good afternoon everyone I'd like to call the school innovation and turnaround committee to order Roll call please Mr Appel Mr Appel is present Dr Armstrong here Dr
Armstrong present Mr Berkin here Mr Berkin present Mr Castile Mr Castile not present Miss Champine here Mr Champan present Dr Clark here Dr Clark present Mr Harris here Mr Harris present Mr Hollis Mr Hollis not present Miss
Holloway here Miss Holloway present Miss Meline present Meerine present Mr Morris Miss Morris is not present but I know he's here You have a quorum Thank you Next item please Your first item is on
page one item 2.1 consideration of a report on types 2 four and five charter contracts and request for amendments The recommendation is to approve as outlined Motion please Mr Harris and second it by Miss uh
Shampine Any questions any report no opposition Motion carried Next item please Your next item is on page six item 3.1 consideration of a type five charter contract between the recovery school district and third future schools for the continued operation of Lynwood
public charter school The recommendation is to approve And you have also been passed out a backup piece of material Thank you Motion please Mr Morris Second it Mr Berkins Thank you
Dr Bramley Uh yes ma'am Thank thank you for uh allowing me to make this presentation Um if we could uh pull this up So as we've previously discussed you know one of our um key performance indicators obviously
is to ensure that uh more students are in higher performing seats uh across the state of Louisiana uh every single day Um that's a that's a KPI but also we're just all personally interested in investing in making sure that happens as
well Um Bessie has for a number of years over a decade been involved uh with the school up in up in Shreveport um on Lynwood uh called Lynwood um and uh took
the school into the RSD 15 or so years ago and um had a few I believe uh renewals but ultimately came to the point uh I want to say around 2017 2016 where the board decided to no longer
extend a contract uh for Lynwood uh to continue under their charter uh operator Uh and since that since that uh point in time uh the department has year-over-year recommended just a continuation of a management agreement
uh there at at Lynwood as a as opposed to a traditional charter setup Um we are uh making a presentation today and ultimately a recommendation uh to simply make a change in the operator of
Lynwood Public Charter School Uh there was uh discussion up in the Shrefport area that uh the Department of Education was recommending to Bessie that we close the school Uh there is no recommendation to close uh the school at Lynwood Uh I
think that that was um commentary that was fueled by emotions because uh when you make changes those are obviously very sensitive Um we have the option of recommending to you all to close the school uh and if we close the school uh
those students would move into the cattle parish uh school system into their respective schools We're not making that recommendation We're not suggesting that we close this particular school on this day uh our recommendation is because we believe that we have an operator that can drive greater academic
results for kids to simply change the operator uh at the school And so that's what our recommendation is going to be and I'll share a presentation with you uh at this point Uh Dr Stoer if you could help me with the slides that would be appreciated So I want to start with an
overview of Lynwood uh public charter you see that they are a K8 school uh with an enrollment around 1100 students 95.9% of them economically disadvantaged with the school performance store in the 50s they're at uh
56.7D and here's the here's the timeline that I I tried to recall um from memory but in 2009 Bessie approved the transfer from Kado Parish to the RSD uh as a type as a type five in 2014 through 2017
Bessie renewed that uh type five with uh the group for a three-year term But in 2017 Bessie did not renew the type five and instead opted to move towards a more flexible memorandum of understanding And
even since I have been state superintendent uh we've basically had a year after year single-year with Lynwood And people consistently both in in Truthport and here will ask what what are we going to do at Lynwood what's the
what's the plan for Lynwood and uh we came to the place most recently where we believe we have an operator uh that will make the changes that we know need to be made for students there at Lynwood Next slide This is a a look at uh school
performance stores So you can see there uh Lynwood uh is in the blue Um they have they do have an uptick can see since 2021 and they've shared this information with you that they have had this uptake uh but they are still at a
56.7 uh D and they have they have not come out of that FD status for the entirety of of the time for which this board has been working at this particular uh school as well as previous boards Uh at the same time you can see that gradual
uptick with uh state performance scores which are the ones in the um the red burnt orange color If we look at ELA grades three through eight mastery rates or percent proficient uh of kids uh you can see
that at Lynwood uh in the third grade the Louisiana average is 44% of students are proficient At Lynwood it's 19 It's a 26% difference between state average and Lynwood Uh if you look at fourth grade our state average is 41% at Lynwood it's
16% which is a 25% difference Fifth grade 43 for the state 22 at Lynwood a 21 point difference Sixth grade 40 to 25 which is a 15 point difference Seventh grade 45 to 28 which is a 17 point
difference And then 8th grade 45 to 30 which is a 15 point difference If we look at math which would be the next slide you see similar uh findings uh ranging from 29 to 15 point uh differences from uh the state average to
to Lynwood uh with that Lynwood with the exception of sixth grade being less than 10% proficient uh across the board in math Next slide So our proposed new operator is Third Future Schools We have
some we have an existing relationship If you recall two years ago um we had a a school that was struggling in Baton Rouge called D Prep Democracy Prep Uh we recommended to this board that we uh assign in this very similar fashion that
were hap that's happening today We had a a a charter operator uh Democracy Prep uh at at a school and we did not feel that they were meeting the expectations We asked Third Future to come into to that particular school on this same timeline and they've done that Uh and we
are seeing uh results there at Prescott Uh in the same way last year we worked with the Cado Parish School Board and we uh were able to uh take Fair Park Middle School in Cat uh keep that Fair Park label keep that Fair Park uh heritage
and tradition but convert it to the operator being Third Future and we think we'll see positive results there as well Um Third Future is also working with the East Baton Rouge Parish School System for a type one charter uh called
Bridge If we look at the comparative demographics between Lynwood and and Prescott which is our third future school here in Baton Rouge you can see that their minority population is the same at 99% Um Prescott has a slightly higher uh economically disadvantage rate
at 97.6 Both schools serve serve a community with high needs obviously Uh and then you see the English learner population being two and 1% respectively So similar demographics between the two schools If we look at at Prescott uh data they have a transitional score for
20 uh 24 They have an enrollment of 427 Um so their their first year score is a 58.5 which is higher than Lynwood after you know a couple of decades of of existence Um Prescott is outscortoring
uh Lynwood with the same demographics Um and if you look at where D prep was in 23 uh they were at a 42 So in one year at Prescott with Third Future as the operator we've gone from a 42.2 to a
58.5 So a considerable uh uptick there in one year I would note that you have information that was provided to you from Lynwood not from the department You received an email I believe and then also you you have a a form that looks like this I want to just be clear this
is not a department uh flyer This comes uh from Lynwood not the department Uh next slide please If we look at pro uh progress index and look at a comparison there you can see that Lynwood's progress index is an 87.7 which is below the state average This is
growth year-over-year compared to what we've seen at Prescott in one year with a 107 uh progress index Looking at school performance data uh you can see the percentage of students showing growth in ELA and math
Uh and then we also have it available for the lowest 25% of students Uh and you can see Prescott in their first year in their first year uh is is outperforming the Lynwood numbers across the board
When we look at uh middle of the year growth there at Prescott with some of the um assessments and screeners that they use uh you can see that we're already expecting uh growth there at at Prescott again for this year based on internal tracking uh in advance of
formal standardized testing Uh when we look at middleof the-year staff survey results at at Prescott you see that we have uh really uh high uh ratings from their faculty around uh their school model and uh they basically
are right there at that uh almost 100% uh intent to return number So really good numbers from the staff survey there at Prescott Um there are a number of different ways in which Bessie can authorize um a stool to be operated if we take them into the
RSD This is just a reminder We've we've shared this information before Uh we can direct run We can partner with a a type an operator to have a type five We can explore a university partnership which is something we should uh consider
thinking about moving forward Or we can do a management agreement So we previously been on a management agreement since roughly 2017 uh with Lynwood Uh this recommendation moves this to a full charter model uh through a type
five So our recommendation is to approve a type five uh charter contract between the recovery school district and third future schools for the continued operation of Lynwood public charter uh effective July 1 of 2025 Uh as part of
this um we have impressed upon Third Future as an operator to be very sensitive to the the needs of the community and the heritage uh the traditions of the school Um but also we just believe that with the change of operator at the end of the day academic
results for kids are going to go up Um we've seen it uh I've seen it in multiple states with Third Future as an operator and I'm just confident we'll see it again here uh if I was if if if we were not confident that we would see results improve at at Lynwood we would
not be making this recommendation Why why would we you know go through the struggle go through the challenges go through any form of controversy if we didn't believe that it would make a difference um and RSD work is is not easy work It's hard work It's sensitive work It's tough votes Um but we think
it's the right thing to do so that we can we can make sure that kids get what they need academically So that's our that's our recommendation Dr Dr Schooler I don't think we have any additional slides No we don't Thank you Thank you Dr Bramley and Dr Skooler Any questions
comments before we go into public comments mr Morris yeah Dr Skooler Uh one of the concerns that was raised uh to me um was about the uh the health clinic at the school Um I' I've visited Lynwood a couple times in the last I
don't know four or five years so I'm familiar with the campus I've never visited the health center but I've heard a lot of good things about it You you and I discussed it a little bit I think you had a site visit Um and so there were some concerns that if this board did vote for Third Futures to uh become
the operator for the school you know what would be the u outcome of the health center can can you speak to that or maybe someone from Third Futures can speak to it i know it's a sensitive issue so I'd like to run it the ground I I think Mr Morris that's a really good question I think it might be most appropriate since we would be
authorizing the operator if the operator actually speak to that if that's okay with you You you did a a clear answer Uh Mr Katic from from Third Future I know you're here Miss Miles as well Welcome uh here being with us today And and Zach be sure and introduce
yourself please Thank you So Zach Kretic superintendent of schools at Third Future Schools Thank you for the opportunity to be here today and um possibly um continue or start this partnership So regarding our health clinic sir um so all we ask for the health clinic is that students or
teachers don't select to go down that an administrator a a counselor or a registered nurse which would which we would have would send and refer a student to the clinic As you guys know turnaround work is hard Students need to be in class and students are students
their adolesccents their their kids And we would just ask that an administrator a counselor or our nurse refer down to the clinic if the situation is more than they can handle That's it sir And I know you've had some conversations with the current operator Is that the current practice or or do you My understanding
is yes that is the current uh that is the current practice based on my conversations What we do not allow if I can be clear is a student cannot self- select to leave the classroom and go to a clinic Students cannot just get up and go And in Third Futures we prefer that a
teacher work with a counselor the nurse or the administrator They are more trained professionals to make the recommendation for the student to leave the classroom environment and go to a health clinic Thank you Any other questions from board members
mr Berkins you Wait Okay Thank you Any other questions before we go in miss Dr Clark what was the criteria that Lynwood had to meet to be renewed if a renewal was an option
so in theirou there was not a criteria specifically other than we followed the um kind of traditionally a holistic approach So we met with the um Lynwood board in July and talked through their
data previous data current data and it was communicated then that they are right currently the only local board that is operating directly operating their school and we talked through the data of we needed to see progress for these students They're just not
progressing to proficiency at a fast enough rate that we would like to see them to be successful to go on to high school And so we've had those conversations during the year throughout the year We visited the school visited the clinic um which was very nice And so we've had these conversations but at
this point without very specifics we do feel it's a holistic approach it is time to add a new operator that can move students at a faster rate to get them ready for high school because Lynwood is a K through eight And Dr Clark I would add to that too like we I I am I know
they may not necessarily feel it but I mean I think we're thankful that um the operator there at Lynwood has done the work for the time in which they've done it because you know this is this is the first point where we feel like we have a high quality operator that we believe in that also wants to go in and do the work
And so that's why you just had that yearto-year um because we we weren't convinced in the the model that was taking place at Lynwood the results weren't indicating that we should be convinced with those but there wasn't a better alternative
And we feel like now we finally have uh an alternative that makes sense um to to move forward with a more long-term commitment than the year-to-year model Thank you Anyone else um we're going to go into public comment And just to
remind everyone comments are um excuse me comments are limited to no more than three minutes per individual and five minutes per designated spokesperson of a group or
organization So may I'm going to call up the first person Um Jay Walters Stefan Jennings and Tara Celely please come forward and you may sit at the
table Mr Yeah Jay it's representative Okay Okay I'd like to also represent representative welcome you here today It's good seeing you whether we're in shreport or here today He has five minutes
Representative Walters You have five minutes Thank you Uh thank you board uh for uh allowing me to have this opportunity and I won't be uh before you uh long I sat listen to the presentation Um but I have some
rhetorical uh questions and then I'll move into my point Um can we truly compare the numbers uh of Prescott and Lynwood in good faith when there's nearly double the amount of students at Lynwood uh I don't believe that that is
a fair comparison at all Um and also I want to put on record that if this measure passes that uh in Kettle Parish Third Future will be responsible for 1600 students in Cattle Parish 1,600
students in Kettle Parish and we need people who are already in the future of these children and that would be Shrifport Charter and that would be uh the principal as well as uh the three principles and that would be um
everything that is already in place Also whenever uh the recovering school district um came they gave a report to the Bessie board I immediately you know called to find out hey I noticed that Lynwood Charter was mentioned Um you
know what's what's going on and I was told oh they needed to fix a few things And that is what I'm still hearing today fix a few things But we're not really hearing what those few things are And again I find that um very very problematic Um nevertheless uh I do
believe that um Shrifport uh charter they deserve one more year to operate uh this institution to prepare 1,091 children for uh a possible change in their life 1,091 children for this
possible change in their life Thank you And I just want to speak but I am here I am here to talk about the accomplishments that we have made at Lynwood Yes it is true that Lynwood have
been operating street charter school has been operating Lynwood from 2009 until 2000 well to till today I came to Lynwood in 2017 as the oper as the CEO of Lynwood And since then we had to come
in I had to put in new all tier one curriculara I had to hire a finance department HR department I had to hire a maintenance staff cafeteria staff I had to hire teachers It's a desert up north when you try to find teachers There aren't quality teachers And then the
ones that were there they didn't have the capacity to do the work that needed to be done and year-over-year we were given a one-year management agreement that made it difficult for us to hire quality teachers and sustain them
because they wanted stability And even with that if you look at our trend data year-over-year we've been able to show increases year-over-year Now mind you we uh let me just say this we didn't
shut school down during CO at all We kept school going through coke We had an am and a pm schedule and we had a hybrid model Our kids I wanted to keep our kids in school because I know that if they were not in school that there was a
possibility that we would lose the ground that we had gained With that being said if you look at the data and it is is it is posted on the state data on the state website If you look at our data we didn't have that CO slide that most schools around Louisiana or the
nation had And guess what happened after that when we were able to test we increased our SPS The next year we increased our SPS and we came out of F status And then the next year we com uh we uh increased our SPS and we are
guaranteed to get uh to increase our SPS again this year based on some shifts that we've made in in our instructional practices But I'm not going to take up any more time because I do want Miss C to talk about our data Please identify yourself Thank you
Identify yourself Good afternoon My name is Tara Cely I'm currently working as the chief academic officer at Lynwood Public Charter School So thank you for your time today Um today I again want to echo the sentiments not to um not here to badge third future I don't know much
about them but since we are being compared to Prescott's performance I thought it fair to do a little deeper dive of what the actual numbers are if anyone in here is a mathematician or does math at all uh we certainly know
that numbers play a huge part uh in what we see and so I do want to double back to say again our enrollment is roughly around 1100 but when we drill the data down around tested students the actual uh not the anticipated we tested 657
students that is 100% of our population in third through 8th grade as well as um when We look at Prescott they tested anywhere between 92 to 100% of their population and it totaled up to about 235 kids So when we look at performance
it is probably much easier to move 235 kids in 657 Um again not badging them I'm glad they were able to move Um but I do think that we've been move moving children as well as teachers to be able to support the students in the building
The second thing I want to acknowledge is that when we review the actual raw number in percent of students obtaining the basic mastery in advance between the two schools closely and I'll just look at third grade uh as a quick example for
third grade um Prescott actually tested 38 kids and Lynwood we tested 98 So again that's going to look a little different right and so when we drill that down a little bit further we have third grade or third graders performing
at a basic mastery or advance The raw number for Lynwood and ELA is roughly 39 students The raw number for Prescott is roughly 11 students If we're looking at the percent times the number of actual tested when we look at math the same
thing exists Lynwood 27% and Prescott 22% of those students that were tested The raw number is 26 students for Lynwood and math that obtained basic mastery in advance and nine students for Prescott I say this all to say when we
really look at data we all want the kids to move We all want the kids to perform I've lived in Louisiana twice here in Baton Rouge and now in Shreveport um and a transplant from Atlanta Georgia So I just think that it's important that
whatever we consider for students as all of us are taxpayers and would like for our economy to grow for students to have a future that we really look closely at numbers and not just gravitate towards one year of improvement when we've had three to four years of progressive
movement So when you guys get ready to vote I just hope that you reconsider or consider how we move forward no matter which operator um you guys decide to go with Thank you Thank you Mr Um Jennings did you want to
say something no not at all You're good Okay Thank you Dr Bman May I May I uh ask Mr Lambert to come to the table just for a second um there have been some questions around testing percentage I just want to make sure we get some
clarity around that Uh Mr Lambert do you do you happen to know because in terms of testing percentage where are we in terms of students that tested that were supposed to test at both Lynwood and Prescott yeah happy to do that Uh
99% was the rate at both of the schools Okay And Mr Lambert wouldn't it wouldn't it make sense that uh if a school had double or or triple the population that they could have more students score basic mastery or advanced and at the
same time have a lower percentage of those children scoring at advanced because they have more kids Yep Thanks Thank you Questions yes Mr Berkins You mentioned uh that you're scheduled to approve improve again this year How
do you know that it's it's based on our internal data and what it's telling us and that's what we use to determine whether we're going to grow or not and any idea of how much the trend line is the same and it has been in the past
not as much as more So we we we have a rough estimate that we should grow at least between three to five points Um and that's being conservative Um one of the things that we do of course is we have used the NWA
map in the past Um but this year we are using the star um in order to determine children's uh performance and that looks at their diagnostic performance So does the map uh NWA map and so that's how we're able to tell as we're moving along
um overall averages um and actually there has been uh Miss Red she's not I don't know if she's here but she's participated in our academic committee meetings so that data has been discussed as we go along and we have been averaging about six points of growth
since 21 last year was an anomaly because we lost some teachers in critical for areas like third grade and fifth grade So we made some shifts in instruction and in curricular So we're
seeing that those uh shifts that we've made are showing us that we are going to hit our target this year You mentioned a while ago your I think your last statement sentence said no matter which charter we
um which way we go forward you wanted to explain what you meant by that last statement So I've I've worked for recovery school district before in 2012 when I was at linear charter Uh what I do know is that
Prescott has been under recovery school district since that time as well And so several or a few different charter operators have operated uh the school And so my comment is just grounded in the fact of making sure that and I and I
know everyone's vested in student improvement just making sure that the best charter is selected based over a period of time of performance so that we're actually growing and not just growing you know
statistically right of course we can show data for uh movement there but making sure that students as a whole grow there there are a couple other things that I would like to say you you heard me speak to the fact that it was very
difficult finding teachers North So with that being said we tried a number of things LRCE here in Baton Rouge which is the Louisiana Resource Center for Educators So we sent like 30 something teachers through that And because we
were not able to have a multi-year contract we were year-over-year Almost all of those teachers left us once they got their once they did their two years they because part of the uh obligation was you had to do two years if we were to pay for the program And since then
we've partnered with uh Holy Cross University in New Orleans where we've sent six teachers through and three are uh slated to finish at the end of this year And what that program entails is that we send teachers through their program to get certified These are
alternative certifications and they are assigned a mentor teacher and the mentor teacher not only works with them on how to deliver instruction in the classroom but they also uh do real-time teaching with with our teachers where we use
what's called swivel They wear the teachers wear a l a lanyard with a camera on it So the teacher the the mentor teacher can see in real time what's going on in the classroom and we're connected to Zoom They can say "Hey I saw what you're doing here Can
you put me in a Zoom room with this group of kids because I don't think you taught that concept well." Or they may say "Hey you go into a Zoom room and let me teach the class." Those are the innovative things that we're doing at Lynwood We're not only teaching our kids
how to pass a test for games We're teaching our kids how to become lifelong learners and readers for sustained growth Uh it's just been blood sweat and tears if you will for our staff and our community This
school has come a long way And I'm not going to sit here and say Lynwood is a good school because everyone would say their school is great even when it's failing But I am saying that we've created an environment that is great for learning great for learning for kids
So I have to sit here and not knowing much about your school make a decision And the one thing that I think about is if my child is in the first grade what is the best path
forward for my first grade child what say you well I'm going to have one of our first grade teachers speak to that What I am saying is that when you look at our data we have some of the best kinder and first grade
teachers So we send our kids to second grade uh pretty much reading re well reading It's third grade where that testing grade is where sometimes we don't we can't that's where we start to struggle with our certified teachers or quality teachers in the grade So we have
to build those uh teachers up and ramp them up I would venture to say if I if my kids were school age kids I would send them to Lynwood because I know how to advocate for them and I always want to make a school a great place for my
own kids So I'm concerned about the welfare of every kid not just my kids or certain kids but every kid that comes through the door of Glenwood But to be very blunt is that first grade's grader's
future better off in your hands or better off in a third future i would vent you to say it would be better off in our hands because we have put we're very targeted and uh in in the work that we do around
third graders I mean around uh that first grade student we have uh we we have summer school we have targeted interventions there are a lot of things that we have put in place to support struggling learners and keep in mind
that a lot of kids that come to Lynwood the community that we serve A lot of our kids come to us not even having to know how to hold a book right side up They don't they're not they've not been exposed to a lot of things And so
uh I would venture to say that the things that we do with our kids make them better off for the future Thank you Mr Perkins Is that concludes your Mr Appel thank you Uh thank you
guys for being here I appreciate it Um I want to ask a question that has really perhaps nothing to do with Lynwood but y'all are experts and there's something has troubled me for my whole career and I really would like y'all's opinion on it and maybe you hit
on it a minute ago when you talked about kids that don't even know what a book is Um is there a limiting factor is there is there a reason why across the state not just your school we seem to be
constantly bumping up against a a a ceiling in other words we're not seeing substantial growth uh the way we'd like to see it There seems to be a an upward ceiling on growth um in scores because that's the only way
we can measure it um for schools across Louisiana I mean so I guess what I'm asking is y'all's numbers are not particularly great There are a lot of schools whose numbers are not particularly great Why should we expect or should we
expect those numbers to grow to where they are really great or are there factors in your community any community around the state that limits the growth of education in in our in our kids does that make sense
yes But if you look at our trend data pro uh our progress index the state's progress index is what uh 89 89.6 and I think our progress index is 87.7 We're trending right there with the
state Yeah But my point is not so much the trend it's why as a state we keep bumping up against this ceiling We're not seeing growth like this We're seeing growth like this and we've spent decades of reform time
trying to break that cycle Um I was just curious if you all ever had thought about where where we could potentially end up in the best case or is there a limiting factor that nobody wants to talk about
here uh poverty uh family broken families whatever it might be My personal concern is early childhood preparation um it just doesn't seem like we're growing as a
state in the right direction and and I thought maybe y'all as experts would have some insight into that What I can say is that when you look at the the types of students and the environment that our students come from we're
dealing with a lot of social emotional issues right that prevent kids from learning You know we have them for seven eight hours a day when they come to us And a lot of times they come to us with a lot of baggage a lot of issues that we have to deal with and address on a
day-to-day basis And then we send them off on the weekends and they're back in that environment And so that's one reason The other reason is that a lot of our parents just aren't educated enough to know how to support their kids And so
we address that issue through through a lot of parent meetings and community meetings of um those measures But I think a lot of it has to deal with the social and emotional state of kids that we are serving Co had a great and
profound impact on our kids A lot of our kids lived in homes where they were not able to isolate They lived in homes where they saw their grandma their grandfather died brothers sisters uncles die These are real people and then you send them back to us after they've been broken and dealt with all of those
issues Those are some real issues and we've been able to show growth even through all of that And mind you we we're not having 16 points of growth in one year but given the number of our kids for example when Miss Cely talked about 98 kids being tested in third
grade as opposed to what 33 we may have 55 kids in third grade that are unsat and the other school may have five It's harder to move 55 kids
than it is five kids And so it's a numbers game Yeah And so but again I'm Go ahead please I think to answer your question really would involve like a real true research study right i don't think that's a question that we can really sit here and answer I didn't know
if you insight into it That was all Mr Yeah I don't think we can answer that Okay Miss Dr Bramley can assist with this I again I'm not questioning the the commitment of these individuals What I'm saying is that for 15 years this
operator has been at this school Essentially we're a D I mean that's that's not where any of us need to be And I'm not willing in terms of recommendation to go 15 more years I
don't want to go two more years when we have an operator that we believe can make a difference And we have seen it early on Uh Mr Lambert if you don't mind coming forward and giving us a little bit since we've heard from the operators here from Lynwood uh giving us a little
bit of additional information about some of the turnaround efforts at Prescott and what you're seeing in the data Uh and then I'd like Mr Kratic and maybe Dr Miles to come up Uh since we've heard from the Lynwood uh operators Yes ma'am
If Dr Miles and Mr Kratic would also come up that way we can hear from Mr Lambert on the the data and then hear from them Dr Cart sorry Here's my question I guess my concern at this point if RSD is not wanting to directly operate any more schools I guess my
question to Lynwood is and I did ask this question before is at what point did you guys not look at becoming your own operator creating a nonprofit and putting into write the charter cuz I don't understand how long you guys
thought that theou should keep on going and going and going and going without eventually Bessie looking at the fact that they don't want to continue to operate schools and we are looking for operators Why didn't you guys become your own operator and what was the what was the expectation for the next how
many years that Bessie would operate the school under the RSD's umbrella i I guess that becomes my concern because we can go into the data and talk about all those pieces and and Mr Pal let me address what you just asked because I think that's a great question Being an an educator for 24 years still in the
school the things that I find that continue to cause us to not have growth because that's a really good question We can change the parameters of of accountability We can come up with new tests etc But we're not actually dealing with the skeleton in the room And it
does become an issue of poverty teacher effectiveness teachers not being trained properly teachers being in the classroom And I'm not not picking on teachers because I am a teacher at the end of the day I think that we are moving in the right direction because now as we when we had the CSRD grant I know I've been
here a long time I don't know if y'all remember the CSRD grant but one of the things with that grant is schools were able to create numeracy and literacy programs that were consistent over a period of years Once the grant ran out those programs ran out and we stopped doing it But we begin to see growth
because even with poverty right once I teach a child to read and understand you usually don't forget You might not have the resources to continue to keep practicing but you usually don't forget to learn how to read I think that we're moving in the right direction and making
sure all teachers are trained So even if I'm not a great teacher I am still trained consistently across the state of Louisiana in literacy and hopefully the numeracy Once I think we continue to keep that consistently moving and our kids continue to grow and move we will
start seeing some changes in our system But we cannot allow poverty and the lack of a parent in a household to be be an excuse to just poor economical living and no success We have to keep putting our consistent pieces in place and making sure they happen So I I applaud
LDOE when we talk about it And remember growth was not something we actually measured years ago We just looked at proficiency And if they weren't proficient that was it Growth is just really starting And again I'm going to go back to the high schools I want to see high schools show growth properly
different from elementary because except for English one and English two being in that in the building I don't know how you growing from algebra to geometry I understand there are some concepts but they're not the same concepts And so I think that when we look at it and we look at the numerousy and literacy our
kids are going to soar once those programs continue to keep growing And I I just encourage all Bessie members and LDOE to continue at least give us 10 to 20 years of literacy to see where we we land But other than that my question goes back to where where where was the
fallout in you guys making sure that you could operate your own school well that did come up a couple of years ago but we were told that that was not an option for us because we were not a proven operator And I I hear what you're saying
And there was a previous there was a different administration in place at that time And we were told that there were we it's not an option for us And that's why we continued on year over year thinking that once we got to a C because that was the measuring stick a C
and then we could apply for the charter and we're 3.3 points away from that and we're sure we're going to hit that this year and more Sure One one second Mr Jennings can you clarify your position at Lynwood i'm the I'm the CEO Uh I'm the CEO of CEO And do
you have a principal i do We have three principles and a chief academic officer Yes Good Thank you Yes Mr Morbus Yeah What's the average teacher salary the average teacher salary at Limwood is around 56 Okay Uh I want to ask the uh
third futures representative What's the average teacher salary in your in your with your model our average teacher salary in Louisiana is 81,000 Thank you Dr Clark did Mr Jennings answer I mean are you good with your question okay
Thank you I'm sorry I didn't want to overlook Quick question I want to kind of piggyback on some of the comments that you had made earlier You talked about your teachers that went through LCRE and that they stayed for the two years and then they left What is your
teacher retention rate at your school we have our teacher retention rate is around 80% Okay Okay So you have about 20% that leave every year And how many teachers do you have at your school we have uh 40some certified teachers at our
school 40 certified 47 Okay Well how many do you have that are not certified about 22 Okay So third Yeah And then what about your student retention rate we run about
92% every year from kindergarten all the way up to seventh grade because eighth grade leaves us Okay Miss Holloway I just wanted um uh Mr Lambert to kind of provide some additional information about uh turnaround at there at Press Drive
Absolutely Um the other thing that I think is important to remember as we look at this data that the organization that Dr Clark's asking about operated this school under a charter operating agreement that Bessie decided not to renew in 2017 and from 2017 to present
this operator continues to operate the school at a D after uh that number of years The the second thing that I would offer is that uh while their growth score appears to be running neckand-neck with the state of Louisiana when you
roll things into an average you kind of miss some nuance So I think it's really important to know that when you look at schools that have a K8 growth index which is what they're talking about Prescott is in the essentially the top 10% for student progress Lynwood is in
the bottom 40% So 60% of schools are growing students at a better rate than Lynwood's current operator Uh to answer the question about it's a bigger school we you know it's harder to move a bigger school Um I mean
statistically speaking you've got several hundred kids in this sample The student populations look very similar So one would imagine that if you grew that school that operator would statistically get a very similar result at the next location assuming operator is the thing
that is making the program better which we believe it is because we've looked at the data from Democracy Prep and we have seen the significant growth in the top 10% of schools in the state of Louisiana is what uh Third Future has been able to do at Prescott Um and after 2017 to
present um Lynwood continues to be in the bottom 40% for student progress Miss Holloway one second Dr Armstrong did you want to say it would be appropriate for Dr Armstrong because my question for was
for Mr Sure So I guess um Dr Bramley um Dr Thomas I'm going to ask a question Um you're saying for 15 years this was a D school I'm saying that since I think was the year '09 Dr
Stoer that they went into the RSD So they were eligible for RSD intervention in '09 when they came in Uh Bessie approved a charter Bessie got to the point in 2017 after looking at their performance they decided to to stop renewing their charter Um and then we just went to a management agreement
since then And so uh yes uh essentially F or D um for that period of time And uh you know you you asked the question last time we met You're probably going to ask me again Why does it take so long uh a number of reasons And one of those in
this particular instance is and and we've had this discussion around Lynwood internally for for the since I've been here I've been here We we we have not had you have to have one someone that you believe in willing to step in and do the work And this is the first time that we have that option where we have an
operator in third future that has applied to us to be a type five operator that we have confidence in putting into the role So had we had an operator in 2017 we might would have done something different then Well I I I can't answer
for 2017 That that predates me But I can tell you had we had an operator over the last few years that had um applied to be type five on the shelf and we had confidence in we would have made a move But but we have not had that until now
And and now we have the opportunity to bring that long-term stability with an operator that we believe in because I don't want us to continue to fail our students Well and as Mr Lambert's and Fs with all of our students and we're not progressing above that we're doing a
disservice to the children And as Mr Lambert shared if we look at and again I am I am thankful for Lynwood doing the work for the years they've done the work This is not in any way negative towards them but if we look at the results of that you know 38 model of students that they test you know the the results at
Lynwood are in the the bottom 40% Whereas with Prescott that same that same um uh grades span we're looking in the top 10% for growth It it is a statist statistically significant
difference Um Mr Kratic I just wanted to give you the opportunity to to share with the board a little bit about uh your model Um we've we've heard from the operators there at Lynwood I just wanted to give you the equal opportunity to share a little bit uh about your model
at at what what you've done at Presstop what you're doing at at Fair Park Um you know I saw on the recent um teacher salary information I think you're the highest paid around the highest paid in the state at 80 something thousand per
teacher Um but also you have a near 100% retention rate But tell us a little bit about your student model for success Sure Thank you for the opportunity And Dr Miles is behind you she probably deserves and warrants an introduction as well Okay Good afternoon Superintendent Bremley
and members of the board My name is Dr Shirley Miles I'm co-founder for Third Future Schools and also the chief of schools for our 11 schools that we currently operate So our instructional model for students doesn't matter where you go We offer 11 campuses in three different states If
you go into Prescott Academy here in Baton Rouge it's going to look the exact same as it will at Fair Park Middle School in Shreport The exact same as the Academy of Advanced Learning in Aurora Colorado So it's predicated on K through four Our base curriculum is core knowledge language arts covers the
science of reading That's going to be our lit literacy program We're going to make sure that every kid gets grade level instruction every day All core content classes five days a week And we have 184 student teacher contact days but also every student is going to get differentiated instruction as well So
they'll have a mini formative assessment which we call a demonstration of learning and then students get immediate remediation if they need that by the classroom teacher who's the content expert where they get immediate acceleration in an al in a team center where learning coaches provide support
there So we make sure that happens 184 days every single day in all core content classes Um we have what we call the third future ready characteristics We have over 16 days of professional development and eight days before a teacher steps room in a or steps foot in
a classroom on August 4th Our TFS ready characteristics they're nothing new They're just proven best instructional practices that in Third Future we insist that they happen They are non-negotiable They're non-negotiable We hire for character We train for performance And we and we
coach for effectiveness And we make sure our teachers get real time on the job coaching Our our school-based leadership or their instructional leaders They're not managers They can model every single third future ready instructional characteristic that we expect our teachers to execute We make sure they do
that and they coach real time and daily It's not a afternoon evening email Our our school-based administrators model it real time in a classroom of 22 students And we just make sure this happens every day
And we train well we coach well and you know we we try and hire well Um we provide extensive professional development Dr Miles and I do all of the professional development We do not outsource that You may be thinking how can we afford to pay $81,000 it's because we don't outsource
professional development We are lean at central office We have a total of 18 people that support uh 5700 students Next year just around 7,000 So we stay lean and we push that money down to the classroom So that
in a nutshell is how we do that Um I'll let Dr Miles speak briefly about our curriculum maps She's the expert on curriculum That's what her doctorates in So I let her run the show on that Thank you all very much again We have extensive Oh sorry Can you all hear me
very clearly we have done extensive work on developing our curriculum maps So of course we use a Louisiana state standards That's been our base guide And then we look at 10 years worth of LEAP testing that the things that have been
released And then we triangulate that of course with some of the common core standards and uh what is what are best practices in each of those content areas So we have developed lesson plans following the curriculum map lesson
plans powerpoints reading materials for every single content area and every single teacher And so the teachers what what we have saved time in is make uh making sure that our teachers have
standardsbased curriculum maps to follow every day of those 184 days So they don't develop their own lessons We have developed it for them based on the research and based on the standards Louisiana state
standards So we um and I think that what what helps us and I think particularly with allowing that 81,000 u dollars a year average is that the the network we don't take a percentage of any kind of
contract We get a salary I get a salary even though I'm co-founder and we push everything back into the classroom That's how we are able to afford um those high salaries We're very lean but we also are very particular of when we
hire and we have been able to staff every single one of our schools across three states And quickly on that we have Third Future Schools has never had a substitute in the last four years I think I shared that with with this board um when I was
here um presenting for the type five charter Instead we employ teacher apprentices So every school has one teacher apprentice for every 150 students So that's a full-time salaried position here in Louis Louisiana That's $63,000 as a salary And then our teacher
apprentices they start the first day July 22nd They get the same eight days and they partner with an expert teacher So I'm learning the model I'm learning the the TFS ready characteristics It it's what we call a gradual release So we have a formalized protocol on how to
do it And then if a teacher is out because their their child is sick the hot water heater broke the teacher apprentice goes in So not only do they know the strategies they know the model but most importantly they have the relationship with the kids because they're employees And then if it's a big
issue an FMLA maternity leave or something you know other than that they go into that position We give them that salary associated with that position and then we backfill a teacher apprentice So we make sure that all 184 days are
effective days because when you have classrooms with substitute teachers most of the time they're not effective So that's a unique staffing model Thank you Thank you We have a question from Mr Berkens When you move into a school like
this do you look at the existing faculty first yes sir We do Um so we have a a comm plan We call our communications transition plan ready to go Um we have been doing this every summer since 2020 and teachers get the teachers that are
there will get first dibs on a position if they our formalized protocol is a town hall with them a meeting with them and then run a Google survey for 72 hours and if they want to apply they get a 10-minute unannounced observation where we're looking for classroom management presence and content
knowledge if they have that they move to a round two why do you want to go here why do we want to go well we have a presence in shreport So we've been working with cattle at the type three with Fair Park and and really to be honest it's not
about there it's about helping students So wherever we operate whether it's Texas Colorado and Louisiana we only want to be in underserved at risk areas and we want to reduce the number of students and DNF rated schools That's our charge That's our mission Um Dr
Miles co-founder I was the first principal at Third Future Schools in 2017 And so we went into Aurora Colorado and opened up with 492 kinder through six That school is now over 900 in K8 Um and that's what it's about It's about
putting kids in quality seats That's and that's what the goal of Third Future Schools Thank you Question Miss Malerin I've heard a lot of discussion about one more year operating under theou by Lynwood charter schools I believe that
one year is a significant time in any child's education especially in these early grades Uh how much do you expect a student to grow in this population in a one-year academic time frame so across the board in all schools our action plan remains the same in first year and if
any new partnership I want every student of the average to be 1.6 six years of growth as measured by the NWA MAP assessment That is a leading indicator for LEAP We look at other factors but 1.6 to be blunt year one 1.7 every year after that
Thank you Mr Morris Yeah thank you Madam Chair Um I visited your Odessa campus a few years ago Just real impressed there Um and one of the things I was really impressed about was the differentiated learning approach Um you know I the atmosphere at the
school I just was very impressive the student response the teacher engagement um and and then uh you know at that time obviously I was curious about you know how do you provide these kind of salaries and then I followed the story at Prescott and uh can you can you share
with us there how many how many applicants did you guys get at Prescott uh because I was a former human resources director and we hadn't hired a principal we had I actually went through 2,500 applications and so we were able
to staff how many 19 core teach so 38 instructional positions um going through all of those applications And so so you had 38 seats to fill and you had 200 applications Yes sir and and we just heard that the one of the
critical issues with the current operator is finding qualified teachers Uh so so to me this is just an outstanding differentiation between the two models Uh and that you're able to draw the quality teacher with the salary
you're able to provide So that's just a huge point for me Um and then anybody that's currently at the school I think what I heard was 55,000 was the average salary now So somebody that's there now and and stays that's a
$25,000 a year raise Uh for for me that that would be pretty significant as well you know if I had the passion to work with these students and and uh uh continue continue employment with these kids So that's just a huge uh differentiator for me Just want to make
sure that our members appreciated that we do go in for a 10-minute observation um before we go on to step two of the interview So um if they don't make it through those observations and I have
over 35 years of experience And so um the 10 minutes is long enough to know whether they're going to be a good fit with our model or not Right I appreciate there's a filter that makes sense and and your results definitely uh prove the
model So thank you Thank you Any other board member have questions if not we shall proceed with um the remainder excuse me of the public comments And thank you for your presentation At the table Gourd Wyatt
Wait I'm sorry Daryl Barnett Willie Weitt Mildred Toiver On deck if you don't mind sitting
at the front row Sherry Tier Laney Phillips I'm sorry Janie Phillips Charles Booth and Sister Sharon Robin A rambun Rambon
Gard you may begin Thank you Thank you Thank you I'm Guard Wayade I'm president of Shreport Charter Schools Inc which is the operator of Lynwood Public Charter School at this time Um how much time do I have
sorry I have three minutes Please wait one second I'm going to try to put 16 years into three minutes We picked three We picked Lynwood in 19 in 2009 because it was the worst of the
schools that Kado was losing We competed with four other companies to get the charter for Lynwood And we started in a in a building that was dark
and dirty and dismal It was noisy The teachers were screaming at the top of their lungs The children were were unruly and and noisy There were 500 students in sixth
seventh and eighth grade Six fights a day The first year mostly girls fighting girls That surprised me But six fights a day You couldn't drive down 70th Street because at 3:30 the kids would get out of school and they would stop traffic
and beat on the hoods and knock on car windows and be very insulting to people That was then and and and very quickly we learned that the sixth graders coming to us were
reading at a second grade level Well we only had them for three years That wouldn't possibly be corrected in three years We went back to the state and you gave us the authority to go start our own kindergarten first grade and then we
added second the next year third the year after that fourth and fifth When we got to fifth we went back and added four year olds Now there are,00 students from four year olds to 8th
grade at Lynwood Public Charter School And when you walk in it's brightly lit like this in every classroom It's clean It's quiet There are no adult voices being heard
The children are orderly and walking in line from class to class There are,00 students now There were 500 when we started It's now preK through 8th grade
And the sixth graders coming to us now for the most part have been with us since kindergarten And the difference is incredible We have added a second campus Two years ago we bought the St Cathine's Church
and School We've put $3 million into remodeling that school along with along with our academic our academic endeavors We have remodeled that school and it's it's
marvelous And that was to prepare for the expansion of early childhood education Every visitor that comes to Lynwood applauds what they see And I mean any of you who have been
there have applauded what they saw And all of our visitors likewise applaud what they see and the way that the school is operating Mr Wade we survived Mr Way please come to a close Am I through yes Give me a
few more seconds We survived COVID without a dip We have not been happy with all of our academic achievements but the cultural the social and all of the other all of the other
aspects of the school are absolutely superb Whoever operates the school next year is almost certain to have a C school that is that is ready and and and
prepared for the future Thank you Mr Way As far as I'm concerned whoever that is I want to help them continue to make it better Thank you so much for your service Next is
Daryl Wait who's Daryl you may You have three minutes Mr White Mr Borett we thought Mr White was going to speak first Is that okay mr Willie Yes Yes you may Thank you Good
afternoon I am Willie White I'm the chief executive officer for David Reigns Community Health Centers We are the operators of the schoolbased health centers that are located at Fair Park and certainly at Lynwood I wanted to start just by giving a a
brief overview of our organization Um we actually started in the mid uh7s as the Cooper Road Medical Clinic which in the Cooper Road area of Shreport which was uh developed in order to provide health services to a disadvantaged uh area of
shreport In 1992 uh we became David Reigns Community Health Center and reorganized as a federally qualified health center Uh for those who are not familiar with fairly qualified health centers over 60 years ago uh they were designed to provide
health services to disadvantaged populations and disadvantaged areas And so since that time David Reigns has continued uh to provide uh primary care services not only to uh shreport but we have expanded to not only cattle
boer and clay parishes we operate six community-based uh health centers and 17 school-based health centers in those parishes We are nationally accredited by the joint commission And so I I say that to say that we uh certainly have been
doing this for some time and we certainly understand uh the business of health care In regards to the current proposal uh our concern today is that uh that the health care services that are being provided through the school-based
uh health centers uh continue uh we are concerned that the current uh procedures uh will have a serious impact on the access of those students for healthc care services in the schools Uh we have
seen that occur uh with Fair Park Uh prior to Third Futures coming into the school we had approximately 2,000 uh student visits to our health center for a variety of health issues We provide not only primary care but we also
provide behavioral health Since that time we've seen that number drop to 253 And so we're very concerned about the process the gatekeeper approach that Third Futures has in place and the uh impact that will have on students
accessing quality primary care services I will turn that back over to Dr Daryl Dr Daryl Barnett Thank you Mr White Thank you'all for having us here Uh I am a pediatrician I've been in private practice for 34 years and after that
I've been at David Reigns as the pediatric director for six years We have a model that we call the medical home model in our clinics and it is a model that's the same one used in private pediatrics office It's not a closet
that's next to the the front office of the school There's a scheduling agent Uh there is a a provider who is either a nurse practitioner or a doctor There's a nurse and in many of our clinics there's a behavioral health counselor And we
treat the whole spectrum Everything from sports physicals to wellchild exams acute visits which includes everything from tummy aches and headaches to strep throat We diagnose diabetes We diagnose heart problems We refer people
appropriately Our concern about the third future model is that the gatekeeper approach using either an administrator a teacher or a counselor does not allow that to happen because
those people by law cannot diagnose treat or prescribe BA they basically can take a temperature and uh give someone an ice pack and that is not what we believe should happen in a school-based
health clinic We believe it should be much more uh all-encompassing This is not speaking directly to the work that Third Future does It's to what we would like to see them do in our existing and future uh clinics
Thank you Miss Toiver say that this is about student learning Miss Toiver can you state who you represent i am on the board I'm also
member of call parents who said this is my child has been school but my child has come here and the culture has really supported my child's learning
I'm asking that you guys will be able to talk a little bit future from my point of view I attended a workshop at the chart school conference in New Orleans in December
just to get some information because a long time ago I heard that September take over So I wanted to know about third and the first thing uh came out on the slide that we're not
wed at the end as tell us about your curriculum could not get a real answer to say this students and I'm I'm an educator and I work in results getting results for
education for students So there were questions asked that I left puzzled about My question to them is tell me about your sustainability and I would ask you to ask them that same question because the
question that the audience got was that we don't have enough data to tell us about sustainability We've not been in business that long in Louisiana which is true So we don't have comparing Colorado
and we're comparing I know that in Texas nobody's talking about that go look up Texas where they ask her future we need additional money to finish third I guess it's the salaries I don't
know but they were saying I'm not we're not able to finish out this contract that's just from social from my group The other thing that I had a lot of concerns about when I look
on even with teachers who are getting paid $8,000 to walk out have you have have you really asked and seen really good data i don't want people going into schools We
can hear a lot of good things in here what we do But I don't want to sell our kids because someone comes in and say "I'm paying you $8,000 and I don't have we can make
results look the way and the data and I know my time is up but I do want to say I would ask you please to consider another year to look at their heart and to make that decision." Thank you Miss
Toiver I appreciate your service Our scores going up Thank you You're welcome Thank you Next at the table any questions for board members at this point uh at the next group of
individuals come forward please Sherry Tier Janie Phillips Charles Booth and Sister Sharon Rabin On deck Dr Jonathan Williams and Carara Major McGori Sherry you may go first Good
afternoon My name is Sheri Tier and I do teach the first grade at Lynwood Public Charter School and I'm here this afternoon because I want to share my experience with you within Kado Parish and at Lynwood and tell you why I believe we should have another year uh
added to our contract So I'm a teaching veteran My teaching career started 17 years ago when I earned a master's degree in education from Centinary College Since then I've had the opportunity to teach in Texas Wyoming and Colorado as well as Louisiana And I
do want to point out that a student from Louisiana is quite different than a student from Colorado That being said um I prior to teaching at Lynwood I served as an informal educator for the LSU A Center In my role as an extension agent I
supported 4 programming throughout Kat Parish And in that role I've had the opportunity to enter all 62 Sue schools in Ketu Parish Also I've entered all of their chartered schools and most of their private schools And what I can tell you from that experience is that
the way Lynwood supports their students is superior We not only support our students academically but the best way that we support them is socially and economically or socially and emotionally excuse me We have a handful We have
three social workers on staff and two counselors that are available to help with our problems and with our students problems immediately And we are not talking about small problems that our students have I would say that 80% of my students live in homes where they are
either abused or neglected I would say that a good majority of my students do not have the resources they need from their families to be successful And that is what makes Lynwood stand out The support we provide for them provides them with the skills
they need to meet the challenges in their lives We provide our students with the resources they need to walk through our hallways with their heads held high and to be proud of themselves And my concern is that at the current administration of Lynwood leaves that
our students will not be getting that care and support It will our thousand students and it will also our community I'm asking that you extend our contract for one more year Thank you so much for letting me share
I one second I have a question while you're here Yes ma'am Um at the table you intrigue me to think What is the difference between Louisiana children and Colorado's children poverty Poverty A much larger percentage
of people and children live in poverty than they do here than in Colorado Thank you Next speaker Good afternoon all Can you hear me clearly my name is Janie Phillips I am a professional nurse of 53 years Soon will
be 54 I am a child care child care health consultant for the state of Louisiana recently named health and safety educator two by the uh Louisiana Department of Education In addition to
that I am a mother grandmother and great-grandmother I have two grandchildren attending Lynwood Public Charter since kindergarten I must say as a grandparent I am pleased with the teaching staff I am pleased with all of
the staff really at Lynwood because what I see are concerned staff not just teachers but the uh receptionist at the front desk also know the children by name And when the children are coming by her desk she greet them they greet her I
see respect I see them learning as well as growing personally and socially I am pleased with Lynwood public charter I am also involved with the parent and teacher organization because we support
the mindset that Lynwood is a growing school Lynwood is a school that is concerned and compassionate with the children as well as toward the parents I am asking you to reconsider or to think
about the value that the current staff plays as far as educating the children working with the community Reconsider and allow them another year Thank you Thank you Sorry Thank you Mr Charles
Booth All right Most y'all should have received an email from me Saturday I do apologize Saturday emails Mr Booth may you identify oh I'm sorry Charles Booth eighth grade history teacher for Lynwood Charter Um I hear a lot of numbers being thrown
around over the last hour or so that we've been in here looking at data looking at dollars I don't look at any of that Yeah I could make 20 some odd thousand more working for someone different but I can't guarantee that they have the love and
passion for these students as the current administration has as the current teachers do I remember when I became a teacher uh my dad told me I picked the only profession that I was in it for the outcome not the income The only one The reason I stay at
Lynwood they leave me alone and they let me teach And it's not all about the academics guys Those test scores aren't going to matter to these kids in 10 15 years What's going to matter to these kids is who is teaching them who is teaching them the right social
expectations who is teaching them how to be good citizens how to deal with things with respect conflict resolution Something that I was never taught that I'm now teaching these students and so many of my co-workers are doing the same thing I was kicked out of seven schools in between my
sophomore and senior year Seven I was the worst kid to have in a classroom because of the home that I had A lot of these kids that I deal with the only place they feel safe is on the campus of Lynwood And if you change the
charter you change that In the email that I sent you I told you you will inevitably destroy a family and a community And it's all about a vote And really I ask you what is one more year we've looked at all these numbers
like yeah so this charter has been around and you throw out the number like 15 years 19 years whatever I can tell you that since Dr Jennings has been here There's been a steady increase that we didn't have that COVID slide like he said
earlier and we're going to be a C school this year I will gain three points in history alone Like our sixth through eight social studies team will get the three points Everything else will be icing on the cake All you got to do is let us cook That is it I appreciate
y'all's time Thank y'all Thank you Mr Booth Um yes Next sister uh Rabbin I'm Sister Sharon Ramben I am um the manager of the schoolbased health centers for David Reigns in Shreport Boer I oversees
the schoolbased health center program in 17 schools I'm also a former high school teacher and I'm a Catholic nun And for those of you who are taught by the sisters I don't carry a ruler So don't worry I'm worried I'm very worried about
Lynwood Um we have a great clinic there We have four exam rooms a laboratory and we oversee the health care of all those children 881 children to be exact 84% of the
school is consented In other words we have their parental consent to be seen in the clinic So many times we look at all the statistics about the academics but we forget about the other things that take
place on those campuses These children are most are from very underserved families They depend on this health care I'm very afraid that it will turn
into another fair park Fair Park has been a heartbreaker for us in the school-based health center program We have seen a very vibrant health clinic at Fair Park become nothing Right now at
Fair Park there is a wonderful pediatric clinic with five exam rooms a laboratory It is locked It's not by our choice We offered to provide some services to the students
We did 22 clinic days at Fair Park this year How many sick children did we see the whole school year 21 That's almost impossible 21 sick children in a school
for a whole year I would say it was miraculous We've also seen a drop in our consents Our consents at Fair Park are not being distributed to new students or parents who are interested in enrolling their
child in the clinic there There's no access to that health clinic at Fair Park I don't want to see Lynwood become the same thing We need to be there for the children make sure they
get the health care that they deserve and also to help their parents Thank you for this opportunity Thank you Thank you for your comments Uh Dr Jonathan Williams and Cara McCory uh
please I want to just Can I ask a question real quick if you don't one second Um for all of you please take note at 3:58 we'll have to go into a recess due to technical difficulties that will be coming up So
know that So am I correct that I heard earlier in our discussion that the health center would remain So if I'm if I interpreted that wrong let me know But that we would have our teachers kind of help referring them and hopefully we
have the majority of our teachers remaining Am I correct with that is that what we heard that the health center would still remain No you'll have a nurse not the full health
center Okay And do we currently have a nurse we got eight minutes Okay Thank you Sandy Thank you Miss Holloway Time I have a one question for the sister or anyone How is the how is a
health care a healthc care clinic funded depends There's different ways but a majority of it is from if the if the students have insurance if they have Medicaid um obviously there's billing but if children do not have those things
they're still treated About how many's still treated how about how many children are treated through because we we know we heard about poverty daily How many are treated through Medicaid or private insurance
medicaid I would say because of the poverty level 95% 95% Do you intend on keeping this clinic open off off site at L at Lynwood offsite of Lynwood instead of being a school-based healthcare We would prefer
to stay at Lynwood We've been there 30 years The sisters opened this clinic in 1996 to help the children in Cedar Grove neighborhood and uh next year will be our 30th year and we've done wonders
with these children They're they're doing great but to come in and um I don't know if that's going to happen because I see Fair Park we no longer have a clinic there How far is Fort Fair Park from Lynwood it's a pretty good
It's not nowhere It's on the other side of town you might say Miles okay Uh mileage five miles maybe five six maybe more Please note we have about five minutes before the computers shut down Thank you sister Okay Thank
you Sorry about that Um Dr Williams please Thank you Madam Chair board members Dr Brumley It's an honor to be before you today I'm Dr Jonathan Williams Uh I am and in full disclosure I'm a consultant and I work with Lynwood Charter School
but I also work with other schools across the state and then outside of the state of Louisiana And I have a unique perspective I want to say that yes definitely I'm not here to disparage any other groups but I have strong confidence in the work that has been done at not only at Lynwood uh that not
only at what Lynwood has done but with the other schools where I am working across the state of Louisiana and seeing some of the things that they put in place Lynwood is not only putting some of those same things in place that you heard Dr Jennings mention And I want to say this uh you know I'm not going to
you know some of my talking points I have to just push off because some of this has already been covered but I'm seeing that growth and I'm proud of the growth that I'm seeing And when we um think about the schools some of the schools where where I'm working and looking at how they've been able to sustain that growth over time and get to
the point where Lynwood would be and Dr Jen has mentioned since he has come in and the things that they have been able to do I also also think about the uh suns setting of the accountability structure and what is the new way the new measures will be mostly based upon that growth and I'm confident that they
could do that Confident because what they've taken full advantage of a lot of the offerings at the state level they participated in the SSI systemic schools initiative and with some of the other schools that have improved in the systemic schools initiative Lynwood has improved They've taken benefit and uh
taken uh and ch made changes to their educator rubric and they put some things and installed some of those things in place prior to it They've opened themselves up to suggestion from me And I'll be honest with you I I am known I am not going to sugarcoat anything with
them not settle for mediocrity and push and challenge them to push for more to strive harder And when I go around to other states you know what we talk about the gains that Louisiana has made All right folks are asking me how did they do it what's being done i want to tell
you and answer that question that you share You know what some of those factors are from some of the latest research and you've heard it alluded to here Belonging consistency academic coherence That strong sense of belonging came through when you heard the folks
from Lynwood talk We're talking about trajectory changing schools schools that have shown at least 1.3 years worth of growth I'm saying and before I leave in a few seconds that I have left that given time I am confident and I do believe based upon the measures and the
things that we have been looking at and constantly looking toward Lynwood has one more testing cycle There will be close to that point and as uh I don't know if I shared this I was trying to get through my points in these few seconds I've been the principal in the recovery school district director of schools I know what it's like I know
exactly what it's like the horseshoe the superintendent would send me out to tell folks okay and and try that at a legacy school in New Orleans Okay we're about to transition you over It's extremely difficult work but I'd ask you to think more deeply and give them more time Okay
thank you Thank you for your comments Next hi Cara Majori CEO of New Schools for Louisiana And I know we're on a crunch so I'm going to be brief I also serve on the third school uh third future schools board um in Northern Louisiana And so I'm here to represent both NSLA and also the board and say
this Third Future does two things well They set high expectations for kids and then make sure adult excuses and problems don't get in the way of kids meeting those expectations And they let teachers do what they do best which is teach And then they honor that by paying them what they're worth And we've seen the results from that over the last
couple of years that they've been here And as a board we are working hard to ensure that that continues in North Louisiana And we hold them to a high expectation as well Um but often we don't have to because sometimes my expectations aren't as high as the teams and so I'm hoping for that to continue
here Thank you Thank you Thank you everyone for the public comments Any other questions comments any opposition into moving forward um motion carried Next item please Your
next item is on page 16 item 3.2 Two consideration of the extension of the partnership agreement between the recovery school district and third future schools for the continued operation of Prescott Academy as an RSD direct run school for an additional four years The recommendation is to approve
Motion Mr Mr Mars Mr Birkkins Uh Miss Holloway this simply aligns um the and extends the partnership agreement between Bessie and Third Future to continue until uh
2030 um at Prescott where we're seeing uh good results This will align with the ending dates that are for the type five uh charter between Lynwood and Third Future that was just approved So this puts everyone on the same timeline for the third future schools in Louisiana
Any objections any objection motion carried Next item please Your next item is on page 43 item 4.1 consideration of an update report regarding the LA Gator Scholarship Program The recommendation is to receive Updated backup has been distributed
Thank you Mr Morris I'd like to make a motion that we move this item till tomorrow's agenda Any second Mr Harris any opposition of moving um the 4.1 till tomorrow Thank you All right that
concludes your agenda Thank you