Good evening everyone. My name is Arban Refi. Um, well first let me, um, call to order this, uh, February 18th meeting of the Performance Monitoring Committee. My name is Arban Refi. I'm the chair of this committee. I'm joined by Chair Mansfield and Mrs. Shernoff. Um, we'll go ahead and get started with public comment. Is there any public comment for this evening? Assume no, There is not. No Public comment. Thank you. Um, I'm Standing up to give public comment, Lauren. Oh, no, I was just checking the list. Don't, don't wanna talk. It's like, what do you, Um, Have plenty of comments With that? I think we have an exciting, uh, agenda planned for this evening.
We'll move on to, uh, approval of the meeting minutes. Um, so approving the draft minutes of the December 17th meeting. Do I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes? Go ahead. I move to approve the meeting minutes. Second, second motion To be made by Chair Mansfield and seconded by Ms. Shernoff. Um, is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion? We'll move on to a vote. All those in favor of approving the meeting minutes from December 17th, say, aye. Aye. Aye. Um, that motion will pass. Um, unanimously the meeting minutes have been approved.
We'll move on to our information items. Um, I will pass, um, pass it to, to Dr. Ellis, um, for our first information item, revised Roadmap for Performance Monitoring Committee. Thank you, chair Refe. So this evening, I, I told you last time we weren't gonna revisit this every time, and here we are again. We're going to revisit the roadmap. Um, based on conversations with the full board last week around program evaluation, um, we did want to bring this back and get your feedback on how
to incorporate those conversations into the, uh, future PMC meetings. And so we, we did shift a couple of things around and added a program evaluation update to the March meeting. You'll see on the slide, uh, we have not added the topic in the remainder in the remaining me meetings of the year. That being said, I don't think that we could cover all things program evaluation in one meeting. Um, so we probably need to spread out and do touch points. So really, we were hoping to get your feedback on that. Um, so as a reminder, we do have, um,
several programs that have already been completed. You saw one as a full board on, uh, professional learning. We have three others that the evaluations are complete and the reports are publicly available. And those are for SEL Propel and Level Up programs and Extended School Year, or ESY. And so one question for your consideration is do you want to review these as a committee and how much time do you wanna spend on each of those? Um, and then following that, we have
programs being reviewed right now. They're in the data collection phase and one program in the design, in the evaluation design phase. And we can provide updates on these as you see fit. And then finally, we have a tentative schedule for the 25 26 school year. And as I mentioned last Tuesday night with the full board, we would love your feedback on, um, this tentative schedule, if this seems appropriate to you, if there are other things that we should be considering when we, um, finalize the schedule for 25 26. And so before I turn that over to, to you for, um,
for your feedback, this is sort of what we are, we are thinking in terms of next steps, um, would like your thoughts on, again, how much time you wanna spend on each, um, what that cadence will look like, and then guidance from you on the 25 26 topics. And then I will ask Dr. Tyler to jump in if I have missed anything. No. Okay. Thank you very much, Dr. Ellis. Um, I'll just, um, I'll express some points just to kind of prompt the discussion even further. I, I definitely believe that, um,
we should do program evaluations in this committee. Um, I see a benefit of having them discussed in committee prior to the, uh, full board. Um, just we can ask, uh, spend more time, ask more questions, and then provide even more inputs for the full board, um, as we evaluate programs. So that being said, there are some, there is some overlap potentially with CNI. And so I'm curious, uh, if there are any topics here that maybe, uh, would go to another committee instead,
like c and i or what other thoughts you all have. Um, but I, I think that as a, as a committee, it would be time well spent. I, I have been interested personally in, um, programming that has, uh, started off with grant funding and that we hope to mature into our, um, operating fund. Um, and just to, I think that those types of programs fall, fall nicely into the performance monitoring committee. So I would prioritize those. Um, but that's, I'll, I'll, I'll leave, uh, some room for other discussion. Chairman Mansfield,
Something that we are hearing a lot about is, um, behaviors. And so I'm wondering if there's, uh, we could look at tracking significant interfering behaviors, uh, over the last three to five years, that kind of info. Um, because that would give us more evidence for more behavioral supports in a class, in, in schools, you know, more SLPs for language supports, those kinds of things. Ms. Shernoff, Thank you. Um, Mr. Refe, I, uh, I agree with your comments. I I think that it is important for us to review here.
I think for time sake, and I, I'm pretty sure I'm not stepping outta bounds when I ask you this, but I think like us reading them ahead of time and making sure that we come prepared, um, would help us, you know, and maybe we can get some background beforehand so that we come ready to do the actual work of asking the questions and sort of evaluating the evaluation, if you will. Um, I would be happy to share the load and curriculum and instruction as well. I mean, we've covered topics like the elementary master schedule, um, and things may fall into that. So if that made more sense from a time perspective,
but from a consistency perspective, I guess I feel like if we're gonna keep it here, keep it here. Um, and additionally, I'm wondering if the 25, 26, if these are like in priority order or if they're just sort of, how do you tackle, do you sort of tackle all these at the same time? Like what are the timelines on these kinds of items? So I'm gonna ask Dr. Tyler to talk a little bit about that is it's not necessarily priority and there are multiple factors in terms of determining a program's readiness to be evaluated. Um, so Dr. Tyler's the expert on that. Thank you for the question. So about a year and a half ago, the previous board
with cabinet with, uh, actually established a kind of a three year tentative schedule. So this is the last set of topics from the previous board as tentative topics. So whatever the context was from your predecessors, uh, there are no particular order of priority, uh, but it kind of represents kind of the last topics of interest. So it's, uh, at this point, the way the policy is written, it's the board and the cabinet moving forward with do we continue with these items based upon why they were brought forward? Uh, or do you establish a different set of topics?
So the short of it is that this is kind of the last vestige of a previous board's kind of topics of interest with the cabinet. And that, just as a little bit of background, I'll note for example, um, ROTC is on here because it is a longstanding LCPS program that hasn't been evaluated in as long as I have been here. Um, elementary master schedule, on the other hand, is something that was changed recently and, um, we wanted to give it a year or two at least to be implemented in its new form before we evaluated the strengths and challenges of the changes.
So, various reasons. I guess I'm just thinking too, in terms of things that might have budget impact. I know we just finished, but here we go again. Um, it's never ending, but I, you know, there's a bunch of things in the master schedule that are staffing related that may alleviate and allow for flexibility. And so if we could evaluate where, so that's why I'm just saying like, in terms of timeline, I think it would be helpful for us to think about what those are. I know the dual language immersion program is just about to expand, so I don't know if now's the best time to be looking at it or if we're gonna look at the base
or, you know, should we wait till that second grade component is then a part of it. So, um, I might need to noodle on that a little bit more in terms of other topics. But, uh, really wanna also keep in mind what, uh, chair Streff said about, you know, timelines and being able to evaluate the productiveness of these programs in terms of, do we need to make changes? Is the grant working? Is it worth it to continue and operationalize that in our budget? Um, that's kind of the lens that I'm thinking about. So, So, uh, just to acknowledge our supervisor research evaluation is in the
audience listening very closely to this conversation. Um, so if you see on the final page of the slide deck, uh, the timeline is that we're looking at maybe a couple of months for the PMC to consider the different options to come back to staff and to say April or May, here's the, the schedule for 25, 26, so that RACI can then move forward with the program assessments to get those programs ready to be on the schedule. So there's no, uh, expectation that you'll have answers now, but give us, you know, two or three months to say, here's your decision, and we can get the, the sponsors of the programs ready
to be on the schedule to respond. Any any questions you may have. Yep. Um, and I'll just kind of restate my, the, the way I'm thinking about it is, any program that we have invested in, whether that's through our grant or we're experimenting or trying to innovate, or we intend to expand, whatever your choice, you know, word is, um, I would like, you know, this committee to inform the full board on whether we should take certain actions on, on different types of programming for the future. So that's, that's kind of, kind of first priority for me.
Um, and then beyond that, um, some of what, you know, Ms. S Shernoff has said. Any other discussion? Yes, Dr. Oh, thank you. That's, that's helpful. Alright, So we can move on to, um, item 4.02, goal two, exemplary staffing, use of differentiated and flexible staffing. Yay. Dr. Ellis, we have many presenters for this one, so I'm just gonna defer to Dr. Ellis. We have many presenters. Yes. Uh, so, and I, in fact, I don't, I I might just let them introduce themselves. Uh, so we are actually really excited
to talk about this topic with you. We have a little bit of data to share around goal two. Um, we're going to talk a little bit about the school improvement process. We'll talk quickly through that because I know the three of you, um, are well aware of that process. Um, but we've made some significant improvements over the past several months that we're excited about. And then we'll talk about, um, differentiated and flexible staffing. Casey Jones, our budget director, has, um, some great data to share with you. And, um, Ms. Mitchell and I can talk a little bit about the process
that we've used this past year, um, in terms of allocating flexible staffing. And then really excited to have Heidi Smith from Hutchinson Farm Elementary School and Dave Schaeffer from River Bend Middle School to talk a little bit about how they've used their, um, differentiated and flexible staffing, um, in their schools. So we will start with Goal two data. And, um, this is really just a screenshot of the typical data that we, um, have been tracking in terms of goal two. And, um, Lisa Boland,
our Chief Human Resources officer is here. If you have any questions about this, um, we won't read it to you. You are probably familiar with it. And I believe, um, the HRTD committee also has seen this in more detail. And I will turn it over to Dr. Tyler to talk briefly about our school improvement process. Thank you Dr. Ellis. So the idea of, uh, you've heard about our new school performance and support framework coming from the state that has been approved with the federal government. And the premise of it is that we're looking at performance growth and getting students into pathways.
And the idea of it aligns with a long term goal of LCPS to prepare students to be college career ready with multiple skill sets, five C skills. So there's kind of a congruence of a lot of ideas at the state and local level around how we prepare students, how we kind of judge our own success. So next slide, you see that that is driven by a plan do study, act process of schools where every spring through the summer we convene with our 100 schools and we go through everything from SOL data to used to be piles.
Now moving forward to vs one day looking at climate data, uh, looking at discipline data, so many other factors to look at how are we situating and supporting our schools and accomplishing those goals of maximum performance for all students, maximum growth for all students, and college career readiness. So the next slide you see that school improvement process is outlined where we, we look at goals and strategies, we look at our infrastructure, we con we conduct a root cause analysis, and we look at many different factors. One of the factors that we've gone more and more in depth with is the extent
to which schools are staffed in ways that meet their needs and what we as a division can do to support with that effort. So the next slide you see in that support role, yes, we're meeting with them, provide just in time support and fine tuning their strategies and just kind of highlighting some of the other items, opportunities to learn and support working directly with students. There are central office folks from special education, from English learners office, from all the content offices meeting with schools, some of them three times a year, some of them monthly, that kind
of predates the school performance and support framework. And part of those conversations, and I'll mention shout out Dr. Carter, is that to what extent do we feel that we have been able to staff schools in maybe some hard to staff positions in special education? Uh, and there's some factors that we as a division have to work with school-based staff at a division level across multiple departments that are factoring into our level of success with all student groups, all reporting groups, English learners, students of dis disabilities.
So when you look at differentiating flexible staffing, when we're thinking about when we want to support teachers with, for example, implementing research based strategies and special education and English learning, we have to think about the idea of additional staffing to coach, additional staffing to provide extra supports, especially for schools that have higher populations of need within their, their student populations. So that means that as part of school improvement and to have a comprehensive support or approach to supporting our schools, providing the extra resources,
whether it's professional learning, whether traditional staff with very specialized skills is critical to this, particularly when we're trying to close those long standing gaps in outcomes, uh, for English learners or students with disabilities. When it's an all hands on deck approach, it's experts like Dr. Carter and her team, it's human resources, it's teaching and learning, it's our professional learning. All of these factors have to come into account to support our schools, and staffing is a key component of that. So we are going to take a deep dive into two particular
areas of staffing and that's differentiated and flexible. And, um, as I'm sure each of you, it will be no surprise to you that when we work with schools, um, the the biggest need is, is more people, right? We have, we have infinite, it seems like resources. Um, and we, and we need people to support students and going based just on enrollment numbers doesn't always tell the whole story. Um, which is why several years ago we implemented differentiated staffing, um, based on the percentage
of students who are economically disadvantaged and English learner students in a school. Um, because again, a simple number doesn't tell the whole story. And then this past year we were grateful to be able to add flexible staffing, um, because there are other needs that weren't being addressed and, and things come up throughout the year, right? Um, the, the picture in August isn't necessarily the same in October or even January. Um, and so the flex flexible staffing has really been, um, helpful and we are grateful for the board for continuing
to see the importance of that. And so we have, um, a lot of information to share with you this evening on, um, how those numbers play out over the past couple years. So with that, I'll turn it over to, uh, Mr. Jones. Thank you. Next slide. Um, so additional staffing is a category within the, uh, school board's adopted budget that really is school-based discretionary staffing. That's all it is. Um, it's really broken down in three categories within this current school year's budget. We have flexible contingency and differentiated each with its own use.
And then we have the option to swap vacant positions as well, again, based on individual school needs. Each one of these are school-based positions that are applied at this school, um, for the budget that you just approved. We did also introduce a couple changes this year that were also much needed within the schools that included, uh, instantiating or really, uh, formalizing a pilot that we started this year that combined flexible and contingency, if you remember contingency was, uh, really just a numbers based game. Did you have enough to justify flexible was need space.
So for the FY 26 budget, those are all together and they can be, uh, divvied out based on Department of Academics and department of school leadership based on school need and the school improvement plan. Uh, we also have differentiated staffing, which we talked about during the budget process where we, uh, changed the formula a little bit. But that allowed us to give additional school-based support out at the discretion of principals. And we'll talk about what that looks like in a little bit as well. And we also expanded the use of swap. So instead of just being for vacancies and capacity issues, which is how it was introduced for 25,
uh, for 26, we've really recognized that it's school need. And if you have that vacant position, we don't need to tie those resources up. And there's probably a better use of it for that vacant FTE. So that's been expanded with the budget that you just approved as well. Uh, flexible staffing, uh, like Dr. Ellis mentioned was new this year. So this is the first year that we've had it and it hasn't been contingency. What really stood out, and we'll dive into these numbers in a little bit more detail, what really stood out at a high level is two things. One is the diverse needs that it was meeting. So one of the things that we kept hearing over
and over again in the work groups that we had on staffing standards was that the staffing standards were working really well in the main, what they weren't doing was meeting individual school needs where a school had a unique circumstance that wasn't replicated across all the other schools. And by definition, the division-wide staffing standard wasn't going to solve that. So things like flexible staffing allowed the school division to step in and meet individual school needs because it is flexible and school-based. Um, so one thing was the diverse needs, and the second was just the large impact that it had
and the board of proof this year that we could kind of start merging flexible and contingency together. And we got to try that out on a kind of trial basis before we brought it forward in the budget this year. And it worked very well. Uh, just quick high level on who's using this, uh, we see that about 75% went to elementary schools. We'll talk about how virtual Loudon played in with that. If you take virtual Loudon out, which again we'll talk in a minute, elementary school made up about 65%, which is what you would expect based on the number of schools that we have.
We have about 60 elementary schools. Uh, and then for middle school and high school, their proportions were really offset by how they used contingency staffing. So it all leveled out, but it's used across the school division. Uh, for the part that you probably will find the most interesting is how those positions were actually used. Uh, from looking at the 36.7 FTE that were given out through flexible, we could really identify six major categories that they were used for. One was school-based STEM teachers to provide six half FTEs, uh, to individual schools to kind
of jumpstart STEM programs. Uh, we had school-based front office supports special education, other school-based staffing needs, student supports, and virtual distance elementary. And over the next two slides, we'll talk about individuals. But, uh, yes, Ms. Mansfield. So school Based office, Sorry, is that also nurses and things like that, or, Uh, no, I think school-based nurses are in another category, but on the next slide We'll go, oh, this is in the next slide. Nevermind. I got it. Student support. We really try to anticipate. Um, so those three categories, uh,
student supports is exactly what you're looking at for each one of these uses. Uh, schools identified a very specific need. Uh, it was either around, uh, school, uh, improvement plans and specific interventions that a school was looking for, or it was around very specific individualized student need for particularly students at a school. So that's where we saw that category really come into play. And that made up 11 of the 30 odd positions that have been given out, uh, school-based front office support. The other category you asked, uh, were for assistant principals and deans and those
and one attendance and administrative assistant. Those were largely four schools that were on the upper end of their size for their level. Uh, middle schools, elementary schools where the staffing standards weren't really picking up that type of capacity at a school. And this was a way to help alleviate that. Uh, we had special education where five FTEs were given out directly to support, uh, individual student needs or schools where a larger school-wide caseload and serve populations were just larger than anticipated. And this was a good way to address that. And then the two other categories to highlight real quickly,
other school-based staffing needs. Uh, these were either to maintain supports that a school had in the prior year. So a good example is one elementary school had a reading teacher that they really wanted to keep and they felt just below the staffing standard for it. And this allowed, uh, that school to continue that support. Uh, and then also, uh, just scheduling concerns where a school was really trying to make a schedule work and this was a good way to step in and provide that extra, uh, coverage. And the last was virtual allowed In elementary, uh, the board did direct the, uh, LCPS continued virtual allowed in
elementary at the end of last year. In order to keep that budget neutral, we use flexible staffing. Uh, all of those positions are now included in the FY 26 budget. So all 11 of these FTE revert right back to flexible staffing, and they'll be used strictly for flexible staffing next year. Uh, so that's a flexible staffing component on differentiated the other side, uh, that we were going to talk about today. Uh, there were 91.3 FTE that were divvied out out of the total 91.6 that were available in the FY 25 budget. Uh, by far the three most utilized positions
were the school-based instructional facilitators, uh, mathematics teachers and reading teachers. And that's been a, and one of the things that we'll do every several years is we'll pull historical data re-look, and we use that data to inform, uh, recommended enhancements to staffing standards going forward. So you can see that those are three areas that we've had improvements for over the last years. If you remember from this budget, there's five new, uh, division instructional coaches that was informed by this data where we can see schools were continually requesting this, so let's give it to them
and let differentiated staffing be used for something else. And we've done the same thing for reading teachers and we'll continue to do the same just as we monitor how schools are using differentiated staffing. Uh, differentiated staffing by definition, it's been around since FY 17. It was designed really to target economically disadvantaged and English language students. Um, and you can see just that where most of the supports are going to Title one schools, LCPS has 15 served schools this year, and the vast majority of our differentiated staffing are going to those schools, uh, and different
and Title one schools on a ratio of 1.4 to one to get more staffing than non-Title one schools. They're differentiated. So it's really consolidated in those schools. It is spread evenly across levels. Just interesting to see. And finally, the specific positions that are actually being used. So the other chart was really an eye chart. There was a lot on there. This breaks us down by level. So you can see how those 91.3 FTE are spread out and what each one of the individual school, uh, school levels are doing for it. And, uh, like you'll hear from our two principals in a
little bit, each school's needs are unique and different, and this gives the principal, uh, direct access to those FDE in a way that, uh, benefits their school the most. And I think that's my last slide. Thank you so much, Casey. Um, so before I turn it over to Ms. Smith to talk a little bit about her story at Hutchinson Farm, I did just wanna say that, um, while Mr. Jones mentioned that most of the differentiated staffing is at Title one schools, I thought it would be important for you to hear from principals of schools that do not receive Title one funds
and how they utilize differentiated staffing. Um, one of, one of the goals of using differentiated staffing back in 2017 was to be able to support schools that, um, receive Title one funds, but then also still have the need and don't necessarily have access to those funds. Um, so with that, I will turn it over to Heidi to talk a little bit about how they use differentiated staffing at Hutchinson Farm. Thank you Dr. Ellis. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to share our story from Hutchinson Farm.
Just to give you a little background on Hutchinson Farm, we're located in south writing. Um, we serve students in pre-K through fifth grade, and we have about 631 students. Our white population is 38%. Our Asian population is 33%. We have about 13% Hispanic students and 9% black. We have 16% of our students are el and 29% of our students are economically disadvantaged. So our school in particular in the south riding area is probably one of the most, if not the most diverse elementary school in that area.
So in school year 2021, uh, 21, 22, 20 21, I'm sorry, we were provided with the opportunity allotment of differentiated staffing. And so we immediately chose a school-based instructional coach. It was, uh, school-based instructional facilitator at the time. They've changed the name and we immediately chose that, um, position. And the reason for that is we had previously had, um, a division instructional facilitator as well as a math facilitator in our building. But when we had those positions, they were in our building
for maybe one day or two days, and then they would travel to, to other sites. But we wanted a position in our building every day. And we had great success with the division instructional facilitator as well as the math facilitator, but we wanted someone who could build relationships and trust with our teachers, and that we found was really, really important. So that was why we, um, went ahead with the school-based instructional facilitator and being able to provide that support for the entire school and build off of that and support our school improvement plan,
which is the overall goal for our school-based instructional coach. So the role of the school-based instructional coach is really multifaceted. Uh, they work with the grade level CLTs, um, with curriculum planning, professional development, reviewing, uh, data, looking at MTSS plans, there's collaboration with the leadership team. We are constantly doing needs analysis and reflection, uh, looking at our action steps in our SIP plans and deciding do we need these strategies, take them away, uh, add new strategies if we need to, um,
and focusing, um, on support staff so that the staff can work with the students and be able to provide the supports that the students need. So really the overall focus is on the big picture, looking at the school improvement plan every summer, looking at what our goals are, how do we need to focus on that, what action steps do we need to put in place? And so this role is changing every single year, dependent upon what our SIP is. So next slide, please. If you take a look at, um, the chart here,
you'll see in school year 2021, our math scores were at 56%. So what we did with our school improvement plan is we decided that our overall SIP goal would be focused on math, but action steps that we put into place were related to personalized learning, data analysis. And RTI structures, our school-based instructional coach focused on this for the next two years. We, uh, had collective efficacy as the whole school focused on this. You will see in two years time, we were able to increase our percentages in our SOLs to 81%,
which was huge, huge and a great success. If you look at the next slide, I showed this, this is actually from last year. And this has to do with our achievement groups. And the reason I share this with you is because if you look at all of our achievement groups here, they are all on level one. And this was a great success for us because it shows you all these groups are showing growth. And this was a great success for us. And I believe this is a result of the work that we've done with personalized learning. And it was spearheaded by our school-based instructional facilitator
and the work that she did with our whole school and all of our staff for multiple years. Um, so this was a great success for us. And next slide, please. And the last piece of data that I wanna share with you is you will see that we were in 2022 with science. We were at 69%, we were struggling. And, um, so we immediately, our SIP goal was related to science. We needed to implement a focus on the instructional model, the five e instructional model. It was a whole school initiative, even though the SOLs were in, you know, fifth grade
we're being tested there. But we decided to do a whole school initiative. Um, she worked with our whole school, she worked on experiments, hands-on experiments, we did walkthroughs and we, we made an increase of 20 points in our science SOL um, in one year. And we've had a just tremendous success with this role at our school. Um, and this year we're working on, uh, reading. But again, as I had mentioned before, that SIP drives the focus. And what we love about that is she's not pigeonholed
and to just being, you know, focused on math or just being focused on reading, it's, it can switch. So thank you. Thanks, Ms. Smith. I will turn it over to Mr. Shafer. Uh, thank you. Uh, river Bend is a very unique school, uh, very different than a school in south riding of 600. We have close to 1200 in Sterling. And I love when Dr. Ellis said, just looking at enrollment doesn't always tell the full picture of the school. And so, uh, what I do wanna show is, uh, some staffing trends. Uh, we wanna look at our growth, um, that's unique with EL
and economically disadvantaged, uh, similar to what Mrs. Smith said, our focus on student-centered coaching, using that school-based instructional facilitator, um, expanding access to interventions, and then finally some consistency in needs-based staffing. So next slide. So this goes back to 2016. And, uh, something that's unique about Riverbend is our enrollment has been pretty stable, but you can see our instructional staffing has been up and down.
This isn't official, we haven't received our staffing memos yet, but we do anticipate losing at least five positions for next school year. Um, even though our enrollment is just dropping a little bit. So next slide. And then this just shows the pattern, uh, since 2016 of our differentiated staffing. And you can see, um, that we, um, have been pretty stable since 2020. And I'll talk about the uses, um, in a second. Next slide. Um, so a big thing prior to this year has been a driving force has been, um,
not only economically disadvantaged, but our English learners. And you can see, um, again, like when you think about the previous slide, stability and plateauing of our, um, yeah, perfect. So, you know, 2.3 to 2.6 has been about the same. And then the next slide you can see that huge increase. And um, currently we did not get any, um, staffing for monitor students. So these are just our students that receive, um, direct support. So next slide. And this is a slide. Uh, these numbers are not accurate.
Uh, these change every single day. So this is the beginning of the year just looking at, um, some projected of our economically disadvantaged. So some of these schools are in our cluster. Um, some of these schools are surrounding us. And, um, all of these schools, except for River Bend Middle School, receive some support, whether it's through, um, title one funds or additional staffing. Um, but we do not. And so even though we have over 500 students who are economically disadvantaged, we have not received Title one funds, um, to be able to support different needs that we have. Next slide. So, um, just like Mrs. Smith,
I would say the number one use, uh, that we have used since 2016, um, with our differentiated funds once we got to a 1.0 was in 2018. This, um, the, the school-based instructional facilitator. So Mrs. Smith kind of talked about all the different reasons of how we've used that position. I would say something else that we utilize that position for is coaching cycles with our new staff. Um, especially in Sterling, we have, um, all the time just with enrollment changes and just the location in the county. We have new staff constantly.
And so to be able to, um, help support those individuals is really important. Um, we've also used it to bump up different positions. So as an example, uh, this year we had a 0.5 FTE and el. And, you know, having a person in your building every single day makes a huge difference. So to be able to bump that up to a 1.0 has been great. And then specific to, uh, middle school, but I do know that this impacts elementary and high school as well. Um, we don't really have built-in intervention blocks and we're not staffed for that.
Um, so we can use different teachers, but in middle school we're staffed for six blocks, um, where they're teaching. And so to be able to receive some differentiated funds has enabled us to do some creative things. Like this year our math teachers are teaching five blocks and then they have an additional block where it's math labs where we target kids for intervention. And this, this differentiated staffing has enabled us to do it. Um, also specific to middle schools, having pure interdisciplinary teams in sixth and seventh and including math on those teams. And then I would just say like, um,
from a principal standpoint, I just, I so appreciate, um, the opportunity to give feedback and, uh, for the board or for central office to hear that and to make changes based on some of this. And so, um, two big things here. Um, you know, considering not just percentages, but looking at numbers of students. And so even in this year, um, this upcoming school year, our differentiated staffing is increasing based on our economically disadvantage. And that, um, that will be huge for what we can do, um, with our schedule.
And then the last is providing principles with flexibility on how we actually use this. So when this started in 2016, we could only, at that time we could only use it for teaching positions. And then we've been able to increase, like 2018 was that first where we could use it as a school-based instructional facilitator. Um, you can see from that list whether it's, um, an SSAA counselor, um, special ed el, just giving principles that flexibility has been, has been huge. So thank you for listening. Alright. Thank you both very much for sharing.
And with that, I'll turn it back over to you chair, str I'm sure you all have questions for our principles. Thank you so much. Um, wanna thank, thank you all again for coming. Um, this is probably the most excitement in terms of, I'll just keep saying the PMC is the best committee, um, ever. Um, but, but wanna appreciate ev you know, all of what was presented. Um, I'll just make very brief comments and I'll leave, um, some space for my colleagues, but for me, I really appreciate, um, what was said around having the, uh, SIP as the focal point
for a lot of the work that we do. And leaning on that, I think that, um, it's something we've talked about in terms of how we see that magic recipe of flexible staffing, giving the each school community what they need, giving them the discretion, um, and then leaning on the SIP to figure out what's working and what's what's not. Um, one of the things that I did was recently I went, I skimmed through a bunch of school improvement plans, uh, mostly in Title one schools, elementary and middle, um, looking for something that, you know,
some pattern, right? And just kind of anecdotally coming up with some conclusions because it would seem that we're trying to do all the right things, right? We're pushing all of these, um, flexible staffing, differentiated positions, um, and, uh, focusing on our, uh, SIP but one of the things that I saw as a pattern, I don't know how much of a pattern it was, but it was a few schools where, um, it was highlighted that staff turnover was one of the big pieces that was affecting student achievement. And so we could fill all of these positions,
we could give all the discretion, um, especially in our Title one schools. Um, one of the things I wanted to highlight was, and, and maybe potentially ask about, um, in terms of the impact was, you know, staff turnover, um, in title one schools, uh, specifically, and if that is a limiting factor or has been a limiting factor. Um, and then the other thing I wanted to ask was, I saw one of the, the data points around at the high school level, um, it transitioned a little bit away from that, uh, uh, instructional facilitator to school counselors.
And I've heard from, uh, school principals, whether at middle school or high school, around the need for some, the increased need for some of these positions. The appreciation for, for example, assistant, the additional assistant principal, uh, for title one schools, and just kind of the focus around the supports around the school community versus the, in maybe some of the instructional positions. Um, so that's something that I have in my, in my mind. Um, and, um, and then I'm also curious about, um, how we deploy centralized resources.
So looking at the different categories of, um, the central admin groups that go to the schools, which ones are utilized the most versus, versus which ones are utilized the least or by which types of schools, whether that's title one, um, that, you know, or I, that's an, an area of curiosity for me. I haven't asked this question in the one year that I've been here is, you know, where do we, from essential admin from the different groups that provide resources to the schools, which ones are the most utilized versus the least? So that was a bunch of stuff. Yeah. Was there a question? No, there were several in there.
The, the, the, the one question was, uh, concrete one was staff turnover. Yeah. So I will say anecdotally, and then I'll let Mr. Schaeffer, um, chime in because he mentioned this, um, anecdotally from Title one principles, yes, turnover is a concern. Um, very much so. And I know that HRTD has, um, has had conversations with the leadership at Title one schools, um, you know, trying to strategize about retention of, of staff. But yes, it is definitely, um, a challenge. And then, um, from experience, I, I don't know Mr.
Schafer, if you have anything to add to that. Yeah, every school is different, right? So, um, speaking from a school in Sterling, we know that a lot of people love to live out West. It's a little bit cheaper, um, specific to Riverbend. So every year we have less than 10% turnover, so it's not a lot. Um, but when you consider a staff of, you know, 160, 170 new teachers, like we need support onboarding those staff, um, especially if it's the middle of the year, if there's long-term subs. And so having that school-based facilitator has been able to support especially mid-year hires on that.
Um, you would ask also about centralized support. And I will say, um, that is something that schools and central office work very closely together. Um, we're fortunate that we not only have, um, I keep saying school-based instructional facilitator, it's now an instructional co coach that's school-based, but we also have a division instructional coach, and they are a tremendous team. And, um, we work directly with the professional learning office, um, to align our work with the SIP. Uh, but I, I think that there's, you know, when,
when there is that connection, um, it's, it's just extremely beneficial from the principal standpoint. Um, there's been some great changes too, like even today we found out that our current division instructional facilitator is coming back next year, and that motto is not changing. So to know the middle of February, that really helps with planning and all of that. Um, so we've done great work moving with that. I don't know if Mrs. Smith wants to add to anything. The only thing that I would say is that, um, the school instructional facilitator provides those supports to the teachers with resources, with planning, um,
and really helps the, the teachers and alleviates a lot of, um, extras I think a lot of times, which provides them opportunity to be teaching and working with the students. So the school-based instructional facilitator is not that interventionist, they're not the one who is hands-on with the students, but that's okay for us because it's the teachers that we want working with the students. A dream would be if we could have in every school a, we have our reading teachers, we have them as interventionists, but what would be great is to have our reading interventionists,
to have our math interventionists, and then have our school-based instructional facilitator. That to me would be golden because then we could, because right now we have the reading teacher who can work with those intervention groups when need be, but our math is where we need to go next. So that's a wishlist. Sorry, I thought I would just put it, put it, put a plug in if I could. Okay. We did, we did price it out, but we'll get there. Chairman Mansfield, did you have anything?
So I had, I've been to both of your schools and I lo my visits at both of them. Um, one thing, and I just went to Mr. Schafer's just recently, like this last week, but one, it's fresh. So, so one thing that struck me was, uh, that relationship between the division, uh, facilit, uh, instructional facilitator, a coach, and the, uh, school-based coach, and that they provided a safe space for the teachers to come in
and even down to the, down to the, they had sweet and salty snacks here, you know, I mean, they really thought about environment and it was like a nice kind of cool down room for the teachers. And what strikes me is that relationship and that building of trust that for the teachers, that they need it just as much as the students need it. And, um, and that environment too, that safe environment. Um, so I think that that was one thing
that I thought, well, that would be a really great way to keep our teachers and help coach them. Why do you think that they need so much coaching and support right now? I, I think our goal is always to build capacity, right? So we talked about the CLTs structure, the CL LT leads, and you need, uh, you need constant coaching. Um, you, when you were at River Bend, you spoke to, um, our different coaches as leaders, instructional leaders, we need coaching too. This is my 11th year at River Riverbend as a principal.
But things are always changing. New people are always coming in. Um, I just think that, you know, having that thought partner is, is huge. Um, so whether it's a first year teacher, a veteran teacher, a veteran administrator, like we just, we need that to build capacity. The hardest part is when we don't have enough teachers and then we're making them instructional facilitators. And so you take the people out of the classroom. That's so hard for me. I mean, can you speak to that at all? I mean, what do you think is the, where's the balance? That is a challenge. I mean, it really is. Um, in reference to your previous question,
I think the sustainability too, when we have a lot of transitions back and forth in the schools, having somebody there to help with the sustainability of programs that have been implemented. So, because what will happen is we will have somebody who's been in two years, someone who's been in five years and seven years, and having to make sure that we have sustainability of implementation of PD and practices with programs. So that's been very helpful. Um, we have not been impacted that much by teachers leaving for those positions. Um, but I'm sure we could be very creative in looking how
we might be able to implement that to benefit all of the schools. I think right now we just have a plethora of facilitators right now. So if we're creative, maybe we can look at how it could impact each school in a positive way. Could you tell me a little bit about what you mean by personalized learning? Yes. So we as a division or did you wanna address it, Dr. Ellis? No, you can, you can go ahead and go ahead, your Honor. So personalized learning was actually something that we implemented divisionwide, um,
and we implemented it in math and in reading, and there were four components of it. We looked at targeted instruction, we looked at reflection and goal setting, we looked at creativity and collaboration. And I'm missing one component. Um, yes, no, I hit targeted instruction. There was one, it's, it's in this slide, I think there's one other four pillars. So there was, yes, there's one other, one other area. And basically, um, you focus on those four areas and, and really differentiating for every child's need,
whether it be their academic, their social need, their learning style, and really focusing on the individual needs of the child in your classroom. And so we spent the first year focusing on personalized learning with math. We continued that for two years and then we shifted that for those four pillars and moved that to reading. So I feel like slowly but surely we did it and it made a difference with all of our achievement groups. That makes me feel better because when I was hearing personalized learning, like it was, I don't know, 10 years ago or maybe seven or eight, it was all about
the blended learning and the computers. No. And so that's why I was like, what do you mean by personalized learning? You mean just good instruction? Mm-hmm. Good instruction. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Um, thank you so much for being here. Uh, this is exciting I think in terms of meeting needs for students. Um, I have a couple of questions for you all and then I do have a couple follow-up questions from the presentation for staff. Um, I was wondering if you could speak, and I really do echo what you're saying about the coach, and I feel like that that's been so responsive
and now that certain schools have a coach and others don't, that's creating a gap, um, and a desire for everyone to have one. Um, I happened to be one of those ELA ones that bumped around school to school for many, many years. So, uh, it was hard on us too. You know, it was really challenging to feel like you were very effective in one place and to build that relationship and trust it took longer. So I think that that's, um, amazing. Something that we've talked a lot about here, uh, is just the, this idea of increased need for intervention, especially as it relates to MTSS.
Um, and I know Mr. Schafer, you mentioned the math lab, so I'm gonna kind of ask this question in an elementary and a middle lens. We are really seeing that our, um, like I'll take my daughter for example. She was in third grade when Covid hit, right? So one of those foundational years and now she's sitting in middle school, right? So those kids have moved up with the, some of those, you know, foundational gaps and now they're sitting in your lap. So intervention is hitting middle school at an unprecedented level. I would say at least the middle schools that I've been out to have have definitely mentioned that. Um, and then also what we've seen is with the modules
and all of that coming down through the MTSS um, process, you know, we have schools that not even, I mean our Title one schools for sure, but even schools that have just high needs and unique populations have these inverted pyramids where there's not 5% at tier three. There's a lot more than that. And so when you do a power up window or wind time or whatever, the intervention block, you just don't have the bodies to keep the groups at three per group, which is best practice. So then we start fudging the groups, right? Making them a little bigger just to make it work.
But then that's not really giving the fidelity. So I was wondering if you take how that plays into your school improvement process and if you could reflect on if those have been needs for you and then how that drives how you communicate a need for more staffing or if it does, Uh, the middle school level, a standard answer is people will say just do it in resource. You can do it in resource. The issue is we have three resource teachers per school. So you take Blue Ridge, I don't know exact enrollment, seven 800, and you got Willard 1700 and everybody gets three resource teachers.
And these are not teachers, these are universal, non-exempt classified employees. And so we, we're not staffed, we're not staffed to have math teachers or trained reading teachers in there. And so we have to think creatively and we have to use staffing, like differentiated staffing to create structures. So like you saw a reading strategies course where a reading specialists are supporting kids with particular needs. Um, if you heard the, uh, Scott Phillips at Eagle Ridge on the podcast,
he was talking about their model that they use. There's many other schools that use different models with math and a half or everyday math. Those are structures again, like they're good for kids. We know our kids on a block schedule need math, some kind of math every day. And so this differentiated staffing that does enable us to do it. Um, but the answer in middle school is not just, we'll just do it in resource. We, we just have to think differently about that. So there definitely are challenges. One of, um, the things that has, has worked well for us is actually our master schedule.
The way that we have built out our elementary master schedule, um, and making sure that each grade level is not doing English or math really at the same time. We're trying to do that and we build our intervention times into that master schedule so that they're not overlapping. So all the interventionists in our building, who would be the reading teachers, the EL teachers, they are not overlapping. And that was huge because if they're overlapping, they can't be in two places at one time. So it's really, that is very delicate when you build that schedule, it drives everything.
So you will have your PALS tutors, you'll have your reading teachers, even when you have a 0.5 reading teacher, you make sure that they are there for the majority, you know, of your language arts as much as you can. Um, the challenge I think is really more so with the math, but your el the way that the el uh, program is structured now too, they're providing intervention in the math time as well. So it's working out nicely. Um, but we still could always use additional supports for intervention because the groups you're right,
are getting larger. Yeah, I appreciate that. And mm-hmm. I'm gonna bring it up 'cause it's my thing, but I know a lot of discussion that we're having in the curriculum and instruction committee is around sort of middle school structures. We've been talking a lot about schedules, so stay tuned. Um, and I know we have a visit soon, but um, we've also been talking a lot about what these intervention numbers have done to the school. So I know you're using Lexie for all. Um, and so thinking about those kind of, it never really occurred to me the lack of specific reading teachers. Like in elementary you can hold onto those positions
or you could use your differentiated staffing. I think someone mentioned that's something that if you were around the bubble, you could keep it right. But in middle school it's like one for all. Um, and so are you seeing the impact of some of those foundational skills in word study and grammar and comprehension that is being illuminated by these Alexia platforms? Um, are you seeing that and then how are you applying that in-person face-to-face instruction or ensuring that that's happening because we know that that's then what really meets the need. How do you grapple with that without having the staff? Yeah. If you had all the middle school English teachers
here, they would tell you, we're just not sure how we can do it all in one block. Right? Right. So, um, like many schools we use Lexia and the kids do that, um, up to 60 minutes per week. They do that in resource. So we actually have trained our resource teachers to help with that. Um, so the online component of that, and then the teacher led component, what we're doing is we're doing that in our English language Arts classes. So it's just, it's, again, it's trying to figure out like, how is this all gonna work, um, within our current middle school model?
And it's, it's a challenge. But that said, like, we're seeing tremendous growth, um, with specifically, um, comprehension and word study. So our grammar, we are actually not doing the grammar strand. We're doing that through, um, no red ink, but we're seeing great strides with that. Um, it's just a matter of like, how do you do 60 minutes per week online plus teacher, you, we have to use resource as part of that. I appreciate that. And I wrote down what you said, staffing to create structures. I think that that's where you really can be creative with, with what you have. So thank you both for being here.
Um, I wanted to ask a couple of questions about contingency staffing. I noticed in the presentation it talks about actual meeting. What was projected, does that apply for over enrollment and under enrollment? So does that create a buffer? I know there's been situations where people find out like, you're a projected enrollment, you're like, you're a dean, you're gonna get dest staffed. Right. Um, I know we have some unique situations going on with Brambleton Middle and their arts programs that they're really concerned about because they're gonna only have eighth grade
for three years, and they've built these music programs that don't just happen overnight. And so yes, they're gonna drop an enrollment, they're losing two grade levels, so that's gonna happen. But they also are gonna get those kids back eventually. So is that something that is based off contingency staffing or would that be something that flexible staffing could be applied to? 'cause I know you're talking about that relationship is sort of intertwined. Uh, so in general, there's also a provision within the staffing standards that's called Hold Harmless. Okay. And what that looks at is, uh, when we do the staffing standard calculations, uh,
we have the CIP enrollment, which you approve in December. Uh, we take that and that's what we base our staffing standard calculations on. If a school looks like they're going to lose any of the tier based positions, we actually look out the next three years and see if at any point they're gonna pick back up. And if they do, it's considered a hold harmless. They keep that position and that position remains and it's really there. Provide continuity and stability. Uh, there are unique circumstances. The reading teacher I spoke about earlier, uh, Brambleton Middle, and on those, it's more of a whole of division support.
And that's where you'll have Department of Academics, department of School Leadership, business and Financial Analytic or, uh, business and financial services, HRTD, look at a school's unique situation and figure out what we have at our disposal from a resource perspective to make sure that school can maintain what they need. Okay. That's good perspective. I appreciate that. I, you know, I was actually speaking with a group of music teachers today in elementary who are, a couple of them are worried about losing their full-time music positions, and they're gonna maybe go from a point A at one
school to a 0.2 at another school. And when I think about how we're taking care of our people, and I think about morale, 'cause I'm glad you brought that up. Um, I think that that's another piece that we could use this flexible staffing to think a little bit more outside of the box on is what is this doing to the school culture and what is this doing to a mu Because a lot of those people, if they're gonna be a 0.8 or a point and a 0.2 somewhere else, they're gonna go look for a 1.0 that opens up. Right? I mean, I would, um, instead of being in two different places and only being in one place for a little bit.
So some of that right sizing, I think could be bigger conversations around flexible staffing. I noticed there was physical education in your charts, but I didn't necessarily see music in there, but kind of ties back to our elementary master schedule conversation. So we're coming full circle, but that's something that also moves the needle for kids, right? Happy teachers, like what they do that influences the classroom environment and, and people that feel secure in their positions are less likely to be shaky in that. And so I know that this is like that time of year
where we're finding all that out with the budget and enrollment, so it's probably a little heightened, but, um, I just thought that I'd add that because I've been thinking a lot about how we could make allowances for some of that and maybe flexible staffing is the answer. I don't know. Ms. Turnoff? Yes. Um, so we were talking, uh, at a high school and to be, to have a class in high school, it's 15 students, I think. And so that's what's happening a lot time in, uh, for music and theater and not necessarily art, but that they don't have enough in their
classes for some things. And so then they have to teach English or they have to teach something else, and then you lose 'em. Um, and that's, you know, the principles are doing what they can to give them a full FTE. But I totally get what you're saying, and I appreciate that because I think that's something to think about is the other thing when you do that, especially with the arts, is then you're stopping the arts and you're stopping that progression program and the program and possibly those kids' coping skills later too.
So, um, I think that's something that we should think of, uh, as well. I appreciate you bringing that up. Yes, We've, we've addressed this in curriculum and instruction, and I think we're gonna address the staffing piece going forward as we continue throughout the year. But I, you know, I sort of feel like if it's, and if you build it, they will come kind of thing with the arts. So if you can't get the kids, but then you don't have the teacher, well you're, it's like a perpetual cycle of you're not gonna be able to build the program. But that's sort of off brand here. But I, I do think that moving in this direction
of allowing you all to be able to have the authority to really analyze what's going on in your building and know what's in your building, and be able to advocate for those needs and then to express how that has changed has been really, really enlightening. So thank you guys. And thank you for the Presentation. So you said you want instructional facilitators or coaches math and reading. Is there anything else that, if you had the world and all the money in The world have three school board members who are listening to you, Like what would be your, your thought for your school?
I get my wish. You list your wishlist. How do you, how would You, well, how much time do you have? No, I, so I would say this about the school-based facilitator, instructional coach. Um, when you look at slide 20, that is the number one position. So if you were at any principal, that's what they would say. Um, I think at the middle school level in particular, um, there are positions such as like an SSA position that the high schools have full time. We know that middle school, it's a desperate need. You can't really do that as a stipend position. Um, so something like that, whether it's, you know,
testing coordinators or, um, you know, more in counseling. I mean, there's, there's so many needs. And I think what's, what's difficult is from a division standpoint to have a hundred instructional coaches at schools. Like it may not be feasible. Um, but we're moving in that right direction. So a couple more every year looking at schools with particular needs. I think that's important. Well, any other questions or discussion? No. So we will move on to the next item. Thank you guys very much. Yes. Um, multiple x multiple accessible pathways.
Um, and I'll pass it over to Dr. Ellis. Thank you. And before we start, I'll just, um, let Mrs. Smith and Mr. Schafer know you are welcome to leave and, and Mr. Jones, don't feel you're welcome to stay too, but don't feel like you have to. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. All right. So, um, our last topic this evening, I have, um, we have with us Dr. Paige Carter, director of special education, and we will be sharing some information around goal 1.2,
multiple accessible pathways, um, specifically focused on, um, special education transition programs. So, um, just as a reminder in our strategic plan here is Goal one, oh, nope, that's on my screen. There we go. Here is goal one. And then, um, action 1.2 specifies that we will expand student access to participate in specialized educational OC opportunities, which is quite broad. And so we're really focusing on, um, enhanced transition programming for students with disabilities. We had a question from the committee.
Um, I think it's been a couple months at this point around this topic. So, um, we are excited to share this information with you, and I'm gonna turn it over to Dr. Carter. Well, good evening, and thank you for, um, having us here tonight. We love talking about transition. Um, and I'm coming to you on behalf of Jenna Art and her transition team. Um, the programming data that you see on the screen really outlines, um, where our students with transition goals and associated activities in their IEPs are beginning in sixth grade all the way to 12th.
Um, it's important to note that it's not required until a student is 14 or turning 14 during the duration of the IEP, that these transition goals would be required. But there are students who are younger who have goals in their IEP, um, the largest number of them. Obviously as students go up in grade, the goals get more, um, intense and more specific as students identify, um, some transition goals of their own as well as those softer jobs skills that we begin to work on in different ways.
So the number of students that have the goals increases, but also the number of goals that each student has, um, can increase as well. We also wanted to review the transition services that we have in the division, both at, um, every high school has a transition teacher and a job coach. In addition, we have special programs project search. There's one program that currently has six students. Project search is a program that is, um, was originally grant funded from outside of the school division, and that students work in the,
a hospital setting for project search. Um, I was able to shadow a student, um, the first year I was here. And it was really exciting to see how they acclimated in the hospital environment and really became part of the staff. Everyone knew who they were. They were, um, um, performing, performing job duties that were, um, solidly what you would be doing in competitive employment. So it was exciting to see. Um, likewise, our CAS programs, there are seven programs, um, throughout the division. 42 students in those programs. We are getting ready to hold interviews
and, um, take applications for next year in the coming weeks. Um, so, but those programs are at various locations. We have, for example, at Landsdown Resort is one, um, there are some based out of high schools as well. Um, and then we have one SOS program serving seven students, and that's a very similar, um, a very similar transition program with, um, different levels of students. So, All right. My computer's moving very slowly, I apologize. Um, another, um, transition activity that we do throughout,
throughout the years, elementary, all the way through high school, are community independent instructional experiences. So far this year, 3,437 trips have been taken at the elementary level where it's encouraged, but not as required. 25 trips so far at middle school, 66 and high school are the bulk of the, um, of the trips at 3,346 trips out of the school building into the community for various reasons. We have, um, there are 35 community locations that have been visited, which sounds like to me we go
to the same place a lot of times. Um, but, um, for example, a community trip may be going to the grocery store to purchase items for the activity that the students have planned in order to, um, in order to carry that out within their transition classroom would be an example of a community, um, experience. And the top five readiness skills are on the screen there that you see. And what I love about these skills are that they can be applied in any work setting. So work ethic, um, showing up on time to the experience, um,
completing all of the tasks that are, are part of what you've planned for today. Also, teamwork, working together, obviously listening, speaking, workplace safety and efficiency and productivity. So regardless of what job field you choose, those are all skills that would be important. And then the last slide, looking at, um, our transition center. I know I'm very excited about it. Um, we have been meeting on the regular, um, once every couple of weeks I participate, and we are beginning to do some really intense planning for
what that transition center might need. Everything from what staffing would be required to what students to would participate and, and how often we would, um, go out into the community versus do things in the center. All kinds of activities are taking place in and around that idea already. So we are very excited, um, about that. But that is the, the data I have for you that's related to, um, the strategic plan. But I also just wanted to say that our transition team is very grateful
to the school board for their support, um, of the Transition Center. What questions might you have? Thank you very much, board members, um, questions? Comments? Go ahead, Karen Mansfield. Thanks. Um, so thank you for being here and for, um, your presentation. Um, super excited about the Transition Center, um, and looking at these, uh, at these items, especially like the getting out in the community, and I'm wondering, I, it's not required
for elementary school, but is there any way to bump up some of those things at all? A lot of the, um, a lot of the elementary trips, it's teacher by teacher, and so it is, is their preference. And there we are can absolutely encourage, um, more trips and that is something that we can do. It isn't a, um, we haven't imposed any restrictions on those from our office as far as funding and things like that. So, um, now if every, if suddenly there were 6,000 trips instead of 3000, that might be, that might be a concern.
But, um, we certainly can, um, continue to encourage that. And I know a lot of our transition activity is focused at the secondary level, and that is something that we're talking about even in the discussions about the transition center. So, and, and that's a good point, is you kind of start transition in elementary school, right? And Then on Yeah. Begin with the end in mind. Absolutely. So what are, what kinds of different, so I know that LCPS is gonna be, you know, on the cutting edge of everything. Mm-hmm. And so what are the new things
that you guys are thinking about for the Transition Center that are different than something than Fairfax or other places? Well, to be honest, we have, we are throwing every idea that we can think of, um, and, and sort of seeing what sticks at this point, because we really want to be mindful that sort of the sky's the limit, but we also have to be judicious in what we decide because it's, it's not infinite space nor infinite dollars, right? So, um, we are looking at technology as,
and the jobs that are in and around technology, um, 3D printing and all of the technology behind, even screen printing, vinyl printing, um, those kinds of things. Um, and having even retail opportunities for the things that are made because you can spread across so many different job fields by having a makerspace, um, and then go from there. So that's been a lot of the discussion in our meetings. We've also talked about, um, really looking at the student interests across
and what kinds of things can be housed in high schools and verse and thinking about what could be, what's already there and doing something completely different. So, um, to answer your question, I really can't yet, because we're still in the planning phases, but technology and maker spaces have been a huge part of the discussion so far. At least the discussions that I've been involved in. Technology is pretty, is is very current here in this area for sure. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And gaming is the other thing. And, and there's a lot of accessible gaming out there right now.
Um, eSports teams, those kinds of things think about. Anyway, I'm done. Thank you for your presentation. Um, I had a question about, you mentioned on slide four that transition plans are not required until the student is 14, but sometimes that can happen earlier. So would those conversations begin with the parent, with the teacher? Maybe both. And is part of their annual IEP, and then my second part of that question is what is the education process for parents to understand
what goes into a transition goal? And when does, when do those conversations begin? How do they know that that's part of their process? Sure. Well, I think it begins in elementary school in a lot of IEP meetings, um, simply because that's part of the process of the IEP. But, um, mostly sixth grade is when we really start talking about that. Okay. But there's such an emphasis in elementary school now on career planning and with all of our, you know, with all of our new applications that all of the students are using,
there is more conversation about student interests, about what kind of jobs you might be interested in. So that, I think that's part of the reason it's moving down below age 14 is because it's just a natural outcome of some of our other initiatives. But to answer your question about how parents know, um, it is our job as case managers to talk about that within, um, the school setting, obviously within the IEP process, and it's baked in there for secondary, but we also have an annual event called When the bus Stops coming, um, where, um, a lot
of parents can learn a lot about transition. There's also a lot of community resources, but it is our job as case managers to point parents in that direction. And transition is a lot of times something people think of is so far away. You know, even I used to talk to parents about the impact even of retention early on, um, in a student's career because a lot of students who are with us until they age out at 22, you have to really think about do you want the, is it important to have that time now, um, because we're learning language or because we're doing these kinds of things,
or do we want to spend that time on the other end really working on very specific transition things. So it really is student dependent when you start having those conversations. But it is our job as case managers in the IEP setting to inform parents about that and to share with them about community resources that can be part of the IEP planning and part of the IEP team as we get closer and closer to transition. Does that answer your question? It does. I love that. Okay. Thank you so much. Sure. That was really enlightening. Thank you Dr. Carter. I, I wanted to also ask, um, where does job sh where
or how does job shadowing fit into the data that you presented? Um, and could you elaborate on that? Sure. And job shadowing is a natural part of our CAST programs project search part of, as they develop the jobs that they're working on at the different sites, um, shadowing is part of that process. Um, as far as in at the high school level, sometimes job shadowing is built in when the transition or job coaches support students in internships and other things like that.
And I can tell you by, um, just by observation here with our cast cart and the students that are here that are, um, selling the snacks and things to staff here, there is absolute shadowing going on with the job coach. They work them through, um, through the different, the machine that they use for, um, you know, that we scan for all of those different things. So I think it's just built into job skills, but as far as an official job shadowing program or opportunities for rotating insur internships
or anything like that, that really isn't, um, something that is system wide, but maybe more isolated for, for what students are interested in, in doing and might be different at every school. But I think it is a very important part of the, the instructional process modeling is a evidence-based practice that starts in preschool. So I think it just continues on with the transition process. Thank you for that. Um, I'm, I was so seeing the transition services that we have and the number of students participating, is there any data around students who have transition goals, um,
and their ability to have participated in job shadowing across the board Related to the goals that they have, that they've identified? Right. Is that what you mean? Mm-hmm. Um, I can ask Jenna. I don't have that, um, I don't have that knowledge tonight, but I can get it for you. And, um, I know that we do track the transition data, but I'm not sure we track it at that level. But that would be interesting even to do a spot check of, of a set number of IEPs to see how many students are getting specific job shadowing. I know they're getting instruction Yeah. And opportunities and exposure.
But job shadowing, I'm not sure, but I'll find out Because we do pretty well as a division, you know, offering lots of opportunities for job shadowing. We have lots of community partners, business partners. Um, just wanted to see how accessible those opportunities are for students who might have transition goals or, um, and IEP. Yeah. And I know it's definitely a part of the transition planning, but I, I'm curious to know how often that's offered specific to the goal that the student has identified. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Any other comments or discussion? Thank you very much, Dr. Carter.
Um, I will, uh, move us to new business, uh, board members. Do we have any new business for the committee? Seeing none. Um, I'll now adjourn this February 18th meeting of the Performance Monitoring Committee. Thank you all very much.