level but I was curious because I think it would be beneficial for our schools or individual grades to know the breakdown of is it our gate kids that are just in this one
102school not they're already or whatever that a certain group of kids that aren't you know growing because they're already kind of peing or is it some other reason you know I was just trying to figure out if there was a way we're breaking that down so we can utilize that data individually at schools or classrooms and all that and we're always looking at the Gap discrepancies um but it again it it gets so complex that it's really grade level content building um to make a sweeping statement I mean I we can make some generalized statements and that's what we do for for our strategic plans as such um but and then we also have a new program this year with Tableau it's it's an online tool that all of our principles have and they can
103really um drill down like never before where if they get to a they have a static report and they want to know oh I see that the gate students at at my school are not are not growing well well they want to know more about them is it the female gate gate students is it a particular ethnicity group or is it a particular instructional setting group they can go in there now and click down and get the exact data to that level now well that's very helpful I appreciate Nar sorry oh it's no problem so those were those are the winter scores from this past winter from January is that from that that would be from August till uh December from August to December we typically will test our students within those first two to
104three weeks of school and then we'll typically test them again prior to the winter break okay so when you could when you use those scores to help you with the the SC ready performance which there a certain time of year for the map ones that you're comparing just so we're using you know the beginning of the year kind of helps our teachers set that instructional of what are my students ready to to learn um after the December Administration we're doing a few things um again we've got a tableau report that will help them kind of cross reference um who are the students who are growing who are the students who are not um we actually have a we produce a spreadsheet for them that will tell them hey this student not only they dropped their
105they're not meeting their growth goal for SC ready but they also didn't meet their last two growth goals on map so there's there's an issue going on here like so we can narrow it in on our low Growers and it's not just based on you know one one data point just because I had a bad day in in December right and so we're really helping our our our teachers narrow in on that it's also helping us with okay well again we're going back to those demographics we're going back back to those grade levels um instructional setting what do we need to do are there students that we need to move into interventions are there students that we need to move out of interventions so there's when that after that map report comes out typically in
106January there's a lot of Ants Marching to break all that information down and get ourselves set up to be as successful as possible because it will also tell us what do we need to review what do we not need to review and it also gives us some hints of maybe our students are already achieving certain topics that we were planning for third quarter we don't need to touch on them as much because we can now um move on to something else so um and then we also will do it again in the spring doing it right now right yeah actually as we speak yeah um and um we will get those and that'll also give we get that report out very quickly and that'll help our teachers right at the very end kind of understand
107oh what do we need to refresh you know what do we need to focus on in these last two weeks prior to the test and it's also important that you know all of our um PD coaches all the in curricular side they they'll be looking at over the summer that's how we tweak our pacing guides and it's just just a cycle it just we're kind of what are we doing well what are we not doing well how do we improve a lot of our strategic goals for the district are based on map growth so we're we're looking at that and making adjustments as well so it's really the heart of a lot of what we do any other questions or comments okay well thank you very much we appreciate the information thank you um we
108have no items for the Personnel report tonight that'll be our next meeting and so the last thing I have on the superintendent's report are the uh four student enrollment recommendations for the board okay board members um that information wasn't our packets so if everyone is okay we can proceed with that in Open Session right do I have a motion so moved motion made by Miss Bates seconded by Miss Powell any oh sorry any questions discussion all right um all in favor if you will um cast your votes electronically please okay and the motion carries seven in favor thank you very much that's all I have thank you okay that concludes our superintendent report and we have no public comments um this evening and we also have no executive session so at this time I will
109accept accept a motion to adjourn made by Mr so moved made by Miss Bates and seconded by Mr guthe all right any discussion hearing none all in favor vote and motion carries we are adjourned yeah