The meeting is now called to order. Roll call. Mr. Brown. >> All board members are present except for John Shapiro, our president. >> Thank you. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance 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. Now I will read our Caramel Clay Schools mission statement that is that Carmel
Clay Schools will provide opportunities for all students to realize their potential in an everchanging world. First up today we have our presentations and our first presentation is perfect ACT scores. Mr. Mcdana.
>> Good evening. Uh my name is Kevin McDonald. I'm the director of counseling at Carmel High School. It is my privilege to recognize members of the class of 2026 who achieved a perfect score on the ACT during their time at CHS. At the previous school board
meeting um last month, uh we recognized several students that met this criteria and then we had some students who were unable to make that meeting. So they're we're going to recognize them tonight. As many of you know, the ACT is one of the standardized exams many students choose to take for college admissions
purposes. The exam assesses skills in English, math, reading, and science with an optional writing section. Each each section is scored from a 1 to 36 with the composite score being the average of the four subject areas. Achieving a perfect 36 composite score on the AC ACT
is a rare feat that signifies you have reached the very top of the testing pool. Under the new 2526 ACT format, you must achieve an average of at least a 35.5 across the English, reading, and math sections. Because the ACT rounds up to
the nearest whole number, a 35.5 or higher, uh, or yeah, 35.5 or higher, rounds up to 36. So, this means you can score a 36, a 36, and a 35, or have a perfect 36 across all three sections to get that 36 composite. A perfect 36
composite score is incredibly rare, placing a student in the top 0.25% 25% to.5% of all test takers across the world. I am proud to recognize the following students from Carmel High School's class of 2026 that achieved this perfect composite score of 36 on
the ACT either on one test or through a super score. First student will be Zina Khan, Mera Nuthaki, Alan Chin, Disha Rupes, Allison Shin,
and Dean Watson. Guess I'm O for O tonight. But congratulations to to those guys. >> We have We have some. Please come up. >> Sorry, I didn't ask. >> I figured they may be at home studying,
but glad they're here tonight. Also, I'll let you know we are in the process of getting new artwork from our students here. So, that's why you see the bare wall, but we brought the backdrop here for pictures tonight. So, Congratulations.
Our next presentation is to recognize our Carmel High School highlight staff, Pinnacle staff, WHJ staff, and the CHTV staff, Mrs. Ramos. Hi, I'm the department chair for media
and communications and I get to I have the privilege of uh overseeing the Greyhound Media Network and those four programs that uh were mentioned are our four programs. Uh so I just want to begin with a couple of thank yous though. I want to thank Dr. Orike of course and the entire administrative
team over here um along with the board for having us out tonight. Um, I know this takes time and I really appreciate that you take the time to do this. Um, so thank you very much. Uh, thank you to Ramona Rice, of course, Dr. Brad Siver and Dr. Tim Ferris who are um, here with
us tonight. They oversee our department and um, obviously the high school Dr. Ferris and I want to thank them for their support as well. And it wouldn't be a complete introduction without saying something to our parents and our students. Um, thank you for all of your
support, parents, especially in those beginning years. It's very difficult to get kids to all of these different events that they cover. So, thank you very much for continuing to support your students in that. Um, and to our amazing students for the incredible work that you guys do, and we're going to honor that here in just a minute. um
specifically and I know that the GMN is a family and I'm so glad that you have that family, but your dedication is so apparent and I really really want to thank you for that. Uh and finally, last on the list, but truly not least, are
our teachers in the back, our adviserss for these programs who put in tons and tons of hours um and lots of extra work beyond the norm. So, thank you for everything that you do to lead these these wonderful kids to excellence. So, I'm actually going to go first and I
am going to play the role of uh Mr. Dominic James who is the adviser for WHJ. And I know I can't do I can't do it justice you guys, but I will try. All right. Um, so Dominic James, our WHJ adviser, is unable to attend tonight um
for a medical leave and he's recuperating very well. We just saw him actually made a little visit. So, he's doing really well and he sends his apologies and thanks the board for recognition. Um, but it's then my honor to introduce an exceptional group of seniors whose
work at WHJ has earned recognition at both the state and national levels this year. These students have demonstrated remarkable creativity, professionalism, and dedication across journalism, broadcasting, and media production. At the state level through IASB, we
celebrate first place achievements by, and here's our first student, Riley Sweeney, in copywriting. And then our next student that we want to bring up and I hope that she has arrived um looking out over the audience here. Yes, I see her. Is now this is a
special one. Um this student actually has to do her work live. Um so I actually had the honor of going with her to Indianapolis and finding this radio station that we could hardly find and where she had to on the spot do her thing as a news anchor and she won first
place in the state. So MJ MJ Martell, come on up, please. I'm glad you made it. >> Uh, nationally now through the intercolgate broadcasting system. And um, our CHTV teacher uh, is here and she'll be coming up in just a minute and she'll tell you a little bit more about
these awards. But uh at the national level for the IBS um our students earned top honors across an incredible range of categories from talk, comedy and sports broadcasting to news coverage, podcasting and digital media. It really was an incredible time. Um but we have
some standout contributions. So our very first student is Audrey Paskkins. Our next student, Parsa Mammudi. Gavin Snider, Cooper Sanders, and Riley, you're gonna have to circle back around. Riley Sweeney.
Alex Cole, Alex and Cooper do us a real solid, too, because they serve as aids in the WHJ radio station. So, they help our very youngest students, um, up and cominging ones. So, thank you for that. Uh, Khloe Jones, Franklin Berdus.
So, only the parents that were affected would know this, but we were stuck in New York in a snowstorm when we were there. Yeah. Remember that? It was fun. Uh-huh. Um, but uh Franklin, poor Franklin, he had to turn 18 in New York City. His family had made plans for that
evening that we were supposed to arrive home and those all got cancelled but it doesn't matter. We took him out. We had a nice time. We have even had a little surprise party in the hotel. So he had a very special 18th I think. It was great. Charlie Dean
Mr. James words together. These folks right here, they represent the very best of WHJ. Talented, driven, and ready to make an impact beyond our school. We are incredibly proud of their accomplishments and excited to see what they do next. Please join me in recognizing these outstanding students
one more time. Sorry. Come on up. Congratulations. >> The next adviser that will be coming up will be Mr. Jim Stryil for highlight. Good evening and thank you to the school board and the superintendent for
allowing me this opportunity to recognize some outstanding journalism students. My name is Jim Sterisel and I am the adviser of the highlight news team at Carmel High School. I'm honored tonight to recognize the students who are part of this nationally recognized news outlet. First, the highlight earned
a gold crown from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. The gold crown is the CSPA's highest honor, and the highlight was one of just 10 digital newsonly organizations around the country and the only one in Indiana to earn this recognition. Since the 2008
2009 school year, when the CSPA started to recognize websites, the Highlight has earned 13 gold crowns and three silver crowns, the CSPA's second highest honor. This year marks the staff's third consecutive gold crown. To add to that accomplishment, earlier this month, the National Scholastic
Press Association awarded its online pacemaker awards at its convention in Minneapolis. The Highlight Online website was one of only 16 total winners from around the country and again the only one from Indiana. To earn just one pacemaker is quite an
accomplishment for a new staff. An NSPA pacemaker, which is often called the Pulitzer Prize of Scholastic journalism, represents consistent high quality in content, photography, design, and and adherence to journalistic principles of accuracy, and integrity. With that in mind, the Highlight has
been named a Pacemaker finalist 14 times since 2008 2009, and has won the pacemaker 12 of those times. This marks the staff's second consecutive pacemaker award. Tonight, I am privileged to recognize some of the seniors who comprised this year's highlight
management team who will accept recognition on behalf of the 51 member highlight uh staff. All of these students have been part of the highlight program for all four years of their high school careers. First, we'll start with our uh highlight management team members who are here tonight. Starting with
Lakshumi Chandra Kumar. Next we have Avani Gupta. We also have tonight Safia Ilmudin. And finally, one of our co-editors and chief is here tonight, Mahita Kjedi. Congratulations to all these students. >> Very important.
Our next advisor, Claire Burke, for our pinnacle yearbook. Good evening to Dr. Orike and the board. Thank you for having us um and allowing us to recognize the outstanding work done by the Pinnacle yearbook staff this year.
The Pinnacle enjoyed another truly memorable year with the 2025 yearbook being named a Hooser Star Winner from the Indiana High School Press Association for the uninitiated among us. Um, that's like winning a journalism state championship. Um, so we've won those
Hooser Star awards three of the last four years, I believe. Um so safe to say that the Pinnacle staff is operating a very very high level at this at at the state level. Um they also received a first class with multiple marks of distinction rating
from the National Scholastic Press Association in their critique service. Um this recognizes the professionalism and hard work of our of our yearbook staff. Additionally, the staff received multiple Harvey Awards in individual categories from the Indiana High School
Press Association. Uh these awards these awards were for last year's books. So most of them went to um the staff or seniors who graduated last year, seniors this year. We'll mention you next year when you inevitably win some of those awards. Um but most of those were for
the class of 2025. Um however, I would like to recognize the following senior editors who have served for three years on the Pinnacle staff. Um, this group of students began its yearbook journey during the 2022 2023 school year and has created two who's your star winning yearbooks and hopefully a third once we
get this this new edition in. Um, not only that, but they've managed to create, sell, and distribute over 3,000 copies of the 500 page 500 plus page pinnacle yearbook for the Carmel High School community every year and they have never missed a page deadline. It is a true story. Um, they truly are the
best OF THE BEST. FIRST UP, WE HAVE TREY BAXTER, OUR senior ads editor. Liliana Kate, editor-inchief. >> Bella Golden, reference editor. Sarah Keating, managing editor, Stephanie Neuer, reference editor, and Babin Rupakula, editor-inchief.
And this is a little bit of breaking news for these two students, but Liliana Kate and Bavin Rupakula have also been named to the IHSPA Diana Hadley honor role. Um, named for the former IHSPA longtime executive director that recognizes individuals who have have displayed journalistic excellence while
adhering to the IHSPA core values of truth, courage, integrity, and freedom throughout their school year. Thank you to these outstanding student journalists for their years of professionalism and hard work and best of luck as you take your next steps. Congratulations.
There's going to be some breaking news with this one, too. I'm very excited. Um, this is all uh Brandy Stoic, though. So, um, we're going to bring up the adviser for CHTV, Brandy Stoic. >> Hello everyone. Thanks for having us
tonight to honor these great students. Um, as Terry said, my name is Brandy Es Stojic. I'm a the adviser for CHTV. Um, this year started a lot better than last year. Last year we were in the library during construction. This year we are in our new control room. Um, the kids
really dove in and took advantage of all of our new stuff, including a spring break show entirely on green screen location in the tropics. So, that was nice. We also started um the football season on the field instead of a press box which was very challenging to figure
out but our crews managed to get all five games broadcast and in fact we won an award in one of our state competitions for one of those matchups. Um nationally CHTV was honored to win several in fact the most ever first place awards at the 2025 intercolgic
broadcasting system awards in New York where the radio students got stuck. Um, we did win best commercial, best news report, best use of graphics, best best morning show in addition to several other awards. So, a round of applause
for all of those amazing contributions. Um, at that at that conference, um, it's hundreds and hundreds of high school and college students attending. It's right in Midtown. Um, students get to go to different, um, workshop sessions and learn a lot of cool things. They also
get to experience a little bit of the culture of New York City, uh, the Statue of Liberty. We went to the Empire State Building at night, which was super cool. And, uh, breaking news, as Terry alluded to, we also just learned just this afternoon that CHTV won a student
production award for best newscast in the country. This organization is the same one that puts on the Emmys. So, uh, CHTV won a student Emmy today for best newscast in the country. SO obviously we are very proud. This is the first time we've ever won a that big
of an award through this particular contest. So well done. So I'm excited to recognize all the seniors. Uh those who could be here and those couldn't um who couldn't. Uh we're obviously so proud of all your accomplishments and everything that you have done. So, um, first up,
and I was just going off of here. Okay, perfect. Um, I don't think Zayn is here, but I just wanted to make sure we didn't miss him. Okay, well, Zay Bracken not here, but All right, first up, Michael Goch. Then we have Lily Glanders.
And we have Ben Heath, our station manager, Alina Kaplan, Elon Oliviera, Grover, Rowey, Danny Rogers, Faith Spittle, Noah Wagner, ASHLIN WATERS, AND FINALLY, RENYASIN.
>> Thank you to all of these seniors for all of their work. Appreciate it. Congratulations. At this time, we can take a short break because it is a school night and I know AP exams are starting next week. So, if you would like to uh to go home and
study, you are also welcome to stay and enjoy our board meeting. Congratulations. I know I don't Right. Next up, we typically have public comment. However, this evening, no one has signed up for public comment.
So, next on our agenda is the appointment of the Environmental Stewardship Committee member. And I'm going to turn it over to Mrs. Wheeler. Thank you. Um, as folks may remember, I was appointed by the board um to what is
now known as the environmental stewardship committee, which was created by city ordinance and has um uh goals of helping the city to be um more environmentally sustainable in all
of its operations. Um, after being involved um with that committee for a while, it became apparent to me that um I probably didn't have the right skill set to be an effective committee member because a lot of um environmental
sustainability is facilities based and I am no expert on our facilities. So after speaking with the board, speaking with the committee, speaking with Dr. O strike. Um it was decided that um likely Mr. Toby Steel would be a really great
addition to the committee. I completely support um the efforts of that committee and really appreciate Mr. Steel's willingness um to step in and use his knowledge and responsibilities um uh of our CCS facilities um to see
what ways we might be able to partner with the city um in their environmental sustainability and stewardship activities. So that's what's before us. >> Thank you. Dr. Ostrike, would you want to kind of explain to the public um to
remind everybody what um what Toby Steele does, what his position is in the district? Absolutely. Toby Steele is our director of facilities here with Carmel Clay Schools and he has uh incredible knowledge of the inner workings of our school district uh which makes him a
great candidate to serve on this committee with the city of Carmel. And we appreciate the city of Carmel uh for uh providing uh the school district a seat at the table uh with this important uh commission and committee. >> Thank you. Um, at this time may I have a
motion to appoint Mr. Toby Steel as the Carmel Stewardship Committee member. >> Thank you, Madam President. At this time, I'd like to move to appoint Mr. Steel to the committee. >> Thank you. May I have a second? >> I second. >> Thank you. Any discussion from the board
on this one? Okay, seeing none, we will all take a vote. Signify. If you are in favor, signify by saying I. I. >> I. Motion carries. 4 to zero. Next on our agenda is our consent portion. And tonight the consent items include uh the personnel report, claims,
and payroll. And as a reminder for everyone, our consent part of our meeting is our designated business section where we group together items so that we can efficiently consider them and approve them in a single motion rather than spending time going through
each different item on there. Um, do I have a motion to approve all of the items on the consent agenda this evening? >> I move to approve all the items on the consent agenda. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Any discussion on consent
items? Great. Seeing none, uh, we will take a vote then. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> I. Motion carries four to zero. Moving through things tonight. Uh, next up we have our workshop topic which I'm very excited about. I'm going to turn it
over to Dr. Dudley to brief us on middle school literacy. >> Yes, thank you. So this evening I'm very excited um to have our Mrs. Auroro here um several of our middle school teachers and several of our middle school students to share with us um how the
science of reading is transforming our literacy practices in middle school. So I will turn it over to Mrs. Aurorio. >> Thank you. I'm really excited to be here tonight. I'm joined tonight by our three middle school ELAC's. We have Eli Moffett from Clay Middle School, Sarah
Mindam from Carmel Middle School, and Kristen Castler from Creekide Middle School. And about halfway through our presentation tonight or a little sooner, we're going to bring them up. They're going to be working with you to teach you a lesson um alongside some of our brilliant eighth grade students that are from each of those schools. So, you're going to get a chance to work with them
this evening. Uh before we jump into the real fun stuff, you get to kind of deal with the boring stuff for me first. Um talking about what is the science of reading and what does that look like when we're talking about middle school readers. So our agenda for tonight, we're going to just do some background
knowledge. Luckily, many of you have a little bit of background knowledge because we've done some of this work in our board meeting back in February of 2025 with our elementary programming. So if you are not new to this topic, great news. you have background knowledge which we're going to talk a little bit about tonight that's going to inform you
and also deepen your understanding and if you're new to science of reading this will be a great introduction to get you started. So, we're going to talk a little bit about science of reading and then we're going to talk about what do those shifts look like when we're talking about adolescent learners. And often we think, well, because they're in middle school, we need to do something
totally different. But the research tells us there is a way that people, not just eight-year-olds or 12 year olds or 18-year-olds, learn to read. Humans are engaged in this cognitively complex process of learning to read every day. You all are doing that every night when
you get to read all your fun board information. You're engaging in these same processes as adults doing the work that you do every day as our kids do in first grade and our kids do in eighth grade tonight. So, you're going to learn a little bit though about in a 90-minute block classroom, what that's going to
look like. Then, we'll have our great demonstration with our three DCs who are going to be our teachers. And then we'll do a brief connection to how does this support the work um and the goals of the strategic plan. And then we'll end with questions or comments that you have. So, uh, we're
excited to share with you tonight. So, firstly, we're going to talk about what is the science of reading. Um, and people in this room who've been with me in multiple meetings, you all have probably seen this slide before. I always start with this. This slide is the definition of what is the science of
reading. This comes from a not for-profit organization called the Reading League. Um what the reading league's mission is is to take all the research about literacy instruction, reading, foundational reading skills, cognitive science, um all linguistics,
and bring that all together for educators, the people who have to teach children how to read so that we are informed in our practices so we can do better for our students. So this definition um states that the science of reading is a vast interdisciplinary body
of scientifically based research about reading and issues related to reading and writing. This research has been conducted over the last five decades across the world and it's derived from thousands of studies uh conducted in multiple languages and the science of
reading has culminated in a prepundonderance of evidence to inform how proficient reading and writing develop. why some have difficulty and how we can most effectively assess and teach and therefore improve student outcomes through prevention of and
intervention for reading difficulties. Um often people look at this definition think well this is what to do to help kids who can't read well. This is not about just kids who can't read well. It talks a lot about prevention. All the work we do in our classrooms is
prevention. every day in our classrooms at the middle level. We are preventing reading problems and we're helping support reading comprehension moving forward. Sometimes science of reading now it's a big buzzword. Um you'll hear well I do science of reading. We don't
do science of reading. Science of reading is a research base that we use to inform our practices so that students can continue to grow and um learn in reading. cognitive science um scientist Daniel Willingham remind us reminds us that we've learned more about how the
mind works in the last 25 years um than we have in the previous 2500 years. So there has been a lot of new learning for educators and unfortunately we haven't even had access to some of that learning until probably the last 10 years. So
it's really helping us have a place to start so that we can make sure that all kids are learning to read and write and being successful. So we are doing this work regardless. So we started this work probably at the elementary level in 2019.
The department of education just recently caught up with us. Um sometimes people think well we're doing it because the DOE is telling us we have to do these things. We do these things in Carmel Clay schools because they are best practice researchbased practice. That is something that makes Carmel Clay
schools unique in that we always start with research and we always look to the research to guide us. So we really started this work back in uh probably right before COVID. We were really starting to dig into the work. Um, but then as I said, Indiana caught up with
us a little bit. In February of 2022, the DOE published their Indiana's priorities for early literacy in which they hold on, I'm gonna hide this in which they defined what is the science of reading. And lo and behold,
you'll notice number two is basically the same def definition we talked about from the reading league. It's supported by evidence that supports how proficient reading and writing develop, why kids have difficulties with reading and writing, and how to effectively assess and teach reading and writing to improve outcomes for all students. And then it
goes on to define what are those areas. So when we talk about science of reading, we're talking about phmic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, oral language, reading compre comprehension, and writing and spelling. It's not just about reading and answering a question.
Being engaged in reading co um comprehension is one of the most cognitively complex tasks you can engage in every day. So these English teachers sitting in this room have one of the hardest jobs in the district. It is a exceedingly difficult um subject to
teach even though on the surface it seems pretty easy. All of these elements really play into how how we read and how we read and how we comprehend. So, another bit of legislation that came out
in 2024 um from our Department of Edis to um for our middle school friends here. And it was actually embedded in legislation about iid, which is a a foundational skills test that we take in third grade. But um in that legislation,
that line five there, it talks about that a requirement that schools provide reading instruction that includes a core reading program aligned with the science of reading to all students in grades kindergarten through grade 8. So this is no longer looked at as this is something
we do in the elementary. This is something that by law in Indiana we're doing K through eight. And actually we are also doing this work up into the high school right now. working with our high school as well um in grades 9 10 and in our honors courses for nine and
10. So this work does not stop because kids turn 13. This is just work we will continue to work on and grow. Um this was a good um this gave us a little urgency also to adopt a program. So, if you recall, I was here in the um I don't
know sometime a little while ago talking about a program. We'll reference it a little bit tonight, Amplify um ELA that we adopted that is a science of reading knowledgebased program to bring to all of our middle schools. Okay. So, when we talk about the science
of reading and how kids learn to read, there are two theoretical models. You may remember this from last time. The first one is the one we always start with, which is the simple view of reading. So this tells us how does somebody learn to read or what does it mean when we say a student has reading comprehension and we look at reading
comprehension. Comprehension is actually a product of two factors. One of those factors is word recognition. So that's the ability to transform print into spoken language. So be able to basically read the words on the page. And then our
other factor is language comprehension. That's the ability to make meaning of spoken language. Those two factors when multiply take you to reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is the product. It is not it's not the process. So we don't really teach
reading comprehension. We teach word recognition and language comprehension together in order to comprehend. And so we'll talk more in a little bit about what that means in terms of instruction and shifts. Um, but to put some math to our English, if we think about a student
that is entering a text or an adult even that's entering a text and they are unable to lift the words off the page, they can't read those words. Let's say we assign that a value of zero. But when I read that text to them or I'm in conversation with them and they
understand nuance, they can understand metaphor, they can tell me everything that I talked about, give me a summary of what I talked about. Their language comprehension is great. When I look at reading comprehension though, 0 time 1 because it's a product of those two factors, their reading comprehension is
going to be zero. So think about a third grader who's taking I read or I learn. If they still are unable to lift the words off the page, nothing is going to save them on that test when it comes to measuring their reading comprehension.
They may have the language to do it, but if they can't read the words on the page, their reading comprehension is going to be zero. The same is true if a student can read fluently every single word that you put in front of them, but they don't have the depth of vocabulary. they don't
understand how to track an idea across sentences or across paragraphs or across pages. If that student is struggling with language comprehension, even if they can read those words, again, if I put a p a text in front of them and then ask a question, that would be a product
like give me a summary. What's the main idea? One time zero is still going to be zero. Comprehension is not going to be there. In most cases for students, it's a mixed bag. You might have a student who is coming in with maybe weak recognition
word recognition skills and maybe not a strong vocabulary like their oral language vocabulary is limited or maybe they have low um low vocab to bring to the table. Maybe they don't understand nuance the nuance of certain words. Complex sentence structure might be
challenging for them. For those kids again thinking of reading comprehension as a product five or half times half is going to get you to 0.25 25 or a quarter. So, it's going to severely diminish their reading comprehension if either one of these factors is
struggling. So, we have to keep thinking of reading comprehension. It's a product and not the process. So, we turn that simple view onto its side and then we look at another theoretical model that takes us a step deeper and that's Scarboro's reading
rope. And Scarboro's reading rope takes those two factors and breaks out the strands. So the components that make up word recognition, the components that make up language comprehension. So when we talk about word recognition, that's where we talk typically at the
elementary levels, grades K through three, we talk about foundations, our early literacy work, all the work you do in phonics, phmic awareness, site word recognition. We do that pretty intensely at the elementary grades. However, we still grow even as adults in word
recognition. There are probably things that you read and you think, gosh, I don't know that word. And you might break it up into syllables. You might say it again. You say, okay, I got that word now. Now that word becomes a site word for me, even as a grown adult person who reads a lot. So word recognition still exists in the middle
school classroom. And we do have some kids in the middle level that are still working on developing these skills. Most of our kids are coming with the word recognition they need by the time they enter middle school um to be able to be successful in the reading of the text.
But there are times we do have to still teach into this um a bit. Most of our time in the middle and honestly really starting at third grade you're spending more and more time on language comprehension. We still have to do that work in K123 alongside work and
recognition. You can't just do one. always are doing both. But in the upper grades, we're really spending most of our instructional time here. And so when we think about what we're teaching, we are teaching explicitly background knowledge. You have to have things to
think about in order to think deeply about and have critical thinking about a text or about something you're learning about. You have to know the words. Uh vocabulary is an important part of being able to comprehend. You have to understand language structure. So, we're
talking about synt uh syntax or grammar, semantics. Verbal reasoning is your ability to not just read a text, but make sense of what that text is trying to tell you. So, um when we think of that, we're thinking of inference or identifying a metaphor. And then
literacy knowledge also plays a part in language comprehension because that's looking at text structures, print concepts, genres, and teaching into those elements. We don't teach reading comprehension that product. We teach into these strands. That is where
instruction takes place. When we look at these strands, the two most important strands that have the biggest impact on comprehension um seem the simplest and that is background knowledge and vocab. And these two work together. Um,
the more background knowledge you have about a topic, the more vocabulary you're going to have a top about a topic, which is going to feed your understanding of a text or a concept. So, these two pieces are what we call um gatekeepers to comprehension. So, we
never want to skip background knowledge and vocab because it's so critical and the more you know, the more you know and that feeds forwards and supports reading later. So, if you recall at I'm just going to do a quick call back to um our last
board meeting in February of 2025. Um I'll give you a couple minute or just about one minute to read this paragraph and just remind yourself I want you to I'm the teacher. I want you to find the main I be able to give me the main ideas main idea and details of this passage. So, take a quick second. You'll probably
remember this from last time. Okay. So main idea and details we might struggle a little bit if we are not famili if we are only f familiar with American baseball. If I give you the title of the article it's a newspaper article about cricket. You probably
remember this from last time. Um, once you know it's about Cricut, does it help you find the main idea a little bit better? Yes. My knowledge of Cricut, not so great. So, I could probably tell you the gist without really giving you very many details. If I were to have to take
a test on this, I probably would not do very well. Even though I know it's about Cricut, I don't have that background knowledge. I can read all the words on this page. I'm sure you all can also. Um, and you probably know the vocabulary of this passage. However, because it's
from England, it's a British newspaper article about cricket, there's a lot of context specific vocab that if we go through that is impeding my comprehension, my understanding. So, batsmen or wicket, I know what a wicket is. I played croquet in my grandmother's
backyard growing up. That was something we did. This is not the kind of wicket we played in her backyard. This is totally different. I have no idea what that looks like. I could guess it's probably not right. So, when I'm thinking about supporting comprehension of this article,
giving you access to the background knowledge, but also to the vocab is going to be exceedingly important to help you understand, to be able to show me that you understood, which is the product of main idea and details. So parish, dreaded finger, these are all vocab words we know, but in this context
don't mean probably what we think or what we usually think of when we think of these words. There's also some other little elements when we think about the strands here. We have a metaphor. We also have this is I think kind of the newest learning from um the research body that we've been exploring and that
is complex syntax. Um, I don't know too many people who would start a sentence with much depended on the two overnight batsmen. We have a subject that's much. Depended is the verb. I have this prepositional phrase that's really like an adverbial modifier. That's a complex
sentence. And even I'm a proficient reader. That sentence might really throw me off to how to read that sentence fluency, but also what in the world does that mean? That's not a common sentence structure. So all of these pieces I bring to you again to remind you we're
not looking at reading comprehension as a product. What we are teaching is into the process of unpacking the strands within an article or within a text. So we don't teach comprehension. Reading comprehension is a multi-dimensional not
a single construct that can be explicitly taught. It's the integration of skills that result in understanding. Students can comprehend when they have enough knowledge of the topic to get the gist. When they understand the vocab used in the text, when they understand the sentence structure used by the
author, when they can connect ideas across paragraphs, pages and context. These are all basically the strands right from the language side. To do this while reading independently requires strong decoding skills. So if I can do all these things, I also to be an
independent reader have to have really good decoding skills as well. Okay. So, let's talk about what does this look like then in a middle school level classroom. Um, and we're going to talk about the shifts. One of the biggest shifts I want to talk about
though, um, is foundational to all the work we're doing in literacy when we think of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and that is complex texts living at the center of all that we do. Um to illustrate the shift, I'm going to
talk a little bit about a research study that was done by ACT and that study was about um it was called reading between the lines. What ACT reveals about college readiness. That study was done in 2006. Um what this study revealed was
not just an important finding about ACT and what show how we know kids are ready for college. We had some amazing perfect score ACTs here tonight. Um, but it really revealed for us in the literacy classroom, what do we need to think about in terms of our instruction and
the impact of how we design lessons to ensure that kids are growing as readers. So, what ACT did was they said, "Okay, um, let's look at the types of questions we ask on ACT on ACT." And there are five types of
questions that they ask or they call them text elements. Main idea or author's approach, supporting details, relationships, so that's like cause and effect, meaning of words, vocab, um, and generalizations and conclusions. So like
central message or author's uh like main uh author's message for example. So, when they looked at the type of questions that they asked on the test and how students did relative to how they scored on the test, you'll notice that a student like the students we had
tonight that scored a perfect score. They scored equally as well on all those different skill areas. No matter what, they got a 36. All of these areas, these skills, they were able to do well. I looked at a student who was struggling at an 11.
They did all of those skills about equally not as well. There wasn't much variation. And same is true for the kids who were at that benchmark. They they answered questions about all these different text elements about the same. So kid who benchmark they were hitting
about 50% of those types of questions correctly. So that doesn't really tell us much about well if I taught main idea and details and I taught that hard or I really worked on theme and central message and we worked on it every single day and I had skill packets and we
worked on that. What this is telling us is that doesn't make a difference. The variable they found that made a difference is complex text. So ACT took the types of text that they give to students and said some of those texts are rated as uncomplicated or easy to
read. Some are more challenging. That's in the red. And the complex text are the dotted line. So if you look again at our students who scored perfect score, they read all three types of text equally as well. 100% of the questions that they
got right, didn't matter the type of text. They could read complex, complicated, more challenging equally as well. If I look however at I look at the kids who scored poorly, same thing. They scored was uncomplicated, more
challenging or complex. They scored kind of equally as poorly on all three types. But look at what happens for those kids who just meet that benchmark here. Those kids, we start to see the strands come apart. So when they were asked to read this complex text that
they were scoring more uh poorly on those questions than they were on these types of or these types of texts that starts to get better as the scores go up. So what does that mean then? So this is what ACT said. They said the
degree of text complexity differentiates student performance better than either the comprehension level or the kind of textual element tested. Performance on complex text is the clearest differentiator in reading between students who are likely to be ready for college and those who are not. And this
is true for both genders, all racial ethnic groups and all family in income levels. So when we think about our classrooms, we have to have kids working through complex text. The skills are secondary.
They are in service to the text. The text is where we start. Um and this is a switch for us. In our past curriculums and our curriculum maps, um we really um pledged allegiance to the standards. The standards is where we started and the
text was really secondary. Kids might go read a text by themselves. Maybe we come back and talk about that text, but we're talking about the skill. And we were talking about how the skill applied to the text. We weren't really spending our effort and our energy on unpacking that
text and unpacking that text with them because what we were testing, what we were asking, what we were trying to find out was could they comprehend based on the skills or the standards. Um, and those things are important, but they don't tell us how to teach those. what we teach into in order to be able to
accomplish those standards to be able to read and comprehend that text are the literacy strands or the language strands. All right. So, these are kind of the shifts we're going to talk about, we're going to see here in a moment for our classroom. So, the first one we've already talked a lot about and that is
building background knowledge. So, background knowledge is so critical. It is the Velcro. I have this little picture of the Velcro for you because from that when you build that background knowledge, everything sticks to it and it helps make sense of whatever you're reading. So, it adds to and accelerates
the learning of whatever you're trying to read. When we think about that Cricut article, if I would have done some reading with you on Cricut, you would have had that article, no problem, right? I also included here the little burr, the little seed pod, because that's the inspiration for Velcro. What
I love about that um idea or that concept is that background knowledge is not just about giving you a little bit to get you started in the article. It's something that we must do systematically across the text that we read because we
want to build and deepen and widen their knowledge because that knowledge that they might need. Let's say we're reading um of mice and men which takes place in the great depression. We need to know a lot about Great Depression. If I know a little bit, is that going to help me know about the text? Yeah. But if I know
a lot about the Great Depression, I'm going to be able to analyze what's going on in the text, what those characters are going through, why they're making the decisions they're making at a completely different level. If we're also studying uh Great Depression, we're studying the role of friendships because that's a really important theme in that
text. So that information doesn't just live in that text. The background information I build from that text carries forward. So later, maybe when they're taking the SAT or ACT, maybe they're reading about um an economic
recession that happened in 2008. Well, I've learned about the Great Depression. I can take that information, that's that little burr, that's the Velcro that I can take and maybe my teacher's not there to help me with that, but help me understand what this recession is that they're going through. That's going to
feed forward and support my reading comprehension. background vocab grows more background vocab and more knowledge and helps speed forward into your reading. So, we're going to look and see um you'll get a little taste of what that might look like to start, but it's
not going to stop there. If we look at our elementary programming um we have like in fourth grade a unit what makes a great heart literatively and literally and figuratively and kids study about characters and what how character develop how characters develop. They
also study about the heart and what makes a healthy heart and all the components of a heart. That's a deep knowledge building um unit about characters and about science. In our new Amplify program, we'll have units about the Titanic, about the gold rush, about
um the space race, and you'll read lots of different texts to build that knowledge. So that not just supports the reading of the text, but also feeds forward into future learning. Another area you'll see tonight and that you'll start to see in classrooms is a daily
piece which is explicit vocab instruction. So when we're talking about explicit vocabulary instruction, we're talking about what we call tier 2 words. These are words that are um not in your everyday language. They're academic, but they have high utility. So we don't just say and what we might have done in the
past say you're going to write these definitions, we'll test you at the end. Um, these are being strategic in the words we're picking and every day teaching them, teaching them deeply, helping kids play with those words, helping them practice and rehearse with those words and expand their depth and
breath and the nu nuanced understanding of what those words mean. You'll also see more of a focus on fluency. So, fluency is not just how quickly you read, it's about accuracy. It's also about procity. reciprocity is all about um expression and intonation
um as you read and all of that feeds into comprehension. What we know about fluency is that um the most the kids who are reading proficiently s um who are proficient fluent readers are going to be comprehending better. They're going
to have more proficient comprehension. Sometimes we stop fluency work at the elementary level. That work needs to continue on through high school. It might look different from year to year depending on the proficiency of the student, but we still need to pay attention to fluency. And tonight, what you'll see and what we're working on
bringing more in the classroom is that reading happens in the classroom. It doesn't happen all at home on your own. And then we come and pick up later when you come back in the classroom. Kid teachers are reading aloud. Students are reading together. Students might be engaged in independent reading. um what
we would call accountable independent reading in the classroom that the teacher says, "Read this. While you're reading, I'm going to be watching for how you annotate or how you're um writing a claim to support your ideas." And you know, I call it like a shark in the water. They're out and about
listening in, watching how they're annotating. They're not waiting till the end to decide, oh, they didn't get it. What broke down? Fluency is what happens in the classroom. If the book was easy enough to read on their own, why are we reading it? That's what we're here for, right? And if the book is too hard to
read on your own and we send it at home or just say read it silently, then what are we going to do when the kids don't get it? So, it's all about bringing that reading back into the classroom. As kids are working and reading through text and reading in class, then there's
also an emphasis on incorporating verbal reasoning strategies. So, this is making sure that kids are having lots of time to talk about what they're reading about, process with the people in their classroom, write about what they're reading about, um, take notes, annotate,
highlight. All of these things are the rehearsals that kids need to grapple with ideas in a complex text. That's why you have to have a complex text so they have ideas to grapple with um, so that they're actively making meaning of the text. When we think about um complex
text and verbal reasoning, what we are trying to do is develop a standard of coherence for students. And what that means is we want for students by supporting them through complex text every single day and teaching them how to navigate that when they get into a
text on their own, they know, okay, this text, it's supposed to make sense. I need to pull on the strategies that my teacher's been helping me with and enact those pieces to help me make sense. If I don't have somebody helping me think
through like, oh, this doesn't make sense. I don't know what to do. I just stop reading. So, we really want to help kids develop really those habits of mind. What do you do when you have a challenging text? And guess what? You can do it. Here are the things that you can do to get through that text and to
make sense. And then finally, um, writing about reading. We talk a lot about in our secondary classrooms about learning to write, writing argumentative essays, narratives, research projects. Those are still critical to our middle and secondary level classrooms. Um, but
writing to read is also equally as important. So when you are reading, students should be stamping their ideas in writing. They should be rehearsing what they're going to say by writing it first. Or they might talk to peers first about their ideas and then stamp those
ideas in writing. The reading, reading and writing are reciprocal processes. So the more you write about reading, the better reader you become. The more you read um from different great writers, the better writer you're going to become as well. So that is science of reading
in a very um not really that quick nutshell but um as much as we could get in the time that we have. So let's get ready to talk about a lesson in action. Um in tonight's lesson and I will warn you we are not science. We are not math. Nothing is going to foam or be fun or
have fun complex problems. The work of literacy is deep thinking and it is reading. It's writing. It is talking. And sometimes that's not so glamorous, but that is the work. And I know our English teachers think it's very glamorous, but it may not um it may not
feel as exciting because it's really just engaging deeply in cognitively complex task. So, as we work through today, we're just going to give you kind of this is not what you're going to get highlights of what a lesson might look like just to exemplify some of the elements that we talked about tonight.
And um our presenters, our teachers will be stamping that for you as we go through the lesson. So today's learning um just to set the stage for you all before I bring up our teachers um we are going to be learning about how authors
develop a character through details so that we can understand an author's perspective and we know that we're going to learn it when I can identify key details from the text to describe a character. I can draw an
inference from my details to analyze how the author depicts a character and I can develop and support a claim about the author's characterization. So, those are kind of our three things we're really looking for um accomplishing tonight with you all. And
that relates to I'm just going to briefly show you the standards that those relate to. And with that, I'm going to invite you all to come find your seat at the table. I'm going to invite our students to come find their spot. And I'm gonna pass it
to Carmel Middle ELA DC Sarah Mendum who's gonna take over right about >> here. All right. You gonna help us tonight? >> So, to get started tonight, we always like to start with building some background knowledge. I am curious if
any of you um have heard of the author Rald Doll. So, if you do not know, he wrote his own autobiography in 1984 called Boy Tales of Childhood. And this is a picture of him in 1925 as
a young man. He was known for a little bit of joking and some silly pranks from time to time, which he includes in some of his stories. And we'll be reading a short passage from Boy Tales of Childhood as well. He did go to boarding
school in South Wales. And if you can tell, um, it is an interesting time. It was the 1920s, um, and 30s that he went to boarding school. And when he was at boarding school, it might look a little bit like this.
He also liked to frequent the local chocolate shops and candy shops. And he enjoyed special treats. And it's kind of a fun fact, he actually tested candy for Cadbury. They had different experiments they would do on the chocolate and he would rank it and be a tester which
actually led to Charlie in the Chocolate Factory which you may have heard of. And lastly, this is him um in his young 20s. He actually served as a World War II Royal Air Force fighter pilot. So, he had a very unique life.
We also want to think about his author's note because he talks a lot about how he introduces this book. So, I'm just going to read it to you here. An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details. This is not an
autobiography. I would never write a history of myself. On the other hand, throughout my young days at school and just afterwards, a number of things happened to me that I have never forgotten. None of these things is important, but each of them made such a
tremendous impression on me that I have never been able to get them out of my mind. Each of them, even after a lapse of 50 or sometimes 60 years, has remained seared in my memory. I didn't have to search for any of them. All I
had to do was skim them off the top of my consciousness and write them down. Some are funny, some are painful, some are unpleasant. I suppose that is why I have always remembered them so vividly.
All are true. So take a moment at your table and think about these two questions. So based on what we just read and what we learned, how do you think he might tell a story? What might he do in his writing? Just talk with your table for a moment.
Yeah. >> You think his upbringing and like he went to was it a boarding school or something like that? Do you think that'll play into some of his writing too >> experiences? more focused education. Yes.
>> What about working at the sweet shop? >> You think that all play into >> a tester? He visited. That's right. He visited. Okay. Very good. >> Take about five seconds. All right. >> It's so exciting to hear all of you
share. I'm hearing lots of things about lots of descriptive details, maybe some silly pranks, maybe some different things as I'm hearing you talk with each other. So, I'm excited for you to see if if you feel like what you talked about as we get into the text, you start to
see. We're going to continue moving forward. We always like to start with a lot of vocabulary that m pairs very well with background knowledge. Um, so we're going to do a little practice of that today. The first word we're going to talk about is is loathome. I'm going to
say lo, you're going to say >> loathome. >> Thank you. It's a little bit of a mouthful. This is an adjective. Very unpleasant or cruel. This is an image for you. Think about the smell of rotting garbage
stealing from the elderly. Witnessing a person throwing trash on the ground ground. It is not a beautiful clean park, a home-cooked meal, or a chair that isn't pushed in. I would like you with your thumbs to let
me know if you feel the word loosome is used correctly, thumbs up or incorrectly, thumbs down. Number one, it was losome when the family donated all their extra clothes to the homeless shelter.
Right. Thumbs down. Two, the lossome waitress spilled my drink on the table on accident. Good. Thumbs down. The smell was from a diaper left in the seat pocket of the car which was loathsome.
Yes, that would be quite a smell. We're going to do a second word. Fowl. I'm going to say fowl. You're going to say >> fowl. >> Also, we're going to talk about syllables for a minute. So, we always like to break down words. How many
syllables are in fowl? vowel one. So that is just one part. Excuse me. It's easy to think it's multiple though, right? Um so now we're going to go into Oops.
The definition very dirty. Disgusting. This is a picture. A smell from a spoiled milk. A person with with who uses inappropriate language. Contaminated water. a person
who plays too rough or dirty. It is not air freshener, playing fairly or speaking politely. And we're going to do this one more time. Thumbs up is yes, the word is used correctly. Thumbs down is no, it is not.
The boy with the foul mouth was often in the principal's office. Unfortunately, thumbs up, right? A teenager's room might have a foul order if they often leave food under their bed.
The fowl weather was perfect for sailing yesterday. Oh, I'm so sorry. I clicked too fast. Yeah. Now, I'd like you to take a minute with your table and try to use these two words together to create one sentence. Also, if you want to pair
up, um if you have six or if you have five, you can do a group of three and two. And then I would like a few tables to be able to share. So take a few minutes and think about fowl and >> loum. I do two and three. Does that sound good? All right.
>> Just just hit the arrow. >> What do you think? So put that >> describe the act. We can be more specific, right? >> So put it in a complete That's a different type of file, right?
That's an alternate definition language. That's right. Different things. >> So, if you had to say a sentence out loud, >> it describes. take about 10 seconds and then I'll get some volunteers. >> Real quick reminder, when you share,
please um tap your table mic. Um would anyone from Carmel Middle like to share their sentence? My example was that it was both them that the players used foul play.
>> Awesome. >> And Clay Middle, would anyone like to share? Yep. >> Okay. >> So, it's no offense anyone. Our sentence is, "The girl felt loome about the foul smelling chicken nuggets in the cafeteria line."
>> Oh my goodness. >> And Creek and Oh, I'm sorry. We did not clap. Let's clap. and Creekide, who would like to share? >> Uh, we said the loadsome smell from the dumpster of the restaurant caused many
customers to complain to the manager about the fowl order. >> Oo. All right. So, now that we've done some background knowledge and vocabulary, we will move on to close reading. >> Good evening. I'm Eli Moffer from Clay Middle School or Mr. Maf if you're Jane
Milo or Emilyn. Uh I'm going to lead you through some close reading and fluency practice. For our first read, I just want you to listen and think about what our learning intention is success criteria were, which is we want to analyze how the character is developed by the author through key details so we
can understand what the author thinks about the character. So as I'm reading, you're really just listening right now for specific details. What details do you notice in the text? These can be sensory details, descriptions, whatever springs to mind. And does everybody have the text in front of them? Fantastic.
So, if you want to mark details, put a little star next to them. You can, but we'll be doing some highlighting on a second reading in just a moment. The sweet shop in Landiff in the year 1923 was the very center of our lives. Without it, there would have been little
to live for. But it had one terrible drawback. This sweet shop. The woman who owned it was a horror. We hated her. And we had good reason for doing so. Her name was Mrs. Patchet. She was a small, skinny old hag with a mustache on her
upper lip and a mouth as sour as a green gooseberry. She never smiled. She never welcomed us when we went in. And the only times she spoke were when she said things like, "I'm watching you, so keep your thieven fingers off them chocolates." Or, "I don't want you in here just to look around. Either your
forks or your gets out." As many times as I practiced that, I couldn't help but sound like a pirate. I tried to get British, but it wouldn't it didn't work. But by far the most loathsome thing about Mrs. Patchet was the filth that clung around her. Her apron was gray and greasy. Her blouse had bits of breakfast
all over it, toast crumbs and tea stains and splotches of dried egg yolk. It was her hands, however, that disturbed us most. They were disgusting. They were black with dirt and grime. They looked as though they had been putting lumps of coal on the fire all day long. And do
not forget, please, that it was these very hands and fingers that she plunged into the sweet jars when we asked for a penny worth of trial toffee or wine gums or nut clusters or whatever. There were precious few health laws in those days, and nobody, least of all Mrs. Patchet,
ever thought of using a little shovel for getting out the sweets as they do today. The mere sight of her grimy right hand with its black fingernails digging an ounce of chocolate fudge out of a jar would have caused a starving to go running from the shop. But not us.
Sweets were our lifeblood. We would have put up with far worse than that to get them. So we simply stood and watched in sullen silence while this disgusting old woman stirred around inside the jar jars with her foul fingers. The other thing we hated Mrs. Patchet for was her
meanness. Unless you spent a whole six pence all in one go, she wouldn't give you a bag. Instead, you got your sweets twisted up in a small piece of newspaper which she tore off a pile of old daily mirrors lying on the counter. It's a lot to take in there. So, if you
take just first impressions, turn and talk at your table and what details stood out to you? How would you describe Mrs. Preet and what details support your description of Mrs. Patchet? If you could wrap up in the next 20 seconds, please.
All right, if we could get one person from each table, maybe this is actually a really good approximation of middle school where the teacher's talking and no one's listening. I This is It feels just like
I'm back in the classroom. Sometimes you just got to it's called wait time. Sometimes you just got to let it run its course. Can we get one person from each table to share what you think of Mrs. Patchet in a detail to support your thinking?
Starting with Creekide >> here. Okay. I think we mostly talked about the descriptions of her and like how descriptive Rald Dah was about it. We talked about how she acted lazy or
disgusting and didn't really try. Also, how Rald Doll painted the picture of how he only saw her as like this nasty person that didn't want to talk to anyone. >> What was your favorite detail? My favorite detail was was so we simply
stood and watched in sullen silence while this disgusting old woman stirred around inside the jar with her foul fingers. I think that really shows how she like it kind of paints the picture and shows how desperate Rald Doll was to
get the candy and also how disgusting this woman made it instead of like grabbing a shovel. >> Yeah. Would you eat the candy? >> Absolutely not. I think I'd rather I think I'd rather eat it off the floor than that. >> Yeah. >> But yeah, >> good job. >> That was my insight.
>> Very good. We get somebody from Clay to share. Um, we talked about um her personality and how and the quote I used was when she uh like when he was talking about how she acted towards them when it says
I'm watching you so keep your thieving fingers off them chocolates. >> Nice. Good job. >> And someone from Caramel Middle. >> Um, we talked about how like it painted the picture that she was really dirty
and like didn't try very hard on her looks. like like where it said uh her hands were black with dirt and grime and how there was food stains on like her clothing.
>> All right, good job. And I think you guys you you've all thought ahead as well as so as we do this second read, you're very well prepared. We're going to have the students at each table table alternate reading passages. Now the first paragraph is 24. We're skipping 24. So,
we're going to go 25, 26, 27. If the students would just alternate, we'll take a couple minutes and just let you guys uh read that at your table. In this second reading, again, you're thinking about details, but we're going to ask you to come up with the one passage that
you think most vividly describes Mrs. Patchet. And that could be a word, a phrase, or a sentence. So, you're really looking to pick out one thing that you think most represents the image you've gotten of Mrs. Patchet. All right, just take a few more seconds
to finish up the conversation. Are you ready? All right. So, if we can get again get one person from each table to share what you highlighted as the sentence or the phrase or the word that most vividly describes Mrs. Patchet and we'll start
with Clay. Um, we said that the sentence that we like the most as descriptive was in paragraph 26. The mere sight of her grimy right hand with its black fingernails digging an ounce of chocolate fudge out of a jar would have caused a starving to go running
from the shop. >> Very nice. Good job. Uh, Carla Middle, >> we also said the same thing because it was kind of an overview of what they said in paragraph 25 and 26 and how disgusting she really is.
>> Nice. Creed. >> We said that the um quote from 25, she never welcomed us when we went in and the only time she spoke were when she said things like, "I'm watching you, so keep your thieving fingers off them chocolates or I don't want you in here just to look around. and either you
forks out or gets out really like sketches who she is as a person, but then like 26 gives like a deeper dive into like what she looks like and like how she actually acts most of the time. >> Yeah, you guys had some very insightful details that you picked out and good discussions. That's that's our second
reading and now Mrs. Castler. >> All right. So, like Mrs. Royo said earlier, we write in order to become better readers. It helps us process our ideas. It helps us get better at discussion. It also helps us support and explain arguments. So, that's kind of
what we're getting into next. We're going to be doing some writing to develop an argument, draw some inferences about that character, and also develop a claim. So, as we think back to paragraph 24, there's a sentence where we first get introduced to Mrs.
Patchet. I'm going to reread that for you. It says the woman who owned it was a horror. We hated her and had good reason for doing so. So he uses this word horror to say that which means that
something is very surprising, very terrifying or maybe even revolting which means disgusting. But we know that words also have conitive meaning which are those emotions and ideas that we associate with the word. the extra
meaning that we attach to the word. So he doesn't just tell us she is a horror. He went on to describe and give lots of details to actually show that idea and develop some connotations or emotions surrounding that word. So we're going to
take a moment to go back to your details that you chose earlier that you talked about with your table and we're going to do a quick write on your journal page. If you'll get that out. The first question I want you to think about is, are the details that you chose, are they
surprising, are they scary, or are they disgusting? How would you categorize the details that you chose? Take a moment to write. start to wrap up your writing in about 30 seconds.
All right, just by a show of hands, how many of you categorize those details as surprising? Say surprising. Okay. How many of you categorize those details as scary? You're a little fearful. No. How many of
you chose disgusting? Okay, that tracks with what you guys were talking about earlier. So, we are going to take these details and this evidence that you're thinking about and develop a claim today. Usually, we will write for about 10 to 15 minutes in
class, but we don't have that time today. So, you're only going to write a claim today. When he says that she was a horror, do you agree or disagree based on some of the details that you found in the passage? Do you agree or disagree
with his statement that she was a horror? Take a moment, write a claim, and then we'll share out in a moment. Start to wrap up your ideas in about 30 seconds here. All right. We're going to have our students
take a moment to share your claim about Mrs. Patchet. Do you agree or disagree? Take a moment to share out loud at your table. And I'd love to have our board members share uh a response to their writing. So these are some response
starters that we use in class. You could say, "I could picture Mrs. Patchet when you wrote about and choose something, a line or something that they wrote about in their story." There's a lot of different options up here for you to choose to respond to the writing that
you hear today. So we'll take a couple minutes here for you to share and respond. I can't You know what I mean? All right, start to wrap up your conversations. Okay, I'm gonna bring us all back together here. I heard a lot of
different interpretations. So, that's one neat thing about writing to read is it brings out so many different ideas that we have about the text and interpretations and inferences. So, could I have one brave student today who
would like to share their claim about if you agreed or disagreed with doll? Let's go, Audia. >> Uh, I said I agree with his statement um because of two main details like how abrasive she was and how disgusting she
was. I said her abrasive attitude towards customers um made it like a nightmare to buy it. And also how her shoveling candy with her nasty hands was a horror from a health perspective and how she always made the experience of
buying candy very unenjoyable. And so that's why she was a horror and I would not buy candy from there. >> She was mean, she was disgusting. It all fits with that word and that definition. Okay. Thank you, Aia. I will say I know
Miss Cashion had a different perspective. I don't know if she wants to share that. I thought it was an interesting thought. >> Okay. Um I had said while I do believe Mrs. Patchet was not a pleasant person, describing her as a horror seemed unnecessarily cruel. There's a level of
severity to that word. And Jane had also said the same, that while we both agreed that Mrs. Pratt obviously seems like a terrible person to be around, describing her as a horror just seemed extra cruel. >> And we talked um about that like the
simple fact that she never says hello when they come in says that she's just not very happy or very accommodating. And if she really was a true horror, the boys may not have been willing to frequent the store even for their favorite chocolates. Okay. So maybe it's important to not just consider Doll's
perspective but also Mrs. Patchet's as well. So thank you for sharing. >> All right. Thank you all for participating in that. And you know I really undersold English language arts as not being so glamorous. We may blow things up in science but in English we
blow up our minds. Right? You guys are engaged in some really deep amazing thinking. And this lesson actually what you engage in today. These are all the things we're starting to work on through our adoption. These are the types of activities um and teaching and learning
that are going to be happening and are happening now um with the science of reading and all the things we've been studying the middle level. These are not brand new concepts to um our classrooms. Our teachers are doing these things all the time. But it's about the intention and the intensity and also that
inclusion of how we're engaging students in that work that is going to be the shift. So it's nothing brand spanking new. It's not a new concept of it's how we're doing it and the intention we bring to it. This lesson actually was an adaptation from our new program Amplify.
Um and if you felt this was maybe a little challenging, this is actually from the sixth grade uh lesson. So in terms of complex text, this is from our sixth grade. Uh, but there was still lots of really complex ideas um and complex learning that we could engage in to better understand this text. And I
think what was really neat is by the end, even though we were all in agreement about how maybe we felt about Mrs. Patchet, we uncovered some different perspectives and points of view about that through and we wouldn't have gotten that without having multiple readings, reading, talking together
about what we think, using evidence from the text, and also writing about reading. So all of those things help develop that depth of thinking about a text. Not just reading and saying why don't you write a summary of for me about what you read about or do a character map. This is repeated readings
really getting into the depth and complexity of the text. So as we wrap up I do want to talk a little bit just briefly about how this um connects with our strategic goals. So the first strategic goal of in under academic achievement when I think about academic
excellence going back to our definition from the reading league and from the state on what is the science of reading it's all about our teachers understanding the research base of strong instructional practices and how to bring them into the classrooms so
that we can accelerate achievement. Now, with literacy, I like to say it's kind of a slow burn. Like, we can't do one thing and expect, you know, the achievement just to suddenly skyrocket because think about all those layers of language we talked about tonight. It
takes time to develop, to grow, to build lots of background knowledge, to build vocab, to read lots of text. All those things take time. The beautiful part though is as we look at instructional coherence, another element under our academic achievement goal here is that
we are now in K through 8, we have developed a coherent program. So in our middle school programming previously, we had maps, we had texts that were similar, but what happened in those classrooms might look really different from teacher to teacher, from school to school with all of our students
funneling into the high school. Now if we think about how complex literacy is starting with kindergarten with our wit and wisdom programming which is a knowledgebased program that util utilizes all the elements from science of reading from that language side of the rope into amplify that we're moving
into next year. We're piloting right now a lesson our students have been working with some lessons in their classroom already into uh six through eight. We've developed that coherent pro program for our students so that we're all aligned. All of our arrows are aligned to what
matters in literacy instruction, how we do it, and the intensity with and the intention in which we teach that. And then finally, when we think of um systems of support, sometimes that conversation goes right into special education or into intervention. But the research is really clear and science of
reading, science of learning would talk to you a lot about this that the first place for first source of prevention or the first form of intervention is right in the tier one classroom. So when we have a strong program, amazing teachers
coming together to support our learners, we can do a lot in 90 minutes in those classrooms. This program does a great job also in providing other tools for helping teachers provide scaffold supports, more opportunities for fluency for kids who need additional fluency
experiences or teaching into syntax or grammar. Those elements are there, but we it starts first in that classroom where the teach the students are spending most of their time with the teacher who knows them the best. So having a program so that teachers can lean on that while they're really
helping um design that instruction for students using the program is really our first layer of support for our students. So with that, thank you all for your participation. Students, thank you. You are amazing. So I'd like to give a round of applause for amazing students.
adults, I am really glad that you were um students, you were here to help the adults tonight because I think you helped them out quite a bit. So, as we wrap up, are there any questions? High five to all those students. Any questions or comments that you have for kids or for our teachers or for me as we
wrap this up tonight? Press on hold everybody. Um, thank you so much, Mrs. Aoyo, and the other teachers and students who were here. It seems to me, as I reflect on this that I'm wondering if you would agree with me that all of our students, all of our
students deserve to have complex texts in the ELA curriculum. And I think maybe it used to be when I got my treats or training in the early 90s, you know, it was like, oh, you got to meet them where they are and you know, you don't want to
have something over their head. To me, you know, we're challenging kids and if you're challenging them and expecting them to be up here, they will get there. And so this makes a whole lot of sense to me. So I appreciate it. >> Yeah, we uh we used to work in the system of instructional level. I taught
that way also. uh that was not what you know this work is I was taught nothing about this in my undergraduate education it did not exist going back to that body of research we did not have it we did not have access to it um we know better now we do better but leveled text was a
big thing and it was always interesting to me I was our reading intervention teacher like gosh we just can never get them quite there we have them at this level why do they never get caught up um they need access we can provide supports and we need to teach into for kids who are struggling with the physical reading
of the text. That's where we need to work on word wreck and that may be a separate piece that we have to work on. But we still have to give access to complex language in the classroom. Even if they can't read that text well on their own, we're going to support them because they have to get the vocab and
the ideas and the knowledge. Because what happened when we kept kids in those level text, they were losing access to complex sentence structure, syntax, vocabulary, and ideas. you can't then you're you're losing. It's a Matthew effect. The rich get
richer and the poor get poorer. And that was a part of level text that was not great for kids. And we know better now. We do better. All kids deserve access to high quality rigorous text. >> Yeah, thank you for the presentation. It
was excellent. Um, a question I have is early in your presentation used the word I think preventative use preventative methods. Could you expand on that? >> Yeah, good instruction is preventative. It's, you know, it's kind of like when you think of like a health model, like
we want people to be healthy in their daily life so that we prevent them from other diseases or um issues down the line. Same with good quality instruction in the tier one classroom. It's preventative for reading failure. um
research if you go into especially we've been talking a lot about the elementary and K1 that is the place if we can if we really think about where we can catch kids in K1 if we can catch them in K1 we are almost ensuring the gaps will not
grow further beyond that first grade experience so when we think even about the sixth seventh or eighth grade classroom having complex texts supporting them through teaching deeply doing all of these things. That is a preventative measure to to keep them from failing reading. As texts get
harder, they go into the high school, those texts are pretty hard. And they're not just reading in English class. Um, they're reading a textbook in social studies, they're reading in science, they're reading in their IB courses, their AB AP courses all the way through. And they have to be able to process
those texts in order to learn. um whether they're going careers or college, reading is we like to say in my neck of the woods, it's it's our civil right. That's the thing that we all kids, every person has a right to have. It's the right to read.
Also, it we all know it's so essential. It's foundational to learning everything else in life in higher grades. >> So getting those skills when they're really young, it's important crucial. How do we handle children that may come
into the schools uh and haven't been brought in from kindergarten up? They've come from other schools or other countries or they've got they're really not at the point where we would normally have some of our kids that they're in our system the whole ways. How do we catch them up? >> It's challenging when I mean we are
working so so hard and and this is nationally. This is a national movement to this work but we I I will brag. I think Caramel Clay Schools is above and beyond where a lot of places are right now. So, when we have kids who are still working in level text or um haven't had
the opportunity to really engage deeply in complex text or they haven't had the work they needed in phonics and decoding and they enter, you know, Mr. Moffett's sixth grade or eighth grade classroom, it's hard. Um, you know, the first thing is really figuring out when we think
about well, what where's the problem? That's the first thing we need to do. And as teachers, our classroom teachers understand Scarboro's rope. We often talk about in elementary who've been doing this work a lot. It's like, okay, so where's the strand? What's the strand that they're struggling with? They're struggling with reading comprehension.
Well, why? Our state tests might say reading comprehension is low, but it doesn't tell us why it's low. So, we need to uncover, is it because of word recognition? Is there a phmic awareness deficit or an alphabetic principle? Or is there a language issue? Or do we just
really need to help support them through fluency in the middle level? in particular, we've been working with some programming. I know Mrs. Castler has been using some of it, Mrs. Mindam as well. We've been trying some things out um that really focuses on multi-elabic word decoding for those students who
maybe are lower in um word recognition, but they're kind of on the edge, but also supporting morphology and fluency. So we've had just with that simple program and incorporating that in core plus for kids who need that something
extra outside of maybe what tier one is going to provide just providing that dosage through core plus time has made a world of difference for kids. So it's really being curious about why a student is struggling and what you know what they came from or what they got or
didn't get at that point doesn't matter. It's like okay so this is what we have in front of us. what are we going to do about it? And then using the tools that are at disposal to help help lift them and move them forward in their learning. >> Thank you.
>> Anything else? >> Thank you so much. I just wanted to be mindful of the time because there are students that have to go to school tomorrow. So, I would just wanted to see in case there's any unless there's anything pressing um that can't be answered, I would just wanted to let the students be able to go home um this evening. So, thank you so much for this.
Thank you for coming. We're going to head back to the DAS and thank you so much. Thank you. You're welcome to >> No, I don't want to do that. >> You don't want to do that? Next on our agenda is an action item and this evening that is the Carmel Clay
Schools calendar for 2027 2028 and 2028 2029. Dr. Herrera. >> All right, Dr. Ostrike and members of the board. On April 15th, I presented the tenative calendar for the 2728 2829 school year. This calendar was
created in collaboration with the CTA and feedback from the survey. Since presenting this information, we have not received any new feedback. So, we are recommending that you approve the 27,28 and 2829 school calendars. >> Thank you so much. And again, yes, we
have we have previously discussed this and and the calendars were presented at at our last meeting. Um, may I have a motion at this time to approve the Carmel Clay Schools calendars for the 2728 and 2829 school years? >> Motion to approve those calendars.
>> Thank you. May I have a second? >> I second. >> Thank you. Any discussion on these calendars? Right. Seeing none, we'll take a vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> I. Motion carries. four to zero. And that was our only action item this
evening. So we are moving on to our report and we have our superintendent report with Dr. Orike. >> Well, good evening, Vice President Kay and members of the board. Uh tonight, well, first of all, uh thank you again to our students were that were here this evening. Uh outstanding workshop on
middle school literacy. Um and in addition, congratulations to all the students we recognized at the start of the meeting. Um world and national awards, uh student emmes. I mean, doesn't get much better than that. So, we're very proud of all of our students
and especially our students we recognize tonight. I'm also excited to highlight several extraordinary accomplishments to continue to demonstrate uh the talent, character, and well-rounded excellence of our students and staff across Carmel
Clay Schools. And we had some breaking news on the student Emmy from CHTV. I have some breaking news from DECA tonight. And so, congratulations to our Carmel High School DECA delegation for truly stellar results at this year's
International Career Development Conference in Atlanta. Uh, this event brought together over 15,000 student competitors from all over the world. Um, and Carmel High School was represented by 87 outstanding students. And
remarkably, 38 of our students were honored on the stage uh tonight for their accomplishments. And even more impressively, Carmel is bringing home five coveted glass trophies representing top three in the world, uh which is
DECA's highest honor. So, a special congratulations. First place in the world, Grant MW, uh in stock market. first place in the world out of those 15,000 students. Uh also, uh Nathan Madselin and Gavin Bletzinger were first
place in the world on the virtual business challenge around personal finance. First place in the world, personal finance. Also second uh place in the world, Malik Morad in stock market. So not only did we get first
place in stock market, we also had second place in the world. So, uh, Caramel is going to be thriving for many years because we're going to have a lot of great investors, uh, who are going to come back and do great things, uh, here in Carmel. Also, second place in the
world, uh, professional selling Sheldon Spence, uh, which is fantastic. And then third place in the world, uh we have Atarva Sahu and Michael Yuvon. Um virtual business challenge in fashion,
third place in the world. So really beyond the awards, what stood out to me um uh was how our students represented Carmel with professionalism, collaboration, and kindness throughout uh this entire experience. We're incredibly proud of our students, our
CHS staff, and our parent chaperones whose support made this opportunity possible. These are out of this world results. Really truly world results. Tonight, um, in another area of national distinction, I'm proud to share that Carmel Clay Schools has once again been
recognized by NAM as one of the best communities for music education in the nation. And so CCS joins an elite group of approximately only a thousand schools or less uh districts, schools and districts across the country to receive
this honor. Um this recognition reflects our unwavering commitment to providing our students with comprehensive music opportunities from kindergarten through 12th grade. uh whether it's through band, choir, orchestra, general music,
uh Carmel Clay Schools believes the arts are a a vital part of a well-rounded education. And this honor is a testament to our exceptional students, educators, and families. Uh just today, I went to the uh performance at West Clay
Elementary School of Lion King Jr. And it was one of the most ele you had never have known that was an elementary performance of uh 11year-olds up there on the stage. They were simply incredible. So the arts are thriving in Caramel uh and we're proud to be
recognized as one of the best communities for music education. This Saturday, I also had the opportunity to attend the Indiana Esports State Finals uh at the Arena at Innovation Mile. That's the brand new arena in
Noblesville where the Noblesville Boom perform and I believe they're kind of like a farm club to the Indiana Pacers. Um, but our students performed exceptionally well. Um, took home uh numerous state titles in different uh categories. But what continues to make
me proud is that Caramel High School offers a place for every student to find connection, purpose, and success. And esports was just a shining example of that. So whether it is academics, arts, athletics, business as you heard, uh
cyber security or esports, there's truly a pathway for every greyhound uh to excel. And so I'm really proud of that. So that was amazing. And then on Monday evening, uh I had the privilege of serving as a judge for Sheptacular at
Carmel High School. And I know uh Mrs. Cashion was there and Mr. Shapiro was there. Um and it was just a fantastic event. Um incredible talented student chefs from our culinary arts program who
were paired with a master chef from different restaurants in the area and they were each given an ingredient and they took that ingredient and they had to prepare a dish. And so there were 16 student chefs. So, I had to uh eat all
16 uh of these amazing dishes that our students and their master chefs came up with. And it was just an incredible night. Um what the students prepared uh I would order on a menu at numerous restaurants. It was that fantastic. And
so, um their creativity, professionalism, uh culinary school skills were just tremendous. and another reminder of the diverse opportunities our students have to shine uh here in Carmel Clay Schools. And then also on Friday night, I had the honor to attend
the Carmel Youth Assistant Program Gala uh helping support an outstanding uh organization that works tirelessly uh to provide resources and assistance for students and families in our community. And so their partnership uh certainly ma uh makes a meaningful difference for so
many. and we're grateful for the ongoing support of the Carmel Youth Assistance Program. I believe I saw a social media post today that they raised over $80,000 to help kids and families in our community. And so, thank you, Carmel Youth Assistance Program. We appreciate
it. And finally, as we turn the calendar to May, I want to wish all of our spring sports teams uh the very best as they prepare for sectionals uh and postseason competition. A very exciting time of the year. proud of their dedication um of
our student athletes, coaches, families that they continue to demonstrate on a high level. Personally, I say I'm looking forward to this Friday night as many are calling this the lacrosse match of the year when our Caramel Greyhounds take on HSSE at HSSE. I'll be there.
I'll be cheering loud and proud uh for our Caramel Greyhounds and all of our spring sports as well. So across every classroom, stage, field, arena, and competition floor, Carmel students continue to demonstrate excellence, leadership, and heart. And so thank you
to our teachers, our staff, our families, our community for making these opportunities possible. It fits right into the mission that we read here every night before our board meeting. Uh together we achieve, which is our vision. So board, I just want to thank you for your support of our students and
our families across Carmel Clay Schools, our administrators, Mrs. Novice, thank you for your support. Our SRO's that are still here with us. We appreciate you creating the conditions uh so that our students can learn safely and uh they can be successful in every aspect that
they do here in Carmel. So with that, that concludes uh tonight's superintendence report. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. We do not have anything else this evening. So I would Can I have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? >> Second.
>> Thank you. Meeting adjourned.