Over here just yet. See my My doppelganger Good evening, everyone. Today is APRIL 7. And it is 5.31 We are in the public assembly room of the city County building here for the Education Committee. And tonight we have just one presentation city connects program partnership with. The city supported by Harper. We have a presentation from doing lame. Director city connects Midwest for Mary University's for Vibrant Schools. We're excited to hear from Before get started. I would love to have many members of the committee introduced himself. Some starting with the members on the floor. Thank you, MR. Brian Mowery District 0.5 Thank CHAIRMAN. Just thing
District. 21, thank you, MR. Cerda Carlos Perkins District 6, thank you, MR. Chaired and Boots, District 3. Thanks, colleagues and again, I'm cute graders and absolutely honored to be here as chair of this committee. Welcome, everyone, particularly particularly our that are streaming in. As we look to hear from MISS Jillian Lane. Want to remind everyone that our committee is committed to uncovering real stories of education in Marion County. Definitely want to hear stories of progress, but we also want to hear those stories of challenge. Faced by our students our families. As we think about education in our city. Set a bold goal. I believe that this goal is attainable and that is that
every student in Indianapolis. Is reading at grade level by the year 2030. Now that's only 5 short years away. And we know When our city is home to a strong and educated population. We're not just improving. Test scores were building a stronger workforce. We're civic engagement. Creating healthier, more vibrant communities. For this committee. Every priest presentation counts. Every single one. Every role in education. Tonight's conversation is part of that bigger push to create lasting change for children. Students across Indianapolis. So again, thank you for being here this Welcome you. And now the floor is yours to present. CHAIRMAN Graves. I just wanted to briefly. Thank you for allowing Julian and to speak to speak to the work that they're doing a money machine Cavasos and the director of
the Office of Education. Innovation and I briefly a pass off to join in just a moment. But I'm really excited to have you all hear about City connects and the connect in the dashboard and also just wanted to thank the other partners who we've worked with because you're going to hear a lot of really compelling, innovative information, but it really took a lot of groups to get here. So just briefly, really want to thank mayor in University center for a vibrant schools and also Boston College's Mariee was center for thriving children, which is where City connects was born. More than 20 years ago. And want to thank you. Members of the City County Council and also Mayor Joe Hogsett for allocating the American rescue plan funding that brought city connects to Indianapolis, allowed us to
support in particular about a dozen schools on the Far East Side and also build the connect in the dashboard. We are very much looking forward to seeing what kind of impact this will have on our education system in our children. And now you'll hear all the really interesting things from Jillian Lane, executive director of Integrated Student Support and Center strategy for the center of Vibrant Schools University. Thank you, director. Good evening. Thank you for having I want to share a little bit about what City connects is a mental share a little bit about the scope of the project in partnership e I so as mentioned, city connects was established by Boston College about 25 years ago. And it's an integrated student support model. So it's really all
about bringing in a system in which to deliver student support to schools city connects Israeli. For any school and serves all students in that school. And so we mentioned the center for virus schools. We actually launched city connects as a part of the launch of the center and 2021. The Department of provided us with some learning loss funds to kind of launched the city connects work across the state and then the investment from the city through the arpa funds was a really big part of the additional expansion. And those schools are actually still working with us are wrapping up the school year and several of those schools that were much in those 12 east seaside schools on have sustainability funding through our partnership as well. But we're always looking to kind of expand those partnerships. Currently we're serving about
25 to 30 schools in Indianapolis, specifically. And those are non public schools, public schools and charter schools. Projecting some expansion. And 26 27 as well. Particularly because of some of that Eli Lilly funds that were put out there for the k 12 schools. We have several districts in stand-alone schools that are looking to implement city can access a part of that partnership as well, which is very exciting. So if you go to the next slide. So the main component and kind of premise of what City connects is all about is impacting out of school factors. Students spend most of their time outside of school. And so in order to serve students in school, we need to take into consideration what they're experiencing outside of the
school building. So things like. Family, housing, insecurity, food and security. I mean, we can throw a million interventions at a student on. But if they are having their basic needs met there, they're never going to achieve academically. And so city connects really brings this kind of to life in systematic approach at the school level. So did go to the next slide. Let's go to the next one. Sorry, forget about these transitions. Keep going. So being that city connects was born out of Boston College. It was born out of their school counseling program. So it's all based in developmental science. And so really it's all about understanding the fact that every student has unique their life circumstances are unique and that they are always developing over time. So city
connects really takes into account. You know how students are changing over periods of time, but also making sure that they're getting the right intervention at the right time and for the right ration of time. And I think the other unique piece of practice as well as that its strength based. So we're looking at both strengths of students to then capitalize on those strengths and address the needs of that student as well. If you could click forward So has mentioned it's a comprehensive model. And so and a lot of cases, you know, we're looking at academic challenges MAY be certain diagnosis. Source, social emotional behavioral challenges, but city cannot has a much more holistic approach to the model. So when we're talking about creating
an individualized support plan for every student. We're looking at these 4 domains. You'll see the 4 circles there. So we are looking at academics and social emotional behavioral. But we're also looking at health and family. So it's bringing a more very conversation to the table where it might not be as as holistic as you would traditionally see. I think the other piece about the city connects practice. Also based on identifying tears of interventions. So we're looking at the types of interventions and the intensity level of those interventions to help identify how we can best to support those students. And I'll talk a little bit more in a minute about what like how this practice looks on the ground on to give a little bit more
of a tangible feel so we could go to the next slide. So as mentioned, it's a systematic approach and its utilizing a full times. City connects site coordinator, which that is a master's level social workers, school counselor, some of the schools we partner with will utilize existing counselor or social worker in the building and use this framework as a way in which their role is done essentially. Then some schools opt to bring in a new staff person. So just kind of very that's kind of where the the individual is a shunt from the school perspective can come into play. And then those masters level credentials are really important because they're doing they're making
doing called clinical type decision, making us a part of determining what interventions students are receiving. So that credentialing is really important. And then I mentioned, you know, that the tearing of services. So they'll look at applying tier-one interventions which are going to be prevention and enrichment tier 2 interventions such as early intervention and then crisis interventions, which we would categorize as a tier 3 production. Next slide. So the other piece of this is return on investment. So the side shares a little bit about which I want to go too far into the weeds else is kind of give an overview of the explanation as to how these kind of numbers come about. But essentially it's the idea that one of the core components of the city connects coordinator role is not just connecting students and families with interventions that provides, but also connecting the
students interventions in the community where there are already existing services from community agencies. And so this is where the sorrow eye starts to come into play because the site coordinators able to leverage several more services into the school that would not have been realized without the city connects coordinator in the city connects practice. And so it's really all about being able to leverage more dollars into the school by connecting students to services that are existent in the community. So that's a little bit about what city connects is, how it works. And I'm happy to field more questions about that if you all have them. But I really want to spend a little bit more time on the conduct and dashboard which was the other facet to the partnership that we had with the city. And so the conduct in the dashboard is really the first of its kind Boston college. Like I said, he's been doing this work for 20 some years. Never
have they? The data of the city connects practice into an externally facing platform. And so I was kind of like to say that this data gives us sense of the type of data that schools are gathering. But it's kind of like the lite version of that because obviously a lot of this, the state is going to be much more aggravated than what schools have access to. But it gives you a sense of the type of data that school administrators eve and even district leaders can then use this type of data to inform systems level decisions, school level decisions, great level decisions. Things like that. So essentially the dashboard is an online platform that makes data publicly available and really the intention that is all about educating the public on
the types of services that are being utilized, but also the gaps in services and also what students are interested in and the types of needs and gaps in services that bubble up because of the data that we're collecting. So this slide just kind of shows a snapshot of the home homepage shares a little bit about what city connects is some high level data points. And these are snapshots from a few months ago. So this might not reflect exactly on the Web page, but just want to share a little bit about about what this kind of the landing page looks like. If you can go to the next slide. So here's another example of what you can find on the dashboard. So you'll see student interests here.
What students are most interested in. I will note that students come select multiple interests. So the state is unlike a one to one kind of kind of alignment with the student. But it does give you a sense of what students are really interested. And so this not only can inform, you know, from a philanthropy standpoint, where should philanthropy invest? It's dollars what types of programs are students interested? And but it also could help inform community agencies. And in a few slides, you'll see we have a kind of a heat map, too. So it's not only about understanding what interests are high, but then organizations that might serve a very specific community, your zip code or zip codes can then use that as a way to identify more specified types
of information about a very specific community in which the students are going to school. And then you could see a little bit about the strengths and needs of students. And so you MAY notice that there might be a strength that is the same as the need. And and I think in my eyes that just speaks to the disparities that we sometimes see in schools that, you know. Uniform and clothing might be a strength for a lot of students. But also need for a lot of students. And so I think that that and is one of the ways you might decipher why they're our strengths and needs that are the same in both columns. We can go to the next slide. And then this will show a little bit of the breakdown of the types of services. So you'll see in the pie chart just kind of to explain a little bit of the nuances kind of the
decision-making that we made. You'll notice that 3 of the 4 domains are in that pie chart. Obviously categorizing the as a strength are in need could be misunderstood. And so we decided Todd to take that out of the mix and then add in more specified strengths and needs because we didn't want to. To have that be perceived in a negative fashion. So this will kind of show you the breakdown of the types of services that are most utilized seeing that equal distribution of that pie chart is not unusual we will probably expect that to be or, you know, might move a little bit year to year, but will probably be pretty evenly distributed to be expected
because of the next slide. And again, a little bit more data, a little bit more of a snapshot of what you can see on on the dashboard itself. Want to go to one more slide. If you go the next one perfect. So within the dashboard as well. You can see all of the different schools that are participating in the city connects program. You can actually have 2 years of data and the dashboard thus far as you can toggle between I guess 2022. 23 in 23. 24 will be uploading the 20 for 25 data the summer. So it's an annual update. Its unfortunately not like living and breathing on a day-to-day basis, but it is an annual updates you can see on the school profiles. You can go back and 4th between the different school years. You can see the grade levels that are served by city connects as well as the grade levels just
that are served from the school itself and the years of their implementation. And then you can see summit additional information about the student bodies that they serve. And if you can go one more slide and then this is the heat map that I was referring to. So this is an interactive map that will show the community agencies that are partnering with City connects schools our services that are utilized several times. And so when you go into those school profiles, you can then start to explore from the map function, you know, as a community agency. What are the strengths and needs of students, one of those interests and then how might the agency use that information to inform the types of programming that they
offer? So I think the intention is that making it, you know, utilizing the systematic approach in the school to that, for more systems level decision making at the community level as well on to ensure that, you know, it takes a village to support students. And so we want to make sure that the information is available to those individuals that are making those decisions around supporting students in Indianapolis. And I think that's my last slide. A little bit about implementation of sustainability. So little bit about the numbers. So there, if we think about the general cost of implementing city connect. So there is a licensing fee and that goes to support kind of the general
implementation There's professional development that's provided implementation tools, the use of a cloud-based software system. So all of those individualize student support plans are kind of living breathing documents that are held electronically. So and that system, which is I think really nice. You know, City connects is an evidence-based program. So we're always looking at fidelity looking at the general implementation, best prep. This is. And so that licensing fee goes towards the coaching and support of those schools. To ensure fidelity of implementation, obviously driving outcomes that we would hope to And then there is a technical assistance center cost. This is kind of supporting the coaching capacity of the human capital that goes towards towards coach. So additional social workers and school counselors that are providing support to
those working in the schools. And then the site coordinator themselves full-time a full-time employee. So that just kind of gives you a range of generally what that at t would costs. And so that's a little bit about the costs for implementation and then the cost and sustainability for the website itself. You know, thankfully the funding through the city e I was incredibly helpful. The upfront costs are really the big part of what the expense was to the ongoing maintenance is much, much less. So it's really looking at just annual update of the data each year, just the cost to host and on the Dome and website. There is a little bit of software renewal that we need is a part we use power be
I to house The dashboard. So that's just another expense that that we take on and again, ongoing improvements. We always want to. I think as soon as we were done with like launching the project, we were immediately talking about how can we make it better and make it more user friendly on and make sure that the information that we're putting out is actually usable and interesting to the folks that are using it and at a couple so there will always be kind of ongoing development. At least that would be our hope. So this just gives you a sense of, you know, we kind of had the upfront launch costs. And this was the estimated cost that we would expect year-over-year to keep it going. Next. Slide. Okay. So thank you again. I'm happy to field questions owes a lot of information. Yeah, that was a
life. It was good. It was extremely helpful. Just super super surprised see some of the information that you guys presented today. Colleagues on the council on the committee hear an opportunity ask questions. Great concern. Thank you. MISTER Chair I was looking at the dashboard and he while you were I think I personally found the answer a couple of these put for the public benefit. So when you have individualized support plans and then the tears services. Could you describe league? What would what would an example of that look like? Yes, look what an example of a plan essentially yet. So the way that it works, one of the things I didn't include is kind of the process in which
these plans are created. So the city connects coordinator meets with every teacher in the school to talk about each of their students. And so, you know, it's a 5 to 7 minute conversation talking about those 4 domains. So it's a really kind of qualitative type of discussion where they're just trying to understand like what are you seeing in the classroom? What do you know about home life? So it's really kind of anecdotal. But then they supplement that with student information system data, great day to behavioral data. All of that fun stuff. And so then when they're sitting down together, according bringing kind of the systems level data and then the teachers being able to layer on their perspective and what they've observed. So the plan is then created based on that
information. As you know, some students have more complex situations that warrant more intensive conversations. And so in that case, that's where we're bringing together a multidisciplinary team. So it could be principal. The site coordinator, maybe there's another school counselor or social worker in the building, but it also could be teacher, maybe soccer coach. That knows the student really well. So they're bringing together everyone that knows something about that student to come up with a more intensive plan that has smart goals and measurable outcomes. And then all plans are evaluated every 6 to 8 weeks. So in terms of the content of that plan, it would go through each of those 4 domains and look at strengths or needs in each of those areas. So, for example,
strengths could be mass and need could be attention in class or persistence. And then if you're looking at family, it could be something around like basic needs. But it also could be around have a hard time communicating or there's a language barrier for families extremely engaged in their strengths. So within each of the 4 domains, there are like different toggle buttons that scored neighbors can choose from. So they're kind of clicking strengths and needs they're not looking. All of them writes that doesn't apply. Not all students have strength needed all those areas, but they are also keeping notes as well. So if there's something really specific to a strength, it's like. Mom is best reached on her like they're collecting
just little things like that. I think that the biggest intention is that this is a preventative approach. I think school so often our, you know, kind of putting out the fires as they come up. But because every student is getting a plan every year students schools know a lot more about their students. Teachers know a lot more about their students. And so if it's a crisis happens, schools are much more able to adapt and address it because they have so much information about their students. So a long-winded answer, but they So in the. You have in the presentation the 193 service providers how what it for the benefit 8, if you can just talk about some of the couple
of the key service labels used and then how does one become a service provider and then in this individualized support plan. How how do you partner the student with one of these organizations for that specific need. Yeah, great question. So the way that providers are coded is like written into the program annual. So just to make sure for consistency, we're like everyone's following kind of the same rule of thumb. And so I can share with you follow-up, kind of how those those are determined. I will say that in connect and the website, it is a little bit more simplified. Then it is in the system just for the sake of public use. Then then in terms of how providers are identified, it's really up to the cordinator to identify those services. And that
happens in a couple different ways. I think one of the things that's unique and often times I get asked, you know, how do you determine who's going to partner with City connects schools and it's like it's not our decision to decide. Who is partnering with us. It's about the service provider that's providing the Sprite service to that family. And so it's really about the individualized matched to the student and family. And so there's a couple of different in coordinators are like I said, there's social workers and counselors, the kind of know how to community agencies and programs, but then also I connect system. So, for example, that 20 some schools in Indianapolis, they're all contributing to my connects systems. They all get access to same providers. So they end
up talking to each other. So even it's a school that's in a completely different district, but is Metropolitan Indianapolis. They will talk to each other about, hey, I saw that used the ymca at Avondale and I saw that they have a swim program like is that a good swim program? What have had has that person been really responsive to your e-mails? So they talk in that providers that way to just by word of mouth. But it's not really our role to kind of set them. It's really all about the individualized. Connection to the student, a family that is how they're determined. And then there was a 3rd part. Your question. I that it was more like the service labels used like just the categories
of service. Just some of the big ones MAY Yeah. They're oftentimes broken down by those different domains. So it'll be at like they'll academic, but it could be tutoring could be academic. But after programming. So those are some examples. And it also could be family services that could be, you know, clothing, housing, food. But it also could be job or job preparation or resume building. So. Each of the different demands have their own and of it like sub categories, I guess. And so so, yeah, I can share a little bit more about that. But those are just some of the ones that kind of come come off the top of my head. Okay finalize so I know that you've been focused on the east side. Have you that? Is this a pilot or have
we offered other districts or schools and Marion County, this program, if the if you have what is their feedback been I guess, if not, what was that expansion look like? We are in a handful of ips schools. Some of the innovation schools a handful of charter schools. You have a couple nonpublic schools. But overall, I think the feedback has been really positive and that. There's a couple different things. I think one is it takes a little while for this to become embedded, right? It's a it's create bringing a new system, a new way of doing business for student support into a school. And so what we found is that after kind of that year to hump, when there's a lot of data and the system administrator start to really be able to see the data and be
able to utilize it from a higher level perspective. I think one of the things we see too is that. Social workers and school counselors are often like it's kind of this is the road map. That I've been looking for because a lot of times they're entering a school kind of developing their own systems and processes. And so this gives them a pathway and which to do that. And also because it is evidence based, they can kind of rely on the backbone of that, that they know that they're doing good for kids. So I think that's another another big piece. But I mean, it is a systems change that takes time and it can be bumpy. And so I think the schools that our bod in and ready to stick stick with it and move through that process,
too. And that it really reap the benefits it. Thank you, MISTER CHAIRMAN, thanks for your presentation. Tonight in the sounds like great program. Just a couple. Quick questions. The route with respect to counselor Cahill's comments about the service providers. So the 193 that are shown are listed here. Are they part of a a? The Certified database, if you will, or do they get a stamp of housekeeping approval by city connects or is it just you guys kind of your hands off and the service providers. So there's not a list of the 193 that someone be sent. On the Web site in the Heat map. There below the map is an
actual list of all those providers. So yeah, that all that information is public available. I they it. We rely on the social workers and counselors in the schools to kind of give the city connects stamp of approval because they're the ones that are you connecting with students families are using utilizing those services. And so we don't have a formal like vetting process. But we rely on the clinicians in the schools to do that. But from a data perspective, each school's assigned a program manager. That's the one that kind of supports the coordinator and does the coaching on on the implementation of fidelity of the practice. And so it's part of their role is to ensure that the data that is in the system is. Accurate and up to date and all of that. So there is a level of like checks and
balances that happen. But from the programmatic standpoint, we're really relying on school level clinicians to determine those things. And are the service providers required to provide confirmation that all the people who have access to children have gone through criminal background checks. That's not something that we Like manage or oversee. That's a good question. But it's not an element of like the core components of the practice that we provide. Uk. Final question You mentioned schools were public. Nonpublic unchartered. How would you just define not nonpublic a private school religiously
affiliated private or religious and roughly. What's the breakdown between those 3 buckets maybe 5% is not public or private. The remaining are either charter traditional public school. You Thank He was the CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Director Lane for the presentation. I will admit I was a bit of a hard time following what? The program, actually, here's what I think some back and forth with concert came counselor Help clear that up for me. How do you measure the success this program Great question. So we are literally in the throes of a now comes a valuation. So since we launched in 2021, we just frankly, Ben, too early and implementation to look at
how calm. So we're progress of having a formal outcomes evaluation done by Boston College. But I can speak to some early indicators. So one we know chronic absenteeism is a big priority, especially over these last couple years, especially since covid. And so in our city connects schools that implemented city connects for 2 years. They saw an average of a 13% decrease in chronic absenteeism. Which the state saw 3% average across the state. So we're seeing a big impact there. Obviously that's kind of like low hanging fruit. That's the first piece that's often times impacted. But we are seeing much higher rate of decrease there. If we're looking at more of a longitudinal study which Boston College did on the Boston Public schools.
This is like it all comes a valuation is the types of things that will be kind of inquiring and measuring. And so they saw again, improved attendance, improved test scores. Grades, but then longitude Italy, long-term students that received city connects in grades one through 5. We're more likely to graduate high school were likely to attend and complete college or certificate program. So I think that's really powerful. You know, even the receiving services at the elementary level, they're seeing really strong logic to all comes as well. So that's kind of like what we're hoping will will see some of those kinds of outcomes as well. But just we're just a little baby implementation and Indiana right now. So we're just not
quite there yet to expect outcomes of valuation. We should be in 2026. So by next year. Okay. Yeah. And I'm just looking online like some of your funding sources or lease the ball and they you as author of Grants and all that. So I imagine you would keep getting those but wasn't working. But what is your current budget breakdown? Look like? Do most of your funding federal grants. State grants, foundations. What what does that look like? Yeah, it's all of the above. So like I said, we launched under some state funding originally then with the partnership with the city, those are kind of our our like pilot projects. So from there, we've received some federal funding through the We on what you've been really successful
and hopefully stay stays that way. Then we also have philanthropies. So we have some partnerships with 3 or 4 philanthropic organizations that were working with as well. So we're always kind of trying to diversify. But then the schools are actually also putting in some funds to. So one of the things that we've done is afternoon. A step-down approaches kind of fund upfront to get things up and going and then we step down the funding over times that the schools are slowly absorbing the costs, hopefully moving towards sustainability. So where in the throes of that step down model as we speak. This coming school year is when it'll be. I think fifty-fifty. So that will really kind of our testing. Yes. Use quick comment. We invite you 26 when we have the out, I would like think we
really like to see those results. Absolutely. I would love to I was at the announcement a few years back over at the school on the East side. Can you talk a little bit about Mayor University's involvement? Sure, so So Mary had been in conversation with Boston College for several years about bringing city connects to Indianapolis years before my time at the university, they tried to implement a couple of schools, but didn't build the infrastructure internally that was needed to support the program. And so because of the learning loss funds were able to do that and much more intentional lead. And so essentially. Our partnership with Boston College, you know, they're still, you know, the owners and intellectual property owners of the city connects practice, but they
kind of service. Our coach. So we serve almost as like a boots on the ground. Technical assistance provider in Indiana. So that because we know that. Doing that at a distance just doesn't work on and the context so different. So having folks from Indiana from Indianapolis supporting the schools really important. So we're really supporting the day-to-day operations of the implementation of city connects and then Boston College is kind of overseeing to make sure that we're doing that with fidelity. And then it's kind like that trickle, Donna, we're supporting the schools of fidelity as well answer question does how many do you know how many schools across the country or systems or cities that the city can x's founding? Indiana. We have about 60 schools this year
across the whole network. So nationwide and then they actually launch the National Center Dublin, Ireland a couple of years ago as well, which they Are ix planning to expand into every school in Ireland able so that's obviously a long-term plan. But I think that investment is really interesting. So across the U.S. For the whole network, I want to say around 150 or 200 schools. So Indiana makes up a really big piece of the network. Thank you. Any other questions from committee? Well, certainly appreciate the presentation this lane. And if there are no other questions. Chair will entertain a motion to move. We