##VIDEO ID:https://www.youtube.com/live/vAcVqAy5f0g## I call this meeting to order. Excuse me. We have started our meeting. Thank you. Thank you, Claudia. Would you please call row? Yes, ma'am. Director Carter? Present. Director Duncan? Hey there. Doctor Gerken? Here. Doctor Kiki? Present. Director Tasker? Present. Director Tom Weng? Present. Director Reinhart? Present. Thank you. I'd like to welcome everyone in attendance for joining us. Can we now can you please join me for the pledge of allegiance? Superintendent, will you please lead us? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, superintendent. Next item is the approval of agenda. Do I hear a motion to approve the agenda tonight? So moved. And do I hear a second? It's been moved by director Duncan and seconded by director Carter. Claudia, would you please call row? Yes, ma'am. Director Carter? Aye. Director Duncan? Aye. Doctor Gerken? Aye. Doctor Kiki? Aye. Director Tasker? Aye. Director Tomling? Aye. Director Reinhart? Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Claudia. And for our student performance this evening, I would like to welcome Edna and Jones, Mosley, P-eight student under the direction of Music Specialist, Kim Muffet, who will perform Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Junior on the other side. Would you please join me? You're welcome to step over to the other side for the performance or wait here. Well, Sherry Mademoiselle, it's of our deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now, we invite you to relax. Let us pull up a chair, at the dining room proudly presents your dinner. Be our guest. Be our guest. Put our service to tie on. Go on out for your menu. Take a glance. Then you'll be our guest. Our guest be our guest. We're preparing, sir, with flair of culinary cabaret. You're alone and you're scared, but the bank gets all prepared. No one's gloomy or complaining whilst the flatware is entertaining. I do tricks with my fellow candlesticks. If you're stressed, it's fine dining, we suggest. The guest. It's the guest. It's a live ugly. Once been poured, and thank the lord. I've had the knack especially with the sauce and one tea. Oh, my dear. That's fun. By their costume, they're soft chewing. I'll be bubbling. I'll be pruning. I'll give water. Is it our love for 2? Were you our guest? Be our guest. Be our guest. Be our guest. Be our guest. Be our guest. Give it up one more time for Kim Moffett and the Aetna students. If we have time, could we do one more of our feature of Quinn Mullen, who is Bell? So I made the choice for papa, I will stay. But I don't deserve to lose my freedom in this way, you monster. If you think that what you've done is right, well then you're a fool. Think again. Is this home? Is this where I should learn to be happy? Never dream that a home could be dark and cold. I was told every day in my childhood, even when we grow old. Home should be where the heart is, never were words so true. My heart's far, far away, home is too. Would I give to return the life that I knew lately. Until thing, I complain of that dull provincial term. Is this home? Am I here for a day or forever? Shut away from the world until who knows 1. Oh, but then, as my life has been altered, one sick and change again. Build higher walls around me. Check the blue and key. Nothing lasts, nothing holds all of me. My heart's for for a Thank you. We will be performing next Tuesday Wednesday at Moseley. Please join us. We've double cast this because you can see how many kids are involved in this production. Thank you for for enjoying this concert and being here with us tonight. Thank thank you again. If you all could please join us back in our original boardroom. Thank you. Thank you for joining us back here. Can we give another round of applause to those babies? I tell you, this is my favorite part of the whole meeting. Alright. We will now turn it, over to, our superintendent, mister Giles, for recognizing excellence. Absolutely. Thank you, madam president, members of the board, and our community that has come out this evening. Thank you for being here. As you stated, this is always the joy of the evening when we get to celebrate the brilliance of our students. And so I'll continue that train with recognizing a couple, more students and staff under the many different ways that they demonstrate excellence in our district. So I'm gonna start with Jeremiah Daniels. Is Jeremiah here? Hey. Come on up, Jeremiah. Alright. So in alignment with board limitation number 2 on meeting the needs of the whole child, it is an honor to recognize an extraordinary student making his mark on the world. North Middle School 6th grader, Jeremiah Daniels. Jeremiah made his debut in a critically acclaimed film called Color Book, starring alongside alongside seasoned actor, Will Catlett. This film paints a vivid picture of the often overlooked lives of families raising children with special needs. Jeremiah brought his character to life with unrivaled authenticity and charm. The director held Jeremiah's performance as nothing short of magical. Jeremiah's talents have taken him to renowned to the renowned film festivals across the world, where color book continues to earn high praise. Jeremiah's humility and dedication remind us that greatness is born not just from talent, but from the heart. His journey to stardom serves as a beautiful reminder of the boundless potential that lives within every APS student. Jeremiah, you are an inspiration to us all, proven that when dreams are nurtured, they can light up the world. We are so proud of you and can't wait to see what you will achieve next. Congratulations, Jeremiah. Alright. Let's give them one more round of applause. Alright. Our second recognition goes to Imelda Cruz. Is Imelda here? All right. Imelda, come on up. All right. In alignment with board result number 2 on high school graduation, I'm thrilled to recognize Aurora West College Preparatory Academy senior, Imelda Cruz, who was held as being an amazing teen mother in our district. As a dedicated student and devoted parent, Imelda balances her responsibilities with grace and determination. She returned to school soon after having her baby and immediately made up assignments to stay on track for graduation. Every day, she travels approximately 3 hours by bus to and from APS early beginnings for childcare, plus to and from school. Emilda understands the power of routines and consistency for her child's development and seldomly misses school herself. She is fierce a fierce advocate for a child and a role model to her peers, offering fellow parenting students support and resources. She was accepted to Metro State and CCA and plans to enter law enforcement or career focused on helping others. Outside of school, she finds joy in reading to her baby and cooking for her family. Imelda, we are proud of you for embracing life's challenges, prioritizing education, and breaking barriers. Your drive is unmatched, and we wish you and your baby continued success. Congratulations, Imelda. That's right. Alright. Let's give it one more round of applause. Alright. Our last and final recognition goes to a staff member, Sharon Nieber. Sharon, are you in the room? Alright. I was told I better not mess this up either. So alright. So in alignment with board limitation number 4 on maintaining safe environments, it is a great honor to recognize Aurora Central High School's school nurse, Sharon Niebuhr, in light of her nomination for the Colorado Association of School Nurses, school nurse of the year award. Sharon has more than 50 years of nursing experience with a background as impressive as it is diverse. From managing hospital labor and delivery units to instructing students in the school of nursing, supervising health care in a prison system, and starting her own clinic, Sharon is invaluable. Here in APS, she breaks barriers and sets new standards, particularly through her advocacy for our most vulnerable students. Sharon's dedication shines through her ability to collaborate with staff, engage with families, and ensure students receive the care and support they need to thrive. Whether she is connecting families to critical community resources, educating students about their health, or providing in-depth assessments with our special education teams, Sharon's work is nothing short of extraordinary. Sharon, your dedication to quality nursing and well-being of our students is remarkable, and we thank you for being a champion for health and equity here in APS. Thank you, Sharon. Alright. Let's give it up to chairman one more time. Thank you all for giving us opportunity to acknowledge the brilliance in our district. And before I turn it back over to the, board president, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge that the month of January is school board recognition month. And so while we have a moment, I just wanna take a second to really thank the members of our school board who go above and beyond the call of duty on a daily basis. If you know each of them individually, they're brilliant in their own rights. They bring so much talent, so much skill, knowledge, and commitment to our district, to every single meeting and even when they're visiting schools and out in the community engaging with our constituents. So I just on behalf of the leadership team, on behalf of our staff here in APS, we wanna say we recognize you, we appreciate you, and we value your efforts on a daily basis. So if you all will help me give the board of education a round of applause, we appreciate it. And you can see, we have some gifts for them. We have some books for light reading, and then we have some blankets to keep them cold in this, Arctic storm we're experiencing right now. So madam president, I'll turn it back over to you. Thank you so much. It's a joy to be serving, our kids. We all have kids or have had kids that, who went to APS. So we really mean it from the bottom of our hearts, serving. Thank you again. All right. Next on our agenda is opportunity for audience. Claudia will call members who have signed up to speak to the Board tonight. Please remember that the Board will not respond to any comment this evening. We will also, ask that when you address the Board, you state your name and limit your comments to 3 minutes. Claudia, do we have any visit? Yes, ma'am. We have 4 speakers tonight. Thank you. We're gonna give you a moment to exit the room if you're ready to leave for the night. Thank you. Our first speaker this evening is Abby Winter. Welcome. Please state your name, and you have 3 minutes. Thank you, president Kiki. Good evening, president Kiki, board of directors, and superintendent Giles. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Abby Winter. I'm a reading interventionist at Yale Elementary, and I've been employed at APS since 2012. I know last week presented unique challenges to all, and I wanted to extend my thanks to the IT techs who undoubtedly worked tires tirelessly to protect and rebuild our systems, including staff and student information. Tonight, as a reading interventionist, I came to discuss I Ready, student screen time, and our overreliance on the Internet and Internet based curriculum and platforms, including Epic and other platforms that our students may use within the district. As an interventionist, I have been concerned about how much time our students spend on screens and how how that negatively impacts their ability to grow as readers. Learning to read really is rocket science. While we are wired to develop language, reading and writing is newer technology in human evolution, and it is a complex process for the brain. While I Ready can provide useful data and fill some of the needs in terms of reading instruction, the platform does not require, for instance, students to produce or interact with the program. As an example, the students may be able to hear how many sounds a word had has, but that doesn't mean they're able to, produce or, make these sounds. Learning to produce and manipulate sounds, which is called phonemic segmentation in a word, is it a is a skill that is highly correlated with reading success through the 1st grade. This also does not assume there's no benefit to I Ready. It's a piece of data and a piece of our students, body of evidence. The district requirement of 40 minutes per week really works out to less than 10 minutes a day per student. But our overreliance on this and the other Internet based platforms besides costing the district potentially 100 of 1,000 of dollars puts undue pressure on educators and students to prioritize these meth methods versus structuring their learning around actual books and authentic reading experiences. The outage last week didn't just interrupt student access to the Internet, but also showed how educators have been encouraged to deemphasize independent, non computerized structures in their classroom. As I stated, learning to read is a very complex process and cannot solely be developed on a computer. Students need time and support to read in actual books, partner read and write with a pencil and paper. In closing, teachers feel immense pressure to structure their reading and math blocks around screens and Internet based platforms. I encourage the district and the board to look at ways to de Thank Thank you. Our next speaker is Gwen Eden. Welcome. Please state your name and you have 3 minutes. My name is Gwen Eden. Dear president Kiki, board directors, and superintendent Giles, thanks for having me. I've been an APS teacher since 2020, and I'm very happy to be an APS. I am, however, concerned about the technology outage, which is why I'm here tonight. I'm a CLDE teacher, so I work with newcomers and students who are acquiring English skills. I this is January, and so we have our big access test. This test tells us how much English our multilingual learners have acquired each year. Given the current environment, this January, I wanted to ask you to proactively advocate for our multilingual learners and our schools, both with CDE and with other organizations. School performance framework scores are affected by students' access scores. Therefore, if our scores are naturally low this year due to the various factors facing us today, many of our schools could see their SPF scores dip unfairly. Please proactively partner with CDE to honor the work of our schools and of our students. Students taking the access test later this January, sometime soon we hope, will face not only the usual barriers. This test has been postponed multiple times now. The preparation work that we were doing before winter break and then the first few days after winter break is now stale. We need time to re norm our classrooms once the Internet at Infinite Campus is back up and running. And that's just the school component. Given the way our new US president has made project Aurora a focus of his campaign and now a key component of his first days in office, many of our multilingual students and their families are feeling more nervous than usual. With deportations threatened anytime now, we are going to see increasing emotional dysregulation and school absences from our already vulnerable multilingual population. Now I am not a big fan of standardized tests, but I know that school boards and central administrators rely on that information. I do use the data. I do. And I hope that you all and our central administrators are already working with the Colorado Department of Education to create some kind of waiver or agreement, for Aurora Public Schools given the postponement of the access test due to the technology outage and due to the political situation in our nation. When we do take the access test, please make sure that we are supporting our multilingual students and our CLDE staff. Access scores are gonna be weird this year. You'll need to be prepared for multiple resulting consequences including lower than usual SPFs. Schools and communities already hardest hit by poverty and school closing should not be further punished just because access scores tend to be lower. Thank you so much for your service. Thank you. Our next speaker is Rebecca Finney. Welcome. Please state your name and you have 3 minutes. I'm Rebecca Finney, and my goal in coming here is to help return APS to a district that does what is best for the kids. I have a mother of 3 sons who graduated from Aurora Central. I started coming to these meetings because the previous superintendent did not respond when I and other people contacted him, and there were serious problems that are not being addressed. I am hopeful that mister Giles will address so many of the issues that have been put before him, and I'm hopeful that the staff remaining from the previous administration are willing to follow new leadership. I would encourage the board to question the staff and their existing policies. Any position that should be able to stand up to argument and be improved by your input, you were elected to provide. Should you be making you should be making substantive contributions. From my part, I will continue to come to these meetings. I will continue to provide evidence based research and historical context. What will be different is my revealing concerns and details that will make it apparent the individuals involved I am talking about. I avoided this in the past, but some things are concerning and egregious and should be made aware of them because you need this information if you want to do your job well. Thank you. Thank you, miss Finney. Thank you. Our last speaker is Linea Reid Ellis. Welcome. Please state your name, and you have 3 minutes. Good evening. My name is Linnea Reed Ellis. She, her, hers, elementary teacher and currently serving as president of the Aurora Education Association, the teachers educators union here in rural public schools. And tonight, I am here to publicly say January is school board appreciation month. So on behalf of all almost 1700 members within AEA, there's a little gift on your back recognizing just the amount of time and dedication this role takes, to serve our community. So local Aurora Businesses, bought and supported in providing your gifts. So thank you so much for your time and dedication to the APS community. Thank you. That concludes the speakers for tonight. Thank you so much, to everyone who spoke today. We appreciate your comments. All right. So, Board, we are going to continue, and I just wanted to remind us of our working agreement, before we move forward, and and reminding you to, abide by it tonight. So since January 7th, board meeting was canceled, we will just we will now go into our result, progress monitoring, that was scheduled then. And these will be on cons in our consent agenda if we agree to it, at the February 18th business meeting. So, the board will now be presented with, the report. I turn it over to superintendent Giles. Thank you, president Kieke. As you stated this evening, we will be progress monitoring, a couple of results, results 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3, which all 3 have to deal with, their relation to result number 1, around 3rd grade reading scores. So I'll start with, result 1.1 progress measure 1.1. I'm sorry. And what that looks at is the percent of 3rd grade students that are demonstrating mid or above grade level skills on I Ready. Is the PowerPoint up yet? Yeah. Oh, okay. Got it. And so as I alluded to in the opening, we're looking at, this progress measure actually aligns with result, number 1, early literacy. We're just for level setting. We're looking at the percent of 3rd grade students in APS who demonstrate grade level literacy skills based on CMAS. English language arts. We're expecting that increase from 19.7 in 2022 to 28.2% in August of 2026. And the actual target for this year is 24.4%. I'm trying to figure out. There we go. So I'll take you to slide 5, just which reiterates that we're talking about those students who are on our mid to above grade level, right now in 3rd grade literacy. And the purpose for this, if you recall, last towards last year, we decided to really get a a a well rounded picture of all of our students. Our students who are behind our grade level, those who are on grade level, and those for who are mid to above so that we can then run some analytics, monitor their progress, and then hopefully make, logical predictions of how they will perform on their CMAS when they when they are assessed. And so I will take you to the first figure on slide 6. And what you will see is that we have, the beginning of the year, the percentage of 3rd grade students that were mid to above grade level on ELA, I Ready. At the beginning of the year, it was 7.6% of our 3rd graders. And then at the midyear assessment, you see 12.76% of our students, are demonstrating that they're mid to above grade level. So the positive is that we're seeing an increase is what we would hope to see, we'd expect to see. The area of concern is when you look at the trend data over years, you don't see the, the same amount of increase. So case in point, if you look at the year 23, 24, at the beginning of the year, we had 6.8% of our students who were mid to above. Well, we were higher this year at the beginning of the year. But then if you go back to 23, 24, at the midyear, those students jumped up to 13.95%. Whereas this year, at the midyear, our students jumped up to 12.7%. So the increase isn't the same as the previous year. However, there is an increase. The reason I pause and and make acknowledgment of that, I think, we're wise to look at the trend data. I think it does tell us something. But I also acknowledge that we're not comparing apples to apples. We're not looking at cohort groups. We're looking at, right now, the apples to oranges. So it doesn't necessarily say definitively that these students will or will not outperform the previous year. So I just wanna point that out. When you go to slide 7, you can see the data disaggregated by race, which is how we often look at our data as well to find out who's performing and who is, being underserved. And we see some bright spots as you look at all subgroups are showing improvement. Again, however, when you look at the trend data compared to the previous year, then we see areas where certain subgroups are not performing or having grown to the same degree that they did, last year. On slide 8, you'll see, the the same data disaggregated by those who are English language learners and those who are not English language learners. Students with IEPs, disaggregated by gender, and then those who qualify for free and or reduced lunch. Again, same pattern exists. You can see that there is improvement, but then the trend data demonstrates that some of the improvement is not, to the same degree as it was in previous years. So then I'll take you to slide 10 to, kinda round this out with the overall assessment. You can see what the key data points are. 12.8% of 3rd grade students were demonstrating mid to above grade level skills on I Ready in the 24, 25 assessment. Again, unfortunately, that's lower than a percentage last year in 23, 25 I mean, 23, 24. However, again, we did see an increase, so that's positive. Our students are growing. Take you to the bottom half of this chart, the strategic inputs that are implemented to support improving 3rd grade student proficiency in ELA. These are the things that we have done that we feel have, caused the results that we're looking at. When you look at the and I'm I'm sorry. I apologize. I skipped over the very first, table at the very top. Right now, although we have not determined exactly what the target is gonna be because, again, this progress measure is new. When we look at the trend data, we're saying, ideally, we may not make this, we may not hit whatever target is set just because we're not growing at the same rate that we did last year. But, again, we don't necessarily have a target. Once we look at this data, we'll be able to bring some targets back to you in a month or so that we can set for future, for future reference. Okay? The overall analysis is that, again, continued improvement in the percentage of 3rd grade students who are demonstrating mid to above grade level skills between the beginning of the year. We feel like it's supported by the work, to set students up with stronger foundational skills in k 2 through the 95% curriculum. So not waiting until 3rd grade, but actually introducing the, 95% curriculum in k through 2nd grade. So once kids get to 3rd grade to take the assessments, they've been introduced to the curriculum, the standards. They practiced and mastered those skills. The network support teams are working to provide targeted support and professional learning to schools based on observations. So, you know, we've talked about the learning walks, gathering a lot of feedback from that, and then our, operational and instructional directors are turning around and working with those schools to design specific professional learning opportunities. And then when I going back to, as I indicated, the kind of declining data that we're seeing when we look at the year over year trend, some of the things that we think may be attributing to that is the amount of time that students are spending engaged with our ready lessons. So it's inconsistent. There's what research suggests, an amount of time that students should engage with these our ready lessons. And right now, that has been, inconsistent across the district, but we're working on bringing that to greater consistency. The other thing is PLCs, remain in a focus on, have may have been remained a foe may have remained a focus, but not necessarily with the fidelity that PLC deserves. We're we're actually looking at the student data in front of us. We're analyzing that data and using that data to make decisions amongst teams and how we, you know, intervene if we need to or accelerate learning if we need to. Right now, PLC structures are a little inconsistent. So, you'll see on the next slide that's something that we're really gonna hone in on to, improve. And then the last one, while professional learning has been provided around supporting multilingual learners, our data shows that linguistic supports are in place in English language development blocks. These best practices are inconsistently implemented outside of the ELD blocks. So they're getting the service appropriate service and strategies in the ELD blocks, but that is not consistently maintained, when we're in any other classes outside of the ELD blocks. And so on the final page, you will see the strategic response for the remainder of the school year. Really working with our leaders to increase the usage of our ready lessons so that students engage in those lessons, to get targeted support in alignment with the research, which is anywhere between 30 to 49 minutes per week. Depending on the focus and prioritization of of the supports for 3rd grade educators as well as, other early literacy, k 2 educators such as instructional directors and elementary P8 leaders focusing their work on 3rd grade PLCs. So, again, intense focus on supporting professional learning communities. What data are we using? How we analyze it lies in the data, asking the 4 essential questions in a PLC, and using that to drive instruction and supports for students. And then lastly, targeted coaching and supports for the instructional team to support strong instructional practices and data driven instruction, and COD team on embedding 5 key practices for multilingual learners that are grounded in culture culturally linguistically sustaining practices. So ensuring that beyond the ELD block that these practices and these strategies are happening in, all classes that are are multilingual learners are experiencing. And then I won't read the other side because I think I've captured kind of the high yield 3 high yield strategies that are in response to what we identified that may be causing our data to look the way that it does. These are the strategies that we are gonna employ to overcome them. So with that, I will stop, and then ask or entertain questions. Thank you, superintendent. Board, the floor is open for questions. Director Duncan? Yeah. Thanks for the presentation. Superintendent Giles. My question is well, one of them is, what is our means of accountability when it comes to holding school leaders accountable to, like, putting these POCs together, using data to drive instruction? Like, what's the accountability piece? Because I hear a lot of inconsistencies, but why are inconsistencies allowed to even happen? So what's our way of addressing that? I appreciate the question, and I think, you've heard us talk a lot about and I I offer one response, and then if anybody from the team wants to come up and share at a deeper level. But I think the structure alone of having operational and instructional directors. So, again, the operational directors have been able to provide support to our building leaders around the day to day operations and management so that our build building leaders can be available to actually hone in on instructional practices. And then our instructional directors are the ones, in conjunction with operational directors too, that are coming into buildings, doing learning walks. They're talking about professional learning communities, how they're set up, looking at the professional development plans, and then providing guidance on how do we make sure that those PLCs are truly operating with fidelity as opposed to saying that we're just doing PLC Instructure. So I don't know if the instructional directors or or operational directors wanna speak deep more deeply to that. I'll just do a quick introduction so you so you know. If you have not had a chance to meet our 3 instructional directors, to my left, we have Garrett Rosa, who is, overseas Network 2. We have Heather Stewart who oversees network 3, and doctor Karen Powell oversees network 1. So I just wanna do a quick introduction and then I'll hand it over to Garrett to talk a little bit more about oversight of PLCs. Sure. Thank you so much for letting me be here this evening. It's a pleasure to talk in front of you. The PLC's consistency. We've actually created a framework for PLCs around the 4 questions that the superintendent mentioned. And those are kind of the sandbox in which school leaders are to play with them because many PLCs are very different just based on the composition of the teachers. If you imagine, we have 25% turnover rate with our educators in Aurora Public schools currently. So that means the likelihood of a new teacher coming into a PLC and just understanding the process, the curricular design, and how to read this data dynamically so that they can respond. It was buoyed up by their teammates and their and who's inside of there. So right now, principals on our regular cadence to observe those PLCs to kinda give them feedback and incremental progress as they kinda build towards that mental model that's established within it. Is there an expectation within, like, school schedules for PLCs to be built in? Absolutely. I'm sure there is. Absolutely. I I just I'm I'm still trying to figure out why it's inconsistent because data driven instruction isn't something new. So why are we still trying to figure this piece out if POCs are built into the schedule? Data driven instruction is a part of what we do. Yet when we get presented these results, those are the things that we need to fix. So what who's holding the leaders accountable for ensuring that that's even happening at the school ground level? Yeah. And I'll I'll speak to some of that. As as you mentioned, PLCs are built into every one of our school schedules. PLCs meet on a regular basis, once a week to twice a week to 3 times a week. But there's a bare minimum that this is happening once a week in in all our buildings. Now, to Garrett's point, the sophistication of the conversation is inconsistent. There's the conversation of what we teach, how we teach it, and how do we respond for those students who are not learn are not getting it, or those students who have mastered it, and what does acceleration look like. So that's a little bit of the inconsistency as as we go from PLC to PLC. We've got some high leverage PLCs that have moved quickly. We know what we're teaching. We know how we're gonna teach it. Now, let's talk about the questions, those two questions specifically. So we dive into what does small group instruction look like, what does 1 on 1 instruction look like. So this team in particular is is highlighting those those PLCs that have moved past question 1 or 2 quicker than some of our other teams who are still still not stuck, but still there's some conversation, a lot of conversation about what we're gonna teach. And so that's not getting to the meat and potatoes of the conversation of how we are gonna respond after tier 1 instruction has happened. So that's a little bit of the inconsistency, and what this team is working with principals and assistant principals in is how do we get our our teachers, past that first first stage of of that conversation and talking specifically about how we're going to respond, instructionally, again, through either small groups, 1 on 1 instruction or reteach. And so that's that's leveraging our PLCs across our system that are doing that already. So I know that we I'm sorry if I'm taking up too much time. So I know that we have a district PD calendar. Are schools required to submit PD calendars for the entire year? Yes. So they should already know what they're gonna be talking about on PLCs or PDs. Excuse me. As part of the 90 day planning process, each school outlines the exact tools and resources that are gonna be leveraged throughout the cadence of the year, inside of that 90 day plan so that it's clear. And onboarding at the beginning of the year for teachers since 25% turnover rate, is there a portion catered to PLCs? Yeah. Most schools have an orientation process for their their new leaders where they get the chance to kinda learn the basics of curriculum, oversight of the PLC, how to establish basic classroom management skills. Okay. So we do have a calendar, a PD calendar. And I'm assuming that the agenda of what is going to be talked about doing PD is sent to the teachers for buildings. So and you just said to us that, yeah, there is time for PLC, so why are we still seeing this inconsistency? It's not the first time. I mean, for months, we've been every time we do data analysis, we hear inconsistency across, inconsistency. If we do have a calendar for PD and everybody knows that there is an agenda and everybody knows that what is going to be talked about, why are we still seeing this? What is it that is not getting across our leaders? Because at this point, it's not the teachers. It is not the teachers. So it has it has to be something coming from somewhere that's not really resonating. What is it? I'm trying to figure out because we're midyear now, and we already seen that we may not be able to reach our goal. Yet we get given all these strategies every time we meet here, month after month. So what is not clicking? I, you know, I'll take a stab at it. I I I think that and I I wanna tread lightly because I don't wanna, I've only this is my 2nd year in this role, a year and a half. I'll tell you last year, I heard loud and clearly that similar to what, director Duncan said, yeah, PLCs is the norm. We've done PLCs for years. And I think sometimes what happens is, and I've been in other systems where people get comfortable with, yeah, we're we're PLC instructor. We have the space. We have the time. And as you said, we get turnover. People jump into that space and structure, but really haven't gotten the supports, the resources, the training to actually understand the value of operating a professional learning community in the manner that is designed. So the 4 questions, understanding that at a deep level, knowing the kids that you're serving, understanding the data that's in front of you, how to how to ask real meaningful data questions to actually, identify the needs of your of your students. Again, the reason I'm treading lightly is because I don't wanna make it sound like this wasn't in place, but I think they may have gotten to a place where it was comfortable and we just kinda knew what was going on. Well, as we began to unpack this data and look at these inconsistencies across the system, there was a realization we have to create a structure to make sure that we have strong professional learning community implementation. And, again, I'll go back to the the identification, first of all, of just the structure of the operational directors and instructional directors so that our building leaders can have the space and time to really focus on instructional leadership. Then number 2, the coaches that come alongside and work with, teachers and PLCs to ensure that they're asking the right questions. The follow-up between the directors and the principals to make sure that the PLCs are operating with fidelity, what supports do you need, what professional learning can we offer, or what coaches can we push into, your professional learning communities, or what models can we identify across the district that are working really well and give your team an opportunity to go sit down and talk with them? Those are things that are being put into place now that I feel like weren't necessarily most recently, again, I'm treading lately, most recently weren't in place. So, I know we've been coming and saying inconsistencies, yeah, because we've been unearthing those, but we're also putting in structures and systems now to clean up for to solve for those inconsistencies. And it does take a little bit of time for that to take effect. I guess I don't know if this question is even, appropriate, but how much time is needed? I mean, we 95% has been implemented for, what, 2 years now? So how much time is needed? And and I just wanna wanna focus on the PLCs and and to your point, agendas are created ahead of time. Agendas are owned by our PLCs. They know exactly what data to bring to the table. They know the level of conversation. So I don't wanna say that PLCs, we need we need to foster a more sophisticated conversation around how are we responding. We gotta arm our teachers with the tools to say, how are we responding to our language learners who may not be getting it, or this this, this subgroup, or whatever that looks like. And what we really need to get better as a system is what does intervention look like as a result of the PLCC, at PLC? And so that is that is kind of our continued focus to say, these conversations are happening. These these conversations are going, but I I understand that that's that's the work, and that's what we continue to focus on and and get better at. Director Tomlin. Thank you for the presentation. It was mentioned, that the amount of time students engage in I Ready is not the recommended amount, right? Are we seeing examples or data that is, that's showing? Because you had mentioned, you know, working with where it's successful, where we're we're seeing that the examples where those that spend the recommended time, that we're seeing those desired results. Yeah. And that's one of the things that our our team does a really nice job of is, recognizing those individuals, those educators who are demonstrating, being I won't say in compliance, but more Aligned with the the research around how much time students should be spending those on those already lessons and, the outcomes in classrooms. So I I don't wanna again, I'll I'll let the director speak to it, but I know that we have been recognizing there has been an increase, in many of our classrooms, and they're demonstrating success in hitting those targets of time, using our ready lessons. And we're continuing to not only celebrate that, but then also prove how that's benefiting, our students so that other teachers will feel comfortable doing that as well. But I'll let the director speak to that. Alright. So in response to, what you're asking, especially about the personalized learning for students what we found schools that really engage students where they know students and they're actually intentionally monitoring which there are there are schools that are doing a great job using personalized learning or the instructional practices for students. For those schools that really are doing those intentional strategies, monitoring, ensuring kids are being celebrated, we find that students have more ownership. It's not just because they're getting a cookie or some treat, but we really see that they are improving or closing the gap, which is what we want to see when they are practicing. So those strategies aren't working. The schools that are using, I would say, incentives and while we're trying to push beyond the the extrins, it still motivates young people at this point. But I would say the main goal is that piece of reward and we're rewarding not because you're gonna get something, but because you're improving or closing the gap. It does help support student learning. That minimum forty minutes is it is huge and when schools that are using it very intentionally plan for staff to use it during intervention and they differentiate the learning that students need during those interventions, say for instance students are in different levels, right? And so teachers who are working with those students during that time if they are truly monitoring students and catching students as they are working on I Ready practice that supports the students and yeah I'm doing a great job it's not just I'm sitting here pushing buttons but I really am improving or closing the gap on the skills where I'm not I haven't been very successful. So there are several schools across the district, I wouldn't say several, many schools across the district that are using I would say different types of rewards or different types of incentives And also beyond incentives, it's just really holding students accountable as well as themselves for ensuring that the practice is more than just sitting in front of the computer, but I'm actually engaged in learning. And if I can just add 1 more element to to this work, as as we've we've highlighted, there's tier 1 in us instruction, there's then small group instruction, 1 on 1 instruction, the I Ready lessons, the the the research says at least forty five minutes. That's a lot in a in a literacy block. That's a lot in, in a period a chunk of time. So 1 of the things as as you are aware is is we're looking at our bell our bell times across across our system, if you look at elementary start and stop times, they are they are diverse throughout our system. So 1 of the things we are looking at is with all these things that we are asking our educators to do, first, how do we arm them with the skills and the professional learning to do this? And then how do we how do we allocate the time to do this work? And time is a critical element, to accelerate the learning. So that is something also that is happening within our system to kind of evaluate the time being allocated by building to do this work. Let me make sure I hear it right. So right now, your leadership team is trying to figure out how to allocate the time, Right? To make sure that instruction is delivered properly, time on computer is delivered properly, and everything else. Is that what I heard you say? We are aligning the time, across our across our system. So we have start and stop times that are different throughout our system. So we wanna align that to bring greater consistency to our system. So maybe I did not understand very well what you just explained because, again, maybe my brain just switched to French. So pardon me. I'm gonna ask this question. How much time is being allocated on computer for our students and how much time we we're talking about, third grade literacy and right? So elementary. How much time is being allocated also for phonics, for writing, and for reading? Do we know? Is it consistent across when we go to when when teachers are in their PDs? Is this something that is communicated pro properly? Is that data that you have I mean, you can speak to now or is that something that we need to Yeah. No. Research. Through curriculum and instruction or teaching and learning, they have allocated district wide how many minutes. Sorry. Thanks. They have allocated how many minutes per subject every teacher engages in. So there's, for instance, a hundred and ninety or a hundred and sixty minutes of literacy a day. So everybody has that expectation. It's just within the literacy block, there's, autonomy about around what gets done and when. Whether it's a workshop model, whether it's a different model, and so some schools, have been able to integrate I Ready seamlessly within that time frame, and some schools have not. And so we are still working with the schools who have not, been able to integrate I Ready within those minutes for math and literacy. And I just for clarity too, madam president, I I don't know if the question as I hear it and maybe I'm misunderstanding your question. Specific as we're talking about I Ready, how much time is dedicated to that? And I don't know if you're holding on to we said the research speaks anywhere between thirty to forty forty nine minutes. Okay. That's per week. That's not per day. So if I'm in a literacy block, I mean, what is that? Maybe ten minutes a day. A day on that. So it's not like it's taking the entire literacy block. It's just ten minutes a day. But, again, I don't know if I misunderstood your question or not, but I just wanna clarify that. Thank you. Director Tasker? Yeah. I Oh, wait. Sorry. Hi. Okay. So I had a couple questions on I guess it's referring to slide 8, but I'm looking at the data, and I wanna, you know, definitely congratulate our excesses. I see that we're growing in the subgroups of non ELL, ELL, no IEP, an IEP, female, man male. Sorry. Non FRL and FRL. And, my question is, so when we're when we're looking at the ELL and non ELL, there's a 5.84 gap between, both subgroups. So what strategies or support is present to provide support for our students? And it's the same when looking at the FRL and non FRL. There is a 6.2 gap. Take a quick stab at it, and then I'll let the team respond. The the as as we've talked about several times, the identifying who's, FRL is not something that we can do in the classroom to apply a specific strategy. So that's kinda difficult to say, well, we do this just for students who are identified as free and or reduced lunch. But for our multilanguage learners, as we spoke to in I don't know which slide it was. We talked about being more consistent, thank you, with, students receiving that not only that instruction, but those strategies that we know are, research based, evidence based, and prove successful for our English learning language learners outside of just the CLD block. So they get it in the CLD block. But how do we ensure that they're getting that in their other courses as well? And we believe that that will be a catalyst to, increasing their outcomes over time. But you guys, if you wanna add to it. That's accurate. So there's a ELD block, which is called dedicated ELD. So that's when, our language learners are learning the language explicitly. And then, what we are needing to support better in classrooms is called embedded ELD, which is when those strategies that they're learning in the ELD block are embedded in the gen ed situation. And that's something that we are working on, and that is the better bang for our buck. Okay. Any other question? Yes. Yeah. I I think director Tasker Okay. I do have another 1 looking at, slide 12. When we do when we go through the different RPMs and stuff, for instance, where there's always on the final slide is there's always what, the listed supports or strategies. And 1 of the things on here under the bullet point where it starts a targeted coaching, I'm kinda curious. What are the supports in 5 key practices? Great. I'm happy to get you that information and we can outline those processes for you. The 5 key practices? Well, the the 5 key practices, building background knowledge, building vocabulary, using visual, cues in the classroom. I I can't think of the fourth one. There's context, using language within the context that they're familiar with, and then I can't remember the fifth one off the top of my head. Okay. But they're common, practices that are that best serve our, multilingual learners. Okay. Awesome. And teachers know that? That's part of the coaching and the work that we're we're trying to do to ensure that they do know that and they use those practices. So can I say they all know it right now? No. How long have we started implementing that? We were doing this when I was teaching. Yeah. I can't I can't speak to the the art of when this originally started. So it's it's been a practice for a while of schools. Okay. The question that I had around that was, is there planning, like coordination between the, the teacher who's supplying the embedded supports and the teacher who is in there teaching the, you know, get down to brass tacks kind of thing, and how how well that's coordinated so that both of them know, you know, this is the content I'm teaching in science, this is the content I'm teaching in social studies, so that the you know what I'm getting at here. I mean, is that planned well together, is it coordinated together? Because I think the 5 practices are pretty easy to figure out. I mean, I shouldn't be going down this route, but, I don't think that's the hard part. I think it's the communication and the coordination in getting that done. But I'd be interested in how that's taken care of. Yeah. I can speak a little bit to that. I'm recognizing we've been in partnership with the CLDE department. These are not new strategies that we've not known before. The challenge is making sure that we're applying them consistently at the right time. And so the big thing is we have a three year expectation that every educator that enters Aurora Public Schools obtains a certain credential. So we're trying to leverage for the very first time building a bridge between that credential and getting on the same page with the language. So director Annalie McBee is gonna be training her credential team who will train her people that are boots on the ground that gives us a common language to use across the system. What we haven't had is a common language across the entire system to apply it, but the bigger higher leverage is feedback observation cycles with our school leaders. Micro skill building, anyone who's been part of, a feedback op, it's not a formal coaching session that takes long term and a lot of our coaching resources tend to lean towards our our newest and most vulnerable educators. This high leverage strategy allows for people to see it, name it and practice and do it. So that's the intention as we have a common group of these strategies. We're applying it to a brand new core curricular resource which were introduced a brand new resource with wonders three years ago across the entirety of the system to optimize what's already in the resource as well as apply these to their it's an art. And to have a high density of newcomers that just accessing the language alone, let alone the tier 1 content is is something that we are stepping up to try to do in more sophisticated ways. Recent research from TNTP talks about the high difference changing schools, schools that have students similar to rural public schools that are changing the needle. They're rethinking intervention. They're not teaching tier 1 and surprised that new, you know, incoming emerging bilinguals didn't get it. They're planning intervention at the same time they're planning tier 1 so that certain students get access and immersion into the critical vocabulary, the visualization, all of these tools in advance of tier 1 even being deployed so that it has a much more profound impact. It's not the first time I heard that word. I understand the visual that's associated with the concept. I've used the below grade level, text to build critical schema so that I can sit next to my kids inside of my class and have access even if it's just from an oration standpoint. And so that's some of the tools and and strategies that we'll be taking on and we're trying to do it unilaterally across the entire system instead of just in that pocket of ELD. Thank you. Director Reinhart. Thank you. I think you answered part already of what I was gonna ask. Thank you, Superintendent Giles, for pointing out that we're comparing apples to oranges when we look at these trend lines. Every group of students is different, every student within every group is different, so that's going to fluctuate. You're not tracking a group of students on those trend lines. CLDE, not instruction but PD, every hire regardless of what they're hired into is required? Is it nine hours? A minimum of nine hours in CL CLDE course course work? The CLDE course work begins in their first year with a short course. And then in years two and three, there are ninety hours of professional learning that certified licensed teachers take in year 2 and year 3. Does that equate I I think what I was thinking is way back maybe equating to nine credit hours, 9 college level credit hours. Is that right? Somewhere in there? Yes. It is similar to what? Putting into the city. That is correct. Thank you. And thinking of hearing a teacher speak earlier about computer time versus reading a book, to me, you can't replace a book. So do we evaluate really the value of how much time our not just APS students, but kids everywhere Oh. Are spending looking at a screen and they're not interacting with an educator and and they don't have a real book in their hands. Some kids are gonna love it. I've talked to a lot of people in the last week. Some of the comments I've heard from, building personnel administrators are kids have said, we don't have to be on our computers. There, and some will say, I want my computer back. There's no doubt. But I think we have to acknowledge that. Are we getting, for lack of a better term, bang for the buck out of putting kids on computers every day? And I understand that iReady is only averaging ten minutes a day, but nothing replaces a book and interacting with other people when you're studying, reading, whatever from that book. So Director Reinhardt, I appreciate that that that comment, and I've I've had this conversation with members of the leadership team this week as and the end of last week as we're reflecting on the situation we've been in with the Internet outage. And I think there was an unintentional and I'm sure APS isn't the only district, but there's an there was an unintentional maybe messaging, or pendulum shift coming out of COVID where we talked about technology and all the things that we can do with it. And I think we've become almost over relying on it now. And I it wasn't until, honestly, this week that it was a wake up call for me that, you know, maybe we are, overemphasizing the use of technology, and we gotta get back to a space of balance where we use the technology where appropriate. But the interaction, the using the books, the I mean, all of the resources that we can to support learning, we need to make sure we're finding a good balance on that and not overemphasizing the tech. So yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I just I just wonder, are we investing in the right resources to get what we need or evoke what we need from our teachers to be better instructional deliverer people in the classroom? Because I know we're going to Unbound Ed conferences. There's, UVA partnerships. And it's like, that's a lot of money that the district is investing in the development of educators, yet we're not yielding the results that we wanna see. So are we really investing in the right resources? That's what I'm sitting here trying to figure out because I work in a profession on a daily basis, as as well as others. And I know how hard coaching is, and I know how hard it is to coach teachers, especially when you don't have everything you need to be effective in that position. So, I I would really consider all these partnerships that we have within the district really working. And if not Whatever. Get rid of them or reevaluate what's going on, because I like, we're I'm I'm four year I'm almost four years in as a board member, and things haven't gotten that much better from a student achievement standpoint. So it's what are we gonna do to fix the system that our students are operating within? I appreciate it. And that is the work that we have to do continuous continuously analyze, you know, our partnerships, our resources. If they're not moving the dial the way we need them to, then maybe we don't continue to do them. So Judge your cookie. I think 1 of the I I agree so much with what you just said, drops your donkey. But, and, not but, but and, thinking about all the variables that we have, from 25% new teacher base to tremendous influx of students who are learning English to, you know, differences in buildings and so forth. There's just so many variables. It's hard to you know, if you were doing a scientific thing, you'd take 1 variable at a time, you know, and, test it out. I I know that teachers and and building leaders and and our teams, want to do the very best for kids so that they learn quickly and efficiently and effectively and, and just how to sort all that out. I guess I just, I too feel impatient. I also, just feel for everyone who's who's trying to make this happen. And, I, you know, I wonder about holding people accountable. Building leaders make a huge difference in how teachers respond and get things done. I do think also the districts the district, setting certain parameters, this is how it looks like, helps also helps the building leader. And I also know that, different buildings are different, and sometimes you gotta do things differently. And certainly we know kids are different, you know, the biggest variable of all. So I I just wanna say thanks to everyone for all their hard work. But I'm I'm wondering of all as director Duncan was starting to say that of all these different, pieces of the puzzle that we've had for professional learning for teachers and and staff, is there 1 that stands out more than others that might be, you know, in the final analysis might be a way to invest more time and money into? Or is there something that you're like, we haven't seen much bang for the buck here, you know, that kind of thing. That, you know, how do we, how do you analysis, how do you analyze that? So, and I, we probably have contracts for them as well, so you can't just say, okay, we're done, or you could, but I mean, that's costly too, I guess, is what I'm saying. And I'll just speak to that a little bit, to director Duncan's point and and director Gerken's point, is we have a lot of partnerships, whether that be UVA, whether that be TNTP, whether it be whoever, whoever that is, that we are constantly analyzing. How is this cohort of schools that is engaged in this work? How are they performing? Are they performing the same? Are they performing better? Are they performing worse? Obviously, if they're performing the same or worse, those are decisions we have to make as a district to say that partnership is no longer we have made that with some of our partners. We continue to engage. We see bright spots with TNTP. That is that that's a partner partnership that I would point to that say we are we are leveraging that and getting better results. That will be continue that will continue to be the work in in identifying who are those partners in this work, to accelerate the learning. Doctor Gherkin, thank you so much for that comment. But I just wanna make it clear for the record as well that none of us sitting here is throwing rocks at staff. We are all asking questions to figure out how to move the district better. No. I I didn't interpret it that way. I did not. I I I I'm agreeing. Yeah. I did. There's a lot to, there's a lot to figure out, and there's, you know There is. And I think we are all agreeing in different ways, but I just wanted to make this piece better. Talking to our staff, we are all asking questions that sometimes are hard but need to be asked. We are not throwing rocks at you. We all work together, at least that's how I see it. And sometimes we have to ask hard questions. And sometimes we have to ask questions that are not so pertinent but are still pertinent because there are no wrong questions, right, when we are trying to find solutions. That's all I was trying to say. Thank you so much for making that comment. Any other question in that, with 1.1? Alright. Superintendent. Alright. And I'll check-in with you, president Kiki. The the next two, one point two looks at, our third grade students who start the year below grade level when they're ready. And then 1.3 looks at our students who start the year, on grade level, but make typical growth. And so what you'll notice is the strategies aren't gonna be drastically different, because we're talking about our third grade students, with regard to ELA. So with that being the case, I'm just wondering if if it's okay that I just go through, highlight the data, what the trend is, for the next 2, and then just open it up for questions if you have any beyond the questions that have been asked already. Does that work? Alright. So starting with 1.2. Again, we're looking at the percent of third grade students who start the year below grade level on I Ready, and they meet stretch go growth. And just as a reminder, just a couple of things that I wanna point out as you're looking at the data. Before we look at the data, this provides insight on whether students are making accelerated acceleration that is needed to eventually get back on to grade level, which is a result of trying that we're trying to improve. I already researched also shows that students who start two plus years below grade level and meet stretch growth, two years in a row are more likely to be on grade level after two years. So they make their stretch growth for two years, and by the third year, ideally, they will be on grade level. And so we're looking at this group of students. If you recall last year, again, we were concerned about looking at all the students we serve and not just students that are either, below grade level, middle, or, the students that were at the other end. But looking at all of our students. So this 1 particular in particular looks at our students who are two two years below, and that are making stretch growth. If you go to slide 6, you can look at our data, at the midyear point. And what you'll see is that ten point eight percent of our students, who started the year 2 grade levels below have made stretch growth. If you look at that information or that data compared to the year 2324, you will see that we have more students this year that are making that stretch growth. Again, that's a positive for us when we look at the trend. However, as doc director Reinhart stated, we these are not the same cohort of students. So it's data good data to look at, but it's not the end all, be all data. If you go to slide 7, you'll see the data disaggregated similar to the previous presentation, by our racial category, racial and ethnic categories. Again, the positive is when you look across the board, you see all of our, subgroups demonstrating, some growth with the exception of, our native Hawaiian and our multiracial when you compare them to last year's group. Alright. Then I'll take you to slide 8. Again, we'll look at our students that are, identified English language learners or non ELL, students within or without IEPs, gender, and then free and or reduced lunch. And you can see the same trend of positive, increase year over year. And so although the target has not been set, we'll bring that back to you, I think, in Feb. 0. What we can say is the trend is that we're improving. And if we were to look at historical data, we would make the assumption that we would meet the target that, is set for this particular progress measure. And, again, I'm not gonna go through all of the, strategies because we've already done that in the first presentation. They're pretty much the same. And then, Claudia, can you pull up 1.3, please? Thank you. And then, result progress measure 1.3 looks at the percent of percent of third grade students who start the early on grade level on I Ready, and they meet typical growth. Again, early on grade level is exactly where we would expect students to be, meaning that they've demonstrated, skills and mastery of of the standards at that particular grade level at that point in time. And then typical growth is the amount of growth that they would have to accomplish throughout the year to remain on grade level or, go mid to above. Slide are we on here? I'll just take you directly to the data on slide 6. And what you will see is, again, our midyear data, thirty four point seven percent of those students who start early on grade level have made typical growth at this point. And then we'll see how they perform at the end of the year. If we compare this year's data, this year's group to last year's group, we'll see that they've declined roughly 4 percentage points, 4%, if you will. I'll take you to slide 7. You'll see that same data disaggregated by race and ethnicity. And then slide 8, same disaggregation by, our MLs, free and reduced gender, and then students with and without IEPs. Again, the overall story to be told is that, looking at the trend, we're down a bit, but we don't know what that means for us at the end of the assessment. Ideally, if we, do the things that we're saying that we've talked we've talked about at length, in the previous slide, that will improve outcomes for these students. And we'll see them actually grow at a higher rate than, than than historically or than last year. So I'll stop there and just open up for if there are additional questions to be asked or comments to be made. Board, the floor is open. Object to a quarter. Just going off the the the previous conversation and honestly the tenor of the tone, but the just in reference to I think both director Duncan and doctor Kiki in that we have been consistently trying different, I wanna say tools, admins, trainings over and over. And at this point, we've had what at best could be called minimal growth. My question is and I'm not a teacher, and so I defer to the teachers, sitting at the podium or sitting on the behind this side of the microphone. We keep asking more and more of the teachers, has anyone ever tried the possibility of instead of sending them to more classes, sending them to more trainings and giving them more, time in their classrooms, giving them more time to actually do their lesson plans. I know 1 of the things that is continually being encroached on, as, like I said, not a teacher but the husband of a teacher is that time. They are consistently taken out of their classroom during their planning periods which pushes those planning periods to period them doing it at home. And we keep implementing new and inventive ways to place, the additional burdens on top of those teachers. Have we ever have we tried just giving them some of the time back, inside the classroom? I that's the most appropriate question. I mean, we're constantly talking about whether it's a new strategy or sometimes their mandates that come down from the state or whatever it is. How do we assess what we can take away or stop doing so that teachers have time to really dig into instruction and things that are important. I I can't sit here and tell you that we've just stopped and just said, look. We're gonna give you time to go do your work, but we'll constantly talk about what are the ways we can identify how we can give them time back to really focus in. So it's it's definitely of, an area of focus, for us. So Director Reinhart? Sorry about that. Not just giving them the time, but hearing their voices. What do I need to do my job? What do I need? Not someone coming and telling me you need to sit in on this, but what do you your other the leadership would be saying what do you need to the folks who are in the trenches doing the work on a daily basis. Right now, the first word is time. That is a perpetual perpetual, perpetual Yes. Been a while since I taught, but that's an ongoing issue from back Yeah. We won't say that far back, but that's yeah. But also, what do you need? What is going to help you the most? Yeah. Director Dunkey. I'm I'm glad you went before I did. Because I almost again, I just sit here and I I think a lot sometime to my own detriment, but, do we have too many competing priorities? Like, is there too much being put on our leaders to where our building leaders to where they can't make the time necessary to have effective data driven instructional meetings or data meetings or plan effective PLCs because there's so much coming down from the district standpoint that they have to answer to. And I'm only asking because I know we we deal with some of the same things over in DPS. Like, there's a lot that is asked of us as building leaders. It's just hard to focus solely on 1 thing. So many things we're focusing on that we can't get great at 1 thing. So I just wonder, is there things that can be put to the side to focus more on what we need to accomplish in the district? Answer that. I don't know if they can answer that right now. It's just something that I'm sitting here pondering on because I know 1 thing, we talk about time, but our kids don't have time. Because next year, they'll be fourth graders. They're they keep moving up. Yeah. And they're still not reading on grade level. So we talk about time, but the kid our kids don't have as much time as we're saying we need. So we gotta figure something out. Director Duncan, I appreciate your question. I I I guess I just wanna acknowledge. I don't know if you saw you were looking this way, but every single 1 of them was shaking their heads. And, have we found that appropriate rhythm? No. Do we ask ourselves or and not only ourselves, but also ask the system, provide more time? We do. It's just so much, and it comes from every single angle. But we definitely have to continue to figure out, you know, what's most important, what are the priorities, and then how can we, be more concerted in our effort to achieve those priorities where we're not just taking a imposing on everybody's time unnecessarily. So the question is well founded. So Director Gherkin? Yeah. So, I know when I was a building principal and my director would always say, you're focusing on too much. I'd say, yeah, but we need all these things. And, yeah, we all agree. Kids need all these things, but I know that if I had focused on fewer things, I probably could have done more things well. So I'm thinking about our board, and the goals, the results that we have looked at. We have 5. We don't need to have 5. And I think sometimes people worry that if a board says, oh, we're just gonna focus on literacy, that the math teachers will coast. I just don't believe that. But, I mean, there's political aspects of everything. But I'm I'm just wondering, as we consider and talk with our, community over the next few months, as we get ready to set if we make any changes, should we focus on fewer results? And keep it simple. You know? I I think yes. Thank you again, Director Gerken for this comment. I I think you might be right and the opportunity to review or to reassess, our goals, is around the corner. I also want to acknowledge, Director Reinhardt. I think you had mentioned once that maybe going back and looking at how we have done this community service and kind of have a little bit of free imagination on how we did that can get us to where we wanna be and really capture what the community wants Mhmm. And what we see internally. And then, you know, bring them together and see if we can come up with something that will move the district, you know, ahead further. Yes, ma'am. In relation to what you just said, I think you were on maybe you were on the email chain Yeah. Where some of that was found, located, and sent as far as how we did that the first time. Yes. Granted, a lot of it was online because we didn't have a choice at that point in time when we set the initial results and limitations. I was going to print some of that out, but the collection of comments that were sent in that email chain, I think is a hundred and some pages. Oh, boy. And that's from doing online community sessions where we broke up in partners where Debbie might remember more specifically than I do. But having a number of sessions that were all virtual community, neighborhood organizations, churches, chamber, I mean, we really, really tried to reach out and collect that feedback from all over the community. So yes, we do have kind of a sketch, I'm not saying by any means should we do the very same thing. Questions that we asked are within what we received on that email. And I think the questioning should come the ideas should come from the 7 member board. We should all be contributing Absolutely. To that. 1 of the questions in that set was to the community what is Aurora Public Schools doing well, what could Aurora Public Schools do better. But it was never a Aurora Public Schools is awful at this, get better. If that's it wasn't to to slam pound. It was to say, what are you looking for in your school district? So, yeah, there is a there is a starting point if we want it. Yeah. Thank you so much. And I think there will be more conversation around that here soon. So let's see how that goes. Thank you again. Any other comments? Any other questions for, our leadership team or the superintendent regarding the different, results, goals that we have looked at today? Alright. Can I just say quickly, I've been in Aurora Public Schools for eight years? I've enjoyed every moment and I've learned a lot. A little bit of a new role this year. However, I would tell you that under superintendent Mike's leadership, the work that you are doing and asking him to do and the work that he is working alongside us to do is going to be what makes a difference. I hear lots of questions about partnerships and what do we need and what do we not need. And I I know that superintendent Mike is having those conversations with us as well. But I would also just remind all of us that it's takes three to five years for that to really make a difference. I would say that we've had two well, not even two years yet of the work that we have started under superintendent Mike's leadership. And we have good momentum right now. I know under that leadership that that's going to continue. We've got three years of wonders under our belt. We've got two years of 95%. When we look at our third grade, I know it's going to happen. But we need to continue to have that focus. So Any other? Thank you for that comment. Thank you. I have no doubt. I I personally have no doubt, and I I do want to appreciate each 1 of you for the hard work. Sometimes we sit here and we ask the hard questions. It's not because we are forgetting or dismissing the hard work that you're doing. It's just that it's a little bit part of our role. So thank you, really. We see you, as someone would say. Thank you so much. So that being said, does the board agree with the report addressed tonight, the results? Yes. Yes. Yes. Alright. Thank you, superintendent. And thank you again, superintendent's team, for your hard work. We appreciate you. And we are going to move forward. Since it's 2 in 1, it's a 2 in 1 meeting today. That closes the report monitoring piece of our meeting. We are going to now get into a business meeting, for tonight. So, we are going to get into the consent for the business meeting. Do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. It's been moved by director Duncan and seconded by director Gherkin. Claudia, would you please call roll? Yes, ma'am. Director Carter? Aye. Director Duncan? Aye. Doctor Gerken? Aye. Doctor Kiki? Aye. Director Tasker? Aye. Director Tom Wing? Aye. Director Reinhart? Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Claudia. All right. So the board will now be provided with update information pertaining to the Colorado interest free loan program. And that would be Brett Johnson. Good evening. Brett Johnson, chief financial officer for the district. This is a super short update. When we adopt the budget in June 0, we, because of the timelines involved to participate in the program, we ask for your support to potentially participate in the interest free loan program at the state. For a little background or a reminder, when the state shifted its, all of k twelve's fiscal years to its fiscal year, which is a Jan. 1 through June 30. It made a lot of sense for our operations in terms of having the full school year in 1 fiscal year. But from a cash flow perspective, it was problematic in which we get the bulk of our funds from property taxes that are received in the of the fiscal year, if not the this would be analogous to getting hired for a job and being told you would be paid, for most of your work seven months from now. So the state offers a cash flow loan program in which they are the borrower. They pay the interest and, and they don't charge us for that interest to smooth out that cash flow if we need it. Some years we participate, some years we don't, based on a a host of different variables. This year, we did not have to participate in the interest free loan program. It doesn't necessarily mean it's good news or bad news when we have to. It's just a it's a cash flow vehicle, that helps us smooth out our expenditures over the year. The memo that's in your packet says that we did not participate. Traditionally, in Jan. 0, we give an update as to if we are participating and how much we are projecting to participate. Last year, we we participated and borrowed, about $40,000,000. So it's nice to have this tool. It's nice that the stat the state is invested in paying the interest on our behalf, but we did not have to use it this year. Any comments or questions for Brett? Thank you. You can say it out loud. Thank you. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Sure and so. Thank you. Brett? Good job. Didn't have to go around. And moving on, the board was provided with an update for the Bridges Elementary Math to the third edition of curriculum materials. As requested, the board for the board to approve and adopt the updated materials will we will be included in the Feb. 18 Is there any comment that, needs to be made? Or I know there is no presentation per se. No. There's no presentation, but we do have, doctor Joswick and, mister Khosravi here if there are questions. Alright. Any questions, board? No questions saved by the no. No. Seriously, thank you so much for your hard work. Alright. We are going to move on with, board work. Directors, do we have any announcement? Do we have any observation? Any comment? Yes. Director Gerken? I would just like to, give tremendous kudos to our IT department, and all the folks, all the folks who worked so hard this past week, first of all, to notice something was wrong, to step in, and now to repair all those paths that had to be relayed again. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. Superintendent, do you have any comment on that? I do. And I'll I'll kinda jump on that that that wagon behind, director Gherkin. And forgive me. I'm gonna read my notes because I wanna make sure that I capture all the points that I wanna get out. But first of all, I will start with just as you do acknowledgment. Thanking the community, our staff, students, families, and and, our technology and security teams. This week, it took a lot of patience, a lot of resilience, and a lot of teamwork, during our phone outage. So I wanna recognize everyone that that chipped in and leaned in on that. It was a challenging week that requires staff and students to pivot and change how we do almost everything, and we talked a little bit about that earlier. We're also grateful for all, everyone in the room, and we wanna recognize how challenging a week it was. So I wanna give you a brief overview of the situation. As we shared early on Monday morning, each of you got the, communication that was sent out. Our district staff noticed suspicious activity within our network. And as a precaution, which I'm glad that we responded that way, we proactively shut down our network. We're continuing to work with third party experts, locally and and federally, and with partners to investigate what the cause was. When we have more information to share, I assure you that we will share that information. And I know there's some concern about what we're sharing and what we're not. To this point, we're sharing the information that we have, and I wanna assure you of that. And as we get more information, we'll share it. As of today, though, we're happy to announce that the Internet and phone services have been restored to our schools and our district sites. Of course, there are some glitches in some areas, but we're working through those punch lists as they're, identified and shared with us. Also, I want to emphasize that safety is our top priority. We have many safety measures in place at our schools, and our staff utilize numerous tools. It's not just 1 tool, and methods to keep our students and staff safe. You know, during the outage, we maintained our emergency response system. We maintained our intercom system, secured doors, staff presence, security dispatch, campus security officers, and school resource officers. These are all critical preventative safety measures, and we know that it takes all of us to keep staff safe and our students safe. So I do appreciate the community's continued, push and focus on safety. Just a couple of things. Again, we have additional when we have additional information to share, we'll provide our community with further updates. We acknowledge that many of our community members, and maybe you in the room feel frustrated. But again, this is a challenging week. And I thank you all for the continued patience as we're working through this. And lastly, again, just reemphasizing our focus on supporting our students and staff while returning to normal operations. Wanna reiterate reiterate my, gratitude towards the entire, APS community for the support, the flexibility, and understanding. Even in the midst of the challenge, we received a lot of great communication, emails, text messages of people just saying, we support you as you're working through this. And so that's greatly appreciated in times like this. But what it did do for me at at this this week is really highlighting how strong we were we are as a community when we come together and support our students and and and 1 another. So I just encourage us to continue to do that, and I wanna just end by saying thank you so much, for that type of support. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to share that, doctor Kiki. Of course. Thank you for your hard work. I want to take a moment of privilege as well as this month is, School Board of Education Month, and appreciate my colleagues. We don't always agree. We sometimes have different views. And sometimes we, we agree on things. But I know that our hearts are focused on the same thing, which is making sure that our students learn. And our district produces, productive citizens. I just wanna take that moment to say thank you for your work. A lot of people do not know that you get zero paycheck every month, but that's okay. Our reward is every time we see an an improvement. That's our reward. So I wanna thank you again for your hard work. I wanna thank you again for, your dedication. And thank you for running, really. So let's keep up the good work, and let's move our district forward. Thank you. Any other comment? It's director, Tasker? So along with that, happy BOE month. Yay. But so this so in January so, yeah, this month, I visited Aurora Frontier, Vanguard East and West Campus, Dartmouth, and Side Creek, and they're all just amazing. And they're doing a lot of hard work for our students and our multi lang language learners. So, yeah, they're just all the schools it was great when I was visiting. I got to take a tour of the school and look at all the fabulous work our students are doing, and it was just amazing. Thank you. Anything else for the good of the order? Alright. That being said, director Duncan, do you have the time that we spent on monitoring today? Yeah. 73 minutes. Alright. As you've noticed, because of, how the meeting was, we combined 2 meetings. We did not do the board self evaluation because, it would have just been too much, in my opinion. Let's see how next month, goes. If there is no other comment, I just want to, announce that we are almost towards the end. And with this, our next Board of Education meeting will be February 4th 2025. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Claudia, would you please call the roll? Yes, ma'am. Director Carter? Aye. Director Duncan? Aye. Doctor Gerken? Aye. Doctor Kiki? Aye. Director Tasker? Aye. Director Tom Wing? Aye. Director Reinhart? Aye. Thank you. And we are adjourned at 753. I know. Yeah.