President Harden, before you begin today's meeting, I would like to read a few announcements. Good morning. Welcome to the May 7th, 2025 special board meeting. Before we start the meeting, I would like to share a few safety points and next meeting announcements. Please
note that the primary exit and entrance to the boardroom is the door which you use to enter this morning. If you are leaving the room, please use this door. The restrooms are outside the boardrooms to your left. During the meeting, we ask that you keep all aisles and exits clear. If you need any assistance during
the meeting, please wave the attention of one of our security officers. For upcoming meetings, please mark your calendars. The next agenda review committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 14th, 2025 at 10:30 a.m. The next board meeting is scheduled
for Thursday, May 29th, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. The ARC and board meetings will be held at 42 West Madison Street, Garden Level Boardroom. For details on how to register to speak or observe at the meetings and to learn about the speaker lottery process, please visit the
Chicago Board of Education website, cpsb.org. If you have any questions about registration or public participation, please contact the please contact the board office for assistance. Thank you for joining us today. President Harden, we are now ready for
you to begin the meeting. Good morning everyone. Welcome to the Chicago Board of Education special meeting. Today is May 7th. I'm President Shan B. Harden. On behalf of my fellow board members, thank you for joining us today. We're holding today's special board meeting in the boardroom at CPS Loop Office, 42
West Madison Street and Garden level. I would like to note that board members and senior leadership are physically present in the boardroom. Registered speakers may join us in person or virtually if they've opted to do so, and registered observers are joining us in person. The special board meeting
Wednesday, May 7th, is hereby called to order. Board secretary, please call the role. Thank you. Member Thomas here. Member Bole here. Member Wallace present.
Member Rosenfel here. Member Rivas present. Member Bannon present. Member Biggs present. Member Thodakura present. Member Zachor
here. President Harden present. We have 10 present. We do have a quorum. I'd also like to recognize Ruchi Burma, general counsel. Bogdana Shikumbua, chief education officer. Charles Mayfield, chief operating officer. Thank
you. The order of the meeting will be as follows. Public participation presentations that include school improvement plan and monitoring district goals. We'll go into close session, reconvene from cold session, and then adjourn. Let's now proceed with today's public
participation session. Thank you for joining to share your comments with the board. In compliance with the Illinois's Open Meetings Act, public participation, sometimes referred to as public comment, is the portion of the board meeting or hearing that grants district stakeholders the opportunity to address
the board with their concerns and comments. Note that public participation is a time for board and CPS senior leadership to listen and hear rather than a time for dialogue with board members during or after your remarks. While we can't discuss personnel
matters, public participation is a key component of transparent governance and it provides us as board members as well as senior leadership an opportunity to listen to everyone who has signed to speak. This board takes equity of voice seriously. While we may not address your
concerns or comments directly during public participation, CPS leadership is always present at our meetings and are able to address concerns as follow-ups after the meeting. As a district and as a board, we also have many other spaces for authentic dialogue. For example,
each and every one of our board members hosts board office hours so we can have a conversation. Please use our website cpsb.org or if you want to meet with the board member during office hours. We encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to meet with board members
outside of a board meeting. Thank you for your attention and consideration. As a reminder, union representatives will be allotted 5 minutes to speak before public participation and any elected officials will be allotted 5 minutes to speak after the conclusion of public
participation. Board Secretary, please share the rules of public participation. Thank you, President Harden. Before I begin uh with the rules, I do want to note that for the record, member Lozano has joined the meeting at approximately 9:07
a.m. Members of the public who registered to speak were given the option to attend in person or via an electronic format. For those who prefer to attend via an electronic format, they were given information to access this meeting by dialing a number and using their phone. We did this so that
speakers with limited or no access to the internet or who may have weak internet connection could still participate using their phones. Also, members of the public may submit written comments for board of education meetings via the written comments form on the board's website at
cpsboe.org or mailed to one north Dearborn sweet 950. Written comments received between the day the public agenda was posted through 5:00 p.m. the day after the board of education meeting will be submitted to the board and published within five business days on our website at
cpsb.org. Speakers, please listen while I provide directions for public participation. I will call your name and number when it is your turn to speak. For speakers joining us virtually, as a reminder to unmute, please enter star six. Once you hear your name, please
state your name for the record. I will then start the two-minute timer. When there are 30 seconds remaining, I will inform you so that you can proceed to conclude your remarks to allow for the next speaker to begin. For anyone standing with the speaker, please stand along the glass partitions to keep the aisles clear. Thank you, President
Harden. Before we begin calling uh speakers from the speakers list, we do have a union rep who would like to address the board. Eduardo Victoria, SEIU Local 73 CPS division deputy director, who is here in person.
Good morning, President Harden and members of the board. I'm Edardo Victoria, deputy director of the CPA division at SEIU Local 73. I'm here today to propose a solution that will significantly benefit CPS. By including provisions in vendor contracts that
guarantee refunds when the quality of services falls short, we can ensure that CPS receives the quality it deserves. As we have seen in the past under vendor contracts like Aramark, when the quality of services isn't met or where schools
and students inevitably suffer, it's our responsibility to ensure that vendors are held accountable for their contractual obligations throughout the term of the contract, not just when the contract is up for renewal. With millions of dollars at stake in vendor
contracts, it's imperative It's imperative that CPS receives compensation when the standards in those contracts are not met. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. We'll um begin speaking calling speakers from the
speakers list. We'll start with Jame Haime Sanchez, speaker number one. So, good morning, President Holden, Co Martinez, and members of the board of education. My name is Haime Sanchez, and I'm the proud principal of North River Elementary School. I'm honored to be
present at our school community. I'm honored to be present today alongside with our LSC president, Miss Alma Rosendez, our teacher and parent representative, Miss Andrea Salgado, and our assistant principal, Miss Jessica Quigley. North River Elementary has served the Albany Park community for
over 20 years. For many of those years, we have been housed in very small and limiting building leased from the arch dascese of Chicago. But in 2017, our community came together and worked closely with CPS to address the challenges we face. This collaboration
led to a su a successful colllocation with a spiran middle school starting in 2022. A partnership that has allowed us to both serve our students more effectively. While a spir hogen will now be returning for school year after
school year 2025. We are deeply grateful for the p we are deeply grateful for the past three years of collaboration and the relationship we built with them. We wish them all the success. We are here today to begin the process of expanding North River Elementary to the third
floor of our building in order to better serve the Albany Park community. Currently, due to ourou agreement, we operate with one classroom per grade from kindergarten through 8th grade and we are at full capacity.
The three the three main reasons why we are requesting this expansion is one our English language learners English language learners enrollment has grown significantly from 33% in 2022 to 74% in
2025. Expansion will allow us to offer both a bilingual and a general education classroom per grade level ensuring all the students get the services they need. Two, every grade is at capacity and we have a waiting list of students hoping to
enroll. Third, and most importantly, we are we are deeply rooted in the community. We are not just a school. We are a hub for families and we are committed to growing with and for the Albany Park community. Thank you for your time and for considering this
important next step for the North River community. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Paul Warsski, speaker number two, who is joining us uh virtually. Please enter star six to unmute.
Good morning board. Thank you for stepping up and volunteering your time to CPS and the students it serves. They are Chicago's most valuable resource. I'm glad that you have acknowledged in the
past the value of the of district-based transportation system to serve their needs. Even if we had the best school system in the country, it still would not be able to provide every program every student needs within 2 miles of their house. Our family has personally benefited from transportation by
preparing both of my kids to be for the seal of biteracy upon graduation. My daughter last year had a chance to appear with Kennedy uh um Kenwood's marching band and Kennedy Center Jazzm Jason Moran. We're not too sure how much
longer he'll have that job, but um they all appeared at Symphony Center. This all happened because the bus was available for them. Now, it appears student transportation to and from school may be on the chopping block again next year.
And currently, there's been a tripling of the budget for athletic support under the new contract. If transportation is cut or limited next year, it will then be easier for the quarterback to get to the game than for them to get to class.
Cuts to transportation will disproportionately affect English learners, students from low-income families, and those living furthest from opportunity. If you don't already know, there is a bill in Springfield, HB989. This is a pilot program which can
safely Thank you. safely help keep travel under travel times under an hour. Promises to lower transportation costs and improve routing options. Please press CPS leadership for more details about this program,
HB989, ahead of the upcoming end of May board meeting. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Marylu Agarte, speaker number three, who's joining us virtually. Please enter star six to unmute.
Mara numero. It looks like the speaker has dropped off the call. Um, I'm going to go to the next speaker, but before we do so, for the record, I do want to note that member Rio Sierra joined the meeting at 9:14
a.m. Our next speaker is Jessica Kieran, speaker number four. Good morning. Um, I'm here as a parent of a local high school student. Um, on April 4th at 1:33 p.m., um, it was reported to our school that there was a student who had indicated that he
was going to be leaving the school to go home and get a gun and would be returning to shoot up the school. Um, 30 minutes later at 20:03, 2 minutes before school dismissal, he was arrested across the street from the school and a gun was found in his
possession. Um, you know, this is a 30 minute turnaround time. This is 2 minutes before dismissal. Some of the students, teenagers being who, some of them are, um, some of them had already exited the building. Some of them witnessed the arrest of their classmate.
Some of them could have easily been caught in crossfire or witnessed it. There was no lockdown. There was minimal communication from the school. At the time that all of this was happening, the vast majority of the staff and the students were unaware of what was going
on. After the fact, a letter went out which basically just said, "A member of our school community used threatening language, left school, and returned to campus soon after. Um, and no one was injured, and he wasn't allowed to re-enter." The school community w the
parents have never been officially notified that a gun was involved, that there were threats about shooting, any of that. Um, when questioned by the local school council about the timeline on the turnaround and the handling of it, we were told by the principal that it was an 8minute turnaround. That is
not true and I have seen proof that it is not true. Um, you have 30 seconds remaining. Since then, CPD has been called to the school as well as an ambulance at one point multiple times and the principal refuses to answer questions even about the basics on why like was it violence, was it threat, a
threat, was it drugs, nothing. Um, we've been blocked from speaking directly to the team, the safety and security team of the district and told we have to go directly through the principal. Um, I'm asking for an investigation into this and also to look at if this is a district-wide policy because across the
entire district, parents need to have access to this information when there are major safety concerns. And I would hate to think that any other parent in the school district is in a similar boat. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. President Harden, this concludes public
participation. And for the record, I do want to note that member Brown joined the meeting at 9:18 a.m. We'll now proceed with the business portion of the meeting. We're ready for presentations. Thank you. And the first presenter is
Nick Heckle, supervisor for the school district improvement from the Illinois State Board of Education. Um, presenting on school improvement plan. Good morning board. As they said, my name is Nick Huckle and I am the supervisor for the school district
improvement department at the Illinois State Board of Education. Um, I have spent the past four years working for the department. Um, and thankfully I've spent the last three years working side by side with ONS and INI here in CPS on school improvement
efforts. A little bit about myself because I always like to know who's providing me any training or any information. Um, this is year 23 year 23 in education for me. Um, I spent six years as a classroom teacher in first grade and fifth grade and I spent the
following 13 years as a building administrator. I have worked with every grade level of student from preK through uh graduate school where I taught at uh UIS an online course a graduate course on ed finance. I have worked in every
demographic of school as well. Um I will tell you my favorite job ever was I had an all kindergarten building for our district. That meant I had 500 5-year-olds in my school and that was just one of the two buildings that I had at the time. The other building that I
had had 350 students between the ages of three and five in my early childhood special education building. My absolute favorite. I could walk into any classroom down any hallway. Felt like a rockstar the entire time. The next building I was in had sixth grade in it and I didn't have quite the same feeling
when I walked down the hallway. It was a little different. So, as we begin today, um in front of you each is a packet. Inside of that packet is a copy of the presentation for today so that you have that. So you can take notes if you would like to. Also inside that packet is
copies of different documents that we're going to be reviewing today um that as the state as the Illinois State Board of Education and the School District Improvement Department, we utilize when working with schools on school improvement. Could I have the next slide, please? So upon completion of today's
training with me, um I want the board to understand this about school improvement. School improvement is not about changing what kids do. It's not. It's about changing what the adults inside of those schools do with children. So, changing adult practices
to improve student outcomes. That is school improvement. The other part that I want you to understand is that as a school board, even a school board in CPS, the fourth largest district in the country, you play an important role in monitoring and supporting the work of school
improvement inside of our schools. Next slide, please. So, why am I here today? So, the training that you're going to be receiving today from myself and from the Illinois Association of School Boards is because board members of districts with schools that do not exit status will
complete training provided by the Illinois Association of School Boards and the Illinois State Board of Education on effectively supporting school improvement efforts. What does that mean? That means that schools that perform in the bottom 5% of schools in the state that do not exit status after
four years go into what's in called intensive status. Meaning that we need to do something differently. We need to do something drastic. So that's why we're here today. Next slide please. So understanding school designation starting in
2018 the state issued annual summit of designations to every school across the state in all 852 districts including CPS. In 2018 there were four designations exemplary commendable
targeted and comprehensive. In 2023 and report card 2023, intensive designation was stat was intensive designation status was added. To explain these designations, I'll start with exemplary. Exemplary are schools that
fall into the top 10% of schools in the state of Illinois. CPS has 26 of those schools inside of it. Commendable schools are schools that fall between the sixth percentile and the 89th percentile in the state. You'll
notice that is a large grouping of schools. Approximately 325 schools in in CPS fall into that range. That range is changing. The state is holding a listening tour around the state and has its own date just for CPS
to come out and hear about the accountability assessment system and how it's changing in the state of Illinois. That's on May 22nd. Um, and it is specifically for CPS to come out and hear. Targeted schools. Targeted schools
are schools that would fall into the commendable range except for the fact that one or more of their student groups falls into the bottom 5% in the state. When we say student groups, we mean lowincome children with disabilities,
English learners, um, black, African-American, Hispanic, Latino. All of those student groups inside of schools, if one of those student groups falls into the bottom 5% on an otherwise commendable designation status, the school becomes targeted and enters a four-year cycle of targeted designation
status. Comprehensive. Comprehensive is schools that fall into the bottom 5% in the state for their overall rating. in CPS. As of right now, there are 107 of these schools that fall into the
bottom 5% in the state. Schools that do not exit that comprehensive status after what was supposed to be a four-year cycle but became five due to COVID, we gave an additional year of support and funding. Schools on report card 2023 that were
designated on report card 2018 as comprehensive schools. If they were still comprehensive on report card 2023, they entered designation status of intensive. On report card 23, there were 41 schools in CPS that fell into this
status. On report card 2024, there were six schools that fell into this status as well. Next slide, please. If you have not had an opportunity to look at the Illinois report card for CPS, I recommend that you do this. It is
an opportunity to see all of the schools inside of CPS, whether they are district run schools, charter run schools, or option run schools. It is an opportunity to see all of the schools, their current designation status, and the historical designation status for each of those
schools. Next slide, please. So the main question is always Nick, what comes with an intensive support and improvement status? The first thing that comes with it is title one part A section 1003 school improvement grant funds. These funds are allocated to each
individual school based on their designation. Targeted schools receiving a smaller amount than intensive schools which receive the highest amount. This grant is done on a yearly basis um in the district. I work very closely with the grants department and the team
over at the grants department on this grant and ensuring that these funds are utilized to the best of the ability in CPS. Also along with this comes a more rigorous needs assessment. We've had four or five years to make improvement and we're not seeing it. We need to dig
deeper and we need to find out why. So a more rigorous needs assessment is done by AIRIR, the American Institute for Research. They are contracted through the state. We provide grant funds to the district to pay for this um needs assessment. We encourage schools to do a
root cause analysis. The root cause analysis is digging deeper than the surface level. We provide an ondemand learning series that is available not only to schools in designation status, but schools across the state at any time. I
can tell you as somebody who spent 13 years as a building administrator, when I went to school to become an administrator, they didn't have a class on school improvement. They didn't have a class on how to do that. I had to learn trial by fire. So, what we've done is my department is made up of former
administrators. So, we have gone through and created an ondemand learning series to help schools leaders and district leaders understand from start to completion what school improvement looks like. We have a school improvement website that is available to anyone and everyone
across the state. All of the resources in front of you today are available on this website and more. I will tell you that the US Department of Education does use our documents as examples to other states that are trying to develop things here. So, we know that Illinois is
leading the charge on school improvement. When it comes to support for the schools inside of CPS, currently what it looks like is that myself as the school uh supervisor for my department and my lead, Dr. Trevor Chapman, a former high school
administrator and teacher as well, we support the schools currently as of this month. We have meetings set up on a monthly basis with um school leaders to come together as networks inside of those networks and the uh
network leadership to help them understand requirements, deadlines, and provide support around questions that they have on school improvement. I will tell you that school improvement does look a little bit different inside of CPS. It has to. With over 600 schools in CPS, it looks a
little bit different. So that's why we have partnered with ONS and INI to help with that process. CPS does have a good process in place that they have worked hard on to create what we call a school improvement plan in the rest of the state. It's called a continuing
um continue continuous improvement work plan here in CPS. It's a very good plan. There's a lot of work that has gone into it and the team that has developed it. I have to give them kudos on the work that they've done here in CPS to do this. My job is to come alongside them and help
continue that work to make sure that schools inside of CPS do improve. We also offer technical assistance from school improvement helpline in rest of state. Those school improvement helpline inquiries either through phone or email go to my coordinators to help them to answer
those questions. For CPS, they come to me. I answer those questions. I go out to networks and I present at networks. I do trainings at networks. I meet with network leadership. I meet with principles. That's my job. That's my role and I absolutely love it. Next slide,
please. So, as I had stated on report card 2023, the report card that came out October of 2023, there were 41 schools that were designated as intensive. These were schools that were originally designated on report card 2018 as comprehensive schools. And 5 years
later, they were still designated as comprehensive schools. So, they became intensive. Not going to read the list. The list is there for you to see. Next slide, please. So, the slide here shows you what that looked like starting in 2018.
So, report card 2018 came out October of 2018, October 30th of 2018. Schools were designated as either targeted or comprehensive at that time. They had 5 years worth of support and funds to help move them forward. On
report card 2023, they were again issued another set of designations that determined if they had improved to commendable or exemplary status or if they had stayed in targeted or comprehensive status. Next slide, please. So, this shows what the next
four what those four years look like starting from report card 2023. So, report card 2023 was the planning year for those 41 intensive schools. It was their opportunity to go back to square one and start over. It
was their opportunity to take a look at their current CIWP and determine if it needed to change, if things needed to change inside of that plan, excuse me, to improve and move forward. This year, report card 2024 is their first year, which we call
implementation year one. I can tell you that eight of your intensive schools here in CPS went from intensive to commendable in that first year, which is fantastic. But the work doesn't stop
there. It has to continue. It has to move forward because if we say, "Hey, we made it to commendable. Let's stop and go back to what we were doing." We go right back to where we were before. We have to keep the momentum going forward. We have to keep the work moving forward.
So report card 2027 will be a determinating a determining year for those 41 schools. If they have exited status and moved to commendable or exemplary, fantastic. It doesn't mean that the work stops. The work needs to continue. If they are in targeted or
comprehensive status, the next steps have not been determined yet at the state level as to what that's going to be. Next slide, please. So, as I had said, excuse me, report card 2024 released October 30th of 2024,
October 28th of 2024, determined that six schools that had been previously in status on report card 19 is comprehensive were still comprehensive on report card 2024. Those six schools are listed there. Next slide, please.
This slide again shows that five-year um status that they had an opportunity to move forward and make progress. And the next slide, please shows that what the next four years will look like for that those schools. This year is their planning year. 2425 school year is the
planning year for these schools. It's their opportunity to look at their CIWPs, look at the processes and systems inside of their school and make changes. Report card 2028 will determine if they exit status or if they remain in status and next steps are taken. Next slide,
please. So on this slide that you can see, there's a little icon in the corner. It's a hand, two hands holding a piece of paper. Anytime you see that icon, there is a corresponding document inside of your packets to go along with that. So that document looks like this.
This document when it was originally created was just the top half of this document. It just had the continuous improvement cycle on it. Our district, our department is school and district improvement. Our goal is always continuous improvement.
So what we do at the conclusion of every year is when we meet with our principles and district administrators, we say, "What can we do differently? What do you need that we weren't able to provide this year so that we can provide it to you? The number one theme, one of the
big themes that we heard from our principles across the state is that, hey, Nick, you give me all these links and I I've got to go digging for all these links. If everything was in one spot, it'd be wonderful. We said, we can do that. So, that's where this document was
created. At the bottom, any of the blue lettering on there, any of the blue words on there, those are linked directly to those documents. of support documents for schools. Today we are going to talk about the five components of the continuous examine, reflect, and adjust
course. We're going to discuss all of the elements underneath of these. These are elements that we recommend to every school, every district across the state. If you hear Dr. Sanders, the state superintendent, talk about school improvement, he doesn't talk about school improvement just for designated
schools. He talks about school improvement for every school in the state. It's important. I can tell you as someone who worked in an exemplary school in the northern part of the state, that district never looked at data. They didn't have a school improvement plan. They could have been
better had they done that. School improvement is important for all of our schools. Next slide, please. So, we're going to start with the component of identify local needs. For identify local needs, there are four
elements. Identify a school leadership team in CPS, their instructional leadership teams or their CIWP teams. Build a stakehold advisory group. Beautiful thing about CPS is they already have these in place. They're called their local school
councils. Conduct a school level needs assessment and conduct a root cause analysis. Next slide, please. So, I'm going to ask you a question, and I do want answers from the board. I was a first grade teacher for a number of
years, so I'm really good at wait time. So, this gets to be interactive. So, what is the difference between a school leadership team and a stakeholder advisory group? What is the difference between a school leadership team and a stakeholder advisory group?
Yes, ma'am. I would think that a school leadership team would be people specifically within the building and a stakeholder advisory group would include the community and parents. That is 100% correct. It is
100% correct. Next slide, please. I say that's 100% correct because remember when I said I went through and I got my master's degree and I became an administrator. They didn't teach us about school improvement. So a school leadership team is a group of school level staff whose focus is to
develop, implement, monitor and evaluate the school improvement plan or the CIWP here in CPS. You can see our little uh icon is up there. Again, we have a document to help that. I've talked with principles across the state and I've said to them, "Hey, who's on your school leadership team?" And they said, 'Well,
there's there's me as the principal and my assistant principal. I said, 'Th that's great. That's your building leadership, but who's on your school leadership team? Well, that that's it. We make all the decisions. And I said, "Oh, we got to have a conversation about that because that needs to change."
Okay, so the question is, who's on it? How often do we meet? What do we talk about? Let me answer those questions for you. Next slide, please. We recommend that school leadership teams are anywhere between four and eight members. Okay? Their makeup is
different and this is why we have that range in there. I worked with a school in southern Illinois just outside East St. Louis called Brooklyn. Their junior senior high school is 50 kids total from sixth grade to 12th grade. 50 kids with
a staff of four teachers. their school leadership team is their entire school is their entire staff. When I've moved up to a school in Rockford that I work with that has over 2,000 students and over 200 staff members, their school leadership team is
about 12, which makes sense for that size of school. So, who should be on the school leadership team, instructional leadership team here in CPS? Grade or grade bands. Depending on the size of your school, you may have a representative from kindergarten, first,
second, and third, fourth, and fifth. Or you may have a representative from each grade level. Just depends on the size of the school. Middle schools and high schools, your department chairs. They speak for the department. They should be at the table. Special areas teachers,
I'm talking music, PE, art, STEM, any of those that you have, there needs to be a representative from them at the table. Special education teachers. These are the people that work with the neediest of our children inside of our schools. They have a different background. They
work with different students. They need to be at the table. Teacher union representation. Regardless of the relationship with any district in the state and their union, having a teacher union rep who's at the table helps to head off things in the future. School
improvement plans are big. They're asking us as adults to do things differently inside of those classrooms, inside of our school. Having a teacher union rep there from the beginning to help understand the why and the work and why we need to make these changes and
what we're going to do and they have a voice in it helps in the future if there are questions. And the one that is all too often overlooked inside of our schools is our pair professionals. Our pair of professionals work with our kids
one-on-one, twoon-one, threeon-one. And nine times out of 10, they're parents in our community as well. They are important people to have at the table. They bring a very unique perspective to the table. And I always get the push back, Nick, we meet after
school. They're not working at that time. Their hours are over. I point all of my principles back to Title One Part A section 103 school improvement grant funds. We provide the grant funds for a reason. Paying our staff to be part of the work is part of the reason. We're
asking for extra. We're asking for above and beyond. Let's pay our staff for it. How often should these meetings be taking place? How often should they be meeting? At minimum, we say on a monthly basis. I have a lot of schools that I've worked with across the state. They meet
every other week. I've got a few that I meet with. They meet with weekly. So at minimum on a monthly basis they need to be sitting down. Their plans need to be in front of them on a monthly basis plans in front of them discussing what we're doing and if it's working.
Next slide please. So what are they discussing? What do these meetings look like? We can help with that. We have a resource. So in your packets there are four documents and you're going to say Nick you gave us
duplicates. I didn't give you duplicates. If you look at the top of them, one of them will say a year in the life of school improvement intensive schools planning year and one will say a year in the life of school improvement intensive schools implementation years. They are different because we are asking
you to do different things inside of those years inside of the implementation versus planning years. The same goes for the monthly topics and tasks. As you can see, these aren't carved in stone. These are on pieces of paper or they're available online. These
are resources. These are guides on what we should be doing. If a leadership team gets to the month of January and is ready to talk about and work on the stuff that's listed on here for the month of February, okay, go for it. Do it if that's where you're at. Or if you get to
January and you're still working on December stuff, that's okay, too. It's not the end of the world. Okay, these documents were created to help school leaders stay on task, to stay on point. I can tell you as someone
who spent time as a building leader, I started my day usually about 6:45 or 7:00 on a daily basis. I'd be in my parking lot in my car and the first thing I would do is I'd pull out my phone and I'd pull up my calendar for the day and I'd see, okay, I've got this
meeting at this time, this meeting at this time, this teacher's classroom, I'm going to an observation, I've got a meeting with this teacher at this time. Okay, I know my schedule. And I'd get out of my car and I'd take about three steps and my superintendent would call me and I pick up the phone. What's going on? Got a
parent that's upset. Can you call that parent because they called me? Absolutely. give me the name, what the issue is. I'll follow up with the parent. So, I knew that was going into my day. Take another three steps. I was just right outside the door and my secretary called me. She'd be like, "Nick, where are you?" Like, I'm waving
at you through the window right now. I'm right here. She's like, "Oh, you already have three teachers standing outside your office." Great. I knew how my day was starting already. And I knew my schedule for the day, everything that I had planned out that I was like, "Yes, I'm going to get all this done." I knew all of the things I wanted to get done
that day were waiting until after school. And that's okay. That was my job as a principal. I accept it. I loved it. The other thing that I knew was that by the end of the day when 3:40 rolled around and my school leadership team meeting was going to be starting, my
teachers were exhausted. I was exhausted. My brain checked out by that time. Last thing I wanted to do was have a leadership team meeting. I just wanted to send my people home and say, "Hey, go home. We'll meet another day. We'll talk about this stuff." But I couldn't do that. We had things we had to talk
about. If I had had a document like this, monthly topics and tasks to help us know that, hey, in the month of August, these are the topics we should be covering, and here's the questions I can use with my staff to help facilitate the conversation would have been a game changer for me as a principal. So,
that's what we did. we laid out on a monthly basis. Here's tasks and topics that you should be discussing during this month and here's the questions to help you facilitate those conversations. We recommend to all of our principles across the state that they use these that they add them to
their agendas for their school leadership teams. Our year in the life document, which is the legal size document, is laid out, and it's laid out with everyone who is responsible for something inside of a school and district. You'll see about halfway
across says board of education. Boards of education play an important role. Three times a year, intensive schools need to present information to the boards of education inside of their districts. There are 17 districts in the state that have intensive schools, CPS
being one of them. I am currently working with Jeff Mosley and the ONS leadership team to determine what that looks like for CPS because it has to look different. You can't have 47 schools come here and present to you
three times a year. You don't have the time in your schedules for that. We understand that. So, I'm working with them so that you are aware of the work that's taking place and the progress that's happening inside of the schools in CPS. That'll be three times a year. September, January, and May. Those are
the deadlines by when they have to present to you. But if you look across this document, key activities are on the lefth hand side. School improvement coordinators are listed on there. That's my team. For CPS, that's
me. ISBY is listed on there. Board of Education, district staff. District staff is on there for a reason. Schools cannot do this work alone. They need the support and backing of their district
leadership. I will tell you here in CPS, the network chiefs and deputy chiefs are fantastic. I love having conversations with them. I've presented to the network chiefs. I've been asked by multiple network chiefs to come out and present to their to their networks. It's
fabulous the work that they do. We say that they need to be present for these meetings. They need to be part of this work because without them, the work's not going to go anywhere. Intensive school principles and their school leadership teams are listed on here as well. Everyone has a
role. Everyone has responsibilities. We lay them out on a month-by-month basis to help keep everyone on track with the work that's taking place inside of schools. Next slide, please. Stakehold advisory group, you were 100%
correct, is a group of all stakeholders impacted by the success of the school community. The beautiful thing about CPS is they already have these built in for each of our schools. Local school councils can operate in this same way. Next slide,
please. So, who should be on your stakeholder group? Specifically, I added on to this one, the local school council. Teachers and school staff also need to be present for this. I tell my principles, your leadership team, your school leadership team, your
instructional leadership team, they're the ones doing this work. They're the ones that have put in the effort and the time. Have them be part of this. Students, if you have a middle school or a high school, bring kids to the table. You want the truth, good, bad, and
indifferent. Your middle school and high school kids are going to tell you exactly how it is. They need to be at the table. Community members, local businesses, and school leaders. Local businesses are huge. When
I was a principal, I was a new principal to a school. And I would stand out at the corner of my school every day and I watched my kids leave. At the end of the day, they walked home. About three blocks down was a local store on one side of the road. On the other side of the road was the
library. Where do you think my kids went every day? The store. They went to the store. They absolutely did. So, a couple weeks into the school year, I walked down there and I talked to the owner and I said, "Hey, I know my kids come in here at the end of the day. Are they causing problems?" Because I knew a
couple of them were ones that I talk to on a regular basis in my office or in the hallway. And he said, "No, they're great." I said, "Oh, okay. That's awesome." He goes, "I got a shelf. They can get drinks and food over there. there. I don't charge him for it. It's great. I'd rather have them here than
out there. Said, "That's fabulous." Said, "How can I help?" He says to me, he goes, "You got books?" I said, "I'm a school. Of course, I got books." He's like, "But do you have books you can like give away?" I said, "Yeah, I absolutely do." He goes, "You bring some books. I'll put a bookshelf up." Said,
"Okay." So, about a week later, I'd gotten together about 50 60 books. And I went down and he had a bookshelf up in the corner of his store. So, we loaded it up, put the books on there, and I said, "All right, I'll come down in a month and and see what the situation is and bring some more books." I went down there a month later. There was a second
bookshelf. Books were stacked everywhere on the floor next to it, on the bookshelves. I looked at him and I said, "What happened?" He's like, "Well, a couple my regulars were coming in and they saw it and they brought books." I said, "It's fabulous." He goes, "Then my wife walked into the store." I'm like, "Yeah." He goes, "She demanded that I
get another bookshelf and she started buying books." I said, ' That's fabulous. Fabulous. And I said, 'Are the kids bringing the books back?' He goes, 'I hope not. Keep them at home. I don't want them back. Take them. We'll get more. I never had to take books back to that store ever again. But I knew my
kids were getting books because they weren't going across the street to the library, but they were in the store and they were taking books. That connection with businesses in the area can make a huge difference for our kids. And so that's what we need to be doing. Next slide, please.
So the purpose of the stakeholder advisory group is to engage the community to build an understanding about the needs and improvement processes of the school. I've worked in a lot of places and I've met with a lot of principles and a lot of times we hear from families, well I went to that school 20
years ago and they're doing the same thing they did 20 years ago. If we can all be 100% honest, we're not doing what we did five or six years ago today in schools. We're definitely not doing it what we did 20 years ago schools. But one of the things as
schools across everywhere that we're not really good at is explaining what we're changing. We talk about our parent nights. We talk about conferences. We talk about report cards. We communicate in our newsletters. And it's great, but we don't talk about necessarily the change that is taking place inside of our schools, what we're doing
differently to meet the better meet the needs of our students. Stakehold advisory group helps with that. It provides an avenue for various perspectives and concerns impacting the school and the community and an acts in an advisory capacity. Next slide,
please. How often should they be meeting? For the purposes of school improvement, it varies. We say three times a year. Here's the three times a year that I suggest that they present to their stakeholder advisory groups or local school councils on school
improvement. I say one in May or June. May or June is usually when the schools had an opportunity to complete the school improvement plan or CIWP and it's ready for implementation the following school year. Get your get your stakeholder advisory group together and
explain to them this is the work that we've done. These are the priorities that we've identified and the steps we're going to take to make these priorities and these goals a reality. Then again, usually in December or January, in December or January, you've
had two benchmarking periods and progress monitoring periods that have taken place. It's an opportunity to remind them, hey, remember these are the things we said we were going to work on. These were our goals. This is the steps we've taken in the first half of the year, and here's our data to show where
we're going, progress that we've made. And then again in May or June, when you've had that opportunity, all of your testing is done. state testing, benchmarking, progress monitoring, all of it is done at the end of the year. You've had an opportunity to go back over your school improvement plan, your
CIWP, and determine, do we need to make some changes for the following school year? Next slide, please. In your packet, you will also find two documents. They're towards the back of your packet, but they are monthly topics
and tasks for boards of education. We developed these specifically for board members to help you engage in the conversation of school improvement with your leadership. Okay, this is important. I
suggest that you keep these documents close to you. If you want an electronic version of them, they're on the website. We have them out there for everyone. But these questions are designed to help school boards understand school improvement process and what's taking place inside of our
schools. questions could be things such as what priorities were identified during the needs assessment and the root cause analysis. It's a good question to ask. Are we seeing consistencies across the district from school to
school? If we are, are there things that we as a district can do to help identify to help work through those priorities? Next slide, please. All right, I'm going to take a moment here to stop because I know I talk fast. My wife always tells me I
need to breathe, take a breath, slow down. But this is an opportunity to ask any questions that you might have up until this point on anything that I've covered so far. Remember I taught first grade? Yes sir.
Okay. Um thank you. Um my question is could you repeat the uh number of schools in CPS that are in each designation? So, there are 26 exemplary schools. See, now you're challenging me.
325 commendable schools, 116 targeted schools, 7 comprehensive schools, and 47 intensive schools. What was the difference? You so you you
had identified 41 schools as intensive and then you said there were an additional six and I didn't I didn't catch that. So report card 2023 identified 41 schools as intensive. Report card 2024 identified an additional six schools as intensive. So
it's 47. Yes. I guess I'm next. Mhm. Uh so my question is what do you see as the relationship between the PPLC which was established by the state as an advisory board on
curriculum and things like that in the schools and the school leadership team. They are they are different in that the one that you're talking about is at a state level whereas the school leadership teams are individual schools
and their leadership teams inside of them that deal with specific on going ons of those individual schools. Yes ma'am. Member Wallace. Uh, I appreciate the idea of going through a root cause analysis and I was wondering, I see that there is a a link for it, but
I can't really click on a piece of paper. Would you be able to give a a quick overview of the kind of criteria used to do a root cause analysis? We're going to go through that in just a little bit. Perfect. Member Smith. Yes. Uh, thank you for this. Um, on one of the slides where it talks
about school leadership teams, uh, I appreciate the, um, the categories you put, but what I'm wondering is, uh, on stakeholder advisory group, we put students, which
we know are our number one stakeholders. We want to include student voices. Uh I'm wondering why we don't include two other groups in the leadership team which is student voice uh because they do attend the schools they are in the
schools and often in these analysis I always see student voice left out of the leadership team also uh it seems like you know and I agree that we should add teachers unions and unions uh however we
know that we have at least 80,000 students that attend charter schools that if they their schools were shut down, their parents would take them out of the district completely. Uh we like to be punitive with charter schools, but
we don't include their voice in terms of how our schools are shaped. So, as teacher unions are added to leadership teams, why aren't we adding charter schools and student voices to leadership teams? That's my first question. Uh the
second question is I I I love what you're saying about needs assessments across the district. What do we do when we look across the district and needs assessments don't fit the political will of every district? So if every district
in Illinois, for example, has a superintendent, but Chicago says, "No, we're going to do a CEO and we're going to override the will of the board to put what we want in there." How do we write uh the district when there's no
political will when when we look across the district at what the norm is? Those two questions. Thank you. So your your first question on charter schools, each charter school has their own school leadership team inside of them. So a school leadership team is school by
school. It's not a district-wide thing. So each school, charter schools, option schools, district run schools, they all have their own school leadership teams inside of them. So and and that's where a school leadership team deals with the four walls of that school, not the
district. It deals with the four walls of that school and improving inside of that school. So when we talk school leadership teams, we're talking school specific. As for students, that's why we added students to the stakehold advisory group so that their perspective and their voice is heard so that they are
part of the conversation. Why can't they be in both groups? The school leadership team has to do with the adults inside of the school and the adults have to dig into things and move deeper into them. Some schools include students, some schools
don't. As the state, we don't add it to our list of things that they have to be having. Okay, thank you. And the second question, so the second question around the needs assessment, when I'm talking about the needs assessment that is done inside of comprehensive and intensive
schools across the state, it is done by a third party. There's no political portion of that. It is done by an outside group outside of the district that comes in and provides that. They don't have a horse in the race. They are there only to tell you these are the things that are working well inside of
your school and these are the areas that you need should be looking at or could address to make improvements inside of your school. Thank you. Yes sir. Member Brown. Yes sir. Ju just for clarity um
the stakehold stakeholder advisory groups you have local school councils kind of lumped into that designation. Yes. But you we're you know but you know in in Chicago local school councils are not advisory. They're like the governing body. So they're they're actually like I
think what what member Shay was talking about. They they actually are the part of the school leadership team, right? Because they help mon they help develop, monitor and implement this the the continuous improvement work plan and things of that nature. And then the
parent advisory councils or people like that uh would be more like strictly advisory. Um, so I just want to offer that. Thank you. I appreciate that. Are there any other comments for questions?
No. Okay. Thank you. Next slide, please. So to to discuss the needs assessment, a needs assessment is conducted during the planning year. So when a school is first designated as comprehensive or intensive, a needs assessment takes place. It ensures that
the initial school improvement plan is developed based on high quality data. So the American Institute for Research AIRR conducts the school level needs assessment for schools designated as intensive or comprehensive. These are the steps that they take in their needs
assessment. Once the needs assessment is determined that needs take place and the contract is in place between the district and AIR, the needs assessment starts. The school staff is sent a survey. It's an anonymous survey. There's no names attached to it that schools are allowed that staff are asked
to complete to answer questions and provide information around what takes place inside of the school. The next step is is that AIR their researchers come out to the school and observe inside of our schools classrooms hallways the like. They observe inside
the class inside the school. It's usually a day or two process that they are there for this. There is also at the at some point during the day or after school hours there is a um staff focus group where the staff gets to sit down
with the me people from AIRIR who will then ask them questions and take part in it. It is absent of administration for this focus group. In middle schools and high schools there is a student focus group as well because again you want the
good, bad and indifferent that's taking place. students are going to tell you from their perspective. And there's also a principal interview that is done usually takes 45 minutes to an hour. All of these things along with five essential data are combined into this
report. And when I said previously that AIR, they don't have a horse in the race. Part of the contract with them through the state is that AIRIR can only come in and do the needs assessment. They can only come in, complete their
work, provide the report that tells you these are the strengths, these are the opportunities for growth. They can't come in and say, "Hey, for these areas of growth, here's our product that goes along with it." They're not allowed to do that. They are only there to provide the needs
assessment. Next slide, please. So, what does that need assess needs assessment look like? These needs assessment reports when they come out are between 60 and 70 pages long. They are quite robust. There is a lot that goes into them. The four school
improvement areas that are covered inside of these reports is leadership and vision, curriculum, instruction and assessment, culture and climate, and targeted instruction and support. Each of these four areas has
sub areas that go along with it. Next slide, please. This is just an example of what that looks like. It's usually it's about the second or third page in the report. The first several pages are definitions and explanations of different
pieces. But when we talk about leadership and vision, it looks at things such as focus, shared vision and growth, distributed leadership and sustainability, culture of continuous improvement, aligned consistent professional development. Each of these areas receives a rating, initial,
emerging, established, or robust. I can tell you this, even inside of our schools that are in the bottom 5% in the state, there are things that are working. There are things that are going right, but there are also things that
need improvement. The same can be said about our exemplary schools. There are things that are going well. There are things that are working inside of that school, but there are also things that can be improved upon. The purpose of this report that is provided is to lay out for schools and
help them understand in simplest terms possible. These are some areas that we see as initial or areas where you might need to do some work and some focus on areas that are identified as established or robust are areas that we can lean on
to help us improve the other areas. So looking at this report which is pulled from a school that I worked with in the state, you can see that collaborative planning is marked as established. Meaning the system that they have for planning inside of that school is a good
system. But if you also look high expectations and rigorous instruction is marked as initial. So what does that mean? That means I've got a great system for planning. Let's utilize that to improve rigor inside of our classroom and the
instructional strategies that we're using inside of our classrooms. After the initial assessment, the needs assessment is completed, the report is ready. AIR meets with leadership inside of each of these schools. There's meetings taking place today to go over these reports
with principles in CPS right now. Next slide, please. All right. So another question for the board. So schools are not data deserts.
We have a flood of data inside of our schools. And sometimes the biggest problem that we have is knowing how to look at it and what to look at. So I've listed out some data here. standardized assessments, school surveys, attendance,
five essentials, benchmark assessments, behavioral data, progress monitoring, and classroom data. So the question for the board is, do any of these sources of data seem to you that schools don't need to be looking at or are they all something that
schools should be considering when it comes to school improvement work? considering, but I bet the devil is in the details of which ones you emphasize and prioritize. Were you going to say something, sir?
Standardize uh assessments because if you're doing it internally, uh you want to localize what you're looking at for your school. It's going to be done by a casebyase basis or school by school basis. So, you're both correct. Let me start
there. You're both correct. Standardized assessments, they are they are important information, right? They they're normed on a larger scale to see where schools perform on a larger scale. But the one right next to it, benchmark assessments, those are local. Those tell us exactly
what's going on inside of our school right now. Okay? But here's what I can tell you. All of these data pieces are important data pieces for schools to be looking at. And here's the other truth I can tell you. As a school administrator, school principal, it's my job to make sure that
data is being reviewed. It's my job to make sure that we're utilizing everything that we can to make the best decisions possible to move our school forward. Here's the truth. My day as a school administrator is usually about 26 hours long in a
24-hour day. I I don't have time necessarily to make sure that I get to every single one of these things on a regular basis. But that's why I have a school leadership team. I may say to my kindergarten and first grade rep, "Hey, for our next leadership
team meeting, you're bringing behavioral data and attendance data, and you're going to walk us through it." and my fourth and fifth grade rep, I may say, "Hey, you're bringing our benchmark data and our classroom data to the next meeting and you're going to walk us through that
data." My job as the principal is to train them how to do that. To train them how to look at the data so that they understand it, how to present the data and how to analyze it so that we can make the best decisions possible. That's my job as the
principal. Okay? I have to lean on my school leadership team. As a school administrator, you can't do this work by yourself. It's not possible. That's why you have to have a school leadership team to help you with
that. Next slide, please. So, a lot of times when we talk about data, we talk about benchmark data and progress monitor data. Benchmark data is something that we do three or four times a year depending on the benchmark assessment that we use.
There's a lot of benchmark assessments out there. Star 360, Fastbridge, I Ready, um, MAP, there's a lot of different benchmark softwares out there. Whichever the district uses or the schools use, it's fine. That's benchmark data. Progress monitoring data is
something that we do at minimum every two weeks with students. Okay. Usually our students that are receiving intervention support or our students that are receiving IEP support or children with disabilities, we should be doing it at least every two weeks. I've
worked with schools that some of them do it on a weekly basis. So that's the difference between the progress monitoring data and benchmark data. Benchmark three to four times a year. Progress monitoring usually every two weeks. Next slide please.
to your question, what is a root cause analysis? So a root cause analysis is an approach to problem solving through discussion to dig deeper than the surface symptoms and under and uncover the underlying causes. So my icon is
back there again and it is this document. Okay. What we ask schools to do is to ask the question why and ask it
again and again and again. If I talk to a school a lot of times I I will ask an administrator what is the biggest problem facing your school right now? Nine times out of 10 the first thing that they tell me is chronic
absenteeism. And I have to tell that principal, no, it's not. It's not. Chronic absenteeism is not the problem. Chronic absenteeism is the symptom of the problem. It is the symptom. We have to
dig deeper as to why students are not coming to school. I had a conversation with a principal in the district and he said to me, "Nick, I can't figure out this chronic absenteeism problem. Can't figure it out. It's a huge problem." I said, "Well, it's not. It's a symptom." He said, 'Well, what do I need to do?'
He said, 'You need to dig deeper and find out why it's a problem, what the issue is. I said, 'Have you gone to your stakehold advisory group and brought them in and said, 'Hey, let's work through this together.' He said, "No." I said, "We'll do that." He did. He came back to me and he said, "Nick, I I met
with my stakehold advisory group." And the parents on that group told me that they did not feel comfortable with their kids walking to school through the neighborhood. They did not feel safe for their kids walking through the neighborhood. I said, "Okay, that is the
problem. How do we fix it?" He said, "Oh, I already fixed it." He goes, "I hired three pair of professionals that are my walking bus. Every morning they walk up and down the streets of the neighborhood picking up kids as they go by and walk them to school." His chronic
absenteeism rate dropped drastically. But if he had not asked the question, why? Why are kids not coming to school? Why don't you why aren't you sending your kids to school? That's why they didn't feel safe having their kids walk through the neighborhood. He solved the
problem. Now, with a root cause analysis, you're going to come to two types of problems. The first type is something you can do something about. My parents don't feel safe with their kids walking through the neighborhood. I hired two or three pair of
professionals to do a walking bus every day. It was a problem you had a solution to or that you could put a solution to place for. The second type of problem you're going to run into is that as a school you don't have a solution for that you can't solve that
problem. But if you as a school have relationships with the community, you have relationships with organizations in your community, you can lean on those organizations who may be able to provide you a solution to those problems. In a
district that I worked in, I had a lot of kids in my fifth and sixth grade classes that had high uh absenteeism rates. I talked with the parents and I said, "Hey, can you tell me what's what's going on? Why is why is Nick missing so much
school? I had several parents say to me, "Well, when my babysitter is sick, I have to keep them home to watch the two and three-year-olds, so they miss school." I said, "Okay, that's not something I I can't solve that problem." But I had a couple churches in
the area who could solve that problem for those parents and were willing to help. So you have to be able to expand beyond your school to help solve some problems that you identify. So on this document you'll see that we have the steps and we have
guiding questions to help them work through those steps to define these are the priorities that we need to ident to that we need to work on with ones that we can address as a school to help move forward.
Did that answer your question? It did. Thank you. I wanted to make sure we weren't uh focusing on the symptom and not the problem. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Next slide, please. Okay. I'm going to take an opportunity
again here to stop um and allow for any questions or reflections that you have. Yes, ma'am. Um I want to ask a question actually from earlier. So you said for example the exemplary schools are the top 10% and etc etc. You had all these
percents. Percent of what though? I mean like how are you uh coming up to that determination? Absolutely. So on designation reports that come out every October um there is a score that schools receive
0 to 100. So exemplary schools are between the 90th percentile and the 100th percentile on their overall student rating. The rating is based on ELA and math growth and ELA and math proficiency on I AR. So that's four of
the ratings. There's the Illinois assessment of uh science assessment is another portion of the rating. Chronic absenteeism is another portion of the rating. Um the five essential survey is the other portion of the rating. and EL progress to proficiency is another
portion of the rating. So that whole rating is put out by the accountability department at the state. And so schools that score 90 points or higher are in that top 10% of the state. The sixth percentile to the 89th percentile is those score schools that scored in
there. Does that answer your question? Uh it sounds like you're talking about elementary schools. However, if you mention I A that's not high school. So high schools are a little bit different. So, high schools do have proficiency on there, but they also have graduation rate and 9th grade on track and chronic
absenteeism on theirs as well. Yes, ma'am. I'm wondering about research about the best performing schools in the state. What do they have in common? how can we extract what's working to for to leverage for other schools? And um I'm
also thinking how long does it take to level up a school? Can it be done in a school year? How often is that happening? You know, yep. Nope. And that that that second portion of that question is a great question. And that's
why designation status is a four-year cycle. And it's a four-year cycle for a reason. good, solid, consistent school improvement is three to five years. That's how long it takes. Okay? In the midst of that time, there's there's
going to be fluctuations. Okay? You can have schools go from comprehensive to commendable in one year, but then they drop right back into comprehensive the next year. So that's why we do a four-year cycle because what we want to see is we want to see them go up and maintain that
progress. So it is it is three to five years for that to to be good solid lasting change inside of schools. That answer your question? Okay. Thank you. The best schools. Um so those are
different conversations. Those are, you know, we do recommend to some of our schools sometimes and we say to them, hey, listen, this is a school that's in a neighboring community that is of same demographics or same backgrounds, those kinds of things. This would be a good
school for you to reach out and maybe talk with them about some of the things that they're doing inside of that. So, that is part of my coordinator's job is to help them make connections with those kinds of schools. Have we uh found that by labeling
schools, benchmark schools or you know h however we label the schools that it prejudices the uh the community against the school or makes it harder for the school to achieve what it needs to
achieve, you know, as we label them. I have not seen that be an issue. I have not seen that be an issue. One of the things that when designations are ready to come out, one of the things that we talk about with school leadership and district leadership is how to message
this designation to their community is to help them explain it to the community and then explain this is kind of like a kick in the pants for us and and we need to do some things differently. So, we're going to move forward. I haven't personally
seen any negative outcome for any schools based on their designations. I have. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Um, just to piggyback on what member Smith is saying,
um, 100% I have. I think many of us have. Um, it's it's a label like anything else, right? Like for example, people who um may have been justice involved and then they get out, they have a moniker on them. It's hard for
them to get jobs. It's hard for them to get housing. It's hard for um it a school is a place that you're leaving your child, right? Your most prized possession, your possession, your um
your treasure, your person you've been dreaming about your whole life. And you want to make sure your child is in the best hands. And if a school is labeled on probation or um anything less than great, you don't
want to leave your kid there. And and there's absolute evidence like um we've talked about Harland High School here many times. Um I think they started out with 800,200 kids, something like that,
and been under probation for 19 years. and they're they're they've got 167 kids there. So, um as a parent, if I have to make a decision on a school to send my kid to, I don't want to send them to the probation school. The probation schools
got problems. So, I think we have to we need to be really thoughtful um in how we I understand that those labels come sometimes with additional assistance and and additional resources, but we've got to figure out how to do that without signaling to the community
that this is an unsafe this is a dangerous this is a place where your kids aren't going to get everything that they need. I I think it's really important. um Malcolm X College when my father went there had 5,000 kids.
Um it was funny because I just went for a visit recently. So my dad went and there was 5,000 kids. The head of the alumni association went there and there was 3,000 kids. The um secretary to the uh alumni association went and there was
a thousand kids and now there's 200 maybe. Um, and it's not because there's not density in that area. There's it's not because there isn't any students over there. It's because of the label. Um, and so we I really think it's
important that we think about these things. Even as humans, like I said, justice involved people or if you've got even people with bad credit can't get s certain things. It's a label that happens. And so we need to be really
thoughtful in how we we um how we move in those ways. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I was just have a question about parental involvement. Um, I know
we talked about local school councils and the advisory councils and how the breakdown of all of this is, but in my own uh experience, the schools that had more parental involvement were schools that were improving and doing better. So
in this all this scenario I'm wondering what is the emphasis or what is the plan to try to bring about more school more parental school involvement especially in those or is there any statistics where they show uh the schools that are
doing poorly or the ones that are doing exemplary what is the level of the parental involvement from what I've seen I I think what you're saying is correct the schools that are performing at a higher rate have higher parent involvement whereas
the schools that aren't have lower parent involvement is is what I've seen and has been my experience as a person who was a principal of a designated school um when I was a principal as well. One of the things that my coordinators talk with principles about is what does parent involvement look
like in your school? You know, is it just conferences that they come to or do you have family nights? Do you have parent nights? Do you have parent ed opportunities? Do you have these opportunities for parents to come in and experience what school looks like now? Because the reality is for a lot of our
families, a lot of our parents, their experience with school wasn't necessarily a positive experience with school all the time. Some was, some wasn't. And if it wasn't a positive experience for them, they have that fear that it's not that it's going to be that same
experience for their children. And there isn't always that parent involvement. And so we work with our principles to add what are the parent involvement opportunities inside of your school. If it's just conferences, you need to think about how you can improve that and what you can
add to bring parents into the school to make them feel at home inside of your school. Because at the end of the day, for all of our communities, for all of our communities across the state, the school is usually the hub or the center or the heartbeat of a community. And if
parents don't feel welcome there, heartbeat isn't real strong. So, we've got to improve parent involvement. But we as a school have to help with that. We have to be reaching out to parents to bring them in as best we can. And we have to understand that
during the school day isn't always an option for a lot of our parents. And sometimes it has to be after hours that we have parent involvement activities. Yes, sir. Yes, thank you. I think we're raising
hands now, which is nice. Reminds me of school. Yes. Um, so, uh, thank you so much, uh, for for all of it. Two things that I wanted to just note. Um, first off, the term probation is not something that we use here, uh, anymore. Uh, I
know how, uh, harmful that term can be, but, not a term that we're using, right? Um, none of our schools are labeled as on probation. Um, it's just not how it's done. Um and then the second part these ter the terminology that the state uses
um is only available on the state report card. Uh it's not something that we use to advertise our schools. Um so you know com commendable intensive things like that. That's something that is on the state report card not on CPS's end. And I think that um does us well in terms of
you know making sure that we're not labeling schools and and treating these schools um in a way that's harmful to their reputation uh in their in their own communities. Uh but that doesn't mean that these reputations aren't something that could be um you know that goes back generations, right? This is
something that you know a school community can have a reputation about a school that doesn't really affect or is really the truth of that school, but just rather that it's in the community. It's a neighborhood school. You've known about the school for your whole life, right? And that goes on uh over
generations. And so uh the second thing that I wanted to point out um aside from that is that you brought up the fact that when we're working to improve schools, you're doing this on a three to fiveyear basis. We're looking at schools, we're thinking about how can we improve these schools in a 3 to 5year
basis. And I really want us as a board to think about that the 3 to 5 years when we're also talking about being punitive to our charter schools that we're looking to only renew for two years. Um and because our charter schools received the recommendations last month, I am allowed to talk about
them in open meeting that we're looking at only recommending schools for two-year renewals. When here we're receiving this training, uh I see our general counselor shaking her head. Yes. um when we were getting this training saying that we need three to five years to really work to provide intensive
supports to improve schools. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I guess I'll jump in. I uh spent my entire career teaching at neighborhood high schools, all of whom had designations, initially probation, and
then the terms changed over the years. But I will go back to the fact that when I was a little girl, we were in reading groups in school. And I'm sure people still do reading groups in school. And I was in the robins. And then there were
the sparrows and there were the this and we were little bird groups. When my kids did it, they were colors. You know, they were in the green reading group or the blue reading group. And everybody in that class knew who was in the good reading group, who was in the middle
reading group, and who was in the struggling reading group. So whatever designations we give them, people know what those designations mean, we can come up with nicer sounding designations. But I think that the point
that board member Blae was making about how these designations, it's a chicken and an egg thing. people stop coming to a school and the school offers fewer programs and fewer varieties of things and then more
people say well they don't even have that I'm not going to send my kid there or there are some fights at the school I mean different things come up and then we have schools that are like paras in their communities and people only send
their kids there as a last resort Or it's the parents who are least able, whether it's language barriers, whether it's self-confidence, education, whatever bad experiences they may have had in school. Parents who are least
able to evaluate and navigate the system, whether it's charter school applications, magnet school applications, or whatever. And I'm wondering, I get that we have to evaluate schools, but I'm wondering if there's a way, and I know you're making
steps towards trying to make this seem more supportive, but we're not there. And I mean, I have this concern that our schools continue to get labeled and
maybe they get extra resources that are targeted to certain things for a certain number of years and then uh are those really always the things they need? Do they need way more things? Do they need more social
workers? Do they need people going out in the community and meeting with parents by knocking doors? there are all kinds of supports that we're not able because of the priorities of our society to provide to people and uh I just think
that an evaluation system is one thing but it doesn't necessarily lead to the kind of school improvement that you and all of us want to see. Member Brown. Yes. Um I'm appreciative of this of the the training and also
just the discourses. It's um it's making me reflect on a lot of my my lived experiences uh working in education. I I I do want to I'm curious about what happens to schools that are
in intensive and they don't improve. Um, isby considering something like state takeovers or what what what is like because in the probation era and I agree with member Blae and member Pope
that regardless of the designation, schools are still treated like they are on academic probation. And I and I think it's important for us to like have some compassion with the lived experiences that we have in our different communities because Harland High School has been on
probation for 19 years. That means every intervention that they were told to do was mandated by us. And after 19 years, if the school hasn't improved, when do we look inward and say
maybe what we're telling them to do is not working. This happened at Carva High School. This happened at Marshall. This happened all over the district. So I again, I just want to speak in support of that, but I'm also concerned about what happens to schools if they don't
improve. Because when we look at root causes, what what what's coming to my mind, sir, is um you know, lack of culturally relevant and and and and and um lack of culturally relevant and and and
competent curriculum and and experiences. For example, one child goes to school. He lives on the south side of Chicago and he's met with a security guard and a metal detector. There's a high suspension rate at this school, but his white counterparts do the same thing
and they get a counselor. That's the unspoken baseless hatred of us that poisons every institution that most Americans take for granted and we don't speak it. We're not brave enough to be honest about it.
Right. That little boy, the the the little girl that was on crack in 1988 was a crackhead and a criminal. The white baby that's on opioids today is in medical crisis. There's a belief system
problem. There's a value system problem. So I'm concerned about the root cause analysis. Who develops that? Who makes that analysis? And and and and then again what is the what does isbby have
plan for schools that do not meet that criteria. Right. So, so to answer your question about what is plan for schools that don't exit status, there is not a plan currently. That plan is in development currently and what that's
going to look like hasn't been decided yet. Okay. To answer that question, can I make a recommendation? Yes, please. Hopefully, it's heard. It would be a great day in the state of
Illinois if we just looked at something as simple as course offerings, what opportunities for inspiration different young people have based on how they look, based on who the creator made them. And I think that
would be reflective like it like I was I'm I'm 58 years old. I'd be 59 next week. Birthday come. But thank you. Thank you. But when I went to school, I was a child of the civil rights movement. So I guess uh our
parents kicked up so much dust. I went to a great neighborhood school down the street from my house. And in the sixth grade, in the fourth grade, I was learning about County Cullen, Wendell Brooks, Langston Hughes. And in the sixth grade, I was on the school
newspaper. And I grew up in the hood on the south side of Chicago. But I guarantee you that children today that live on Madison Madison and Palaski in in in my district or who live on or live on 47th in Cottage Grove or who live on
31st in Palaski don't have that same opportunity and that's not being addressed with any type of courage. So, I would love to see like an equity assessment of Chicago public schools to
say what opportunities for inspiration does one child have versus another child. And I just I just think so I'm I'm in my day in my day job, I work with people um in districts all over the
country and I have members in New Orleans and I saw the travesty that happened to those people. I witnessed it. And I was at the schoolboard meeting when parents fainted cuz their last public school was being shut down. So I'm very sensitive to when I
hear language about, you know, uh what's going to happen to schools. I'm I'm concerned about who's going to make that des. Again, I would really like I would I would offer my time and energy to be part of a team team that actually looked at what a
equity a real equity assessment would look like. Thank you, sir. Mhm. Okay, next slide, please. I apologize. because I'm getting over a cold so I apologize. All right. So when we talk about the next um
component we talk about plan for school improvement school improvement plans need to contain certain information and certain steps. Um at the state level um we have a template for a school
improvement plan. Um, but the the CIWP, the continuous uh the continual improvement continuous improvement work plan here in CPS is fantastic. It has everything that we would ask for as a state plus more.
So, it it's already fabulous. So, you know, CPS is is continues moving forward with the CIWP and we're we're good with that. Um, but what we do say is that your school improvement plans do need to contain smart goals. They need to
include key activities, timelines, and funding sources. Those funding sources, key activities, and timelines need to address resource inequities along with the people that are responsible for the implementation. We can't just write the plan. We have to say who's implementing
the plan. Also included in the plan needs to be local measures, local assessments to measure academic progress and then monitoring the school improvement plan. Here's what I can tell you. If you look from left to
right, it goes from easy to more difficult. All right, writing the smart goals, that's the easy part. This is where we want to be at the end of this school year with our students. the monitoring the plan. That's where if we don't have the monitoring plan developed
and we're not implementing the monitoring plan, that school improvement plan is going to fail. Okay, next slide, please. So, four smart goals. I'm sure we have all heard the term smart goals before. Specific,
measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. Those are the five things that needs to be included in a goal. specific and measurable. Who? What are we measuring them on? Where are they going?
Achievable. I will tell you as a building administrator, as a as an educator, I want 100% of my students to be at or above proficiency. I want all of my kids to be there. But if I walk into a school as a
building principal and 0% or 2% of my kids are at proficiency, am I going to get 98 to 100% of my kids there by the end of one year? The honest answer to that question is no. As much as I would love to say I'm going
to, but what I might say is that in one year I may pick up go from 2% to 14%. The following year, I might go from 14% to 22%. The year after that, I might go
from 22% of my kids to 31% of my kids or 32% of my kids. I have to take steps to get there. If I get to the end of year two and 40% of my kids are there, fabulous. My next goal is going to be written from 40%
up. Relevant. We do ask that there is one ELA and one math goal in every school improvement plan and time bound. We do recommend to schools that your goals are written on a year-to-year
basis. Okay? CIW CIWP plans in CPS are three-year plans and that's fabulous. But your goal should be written based on local assessments and be done on a year-to-year basis. And here's why. If I
set a goal to have 38% of my students at or above proficiency and I only get to 29% of my kids at or above proficiency, I need to readjust that goal for the following year. Or if I set the goal at 39% and I suddenly have 45%
of my kids, fabulous. My goal for the following year is going to be above 45%. Next slide, please. All right. So, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and
time bound. I have four goals on the next slide. Okay? Don't turn the page in your packet because I also learned when I did this that when you print out the uh PowerPoint, your answers pop up even if you know you've got clicks for it in
your thing. So don't look at your next slide. Life lessons I've learned as I've gone through this 16 times now. So the next goal, the next four goals are goals that have actually come through to the state on school improvement plans. I
have four goals. Next slide, please. So, we're going to look at these goals, and I want you as the board to give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down if these are good goals or bad goals. So, the first one says, "By the spring of 2025, 48% of African-American
students will score at or above the 60th percentile on the I Ready Reading Benchmark Assessment." Got some thumbs up, some thumbs down. If I get a click, we go. It is a good goal. And here's why. This was a school that I
worked with. Before they wrote this goal, they had 39% of their African-American students who were already at or above the 60th percentile. So, it is achievable to get to 48%.
We're saying time bound by spring of 2025. We said specifically our African-American student group. This was a targeted school. Their school that fell into the bottom their student group that fell into the bottom 5% was their African-American student group and their
children with disabilities group. And so they picked their I Ready reading benchmark assessment. That's their local assessment that they use. Local benchmark assessment that they use. And they said the 60th percentile. So that's about proficiency between the
60th and 65th percentile is comes out to proficiency on the state test. So that was their proficiency marker to know questions. Okay. The next goal said that all students will show improvement in their benchmark
assessments. Yeah. Click please. Yep. It's missing on what is the benchmark assessment, what does improvement mean, when are you doing it by? You can say all students that's fine, but by how
much is one point it's showing improvement, but is that enough? So, what I said to the sup to the coordinator that was working with this school was take the goal back to the school, have them add about 20 25 words and this would be a good goal.
Next one. 38% of students will increase their RIT score in the NWA MAP assessment. Good goal, bad goal. Yep. Click please. This is a bad goal. Okay. Couple
of reasons. We said 38% of students, what students? All students, a specific student group. By when are they going to do this by? Okay. We said it's on NWA map and their RIT score is going to improve. That's okay.
But by how much are they going to improve their RIT score? Because here's what I can tell you. A student that scores a 118 on MAP in the fall, if they score a 119 in the spring, their
percentile has actually dropped and dropped quite drastically. Even though their RIT score improved by one, their percentile on where they fell on where they are falls in comparison to other students. So, we need more information here. And
then finally, the last goal, by May of 2025, 38% of all third through fifth grade students or third through fifth graders will score at or above the 60th percentile on the STAR 360 math benchmark assessment. I got thumbs up. Thumbs up.
It is a good goal. It hits all of the things we're looking for. It's time bound. What they're testing on, who we're looking at, where we want them to be, all of those things are there. So, it is a good goal. Next slide, please. So, yes, ma'am, please. Sorry.
I'm I'm sorry. These are good goals in that they are written in the smart format and they have all the things we need. Whether they're good goals in actually measuring whether kids are learning and what they're learning is a
whole another question. Can you expand on that for me? Yeah, I suppose I could. I could say that uh these tests don't always measure the things that we think are important and that these tests are biased in
various ways and that these tests are in many ways a measure of a student's ability to take tests rather than the things that they have actually learned. So I'll stop there. Thank you.
Okay. So for school improvement, so we've talked about smart goals, key activities, timelines, and funding sources. Next slide, please. So the screenshot that's on here is directly from the CIWP here in
CPS. So it's looking at the team, the schedule, reflections on foundations. Foundations being the CPS in-house needs assessment that the schools do. It identifies the priorities that the school is working
on. And so this is kind of like the cover page, the information page for the CIWP. It then breaks it down into actions, action items, priorities, and how they're going to address them and the different goals.
I know that the department that is in charge of CIWPs is going to be providing or has provided information to the board of education on CIWPs and the process of that inside of CPS. So, I'm not going to go too deep into it since CPS's process is a little bit different than the rest
of the state. Next slide, please. Again, I've listed out here some of the questions that are on the monthly topics and tasks for boards of education to ask around things such as what support
beyond the school leadership team does a school need to implement the school improvement plan. We can't always do it with just what we have inside of our schools. They have to reach outside of school sometimes to the district or partners and vendors to help them maybe bring in some professional development, some
professional learning opportunities for staff to help them improve their practices inside of the school. Next slide, please. Selecting relevant evidence-based practices. So again, I've we've provided questions
on um how to engage with leadership on relevant evidence practices. I have not met very many teachers in my career in 23 years that are not working hard. They're all working hard, but sometimes the focus
isn't on what it should be. It isn't the right work or it isn't the right material that we should be using. Not all of our material that is created and out there for educators to use is based on any evidence or research that it actually supports or um is beneficial to
students. So schools need to be picking the curriculums and the interventions that they use based on is there evidence to support that this works with the students who are inside of my school right now. Next slide
please. Approved learning partners. Every school identified as comprehensive or intensive has to work with an approved learning partner. The state of Illinois has 48 approved learning partners for schools
to select from. They cover every topic, every student group imaginable when it comes to schools. The state has 48 that are allowable that are approved. CPS through its own process of vendors
has 23 of our approved vendors of our approved learning partners on the CPS approved vendor list here in CPS. So districtr run schools in CPS can only choose from 23 of the state approved
vendors based on the CPS process for those things. Next slide please. implement and monitor. This is where I said that we're going to communicate the school improvement plan to all
stakeholders, including our staff. Staff inside of that school should all have access to the CIWP in that in that for that school. They should all know what their roles and responsibilities are inside of that school of that CIWP or
their school improvement plan and rest of state. Everyone should know what their responsibilities are and what they need to be doing. If they don't, that's a concern. That's an issue. Implement the school improvement plan and monitor the
implementation. A lot of times this is what happens with professional learning or professional development for staff. We have a professional development. It's great. It's a great half-day professional development. Come in. We have somebody come in. They provide a half day on different instructional
strategies. and then teachers go back to their classrooms and do their thing. There's no expectation set of how we're going to implement that professional learning. My job as a building principal is to say, "Hey, today we had
professional learning on these three instructional strategies. For the next month, when I come around and I'm walking into your classrooms, I'm going to be looking for these two instructional strategies inside your classroom. I'm setting the expectation that this is what I'm expecting to see out of the professional
learning. That information I'm going to collect and bring back and say 75% of our teachers were doing both. 25% of our teachers were doing one or none. But that's implementing and monitoring the work that we're doing around school
improvement. Next slide, please. Again, questions for the board to engage in the work. How often are the sources being reviewed? What professional development did staff participate in due to the implementation of the school improvement
plans? Next slide, please. Examine, reflect, and adjust course. This is not done once a year. Examine, reflect, and adjust course is ongoing throughout the school year. Because if we implement something
in August and we get to October or November and we're not seeing that that what we've implemented is having any impact. Do we really want to continue that for the full school year? Or do we want to make changes then and there to
have impact? We don't want to get to the end of the school year, pull the school improvement plan out, blow the dust off of it, and say, "Okay, let's see where we've got." Examine, reflect, and adjust. Course should be taking place all year
long. Next slide, please. Again, more questions for you as a board to help engage in the conversation. What future professional development needs have been identified? Why did you identify those school improvement, those professional learnings as a
need? Next slide, please. And it brings us back to the continuous school improvement model. It is a circle for a reason because it is continuous. We don't stop. Just because we're all of a sudden made progress and
we've improved doesn't mean we stop. We keep going. We keep doing the work. We keep examining, reflecting and adjust course from now all the way through. Next slide, please. And next slide,
please. Okay, this QR code here will take you directly to the school improvement website at isby.net. Uh, as opposed to having you go in into the search bar and clicking, this will take you to our website. on that website. Every resource that you have in front of
you is there plus more. Our on demand learning series is there. Our allocation spreadsheet that will show you what every school is allocated for funds through title one part A section 103 school improvement is there. Our approved learning partner list is there. Everything school improvement is here at
this QR code. We have it divided out. If you click on schools and status, there's buttons for targeted schools, comprehensive schools, and intensive schools. on the homepage for our platform. Our web page is also a spot for all schools
in the state of Illinois, regardless of status. Next slide, please. This contact information here, the top one is the phone number and email address to our school improvement helpline, school district improvement
helpline that is monitored by myself, my director, and my team. The next contact information down, that's mine. That QR code is my business card. I haven't carried a paper business card in a number of years now because there's nothing worse than being like, "Oh, let me find one." And digging
through my bag to try to find one. That is my business card. My contact information is on there. If you have questions, please reach out to me. Okay? I have done this training now. You are the 16th board in the state that I've done this training with. Now, I have one
more board to do this with. I am here to support you in this process, in this work, in your role as a school board. So please, if you have questions, please reach out to me. And last slide, please. This QR code is training on this
feedback for me is feedback on this training for me. Sorry about that. So I I do ask it's just a couple of questions. I do ask that everybody take a couple of minutes um and go through and answer the couple of questions that are there. It's very helpful to me. Um
this training is becoming a uh on demand training series. So the things that I have learned as I've done this and feedback from boards across the state, I am taking that and putting that into that training that I'm developing as well. And then the last slide. Thank you.
You are elected volunteers for this role. I spent three years as a board member in my children's district um not that long ago. I know that sometimes as board members, the people that stand here at this podium don't always have
nice things to say. Um but I I do appreciate your time today. I appreciate the conversation and the input. Um I love the back and forth. So I really do appreciate your time and everything that you do for CPS. So, thank you everyone. Thank you,
Nick. Before the next presenter approaches the podium, I do want to acknowledge that Member Pope joined the meeting at 9:25 a.m. For the record, member Pope joined the meeting at 9:25 a.m. Member Smith
joined the meeting at 9:35 a.m. Vice President Bautista joined the meeting at 9:53 a.m. Member Derry joined the meeting at 9:53 a.m. and member Blae joined the meeting at 10:16 a.m. Our next presenter is Sandra Quaza,
director, Illinois Association of School Boards with the presentation for monitoring district goals. Lauren, do I hit it now? Waiting. Yay! Well, good morning everyone. How are you
all today? Good morning. Seems as though many of you all are taking breaks now. So, I'm going to kind of start off a little slower. It's been a long morning. So, should I continue on though? Yes, please continue on. Okay. Thank you. Thank you again. My name is Sandra Quas. I'm from the Illinois Association of
School Boards. Now, I did present January 6 and all a lot of your faces are quite familiar. Would you just kind of raise your hand if you were at the January 6th? Okay. So, about half a little bit over half of you all were there, too. So, we're going to kind of go through
this pretty quickly, but I I do need to just say who am I a little bit about who I am. I've been with the association for about 19 years. Um, prior to being at the association, I was in the private sector. So, I worked at IBM for 11 years. I worked at the
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. And then I said, "Wait a minute. I want to go into something that really I'm passionate about." So, I am a product of Chicago public school. Go Broncos. Broncos for life. Yes. Yes, we are. For
real. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Um, and my children have been to so many different schools. Morgan Park, we've been to Keller, we've been to um, Airheart, and we've been all over the place as far as school. And I have an 18-year-old who's graduating from
Kenwood as kind of my bonus child um, this year, too. And I understand one of you all may be the presenters or maybe they're with us. So, thank you so much for having us here. I am delighted here to be here. Um, it's interesting. Nick was talking so much on the school level,
wasn't he? He was talking about schools and he was talking about a lot of the fine work that's going on in the schools. And now what we're going to do is kind of bring it up a level and we're going to go now and talk a little bit more about the board work, the role of the board. What is the board do? What is the board's responsibility in all of
this too? I'm going to again go quickly. I don't have a problem. If you would like to interrupt, there's something that you really don't like that I said or you don't understand, feel free to um just kind of raise your hand or whatever the appropriate way is to be recognized, feel free to do that at any time as
we're going through the the um the workshop. Everybody okay? Yes. Okay, take a stretch and let's go. Let's roll. Let's roll. Let's roll. Okay. Um thank you so much. which I appreciate. I I told her we're going to go quickly um through
these slides. So, first of all, IASB is again is the association that I work for and it's a little different. A lot of people think we're ISBY. We're not Isby. We do work with ISBY and the training that you're going through today was basically um designated by ISBY. And
what they decided was that they needed to bring the board into the discussion. these SIP school improvement plans have been around for a while but oftentimes it's just at the school level. So their thought was let's bring the board into the discussion but then so they began to
partner with us and say let's let's do this all together. So the first slide basically just talks about who I am. Then the next one that's fine it we are a private notfor-profit organization and we basically have school boards like you all. How many school boards are around
the state? How many school boards are around the state? Just shout it out. 852. And sometimes you'll see three, four, zero, whatever, but we're going to say 850ish school boards. And CPS is one of those many school boards. And 99% of them are
part of our association, too. So, we're very proud. Um, some of you all were mentioning how do we talk to other school boards to kind of figure out what's going on. And in the past I have connected you all with other school boards so that you find out what are they doing, what are the best practices, what's working, what's not working. For
instance, I remember someone called and said, "Hey, we want to really learn a little bit more about um committees and then I was able to attach attach them to uh one of the school boards and school across the state. So you all are part of a very good group 99% of the school
districts here in Illinois. Next slide, please. This is our vision. Our vision and just to just kind of quickly say it's all about excellence and local schoolboard governance. You're going to hear the word governance quite a bit and we'll kind of unpack that a little bit and you can go to the next slide. Our mission is
is manyfold basically to provide training like this training that you all will be receiving today. The networking is really a big portion of what we do too. So some of you all any of you all at at our conference the joint annual conference in November downtown. anybody
attend this last year? I think a few of you all were in attendance there too. That's again an opportunity to talk to people across the the um great state of Illinois. You'll see there's also advocacy too. Um we now have something you'll be hearing about 2030, project
2030, and that's where all of the education groups in the state of Illinois are trying to talk and advocate for public education um as a collective as opposed to individually. So you have the Illinois principles association, you have the Illinois Association of School Administrators, you have um us, you have
um other people too, the business officials is another big one too. So we're all kind of working together on behalf of public education and also keep that in mind. Next slide please. Um we just today want to look a little bit identify the role of the board and just talk about what your role
is. We all always start with the the description of the role of the board and yeah sometimes you'll say oh haven't we heard this before yes you've heard it before but it doesn't help hurt to just hear again what is the role of the board because it is a unique role and it's very different than the role of the
leadership team in the school next slide please so let's unpack this word governance continue on please I want you to just think really quickly about what when governance comes to your mind what comes is there a picture is there a thought is There an ideal that comes to
your mind as as governance. You may go to the next slide please. So a school board is like what what anybody have any thought of what is a school board like to you? What do you think of the first time you think of a school board? Anybody just scream out or speak out? Sorry.
Supreme Court. Supreme Court. Wow. I love that analogy. Okay. Thank you. Any others? decision decision makers decision makers decision makers. Thank you for going on. Continue on to next slide, please. Um,
here's an example that you may or may not like, but it it's a schoolboard is like the rudder on a big ocean liner. The rudder is not the engine or the crew. The rudder is a key yet smaller part and all about the direction, purpose, where the ship is headed. And
you'll see um in the circle, you'll see the little rudder there. That's you, the school board, setting the direction for the district. And I'm going to also say too, just listening to the conversation earlier, also telling the story of the district. I think right now there's a
lot of bad stories that are out there, but there, you know, and I know there's so many good stories. So, how do we begin to tell the story of what the wonderful things that are going on even in schools that have designations as well? Next slide, please. We always use this balcony metaphor. And
some people like it, some people say, "Let me think about it." But think about um the schoolboard and this balcony perspective. The balcony perspective comes from a book that's written by two researchers. And they said, "A schoolboard, you know, it's kind of like a balcony." Well, what what do I mean?
Next slide, please. If you think of a balcony, think of a dance floor as well. So the dance floor basically is where all the action happens. So that's where this the school, the parents, the community, all of those people are on the dance floor. But there's also another position. Two slides,
please. There's also the balcony. And what's special about a balcony? You as board members are on that balcony. What are you all doing there? You have a panoramic view of the entire district. So you're not just making decisions. Somebody just
mentioned decision maker. you're decision makers not just for a small but for all of the district and that's basically why we call it the balcony perspective. So as you make decisions in your role as schoolboard members, you then need to think about the balcony where you can see all of the things that
are going on, not just those things that are maybe even of particular interest to you because you represent the entire school district. And keep that in mind as you're making districts. Now, let me ask you, you know, okay, so if you're on the balcony, um, are you ever on the dance
floor? That's a question. Yes. When when are you on the dance floor? Yes. Well, we have um about 130,000 uh constituents for each one of us. Uh so, you know, we're accountable to them.
We had to see they asked us to join them for for things, you know, um, championship games, you know, things things like that. Thank you. Yeah. So, you're on the dance floor when it comes to interacting with your constituents in your community, too, and you are part of
the community as well. Now, let me ask you a follow-up question, and I will get to you next. Um, what happens though when you're at that community event? Do they see you as a community member? Bless you. Bless you.
or do they see you as a board member? What do you think? So, when you're at a community event or you're in a school for instance, how does the community typically see you as a board member? They see you as that board member, that neon sign that keeps flashing board
member, board member, board member, board member. So, even when you act actually are off of the balcony and that's okay. But when you start making decisions, make sure you go back up to the balcony. Um, yes, you had your hand up. Oh, you were stretching. Okay, good. Any
other anybody else stretching? Okay. Okay. Yeah. As parents, how many of you all are parents? Yeah. So, when you are a parent and you're in that school, you are on the um the dance floor, too. And sometimes the the instructors, they'll say, "Oh my god, there's a board member in the in
the office. You're kind of rolling your eyes there." Yeah. They So, they see you. So, it's kind of hard to navigate which ones. Who actually is on the Well, let me ask you this way. Who's What where is the superintendent? Are they on the balcony or on the on the dance
floor? I'm sorry. What was the on both? On both. They're going back and forth, back and forth, kind of back and forth just to see sometimes they're they're most of the time they're going to be on that dance floor working in those schools, but oftentimes they've
they've got to come up and say, "Okay, board, what is your direction?" Because remember, you're the rudder. You set the direction. And the the superintendent or CEO, and I will use those terms interchangeably because there's um many of our districts say superintendent and some say CEO. And I know that you all
say CEO. So I want to be respectful but understand that I will be using those terms interchangeably. So that superintendent goes back and forth. Yes. Um yeah I think that uh a as the people in the balcony were also uh setting the music for the dance floor. So you know
the values in other words. So if the people on the dance floor are not dancing to the music we set I think we have to step down and uh correct it. So, you know, deal with the fact that you're not following the values and and sometimes maybe they're not
they're not aware of the bal Oh, there's a few people saying yes, yes, yes to that. Thank you so much for that response. And sometimes they're not aware of what the music is. I mean, you're playing jazz and they're thinking and they're trying to do um classical, for instance. So, sometimes we just as a
school board have to make sure we understand what the music is that you're playing. I like that analogy though. I'm going to use that though. The music, we're all playing different songs, too. And sometimes you can mix. I have a neighbor who's a Pulitzer Prize winner, and basically he became famous because
he put all of the music together. How about that little a little bit on on inclusion? We can try. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that
analogy. Okay. So, let's keep on. Let's move on. we can move on. So, what we're going to do again is just to make sure as a board um that we talk about what the job description is of the the um the board and we call it the foundational principles of effective governance.
There are six of them. All of our training has to do with one of these six principles. So, let's move on and we'll go to number one. Okay. The board clarifies the district purpose as its primary responsibility. you can move on. Um
um as its primary role, the board continually defines and redefineses what the role of the board is. What and we're you're constantly thinking about this these questions. Who gets what for how much? That really is one of your primary responsibility. Who gets what for how
much? Could you go back one slide? Is that possible, Issa? Um sorry about that. Notice there are little quotes there. So I I did want to take time. Would anybody just mind reading that quote so we can all kind of if just would somebody just read it out loud please?
Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. JFK Thank you. Thank you. We tried to put quotes that tended to connect with the principle of effective governance too. So thank you. You may
move forward please. Um board members, your responsibility is to really really be able to articulate to you yourself, but also to your community and others what the ends are. And ends basically we're saying what are your core values, your vision, your mission, your district
goals. A previous the previous board did a phenomenal job of putting together the um the um I want to get it right the name of it. Together we rise. I love this. I love this. together we rise which is your strategic five-year plan
and that is basically what we're talking about that's the role working with the CEO as well as the board to make sure we understand what is the vision what is the mission what are the goals of CPS and being able to articulate that to anyone who doesn't understand the music
that we're trying to to convey continue on please um and what's important is just to kind of have this visual what you're doing and what you're understanding. Notice at the base of the steer step, it's it's the the core, the vision, the mission, the vision. All of
that is determined by the board working with the CEO, obviously. And then you have district goals. And then those district goals carry over to the superintendent goals or the CEO goals, which then carry into the building principles, which then carry to the teachers and then to the students. And
it what we're really looking at is alignment. Alignment so that again, we're all singing the same music. You've got me into this music thing now. Okay. Okay. That's foundational principle one. Probably arguably one of
the biggest ones. You got to know what's going on. What are we What are we looking for? What are we aiming for? What is our purpose? Why do we exist? And that's number one. Principle number two is one that I know all of you all are just really, really compassionate about. The board connects with the community. Could somebody please read
that quote for me? The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of it me of its members. And that's Getta Scott King, wife of Dr. Martin Luther King as well too. Next slide, please. And here's just a
definition. And and you know, as I was thinking about school improvement plan, let me just be transparent. The last time we were here, I put up this slide and it had a definition of community engagement. and and a few of you all said there's some words on there that I
did not like and all and as a result we took out those words and one of the words was citizens um because what does that mean in this generation that we're in now so we took and just said community members that's who we're basically talking about um and it's a two-way dialogue between those in the
community and the board and it's ongoing it's ongoing board you should be telling the community who you are what do you do um what's going on but you also need to listen to see here in the in the district. What what are the aspirations of the community members as well too? So
that two-way dialogue is community engagement. Move on. Here's another slide that again, you know, last time we presented this, we had on the left side, does anybody remember what was there? Hopefully you don't, but it said owners, it said owner concerns and all. And so
we said uh that, you know, there was feedback on that and it's um changed to public concerns. And so public concerns and I want you to really kind of think about this board. You all are representing the we, the us, the we and the us. Uh we want safe schools for our children. We we want our children to
have a rigor rigorous curriculum for instance. Those are the we and the us public concerns. But then there are customer concerns and people will come to you and say my child's teacher is not good. My third grade teacher is not this. So those are customer concerns. And I want you just to think in terms of
your job as a board member is to deal with which one? Public or customer? What's your primary responsibility? It really is the public concerns. Now, do you care about customers concerns? Of course, that's why you ran for the board. However,
there is a chain of command that should allow you to know where do you send them? And typically, it's going to be back to the building. But any question that you have, you all have been blessed with a board staff that can answer any questions. So any questions that you have as far as I would implore you and
this is my personal appeal to you all as new board members. New board members like to answer questions and people like to ask you. If you get into that little um cycle of answering questions, people will keep coming back to you. They'll
keep coming back and asking questions as opposed to giving them the the the right places to go. It's the chain of command. Where should they go to get their questions? Now, it's nothing wrong with following up. I'm I'm a big person for following up. Somebody asked you a question. It's not a a public concern. It's a customer concern. Correct. Oh my
gosh. Who's Who's the um person having to interpret me? I feel sorry for you. Oh my gosh, I'm going so fast. And if you need me to slow down or something, please let me know wherever you are. Yes. Yes. I don't I'm so sorry. I just realized how fast I'm
going. And you said, "Okay, I got it." Okay. So, basically, you want to make sure that that you are handling coming back to your customers and saying, "Did you get that um settled?" I mean, I think that's a courtesy um that you should have. I've seen some boards that
actually have little cards and when when a um somebody comes to them with a customer concern, they'll say, "Great question." and and they'll actually talk about um show them where they should go next. So, I mean it it's all the way in the way you want to do it. But just be careful. Of course, you care about
customers, but you must deal with the public and and the the again from the balcony point of view looking at the entire district too. Please, next slide. Um when someone comes with a voices of concern, the only I'm only going to go over the first two slides or
the first two bullets. It says we will listen carefully remembering we are hearing only one side of the story. Please remember that because you know whoever the stories are always so compelling and they sound so sincere and you just want to help them and reach out. Um, however, it's one side of the
story. And then I also ask you to say, is this a customer concern or is this a public concern and all and if so, basically that will probably help you determine where you go? And again, you have a board staff that is there to answer or help direct you in in any direction that you should go so that you
don't get into that habit of of trying to answer all of the questions. You'll have enough work to do. Continue on, please. Okay. Foundational principle number three. the board employs a CEO um a CEO and you may be doing that pretty
soon I don't know but but basically that is is one of the primary responsibilities of the the um the board of education would someone please read the um quote yes thank you very much thank you next slide okay so board members how many how
many people Do you appoint and evaluate one? I I need to hear you all say one. One one you and general counel. Okay. Okay. Is that that's the way that works? Okay.
Okay. Okay. Um, and every board is a little unique and of course CPS you you have so many layers and all too. So I think what I'm hearing you say is there's a CEO that's appointed and then there may be some others as well. But we know that you also evaluate that that
CEO and I know that in your operating procedure manuals it says that you annually will evaluate your your CEO. Next slide please. Um, this is a slide I'm not going to spend too much time on, but these are some of the powers of the board that I
actually received from from your team. And you can just kind of scan some of the powers that you all have, and it may be familiar to you as well. So, um, we can go on. And of course, um, this is one of my favorite slides just to it's a visual of everything I've just said. You know, on
the left side, you'll see the role of the board, vision, mission, who gets what for how much. Once the board has talked about what their expectations are on the right side you'll see the CEO and basically the CEO makes things happen. So you've got ends on one side you've
got means on the other side. The means are basically a way of accomplishing the ends. There's a recommendation if you look on the right side following there's an action a recommendation then that recommendation goes to the board the board votes and of course then what happens it's implemented by the staff or
the CEO and staff. Um all of this can sounds wonderful and great but if there's no trust you all know that what happens when there's no trust. Um one of the um the big sessions that we're having at conference this year is by David Horser. I don't know if any of you have heard of the trust edge but trust
edge he's quantified trust. And so what he's done is put put together this little graphic. As trust increases good things happen in your um in your district. As trust declines some other things happen that aren't as good too. But so if you're interested in um trust
and everyone seems to be interested in trust, he quantifies it and he talks about how do you build a trusting environment to using some um various um methods. Um and we talked about the CEO is evaluated annually and so we can move
on and all and um and this is just a question to think about. Why do you think it is important for the board to speak with one voice when communicating expectations to the CEO? One voice. One voice. A lot of people think one voice means just one
one way of thinking. No, one voice. What does that mean to you? To avoid mixed messages. To avoid mixed messages. Who said that? Said that I couldn't. Okay, thank you. Uh mixed messages. Um exactly. Can you imagine 21 people sharing 21 different expectations
for the CEO? It could it could get a little you can't easily and all. And that's why there's conversation that needs to happen to make sure that whatever directives you're giving, they are consistent. They are consistent. So that now because the next thing you're
going to do is monitor. And you heard Nick talk a lot about monitoring. And we'll spend a little time on monitoring because if you if you don't know what you if the person does not know the expectations, it's kind of hard to monitor and say how they're doing. Okay. And foundational principle number four,
the board delegates authority to whom? Say it all. Superintendent. The superintendent or CEO? The superintendent or CEO. Um, somebody please read the the quote. Are we limiting our success by not
mastering the art of delegation? It's simply a matter of preparation, meeting opportunity. Oprah Winfrey. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Okay. Delegation. It just talks a little bit about delegation. And I think you all know what delegation the board does delegate authority to the CEO to manage
the district and it's not a blind delegation and we'll talk about how you know um how you can answer are they really doing what we thought they were going to do. Um but anyway let's move on. Um when the board finishes its work again it hands it over. They're the
means is the way of achieving the results that the board intends. Continue please. Delegation isn't easy. It is not easy especially when there's you can go back one slide please. It's not easy. It's um monitoring the performance of the district. That's what makes delegation a little easier if you know
that things are indeed happening. If this um trust in the CEO and the staff, all of that makes delegation a little easier. And then discipline to just remain on the dance on the um and stay on on the in the balcony perspective makes delegation easier. But
it really is a bottom line of trust. I think it's a hard it's not easy to delegate if you don't trust. Plus, you all are all action people. You're used to getting things done quickly, I bet, in in your day job. So, delegation is not always easy. Let's move on. Um, how many more do we have? How many
foundational principles are there? Six. So, we've got two more. We're on principle number five. Not going to spend too much time on this because we're going to to go through a whole segment on on what it means to monitor. The board monitors performance. I see boards that set fabulous goals. um they have all the right documentation.
They're good at connecting with the community. Um they hire their their CEO. Um they evaluate their CEO. But then the question is how are things going? Um monitoring monitoring is what what sometimes I see people lack a little bit
of. It's an um monitoring is an ongoing process. Ongoing meaning all the time to ensure performance and to promote accountability, learning and continuous improvement. Next slide please. There's some benefits of monitoring. It ensures the board um expectations are
being met. Very important. Um can back please. Thank you. Um monitoring provides a formal means for a board accountability not only to yourselves but also to the community and it builds that trust between the staff and the community as well
too. Issa is going faster than me now. All right. Okay. And how is that monitoring done? Usually it is through some kind form of data that uses um data as a basis of assessment. You just saw Nick give you tons and tons and tons of data. Continue on
please. Um and then why data? What's the big deal? What's all the fuss about data? It's a um it provides proof that will reduce and probably eliminate decisions and assessments based on incomplete or biased information and personal perception. And I think we can all say that we can use data to our
benefit. We can use data in different ways, but we're going to assume good intentions here and saying that data is used to kind of try to prevent some of the biases and perception that we naturally have um evidence. Um so what kind of data
quantitative data somebody mentioned earlier that I mean my gosh we have so much quantitative there's a there's SATs there's all kinds of quantitative but I do I think um Nick talked a little bit about qualitative data. There's a book called street data and I love that book
because it talks about how um we can go and get data. So for instance when he was given the example of the person that or the children that were chronically late where they don't feel safe. Well one thing um in the book it talks about how people instead of shadowing you have
children shadow the leadership. What if the leadership shadowed the the um the children? So, in other words, walk in their shoes, go home with them and and see what their day is like. And maybe that gives us a better appreciation of
how we can support and what resources we need for our children. That and that's that thing that sometimes we're missing. We got the data piece of it. You know, we got the scores and all that other stuff, but as someone mentioned earlier, it doesn't tell you the full picture. And I love the concept of street data. Really understanding the Peoria um
superintendent um actually kind of did a lot of this in in her work. Move on please. Okay. And finally the last foundational principle and kudos to you all. The reason we are here today, one of the reasons we're here today and we'll end the day is with a
self-evaluation. But the the board takes responsibility for itself. I always say to boards, if you're going to evaluate your your CEO, then you need to evaluate yourself. Are you helping or hindering the the um the um CEO to get their job done and the other staff, too. So, um
the board takes responsibility for itself is the last foundational principle. And would someone read the quote before we move on? Anyone? Great companies display a relentless culture of discipline. Disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought
and who take disciplined action. Thank you. You may be familiar with The Good to Great by Jim Collins. It's a book that's been around. Let's move on and just kind of continue. Um this afternoon you'll be going into um a board self- evaluation and based on the
law you can do that in close session. And so it will be in close session and that's based on in the folder that you were given you'll see that little booklet or a bookmark I'm sorry a bookmark and that bookmark says if you look at exception number 14 it reads you know that you can go into close session
for the purpose of self- evaluation which is what you'll be doing practices and procedures or professional ethics too. Um, sometimes when you're in close session, we tend to start getting into business. So, I may just say at a point, okay, let's kind of stray back into the
purpose for close session and know it's very easy and natural to happen. So, um, well, there may be just a reminder that we need to to um, honor the the rules of close session. Move on, please. And of course, nurturing a posit one of the
your responsibilities is to nurture a positive board culture, of course. Um, and finally, once the vote has been cast, abiding by the majority decision, and I love this quote here. I don't know if it's a quote, but board members should abide by the majority decision of
the board while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels. So, obviously, yes, you have one of the things that you um talk about in the code of conduct or when you took your oath was that you would abide by.
However, you always should try to figure out if you think it's not the right decision, let's go and see if we can rectify it or change it and monitor it to see if indeed it is working or not working. Please go on. And those are the six foundational principles. Are there any questions or
thoughts on um anything that we've mentioned? Do you agree with it basically? Okay, great. Great. Great. Okay. Can I can I Sure. I agree with all of it. What
I think is sometimes hard is figuring out where the balcony ends and the uh dance floor begins or the actual application of some of those things, right? Um, yeah, that's a really good point and I think a lot of
boards do struggle with it. And I I think it takes time to kind of figure that out, but I think if you're cognizant of it and if you use that language, it may it kind of makes the discussion a little easier. Um, you know, I think you're going off of the uh
balcony and then it becomes I'm going to go back use Nick's word. What's the root cause? Why are we going? Is it because we don't trust the data we've seen? Is it because I mean there's a reason why you go off of the balcony. Maybe I just like being on the dance floor. It's it's more fun. But it a lot of times it's
because I don't trust or because I didn't get adequate amount of data or it's because something. And so I think that even having the conversation of why or even challenging yourselves to think about why am I going off the balcony? What's causing me to do this? And that's
a legitimate discussion to have amongst the board members. Why are we going off the balcony? So very good point. Thank you. Any other thoughts or questions? Yeah, we weren't always board members, so we've been on the dance floor most of our lives. So that's why sometimes, you
know, you have a tendency to to see things from that perspective. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And I will tell you next Thursday there is a webinar. um I will be kind of moderating it, but there's going to be a veteran um or experienced
board member and he's going to talk about like the seven things he wish he had known as a newbie. It's really interesting and and he'll share like some of his um the mistakes that he made and he's very transparent about it too. So if you're interested, it's going to
be next um Thursday. Um, our webinars are usually during the day 12 to 1, but they're all recorded. So, if you go to IASB.com, you can register and you can attend any of those workshops and you'll see other um board members that'll talk
about their experiences, but it's it's all about what I wish I had known when I first became a new board member. And it's kind of a fun webinar. Hey, I have a question. Yes. Uh one of the things we were taught in an earlier
training is that without the ability to question uh our own ideas, life experiences and understandings for what that may mean in a modern day with our children. We will cause harm in the way we design policy. What is your advice
for board the board and board members to question uh our own self-biases and life experiences so that we can have equitable policy? Oh wow, what a what a loaded good question. Um, yeah, I I think and I'm sure probably 21 people
will have 21 different responses, but one of the things that that I find is if the board begins to have a culture of talking about some of the things I heard you all talk about earlier. This is my life experience and you can share. I like for people to
preface this is my life experience and that's where I'm coming from because then it allows other people to understand who you are and why you're saying what you're saying and all. And then if everybody can then give their analysis or their thoughts, then when you get ready to make the decisions, I
think you have a more informed um um decision-making body. So I think the culture of the board that allows for people to share who they are as they make decisions actually helps
with that. That's my thought, my first thought. Any other thoughts on that? What were your Did you Did you have some additional um Well, well, and and one of the things that I like to do, and we don't have time to do this now, one of the things I
like to do in an introductory activity is to actually have people talk about who they are because if you tell me that um who I think it was the gentleman behind you was saying that I'm from the the Southside Chicago, I went to a neighborhood school. So if I can get if
I hear your story, then I say, "Okay, that's why he showed up this way at the board table this morning." I guess, you know, for me is uh I I did I stayed for in China in Shanghai for a month and for
the first two weeks I was in Shanghai as a black guy from Chicago and realized that I never saw China and never learned about China cuz I was bringing Southside of Chicago to China. Okay. Okay. And when that last two weeks in China when I
actually started to care about their culture and their experience, it actually helped me to improve and expand upon who I am uh from my community, bringing back things that made my experience more robust. That's just me.
And I think thank you for sharing that. I think one of the exercises is my one of my favorite exercises is is ethnic introductions. And so what I do is have all the board members go around and they'll say what their name is and all and they'll they'll talk about how what how they identify, you know, what their ethnicity is, whatever that is to them
and something they celebrate about their ethnicity. So for instance, I would say something like uh my name is Sandra Quasa and I'm African-American and um I like the creative expression of African-Americans or I value the historically black colleges and
universities. So that that may that I'm sharing who who I am a little bit and when everybody shares a little bit about who they are. You do understand first of all it always comes out in this exercise that we have more in common than we don't. That's the first thing because somebody else will say I'm German and I
believe in a heart work ethic. I'm I'm this and I believe oh I'm I'm into the certain kind of foods. We all have the same experiences. They just um kind of came out a little differently. And so once we begin to understand who else is in the room and who's part of the decision-making body, it really does
help us understand how they showed up at the board and why they're voting. And you may not ever agree, but at least you understand the perspective of from which they come and sometimes can even articulate why the decision went the way it went, even if it wasn't something that you totally 100% agreed with. Any
other thoughts? Yes. I'm considering how we think about impact, right? We have a lot of decision making ability, but we can't see the future. So, what do you do? How do you work with boards to consider how their decisions are going to affect the
future? It's a good question. Um, can we go into the next segment on monitoring? because I think that may be a really good um leadin into to monitoring because at at every point you're right you don't know what decisions you're making how they're going to impact the
future but if you're monitoring you can see how the decisions are impacting today and now and that may give you a glimpse as to what's going to go on into the future too so great question let's come back to it and if if I don't answer it or if you don't have a little more insight then let just come back again at
me please okay so monitoring there. There's a little small booklet that's inside of your your folder that I've provided. Um, sorry for all this wasted. I did not know that my assistant was going to put it in big pretty folders which are wasting paper and all. So,
whatever you'd like to do if you want to recycle. But anyway, this monitoring book, if you could just take it out now. And and the the what we're going to do for the next few minutes um will basically be referenced in from this this tiny little manual. You'll also see that my business card is in there as
well. And unlike Nick, you know, I have um I'm still using paper whereas he has his nice little QR code and stuff. So I there's me much improvement that I can make at this point. Did you Did you have your hand up, someone? What's your hand up?
Oh. Oh, okay. Okay. And so am I. So, so but but you know again we all are works in progress and we all are about continuous improvement. So we'll just see we just God is not finished with us any of us yet. Sorry about that. But anyway okay so let's
talk about u monitoring and and what we're going to do. How am I doing on time? Just keep going. Okay. Okay. Um so so what we want to do now is just just look a little bit about um understanding why monitoring is an important activity for the board. Learn how data can be
organized and then we'll we'll talk a little bit about how you all are monitoring specifically your student learning goal because at the end of the day when you talk about impact I think of are the students learning? I mean there's a lot of things we're doing to
help them learn but at the end of the day is the impact is to make sure students are learning. So, let's move on, please. Um, and let's keep uh you can just keep going until I just just keep clicking until I say that this is the one we'll work on. Foundational principle number five. And
um okay, foundational principle number five, which says again, we constantly monitor. But you can't monitor unless you have what? Data. Okay. And then what else do you need the data for? So, you've got some data, but the
data is monitoring what? your performance and and the performance is based on what somebody said it I heard him smart goals your goals your goals so you've got some goals that you've established as a board that you want all children to learn and
and we'll look at one of the goals that you have now which I think is a wonderful goal and um and then you've got this goal and so how do you know that you're getting how how do you know know if you're performing how do you know if the day what how do you know and I keep going to How do you know when
somebody asks you, "How's CPS doing?" Well, what do they mean? And how do you answer that question? So, think about that as we proceed on. Keep going, please. Um, okay. This is a video and I don't hear the sound and that's okay because
we're just going to go by there. Basically, what we see is a is a board. It's you can just let it play and it's okay. It's fine. Um this is a board called the unified board and they are trying to monitor a goal. They have a goal that they want all of their third
graders to be on um um at the right performance level. And so they're asking well I don't know. I mean they're they're all over the place and and we got to be be really really deliberate about how we monitor goals. First of all what are the goals? The second take if
you keep hit again you can hit enter. The second take ask another question. It says, "Wait a minute." You'll see that they're monitoring, but they're always referencing their their plan. Their plan. So, anytime we talk
about monitoring, what are we monitoring? We are monitoring a plan, a set of goals that has been pre-established. Can those goals change over time? Absolutely. And here's a a nice little graphic that says the board is constantly monitoring progress. If you look at the very top, you'll notice
it says um set and review district goals. Those goals have been set. But part of you as a board things change. For instance, when co came around, what there were some goals that had to change. They had to be readjusted and all too. So this is cyclical here. And then once you know the goals, you can
align resources. That's your job as a board to allocate money. who remember who gets what for how much and then you move around monitor progress using data as you all mentioned too continue on please um I think you went okay there you go
thank you um constructive use of of data is a skill that must be learned the board should have some understanding of data but will typically require guidance from the staff in a perfect environment um you know when we've done this particular
workshop because we kind of follow Nick. Um, what would happen is you would have your staff and your your CEO here too because you probably get tons of data and then the question becomes for the board and the one of the greatest conversations I've been involved in is
when the board says well this is good data but what I really need is and the question is are you getting the data that you need in order to make an informed decision because as the lady in the front said it's all about being a
decision decision maker. And so we're just going to look at some a little bit of data. And a lot of this will probably be be um not new news to you. And again, stop me if I'm going too fast. Let's move on. Um when you think about data, I want you to just kind of consider these key um five key
concepts. First of all, remember a picture is worth a thousand words or 10,000 numbers. So I think that's we all know that, right? Um using color consistently is is also a very tool especially when you're communicating not only with yourselves but also with the with the um community. Um ask the
guiding questions. I do want you to really if there's nothing else you hear that I say I want you to think about these guiding questions. I'll share those with you. And then focus on the distribution of results. And this is basically saying beware of averages. And then finally disagregate the results. Separate separate is what it is into
different student groups. It could be by ethnicity. It could be by poverty. It could by ab ability whatever that's what the um disagregate is saying. Continue on please continue. Um would you rather have this continue on or would you rather see that a pie chart? Um
sometimes you want to know how a particular group of schools are do are doing. You can continue on. You want to know how a particular group of schools. So you can use color to make that question a little easier to see. Continue on. Um and how are the two I want to see the schools that are making
target. You can stay here for a second. What schools are making target? And isn't it a lot easier to see the green versus the red? But the question you should always be saying is what is the target? Because you may say this school is not doing well. How do you know that? What's the target? Where are you trying to go? Continue on please. Then you can
use color coding. And this is very consistent with the school report card. Notice how they have if you click on the click please. And you'll see anything on the right side is green, which means that basically you're you're performing. And if you're not, you're getting closer in the yellow or maybe you're far away
from performing. So it just gives you a quick view of how your schools are doing or how the district is doing or whatever you're you're measuring. Continue on, please. And this is another example of that same thing. Um, now I can look and see, hey, there those yellow schools. If I look at school C, for instance, I
began to say h close. So maybe I know that I need to allocate some resources to help them move into that green area as well too. So they're close. Then I see school G maybe having a little few more struggles. So what are the interventions I need to do to make sure that they come into the green? So very
similar to what Nick was talking about, but again a graphical representation of the same thing. Continue on please. My guiding questions I like. So somebody asks you how you doing. If I ask you how you doing, what are you going to say? I ask you right now how you doing? What would you say?
Fantastic. Fantastic. Oh, good. Good. I love it. Fantastic. Okay. Fine is the standard answer. Yeah. Fine is the standard answer. I'm okay. You know, I mean, if you're in the South, I was in the South last week. They said fair to Midland. Yeah. So, I mean, there's all
these kinds of answers, but continue on, please. Um, somebody askked you how you doing in your school, and you say, "Huh?" Um, and this is the next question I want you to think about. Continue on, please
continue. Oh, go back. Okay. Compared to what? How are you doing compared to what? Okay. And what does that mean? Continue on. How are we doing compared to standard self and others? And this is what where I want you to stop here for a
second. So, how are you doing compared to standard? We always do that. We know what those local targets are, don't we? And we're saying, okay, this person did not make it, la, and um they're they're in state designation or whatever. But then how are you doing compared to self? And this is the one that I really like
trends over time. In other words, last year we were at 40%, this year we're at 50%. How that's something to celebrate. That's something to share with your community. That's something to share with everyone. We are making progress. Are we there yet? Did we make the standard? No. But we are moving forward
and I just think that we don't um we don't celebrate that enough. Let's continue on. And then how are you compared to others? And a lot of times maybe other larger districts like yours. It could be other districts or it could be whatever it it could be an international standards as well. You were saying you
were in China. How are we doing compared to the kids in China? Do we want to do that? That may be you know who knows. Um um and also anyway continue on. You can continue on. And I see you're going to um and we'll just move on. We'll move on for past this
one. Oh, okay. Go go go back. Go back one. Okay. Remember there were three things I mentioned com um so they say color and um the charts pictures worth a thousand words. And then we said guiding questions. How are we doing compared to
what a state a standard or some kind of how we were doing last year trends over time? Or the other one was how we doing compared to others. The fourth one is using these distribution models. And they keep you from doing those little averages. Um, which models work best. It doesn't matter whichever works for you.
But if you don't use models, a lot of times people tend to get into averages. If you go to the next slide, please. If you stand with your head in the freezer and your feet on a hot stove, on average, you're com comfortable. But that doesn't certainly doesn't describe your real condition.
And so that's why we say be careful when we start doing um averages because you say take this school over here and this school over here put the average that is not really the the um condition of of what's really going on in our district. Let's move on please. And these are um
there's a there's a pie chart that you can use. And what is a stacked column? It's just a vertical pie chart. Right. Continue on. And again using your color coding we can disagregate um by student groups. And so continue on. Okay. Um one back back one please.
Okay. So those student groups again I mean who are you trying to look at? Are you looking at different um parts of the city when you're comparing? Are you looking at ability or what are you looking at? So these stack charts can be very um um very comfortable. And if you again if you go to the school report
card how many of you all have been to the school report card? Everybody raise your hand please. I would absolutely suggest that you go to the school report card because that is what your community sees. That's what realators are looking at to to determine, you know, um to sell your
community. So, you really really want to go look at that and get a good understanding of what that is and what's missing because it doesn't tell the whole story, but it tells a part of the story that people have access to. Um so, let's move on, please. Okay.
The scatter plots are some of my favorite. Don't um they continue on. There's one I'll just call your attention to. Continue on. The the scatter chart what it Okay, you okay, go back one, please. And the scatter chart is really one. Go back one, please. Um this is one that I
really like because it it's it notice what it's looking at percentage of students in poverty and proficiency. So often we get that label that, you know, because kids are in poverty, their proficiency isn't there. But this is an example of a of a of a chart that kind of says, is there a connection? It
appears to be a connection, but it doesn't necessarily mean cause and effect because if you look at some of the schools, um, you know, you'll say, "Wow, that school has a high poverty rate, but they're proficient." And what's going on? And that's when you get to that root analysis again. You're asking those questions. What is going
on? How does that exist? What are the good things that are going on in that school that we may want to share? And and again, our districts do this all the time. And I want to bring CPS into that discussion where you can talk to other schools. Yes, they're different, but they're still the same. Um, you know, we
have a board presidents, I think Sean, I think I sent you some information on it, but we have a board president's group that's going to meet in June, and they talk about what's going on as board presidents. It's the same thing. You hear the same thing. And these are larger districts, too. So, anyway, continue on.
Okay. Continue on. Continue. Sorry. Okay, continue on. Continue and continue. Okay, again, school report card. I think I've given a plug for that and you will see and it's
also in your book how to access it to play around with that and really click. You could spend hours on the school report card trying to figure out and then you can ask some really good questions to your your staff as to why do these numbers look the way they look. Continue
on. The last thing we want to do is just talk about the data that you are receiving um from your staff. Continue on. This is one of my favorite quotes, but uh what gets measured is what gets done or at least what gets measured and
talked about on a regular base has a better chance of getting done too. Again, back to those impacts. Continue on. Now, again, I love your um together we rise. Um I'm sure all of you all have this memorized because I tried to
memorize some of the the items here. Um, and one of the one of the goals that you all have is every student has a rigorous, joyful, and equitable daily learning experience. And there's a visionary and there's a specific goal that says increase the percent of high school
graduates earning advanced course credits and career credentials from 49% to 70%. Does that sound like a smart goal? I think it does. I think it does. And there's some other parameters there
too. And so um in the last report that you get you all get a is everybody familiar everybody's familiar with the monitoring report monitoring progress report that you get monthly. Say yes or no. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That is a wonderful way to monitor to find out how are you
doing because you all have so many measurements but if you're getting data and if that data is in the in the format that you like it. I actually went through some of your data and said this is really good because what's happening is it says trends over time. So we're not quite at that 70% are we? But are we
moving closer to it? Yes. And the only time there was a dip in the numbers was at CO time and you can explain that. You can explain why that made sense. So I think that um the the monitoring report that you get now um is is really good.
Um, and every student will, um, there's some other things they said. Every student will earn the equivalent of a semester of college credit or an advanced credential before high school graduation. Fabulous goal. Fabulous goal. You should be monitoring it. You should um, be able to tell this to your
community. We are having our children, you know, my bonus child that's at Kenwood, you know, I'm like, what do you mean you're getting 15 hours of credit before you I can't I don't even know how to connect with that? that you get 15 hours of credit before you even leave um for college and all that. And a lot of
the community members are like me. They don't know. They just don't know. So, you got a good story here. That was fabulous when I realized that. And they're going to celebrate that at his school. They're going to have some big ceremony where they're celebrating that. Let's celebrate these things that are amazing and let's televise it and let's
let the world know that good things are happening here in CPS. So, my question to you is you have several learning goals. Do you as a board are you comfortable with the information that you are receiving so that you can actually answer the question are our students
learning? And I'm going to say you don't have to necessarily answer that right now. However, I want you to really consider are our students learning? look at the goals that have been very nicely printed out and let's see can you answer
the questions are we making progress is the does the data that we're receiving say yeah it's there do I have some questions do I have questions and speaking of questions in your little
manual on page let's see what page that is there's a qu there's a page that says board questions data can answer page number nine here's some board level questions that are appropriate balcony level questions that you might want to ask as it relates as it um relates to
how are we doing. Are our students learning? That's the real question. And we want to make impact there. And you're making impact, but you got to let the world know that you're doing it. Um I think I've been my my time is is is up.
So any questions, thoughts? Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There no questions or comments. We'll move into executive session. Board member Wallace, do you have motion mo1? I move for the passage of motion number
25-0507-1 and the commencement of a closed session to consider matters permitted under section 2C of the open meetings act subsection 16 as specified in the motion. Is there a second? I second. Thank you. I'll proceed with a roll
call. Member Lozano. Yes. Member Smith, I don't think your mic was on. Yes. Thank you. Member Thomas. Hi. Member Bole. Yes. Member Wallace.
I member Pope. Yes. Member Rivas. Yes. Member Rio Sierra. I me sorry. Member Bannon. Hi.
Member Biggs I. Member Thodicur. Yes. Member Zachor. Yes. Member Deberry. Yes. Vice President Baltista. Yes. 15 I zero NAS. This motion is adopted by the
board. This mean we're now going to call session. The special meeting in the board of education is reconvened. Board secretary, please proceed. President Harden, I would like to note for the record that there are no items
to vote on from executive session. Thank you. Is there a motion to adjurnn? Is there a second? I second. All in favor? We are adjourned. Thank you everyone.