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Is the mean scale score across the group of kids that's represented in that bar. The little line segments that are kind of towards the top, near
the top of each bar, those little line segments are telling you what the overall state outcome was for the group statewide. The height of the bar is telling you what SDS
outcome was. So when we look at the the blue bars, for example, whether you're looking at elementary or middle school on any one of those five years for which we're showing data, which is the most recent fires, the
story is pretty clear, and it's a simple story. Poudre school District outperforms statewide outcomes. Right. If we were looking at our achievement effect size, and I hope the
board knows this at this point, like this is drilled in pretty deeply right off the top of your head. If I, if I change those bars to an achievement effect size, it's going to show that we're about one third of a
standard deviation above the state. Every assessment, every grade level, every year. That's what we see, right? That's what those blue bars above those little lines at the state are really telling us. But in mean
scale scores. Now the important part of this picture is when we look at the center set of graphs, those bar graphs in the center, you know, trimmed to just represent students supported with an IEP, what your eyeball can pick up real
quick is that we're right at just a little below, or just a tiny little bit above the state outcome. There's not the same one third standard deviation
above, but it is also true that the student outcomes and achievement based on CMAs for these five years on these sets of grade levels, elementary and middle school are telling us
that our students supported with IEPs and PSD are getting very, very similar outcomes achievement wise to statewide populations of students supported with IEPs. That's
what it's telling you. Now, is that good? Is that bad? That's up to us to think about. I would argue that we have work to do in front of us. I'm in alignment with our our our
commenters who stood up and said, we have work to do. They're correct. We have work to do. Those middle bars, we would like those to be. And we work toward those being the same one third of a standard
deviation higher than the state outcome. They're currently not there. Okay. When we look to the pink bars to the right, you can see the same thing as the blue bars that for the students
not supported with an IEP, you can clearly see what I for years dubbed the PSD advantage. Like when parents move their kids into this community, if they look at our achievement outcomes, it's hard to miss
that they're substantially above state and national outcomes. I used to call that the PSD advantage. We're not seeing that PSD advantage for students supported with IEPs, but we're also not seeing
achievement that's dramatically, substantially or significantly below state outcomes that make sense without belaboring it. So that was all about literacy. We'll go a lot quicker on this
one because it's the same picture, so I don't have to orient you to it. By the way, the one thing I guess I didn't mention, there's some percentage numbers up there towards the top of every bar. Those are the participation
percentages. Okay. And you can see if you take a moment to look at those kind of percent participation percentages that there is a gap. And it's about if I had to guesstimate, I'd say about a 20%
disproportionality. We would call that or gap. But for participation between students supported with IEPs and students that are not supported, or the general population that
pops out to. Okay. And the math story is very, very similar to what I just walked through on the language arts story. The reading story. Okay, so before
I go to the next slide, I think, yep, I just want to paint a picture. Why am I showing you this? I want to draw a parallel between what we saw a few years
back. For the whole population of Poudre School District. When we put the graduation rates of PSD next to the graduation rates of not just the state, but our comparison districts, the best comparison districts.
And then the real zinger was when we put our Act scores for the 11th graders, when they when they were 11th graders, lined up for those graduating classes, PSD had some of the
highest by far act out or sorry sat not SAT outcomes for achievement, but we didn't have the highest graduation rates. Superintendent Kingsley, in the four years you've been here,
our graduation rates have popped up substantially. They've stabilized and they continue to grow. So that's a celebration. Overall, I think in part that happened because we recognized there was an
issue and you took some concrete steps and we see the fruits of that labor. I'm drawing a parallel for you with the student supported with IEPs, because there's a similar story
here where the achievement and the growth is actually on par with our colleagues around the state and state, but our graduation rates are not. There's kind of a parallel here.
And now I'll pass the mic back to Doctor Rondell to start talking about what we know about this situation. Okay, a couple a couple more
celebrations. So last this fall, we opened our Transition Pathways Academy, which was a really positive move. This expanded our ability to serve
all students who qualify for 18 to 21 year old services. That was not the case in the past. We we had to ask teachers to keep their students back in the high school because we didn't have capacity, the
infrastructure or the space to serve everybody. But now we do. So that's really exciting. You know, we're also trying to just get the word out and make sure that everybody's aware of the
changes. And I wanted to just tell a little bit about some of the positives that are happening. The students are that are served at TPA, as we call it. You know, they're getting life skills and it's
developmentally appropriate. They're with their age level peers. They're learning on the job training. An example of a day would be their planned
budget. They're planning meals. They're going to the store. They're grocery shopping. They're coming back. They're cooking their own meal, cleaning up and learning how to adult, essentially. And then in the meantime, they're also
learning how to take the bus to get there. So that's a typical day. And we also have opportunities at the hospital and on CSU's campus and on the
the community college campus. And one, one really positive story. We had a young man who did the internship at Poudre High School. I met at Poudre Valley Hospital last year, and
he did such a great job that they hired him, and now he's working there and he's thriving. So a lot of great things happening at TPA. I also want
to talk a bit about the pathways to diploma. So prior to last spring, there was not an actual conduit for students who took alternative
assessments or on extended evidence outcomes. We call them Eo's to get a diploma and PSD. And so now there is and we graduated 18 students last
spring. That was our first cohort who would have in the past received a certificate of completion. This is really exciting. This opens a lot of opportunities for these
students that they may not have had previously. So shifting gears a bit to our graduation rates, this is definitely an
area of focus. We are lower than the state averages and we're lower than our comparable districts. So we've been doing a lot about opening TPA and
working on those pathways to graduation. And then this year we've been really focusing on diving deep into the data and understanding so that we can disrupt this, this statistic.
So when we pulled the numbers, there's currently 51 students who are supported through IEPs who are still in our high schools past their fourth year. And that does impact our graduation rates. We also have
18 students who are supported on IEPs who dropped out last year. And that's very between the last five years, it's been around like 13 to to 19. So very similar to previous years.
Graduation isn't always synonymous with I mean dropout is not synonymous with graduation rates. And we can talk a little bit more about that. Okay, before I dig in on
this, I really want to say congratulations to everybody involved in that Transition Pathways project. That is a huge celebration for our community. I'm so, so proud of us for doing that work, and I'm
also really proud of us for doing the piece around the pathway for students that take alternative assessments with the state of Colorado. Both of those moves were substantive. They were meaningful. And I'm
really, really proud of to be part of the team and everybody who got that work done. So thank you. Okay. Graduation rates. Let's take a look at this. So picture a lot of the
folks probably in this room and certainly the Board of Education and the superintendent and the cabinet have seen this picture over time. So relatively quickly we've got five years of data.
We've got a line charts, you know, if you will, line graphs with the different colors coordinated to different groups. So the black line represents Poudre school district
graduation rates is the rates are on the left side axis. The pink is the state of Colorado. The blue color is Cherry Creek, the green is boulder and the red is Saint Vrain. And so the
story is pretty quick at a glance. When you look at that. Now you got to be careful. And I apologize for this because power BI is funny this way. But it kind of auto places those numbers. So look carefully. So when you look kind of in the
center of the graph, you see 67.9% is kind of the low point. And the number right above it is 67.5%, you know. So that doesn't make any sense, right? You have to flip it. I wish power BI would fix that. And
there's no way for me to force it to do that. But if you look at that carefully, our our numbers and Poudre school district of graduation rates for students supported with IEPs from 2000 and the class of
2020 was 46.8%, then it went up to 59.5%. Then it went up to 67.5%. Then it went up to 66 or sorry, down a little bit to
66.7%, then down to 64.4%. And I want to tell you, because we're allowed to do this based on our own data calculations, which we feed the state and they input into their system.
We're looking at a 2025 graduation rate of about 67.4%. So that's a 3% increase for this next graduation class that we'll get the data on. And if
you separate out non charters from charters, our non-charter Ed rates a little higher even at 67.6%. So when I first told Jody, hey that's pretty awesome
that we're back up a 3% gain. And she said, man, that's not even close to good enough. She didn't want to celebrate that at all. I said, can you imagine the back flips the whole cabinet would be doing if our overall graduation rate went up
by three percentage points, it would be a celebration, but it is moving back in the right direction. I can't comment on Cherry Creek and Saint Vrain. They haven't made all that public, but that's our internal
data for our own rates. So we're moving back in the right direction. That is not to say the problem is solved by any means whatsoever. Just add a little bit of context. So a quick story on that graph is,
as Doctor Rommel said, our graduation rates are really fundamentally just below the state's and they in fact are below our comparison districts. And that indicates that we have an opportunity to do better.
That's what that means now that that part those the bar graph on the lower part, we haven't talked as much about, but as a little bit we have I want to remind you that's what I would
call the internal gap. The line graphs are what I would call the external gap. Like we're comparing ourselves to other districts for the same population. But the lower bar
graph is comparing PTSD students graduation rate that are supported with an IEP compared to PTSD, students that are not supported with an IEP. And what is Gap the difference
between those two graduation rates. And so you can see as we walk across those five years that Poudre school district has the biggest gap relative to the state and the comparison
districts as well. Okay. So our graduation rates lower and we have a bigger internal gap between those two student groups when we separate it out.
The bottom line is clearly we have an opportunity to do better here. That's what this slide tells us okay okay. So
doing a deep dive. We really have come up with four main causes. This is an exhaustive. But these are the main takeaways for why this is happening in our district.
Students just pretty pretty basic and simple. But students are not meeting the graduation requirements on time. So that means the graph you just saw. Those are all our on time graduates. So they had to
graduate by four years. Previous resource constraints that we just talked about in our 1821 year old program had students staying past their fourth year, and that impacted
our graduation rates as well. Students on alternative standards weren't unable to earn a diploma prior to last May. And then there's a lack of systems alignment across the
district in regard to graduation requirements and how we're coding. So to break down the the 51 students, a little
more granularly our Effective Needs program, social, emotional, behavioral, mental health, there was five students who were currently staying past their 12th grade year. And when
you look at that as a percentage of all the students who are in that program, K to 12, that's about five. Almost 6% of our students in that program who are staying past
their 12th grade year. When we talk about integrated learning supports, that's our students with more significant support needs. That's about 10% of those students. So there's 22
who are staying past their their fourth year in high school, which makes a lot of sense based on the other pieces around TPA and the certificates of completion. Our multi
categorical that's the program for our mild to moderate needs. And that's in every single school in our district. Mild to moderate needs. That's a huge chunk of our population. So
only 24 students based out of over 2000 students. So that's less than 1% are staying behind past their fourth year in high
school for that program. Okay. So we're looking at dropout rates. And this is dropout rates for the full student population of Poudre school District. One thing I just want
to say quickly, dropout rates are not graduation one minus graduation rate. Some people think that's the case. Like how can you have a low graduation rate and a and a low dropout
rate also, because aren't they supposed to be one minus the other type of thing? It's not like that. So dropout rate is calculated for seventh through 12th graders on time. Graduation rates are ninth.
Once you enter ninth grade, you go into the cohort and they start calculating. So they're literally two different groups of students. Students can drop out. They drop out because they leave school for a certain
amount of time, and they simply don't enroll in another educational environment. And that's a dropout. Now, a student may drop out mid-year and come back and be and finish the year with this, actually.
But they're still recorded as dropout, just to distinguish a little bit dropout rate, graduation rate. But we tend to look at both of them. They're both interesting. Right? We get
curious about these things. So the overall just to add context, the overall Poudre School District dropout rate, our target has always been to be below 1%. And we often hit that
target as a district. And you can see that in this line graph where we were just showing the state with the line in SDE for the overall population, with the black line. Okay, for five years, when we look at the same
picture, but this picture is trimmed, it's filtered. So we're just looking at students who are supported with an IEP. The state rates have gone up on their dropout rates. So has SDS rates gone up right. We're
still below the state. We're not below that 1% target. That is our target for all students and all subgroups of students. PSD doesn't change our target because we're looking at different subgroups we hold
with the same targets, because we mean it when we say all means all right. So at any rate, you can see we're not hitting our target. Another indication we have work to do in that space. And let's be let's be
honest with each other. There's a lot of parents in this room. And if one kid drops out, that's one kid too many. So we will always be working on this and we always have been working on this. So we'll continue that
work. All right. At any rate, I don't have a picture for it. But if we looked at our comparison districts, we're often right in the mix. And in the past years we were below clearly below our comparison
districts. In the most recent 2324 data that we'd be showing, we actually are a little bit above our dropout rates, a little bit above Cherry Creek, Saint Vrain, Boulder, something like that. So we're generally
below the most recent year that we had data for. We're a little bit above, but we're always below the state. So you go on dropout rate data okay. Doctor Rama, I just want to say one
more thing about the dropout rate. So even though it might be a small number, we want all 18 of those students to get back in school and to graduate with options. That's really the goal. One thing that was
interesting, when we did start to drill down on that data, half of those students, so nine out of 18 were served through Mckinney-vento. So they had home insecurities. So this is
the heart of it. As far as the high leverage moves to disrupt our current situation around graduation rates. Of course, it's not exhaustive, but I want to tell you about a handful of them tonight. So proactive planning for individuals at
risk of not graduating on time. I want to tell you a little bit about what that looks like. So as I started to present the data to cabinet, I quickly became invited to meet with the
high school principals and we got them to dig into their data and their individual schools and start looking at who are these students who are not on track to graduate. And so we will continue that work
throughout this year. Every assistant director will be going out to their their high schools and working with their Is department leads and case managers, the counselors and
having principals be present as well to start to make plans and find out what are the barriers. Why are they not on track to graduate? What do we need to adjust and shift in order to help them graduate on time?
We've talked quite a bit about that EO pathway. It's going to be a real culture shift for us, and it's going to take a little bit of time, but we are making sure that we are getting out in
front of all the important invested partners to share how how we can do that. I was on a meeting today with case managers at the high school level, on a on a teams meeting,
and somebody said something about, well, if they choose a completion certificate of completion, I said, why? Why would we even choose that? Why would we limit the opportunities for our students?
That's really not the direction we want to go in. We want to have all doors open for all of our students, and that's what that EEO pathway has done. Now, every single student has a way
of getting a diploma in this district. We talked a bit about transition pathways already, but really expanding that and being able to offer all I mean, they're not when I say under one roof, they're out in the
community, they're not under that roof very often. But being able to really utilize our resources better and expand that service. One example of that is in the past, we didn't really have effective needs.
Students going to transitions. Now we do and it's working and it's great. And so we're really excited to to expand that programing to other students that haven't traditionally been
served there. We're also we also have dedicated and an IAS social worker to help this area to help with our at risk populations. For those who
aren't slated to graduate on time to provide, make sure what those barriers are to provide wraparound services and also to help with our families. So it's a huge transition, not just for the students to become adults,
but for their parents as well. And so this person also has experience with working in Mckinney-vento. So I think that she'll be a great fit for supporting those those families
as well. Also, we're looking to improve our communication and training on the graduate graduation requirements, our coding. That means training for
case managers, counselors, registrars, admin. So that's a plan to continue that throughout this year to make sure that we're all on the same page and coding correctly, making sure that no student
fall through the crack on meeting their like, for example, their capstone requirements and things like that. This is a chart just to show you sort of
the timeframes of how we're going to continue this work. The one on the bottom, I think this is going to be a process that we continue in perpetuity in this district. I don't think
we've probably done enough of that specific drilling down for each student. So that will continue. We started last in September. We're going to continue that on. I talked a little bit about the research
that we did, just really trying to figure out what what is the problem, what what is how can we put our finger on the data and know what to do with it? And then also through this, this first semester, we'll
continue to educate people, just bringing the awareness. I find that sometimes I've seen this with other issues that we've been facing, that just bringing that data and sharing it with people and having
people understand it is a really high leverage move. Once people start all talking the same language and understanding what the issue is, it really can help us move things forward.
And then those training requirements, we'll be doing that this fall as well. Well, we are ready for your questions.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate the presentation. And I know that there's probably a lot of you who are chomping at the bit for questions. So who would like to
go first? Jim I see your if we could go back to slide ten for a bit. Oh yeah, I remembered. Tell me if I pass. You got it.
There we go. Thanks. So the tone of the slide is this explains some of our current graduation rate issues. At least that's what I kind of think it's meant to do. So I
have two questions on it. One is how many seniors were on IEPs of that 51. And then my second question is. Did the
number did that 51 number go up or down over time? Right. Because if last year it was 40 and this year it's 51, I would say, well that explains a whole bunch of this. Whereas if last
year it was 60 and now it's 51, I would say, well, our problem is even bigger, right? So can you, can you talk a little bit around that and just explain those issues? You can go for if
you want to, but they all have IEPs at 51. So about one third of them were seniors out of that 51, I can tell you that.
Yeah, one third were seniors out of the 51. Is that answering your question? No, I don't not in a way I understand
yet. About. You know, what what I would say, Jim, what I think you're asking is about the 51 students. Is that typical of a given year? That about 50? Yeah,
let's start with that one. So my understanding of that 51 students is that they all they all have IEPs, right? They all did were had an adequate or an
anticipated year of graduation I believe prior to so like in the spring of 2025. Okay. And so they well what that number is year after year like for
five different cohorts in a row, they don't have in front of me right now, which I think is maybe what you're asking like year to year. How does that number of 51 change. Yeah, that would be interesting because
it's what I said right. Yeah. It's the Delta. We saw this drop. If we're trying to explain it with these bullets then we need to understand the context around the bullet to say, did it go up or down.
Right. That's that's what would help me figure out if it really explains it. Yeah. I have to mention something at the outset of this conversation. There's going to be a lot of questions that you ask, real specific
data points on, which obviously I can't answer off the top of my head and do them justice. Right. Other than you all provided us with a lot of written questions, and we provided back a lot of written
answers. And in those written answers are a lot of real specific numbers and data points and such. So that piece I can do, because I'm sitting at my computer, I can look stuff up. Right. So some I just don't want anyone to get
frustrated. So tonight this is all being recorded. And so if a board member has a question, they're like, man, I'd like an answer to that. And I can't answer that off the top of my head with specifics. We're
going to have a recording, and we can certainly follow up and get the answers to the board with exact numbers. Okay. So I just want that as a blanket upfront expectation. Fair fair enough Dwayne. Yeah, if I could
that I would love that information. And then the other one is, can you tell me the total number of of seniors on IEPs? Is that a is that
something we can report? And is that I think that's the number that I want to look at to say, oh, are these numbers, you know, high or low? That's what I'm trying to get a sense of. I
think what's really important here, by the way, is the concept that of the 51 students that we're talking about, how many of those students met, graduation requirements are
considered not graduating within four years because they're receiving services at their high school. Still, as opposed to what some other districts, their practices,
their policies may be on when they are recognized as a graduate and still able to receive services. Doctor Rommel can talk to that probably more clearly than I can, but I think that's the heart of the issue.
So when we start looking at the number of students that are going on for their fifth, sixth, seventh year, that's where my biggest curiosity is that we still are working on the
definitions, and that's where a doctor was talking about. And it sounds like interesting that we're still working on like, data and requirements and how
kids are counted. But believe it or not, there is work still to do there as far as when it is considered a graduate, when they're not. And how consistent is that between different districts? You would assume
that's all locked in an identical statewide. It's not. Yeah, I can picture that. We have work to do there. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Can I just like to weigh in on Jim's question a little bit too. And
I appreciate the question. I know there's more coming. The approach that the team took in this effort, which is ongoing. Right. So this this work
validates the reason why our strategic plan is focused on disrupting disproportionality. And one of the first parts of the story that I think is I don't want it to get lost in the message, is we wanted to
identify is this a a learning issue? Is it an issue of instruction? Is it a do we have inferior curriculum? Are the students that we serve? Do they have more profound disabilities
than our comparable districts? And the answer to all of those questions, based upon the earlier data sets that Doctor Smith shared, is emphatically no right. And in many instances, the growth that our students
with IEPs are experiencing are, you know, a year's worth of growth at a year's worth of time. And a little bit above that. So I just think we need to acknowledge that, affirm that. And I want to just table
that for a moment as I have an opportunity, you know, tonight with with a community commenter who gave us a copy of our policy and shared school performance frameworks for our comparable districts, and
specifically Cherry Creek and Boulder. And I love when when people do that. So if you look at the data set that's on the slide there on the bottom, around 18 students who dropped out and you just look at the
three school performance or district performance frameworks, our performance frameworks around district dropout rates are actually better than Boulder Valley and Cherry Creek this year. So we're not an
outlier in the 18. When I sit down with superintendents in our comparable districts. And I did so in the last two weeks, where we very much are an outlier was is with that data point or 51 students. And even
with the erratic nature of it jumping within our system, that number is significantly higher than our comparable districts, which we need to kind of further identify. Like, why is
that? And I think this is where it shifts from a technical challenge to an adaptive challenge. Some of it may be technical in a sense that our transitions programs are just on the verge of expanding and
continuing to grow where we can service this more. But there's also a mindset challenge and mindset opportunity here. In many instances, the absence of some of those robust
transitions programs and the programs that have been in place at Cooper Home and Community Connections, they have always been awesome. So if you're part of those crew, please know it's only gotten better as a result of you
coming together and now you're able to serve more people. So I just think they deserve a little bit of credit. But there's a mindset in many of our schools that the students should stay at the high school.
And that's not the mindset of just one person that's of an IEP team. And that's not a judgment from the superintendent. That's something for us to be curious about. This is not a superintendent led decision that we're going to stop doing
that. It's an IEP driven decision. But we need to be curious why we are an outlier in that particular case and why we have 51 students and our neighboring districts do not have that many. And as I sit
down and talk to the superintendents, it's lean more heavily. After their fourth year on transitioning students to transitions programs. It's a part of their culture. It's not something that's deeply
negotiated. It's become almost actually a norm amongst the system and communities IEP teams. I learned just in the last two weeks that Boulder Valley School District, in the
last ten years, had this very same conversation, and they recognized that they had to invest more deeply in their transitions programs in order to address that. Now, we still have an opportunity and a
challenge that presents itself that when we look at our comparable districts, their transition pathways, programs, they provide more days of service in those transitions programs than we do. So as an
example, offers a five day program. And I think currently we offer it. We're in our first year, but we offer a three days. I mean, in our first year it's five and they get down to three.
So it's kind of two and two this the third year. Thanks, Doctor Ramos. And I think that's a helpful part of the story. But I think what I'm really proud of with the team is in a high performing community. It is really difficult to be vulnerable and
talk about these uncomfortable truths. It's really hard to do this, and I want to say thank you for stepping into this conversation and trying to see like, what is the opportunity in front of us? Because because it's adaptive. It's not going
to be fixed overnight. And I and I say that to not minimize the gravitas of the situation, because these are human beings that we're talking about and families that send their very best to us each and every day.
But we are going to figure this out together. I have a lot of confidence in the team. We're going to have to invest in this particular area. But when I look at all of the different things that we stand out, it's
not the graduation rate, it's that number 51. And I think that's just I just want to really just draw in. Your question was really important because as we see that jumping within, they're not seeing that
as a result of that normalization of utilizing transition programs more frequently when appropriate. Thanks, Brian. That helped. When I had a conversation with
the Saint Vrain special Ed director, I said, so tell me about your students that stay past the fourth year. And she said, what are you talking about? We don't we don't have that. It doesn't happen. So it
is kind of unique. It's kind of Poudre a Poudre thing. And there's a lot of reasons behind it. There's been some reasons behind it, and I think they do a really great job in our high schools. I think parents are
super comfortable and they love their kids and and they want to keep them. And frankly, we didn't have the capacity to serve everybody. So there's a lot of historical context
behind that, that number. Go ahead. Just for my own, I feel like I should know this answer. So I'm going to apologize for not knowing it ahead of time. If they stay in their home high
school, they are not a graduate, right? That's how they stay there. And if they go to transition pathways, they have been technically a graduate versus is that true? So I'm going to tell you my
understanding, and I am learning as we speak every day more about the coding and working with IT department and how we report to the state. So
if students so for example, if students complete their their program, they earn all their credits. They graduate, but they stay at the high school. They're still not considered an on time graduate. We do not get
to count them in that way. If they earn all their credits and earn their diploma. But then we hold their diploma and they go on to transition pathways. They do count as a graduate. Yeah.
It's huge. Go ahead Kevin, I have several, but I'll start small first and warm us up a little bit. Well yeah I mean, by the way we all peppered you with a bunch of questions. So I
really appreciate the answers that we got. But as you very well know, sometimes answers lead to further questions. So one of the bigger questions, the framing question I want to
ask in this came from slide. Oh sorry 12 of 18. It was the root cause analysis why this is happening I understand this is a presentation. And part of it was I was been asking for our
points more than 50 slides. This may be my own fault. The bigger. The big question I want to ask is how confident are we in the root cause analysis? The
pillars I'm going to call them four pillars that are set forth. I've got a couple follow ups. And the reason being, again, this may have been a truncated presentation. I'm glad we're having more of these, but what
evidence have we looked at to to undergirds those four root cause analysis? And what's our confidence level that it's not something else? I'll start there. That's a big question. Then I've got one I want to
talk to you about assessment. After this I can take a crack or you can take a crack. The first one, let's walk through these. Right. So the first one students are not meeting graduation requirements. That's
that one seems pretty clear. And yet we just talked about there are students who actually met graduation requirements. And they're still in their home high school. So they're not counting in our graduation.
Right. So but there are students who did not meet the graduation requirements. So that is always going to be one of the pieces when you're looking at why did not graduate.
Okay. So that one I hope is self-evident, as worthy of our time and attention as a leadership team to make sure we're doing our best work in that space to support kids and their families, and making sure
they took and have the right credits to graduate. That was obvious. The previous resource constraints, Doctor Rommel can probably speak to that better than myself, because I can see
about 20 different ways to answer that, because there have been resource constraints that I think affect a whole plethora of things in your department and in our whole district to support students with IEPs. I
don't know if there's anything you would want to say specifically on that second one. The previous resource constraints in 18 to 21 year old. Well, just about the not meeting the graduation requirements is not just our
students who are not staying. I mean, we saw that there's students in the program and in our program who've not met. They're staying past their fourth, fourth year in high school. So to answer your
question, Kevin, it's not just these things. There's a few other things we're looking at, like what classes are students continuously failing and how are we going to flood those classes with more resources.
And maybe we need to rethink our service delivery model and how we're supporting students in those classes. Also waivers. We have a waiver sometimes students, that's all they need.
They need to know that if I can just check these off and I am not so far behind, I can I can make it right. Well, last year we've had this waiver in. Unfortunately it didn't even have IEP on the on the form.
We've added that we only had five people utilize it last year. That's a resource we're underutilizing not that we just want to push kids through, but sometimes kids have mental health breaks. Sometimes they
have a really serious illness. There's reasons why we want to use that waiver. That's another thing that I think is underutilized and that could really help our graduates. So this is an exhaustive list, but these are kind of the bigger
buckets. I want to comment on that 5 to 4 day difference of how much support families get. Well, I'm a little cautious to to share this one because I I've been I just want to make
sure I'm not I'm not blaming families. And it's not a matter of thinking that there's no blame or shame to wanting to have your child have five day
services. It can be done if you're proactive. Regardless of what we offer at Transition Pathways, they just have to get hooked into the adult services programs in the community. But
that takes a lot of work and being proactive. But like I said, sometimes they just stay because it's safe. It's comfortable. I know the teacher, they know the parents there, and we have competing pathways.
There's Ace and there's all kinds of other swap, other work to school Alliance programs and ways that students are getting out the into the community. So
there's some competing pathways, but as far as you know, I do think that that's a mindset shift. And I think that I had a case manager say that today on a on a team meeting, like I'm
all about getting my kids over to TPA, but I have parents who really want to keep them here because it's five days a week. And so that's just a fact. That's something that's being shared. And I think we really
need to consider providing additional supports, especially in that first year of transition. While parents are getting hooked up with their adult services. Thanks. Okay. I appreciate those answers.
That's helpful. Framing on that note. And then I'll get back to my assessment questions. I also want to put into the room the notion of duality, and that two things could be true at the
same time. I think what you just said, Doctor Rommel, is a plausible explanation. I'd also like to challenge and push back and examine what role the schools have in that determination as well, and whether there is, as
Superintendent Kingsley talked about, a resource allocation inquiry because as I understand it, if I've got and we've we've asked for the numbers per school of, of that have that
have students and are IEPs, and we have it broken down by grade level, more or less, the schools have access to comes from CD reporting data that we have our fingertips. So if I'm a school and I'm not saying any
school principal in particular, but if I'm looking at the resources and the allocation that I need in peer support and additional support for a higher concentration of students with special needs, and then I look
at maybe a graduating class is going to have fewer or is going to have more kids that may lose those support mechanisms. I may be incentivized to try to have a conversation with families, to try to keep them enrolled in
school for an additional year, to maintain the pair of support that I've got. And I don't know if that's been examined or if that's worth examining, but it's amusing that I, I thought, because I think both of those things could be true. And I
don't know if that's a conversation worth having. Okay, sorry. And aside, I ask one of the questions I asked, which I think is is an important one in this. And I do think there's a little bit of a gap, at least
in what I'm understanding tonight is if we are tracking how many of our students with 500 fours or IEPs took our standardized assessment, CMS, maps, etc. last year, and what were the performance outcomes?
Also asked for the participation rates of those. And I didn't understand. I was curious as to what the I think you said the word waiver and the and the graduation context, but I'm going to use it
specifically with assessment is what is the policy and what's the interplay between students, families and the schools. And having a student not participate in a state assessment. And so the numbers
I thought were somewhat shocking is that students reported, and this is the answers that you provided, which I appreciate. And this is from the CDC State School View Explorer. You can you can use
the filter options to 504, etc. But the participation rates I thought were somewhat alarming and that student support with IEPs, CMS reading participation rate and the latest performance
framework was 82.8% versus 94.7% for no IEP support. And those numbers were 82.5% in the math assessment versus 94.9%
for students with no support. So what you said is, and this is my math tracks, too, that's roughly a 12% delta between students that are being assessed and students that are
not, and the students with IEPs. So we have no idea how they're doing, or at least 12% of that population is doing. So I guess my bigger question is, what are we doing to ensure that those
kids, if we're not assessing them, then how do we know if they're on trajectory other than meeting certain graduation requirements? And that's I think that's a pretty big part of the story that I would like to examine further. There's a
lot more on that. But let me just stop there. And I can oxygen the special ed perspective. Maybe you can answer from agenda. So IEP teams do not make determinations about opting out from CMAs. That is not their
role. In fact, we we do have to talk about state assessments in the IEP if students on alternative assessments, which is not a huge population of our
student body, but it would not take CMAs, they would take the alternative assessment. So there's a small factor of that, but I think there's just a general feeling among many
parents, not all that that's really hard for my kid. It's a really long, hard, arduous task to sit through CMAs, and I really don't want them to have to, to, to, to have that
painful experience. I think that there's several parents who feel that way. As far as encouraging, I think that we should be encouraging all of our students to take their assessments. It's not the only
way we measure I mean, maps, they don't opt out of map. Excuse me, I don't know why we add an S in Poudre, but we do. And then also we do progress monitoring on their IEP goals
through various tools and instruments. So there's multiple ways that we're looking at their achievement. That's a perfect answer. That's exactly right. One thing sorry.
Before I start I do want to highlight because this this I thought was important, I did we there is a on our website we have it's very navigable about excusing students from state
assessments to excuse your student from state assessments, complete a parent excusal form digitally by logging into PSD forms and hyperlinks. It there. So at least one thing I dispelled in my mind was that
schools cannot unilaterally opt out students from assessments. I think that's important. Three underlines at least. If nothing else, since this is a recorded meeting, parents can opt out,
but schools cannot unilaterally. So I think that's important. There's a policy that says that and says that schools are required by the state to administer a statewide assessments to students in grades 3 to 11 and reading, writing, mathematics and science. So for anyone
listening, I thought that was an important point to underline. Thanks. And I was going to mention when we did look at that achievement data that I showed, the bar graphs, those percentages of participation
are on there, and you can see the same story you just talked about like that 12% gap. So and I mentioned it when I went through that and I said that caught our attention too. So you can see in both places. So
the data you were just looking at that we gave you back was from the PDFs and the state website. I can you can also see it in the bar graphs. So you're correct about there is a difference in those participation rates. And I could have given a better
answer than Doctor Rummel did about the whole piece. Plus, with what you just read, Director Hirvela, I think that
pretty much covers it. Other questions. Andrew. Go ahead. Can I have some clarifications
on a couple things? First, because it got lost in translation in my brain. Slide 11. Graduation rates. Who exactly is counted in that 64.4?
Because I started to hear what I felt like were different things. For if they're in a homeschool like Rocky Mountain, just big high school doesn't really matter versus different settings. Suddenly things were
counting, not counting. That started to go sideways in my brain. And I think even some of the things that Brian said created more confusion for me. So I just want to make sure I understand what that means, because I also then wondered,
there was a comment about, well, after they graduate, then that potentially changes the number. It's like, wait, I thought this was a finite four year thing. That was it. So just and I'm
like, I want to admit I'm still learning. But my understanding is that if they complete their graduation requirements but stay on past their fourth year, they do not get counted in this
data here. As an on time graduate. And so they're staying on at like a quote unquote homeschool doing transition pathways type activities. What are we talking
here? What what they're staying in their high school and continuing to take classes and and be part of their programing
in that high school. Okay. So it's I mean, that's kind of a. Nuance, right? Because this is the first the first time we had that cohort that sounds like
that's not a possibility in the other school districts. They don't stay on. So they would they would, they would matriculate from you were saying that they don't stay on past fourth, fourth year for I
think you're saying Boulder Valley. So that means that was the I haven't yet. So in theory, if we had that same rule, I
don't know if it's a rule. I want to say in theory that would mean that we would actually have higher numbers then, because that person would have to leave and they have graduated. What I'm these are the things I'm confused about.
So there's, there's there's practice. Right. So that's not a practice in other districts, but essentially an IEP team makes that decision. And there's some parents, there's
some parents who've been probably asking some questions recently that want to keep their students in their high school because they feel it's more inclusive, that they're
around more gen ed students. So there's a variety of reasons why an IEP team might come up with. They really have the power to make that decision. So
we can talk about the opportunities and why. Aaron Aaron vote talks about the cliff effect, that if we wait too long to transition our students over to adult services and getting out into the
community and getting all those job skills and life skills, it can be a really sharp ending if they stay in high school until they're 21. So so there's that.
There's we need to educate, educate people and make sure they have all the opportunities in front of them. But at the end of the day, it is an IEP team decision. So in other districts it's just not really
a practice shall I say. It's not really like a rule. It's just not a practice that they're. Fundamentally our.
These figures like comparing apples and oranges then. Because what I'm hearing is that there's different rules by district. That's true. What's a rules practice. Well practices
whatever. Again pick a different word. Okay. That's where some of my confusion is. It's like it's almost like a cultural thing. It's a culture that we have in our district.
And there's lots of reasons behind it. Okay. Are there any of those sorts of practices, systems, structural elements that you're identifying in
other districts that we want to think about incorporating that would help? I feel like as parents to this number, and so I, I'm struggling with what the reality is, because all of us
want all of the kids to graduate at some point. I think there's different. That's a whole different language. So are you seeing other things from other schools that are part of your plan? School
districts? Well, I think that they have more days in their transition pathways programing than than we're offering currently. That's that's one that's a resource that may may
make a difference. I'm not promising anything. We haven't done budget rounds or anything. But, you know, that might be something that might make a difference for some families
okay. What data do we have about the ones who drop out and stay out? Especially. So I can tell you the so our social work has already started contacting those students and families and
case managers. Find out what happened, what happened with these students, what are the barriers. So she started actually last week doing interviews. And so I can tell you, I believe two of those students are back in school
that drop out those 18. I can tell you that they all were part of the Multicap program. That was the program they came from. Like I mentioned earlier, half were had housing
insecurities as far as eligibility criteria, like what eligibility they were identified for special education. It was a variety. It wasn't just one area. It was
multiple, multiple different areas. Okay. So real quick on that. Go for it. Sorry. One of the questions I asked about dropout rate because I needed to contextualize it, is what
the numbers looked like on like a four year trend. Yeah. So 2021, 2022 we had 13 dropout 2022 to 2023, 18, 2023, 20 2419
and then 2024, 20 2518. So I think that's what you're asking to is that of that number, I heard you say half were identified as housing insecurity. Go back to the conversation we had about the
resolution earlier tonight. And then half were we're multi-cat at least that's what we've identified. All 18 were served through Multi-cat all were okay. Sorry, I didn't mean to. Step director, Spain. I thought those were helpful
contextualize. So it almost looks like kind of a flat line, at least in the numbers of our students with IEPs that are dropping out. Worth examining
to. Okay, Andrew, are you still working? Question there okay. I didn't see in at least that's overview where you're engaging
families, teachers, parents, etc. with the keep them in and get them graduated plan. So is that embedded throughout those
those various action points and so on. So I can't I can't honestly say I've addressed it with paraprofessionals. But as far as all the certified staff, we did talk about it in our
fall play days. Okay. That happened in August. And then we've been meeting with separate, separate groups, getting out in front of as many groups as we can just to share the data, and so that everyone
has a better understanding of our graduation stats and, and the why that we hypothesis behind it are you are you also feeling like you're getting
some good interaction with families to maybe help keep students in and progressing? So Aaron vote and Emily Ring who who are supporting TPA
Transition Academy have been invited to more transition IEP meetings this year, this fall already than probably in the past. And you know, Aaron was just talking about a story. He
said it was a hard conversation with a mom because it's kind of, you know, when our kids move on to different levels, it's it's emotional, right? He said she called and came over and did a
tour and she's on board. And so I do think we're having nice interactions with parents when they're having at the IEP meetings, which I feel are appropriate. And we're also having opportunities. I think it's tomorrow night actually
having parents come. Any community member who wants to tour TPA and learn about the different pathways. So we're doing a lot of outreach with our families and it's been
positive. Yeah. Thank you. Go ahead Scott. Yeah. Just wanted to kind of echo some of the things we've been talking about,
Jim and talked about trends I think Kevin as well. Sometimes percentages don't tell the whole story. So I'd love to see
actual numbers on the IEP or kids with IEP, their grad rates over several years. Okay. I think that would be an ask. Another ask would be the number
of IEPs at each grade level, like six through 12th grade, like actual numbers. And then it's a big chart. This is going to be Dwayne to really keep it
rolling. We got it. Yeah. We'll do okay. Well I, I want to make sure we have multiple years kind of following the trend and kind of get some explanation. Like I get kind of lost in
these charts. So I would love some a presentation on that would be amazing. I don't know if we have time to do that, but but that would be something where I want to see like actual
numbers of IEPs at each grade level and how that's trending. You do have that in your doc. Yeah, but I want an explanation on it, I guess. Yeah, just more
help on that. The other thing that I'm a little concerned about, and I've got some feedback from some parents. Is.
On the assessment side of things. You know, we're we're not testing everybody. And people have a chance to opt out and that type of thing, even
even they can opt out of the alternative testing. I got a copy of an email that came from a teacher out to out to parents
of students talking about that. We've been given permission to contact you about an opt out form for the upcoming alternative testing. Alternative testing can take
them away from their regular learning for a significant amount of time of in the month of April. While it's an alternative test and the kids are allowed to do it on an iPad,
for the most part, it can be frustrating and I'm not allowed to offer any help. In the past, I've had students not understand why I cannot help, and the frustration has developed into behaviors. In Colorado, we are lucky enough to be able to opt out and have
an opt out choice for students with special needs. Some other states don't offer that choice. If you would still like to proceed with the alternative testing, I'll absolutely take the time to test your child one
on one in an environment that will hopefully give them the time and space to provide them with what they need to be successful. If you'd like to opt out, I'll be sending you a form that to me, sounds like they're kind of encouraging
them. Yeah, and me too. And it's to me, it's almost like a peer pressure thing. Like, I'll do it if you want, but everybody else isn't so. And that's happening and has
happened multiple years. And I think that's at least to this family and people in that group or in that. I really appreciate you bringing that to my attention. I had not heard that.
Yeah. So I think it's something that we we need to talk about a culture. Right. We want to make sure our teachers are encouraging the assessments. They understand the importance of assessments to our big picture stuff and not to just
that program. And I understand where that's coming from. That sounds like somebody just kind of saying how it is in terms of experience in the past on
difficulty of testing, but I think it's also kind of manipulating a little bit. And so I would highly concerning. Yeah, I just want to bring that
up. And the last thing is, is, is some community commenters have brought this up in the past about. Underreporting or
under assessing kids with IEPs like in our district compared to our comparable districts. And that's something I really am concerned about. And I think, I mean, Carolyn Read, you know, she brought that up maybe the
first year or first meeting I was with her that that's a concern of hers for a long time. And I think our, you know, dyslexia program, things like that, that we're starting will
help in those ways. But I do want to just kind of say that publicly that I think we need to really look at our percentages, our numbers, compared to other, other areas.
I am encouraged that it sounds like you are collaborating with our peer districts, our comparison districts, because clearly they're doing things
differently that maybe are. And I get what you're saying about their their not giving people alternatives after four years or not as much as we are, but I
think it is something that we should really try to collaborate and learn from. So I am encouraged by that. So those are my main, my main issues. Thank you. Thanks. Go
ahead. I'm sorry I have to ask the question. So. Director Schoenberger, thank you for bringing those comments. But I have one. As you illuminated an
example of an email, that was what I would say is a non example and not acceptable. I think we would all agree to that. We have 4000 teachers in our district that are doing great things every day. And I'm
just curious, as you are talking to people, how do we have evidence that it's pervasive beyond that one email that you have? Because I want to, as we are talking about our system, our reputation and
reflecting on root cause analysis, I just want to really make sure that we're not utilizing a single data point to kind of blanket the entire system and the integrity of our thousands of teachers. Yeah,
that was that was the only example, like actual evidence I have of it. But I've heard anecdotally from several different parents. And so and I think other directors have too.
So I just wanted to bring it out. I don't know how pervasive it is. And I think that's something we should look into. But I you know, I agree with you. We have fantastic teachers. Didn't get that email. But the
questions I got were about the 12%. Again, I want to talk about duality. And multiple things can be true at the same time. But if Scott if Director Schoenberg has heard it and I've heard it and I don't know
who else has, and we could compare source data, but to me it's worth examining as to again, I think Director Rummel said it well is that there are some cultural, pervasive things
that may not be intentional. They may be in some situations, but I think we need to examine if we're doing a cause analysis, that multiple things could be true at once, and the things that are in our locus of
control, which is reminding folks of our policy, is and it's parent driven, not school driven, I think is an important piece. Now, do IEP teams have a say in that? And do they have, you know, the best interests of
the child at heart? Absolutely. I would hope that they do. But I also am concerned I'm sorry we don't though. I mean IEP teams will not say your child should or should not opt out.
They should not be doing that. That's not part of their process. And that slide I shared with you that was comes from a recent training that we did with our case managers to say this is not the role of the
IEP team, okay? I mean, I'm just again, my thing is I don't I don't have evidence to support. I didn't come with receipts. I guess more or less is the way we say it now, but I don't I don't have any source
examination to, to suggest one way or another what why that's the case or if that's a one off. But do you think that 12% is worth examining? And I do think we need to make a push to get kids assessed so we can have
the benchmarks to know where we're at and what we can do to intervene. So I, I think reputational harm notwithstanding, to me, it's just an examination point. It's a point of saying, let's look into this. And if we need to redress some policies while
we're examining the three versus five day for pathways, etc. I think it's all fair game because again, I'm competitive and I don't like our numbers as opposed to Saint Vrain's and Boulder's. And I, for one, don't believe it's just one
anomaly or coding. I think there are multiple things that we need to examine. I'm not saying it's all going to happen overnight, but let's not let's let's examine what's in front of us. It's my point. So thank you for that. I just want to
reaffirm the commitment that I put out into the world on the front end of this presentation, that we're going to come back and talk about identification rates, our approach already
kind of readying ourselves in the system for that. And there's work to be done and there's opportunities there too. And we're going to be vulnerable about that. And we're going to learn. We're going to get better. I will tell you, like as a competitor,
just like all of us, I think what makes this tricky is that tactics around what motivates us matter in this space, having,
you know, there's not a principle that I sit across from that's not motivated to improve their outcomes for children. There's not one in the district super, super proud of that. But sitting across the table and telling them that a
student may have to leave their building for a fifth year. That's a tricky conversation, because I want us to like, never like, not underestimate the significance of some of
these young adults and how deeply embedded they are into the culture of their schools. And they're leaders of committees, and they're at every athletics event. There's there's stories behind this
from a human standpoint that make this very, very adaptive around trying to be compelling, that a transitions program and your school that you have built and you are proud of the
culture and the systems, there is a better option. And as the TPA program is, is just getting stood up this year. And we're really proud of that. Having people really, truly understand what's happening there and all
of the depth of the services. And I'm not just talking our principals, who are really, I think, advocates and allies, we had so many that were there at the ribbon cutting. But it's the next layer. It's it's the IEP teams, it's the school
counselors. It's the parents, really. And I know Doctor Rummel, you're doing that. You're having an outreach opportunity tomorrow. But that's going to take time. And this is not me giving excuses either. I want to be really
clear about that. But as we continue to unpeel the layers of this onion, the human centeredness of this opportunity and challenge has been really fascinating to learn about in our role. And I
just think we need to continue to not just monitor. We're going to make moves, but we must also understand that some of our people, as they're going through these challenges, are experiencing a sense of loss,
and they're not motivated just to make sure that we can have a different slide that has a higher number on it next year. It's about the human beings that they're supporting, and I know that you all deeply care
about that, too. But I think it's it's been interesting to watch some of those stories come out in this conversation. And I think we need to continue to figure out creative ways to surface that, where it's not just coming from us, but from
the people on the ground floor. Go ahead. Connor, my question relates directly to that, to kind of go to a 50,000 foot view and to Andrew's point
about, you know, how we code things are they rules? Are they practices in your estimation? Are we servicing our students
vis a vis our practices in a better way than other districts? Because if we're getting better outcomes than the percentage,
to me is it's just a number. So do you guys think that we're doing that? Because I wouldn't want to start making wholesale changes and lose remarkable outcomes that are happening in
the community just because we want to hit a number. And I think everybody here attest I'm one who has pushed the graduation number across this district the most. So I'll hear
the that answer first and then I'll ask my number question. I think we do an awesome job in our high schools. I don't want to take away any credit from those teachers. I think we do.
I also think there's amazing opportunities that are developmentally appropriate and getting students ready for adulthood at TPA. And I think
that so they're both true. I think. I think it's going to take some time and trust and change, and I just don't want it. I don't I want to keep
reminding you that our system said, can't take that kid. We don't have enough space. We don't have room. We can't take that challenging of a behavior because when we're out in the community, I don't have anyone
to stay back with them. So, I mean, you all are proving that space and the infrastructure and the resources is, is a game changer for us. And so but it's been sort of ingrained. I met
with a teacher last week and I said, oh, I asked about a specific student. I said, oh, you had a meeting. They're coming to TPA, right? And, well, I'd already promised them they would stay at the high school,
so I can't really back up on that now. So you'll probably see the change in a few years. That was the response from a very seasoned ILS teacher. So she felt like she couldn't pull the rug out from underneath the
parents because she had already told them this was the plan. And so just to give you a little bit of context of the conversations out there, and that's great. And I don't want
to see the rug get pulled out from anybody. Second question, hitting on a number, is it reasonable for this board to expect that within the next two and a half years, we can get
this IEP graduation rate at 80? Our high water mark was somewhere near 70, I think two years ago. Is that is that possible for us to expect or
are we just kind of, you know, because I don't think that there's going to work really hard to get us there. I think that it's it's something that we I accept that challenge with that challenge, my other
directors and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I don't think that there's anybody up here who won't dedicate every last bit of resource that you need for this, because that's how important it
is in the community. We've heard this for 3 or 4 years now, and it's time that we that we get after it. Thank you. If, if
I can actually I just wanted to jump on what? Okay. You go ahead. First I just wanted to add on top of if for a challenge type of thing to share the other piece of data,
because I'm actually quite happy to sit up here and say only 64%. If the other piece of the data is look what we did. And by the time they hit 21, we've had success. It's a
different piece of the data, and I think every person in this room would say that success to. So I'm okay with that. But again it's sharing. It's sharing the story, sharing
the pieces. All of it. Yeah, thank you. I say one thing before you go. Go ahead. It's just the one thing is that I appreciate the ambitious drive. I want to make sure that we
understand the asset that we're making. Because in this room, we've also heard tonight and on any number of nights, pairs are drowning. Pairs need support. They need money. They need staff. They need leadership.
They need changes. At school we got the I mean, I was at that meeting where we got the results from the the survey teachers, teachers badly need they're overwhelmed. It's not a
tenable situation just to say we're going to do it. Teachers and parents, an existing ecosystem do it. That also is a conversation, I think, about resource allocation that we also have to bring into them, especially when we're talking
about instructional minutes as well, because there's going to be there's going to be gains and losses there too. And so if we're serious about that number, then we need to know the how as far as what that's going to
cost and what that means for our our supports that are going to go into that. So I just say that piece. Sorry, sorry, President Draper. Quite all right. It actually. You're
funny. Scott. It actually, I think you said you teed me up well, though, Kevin, so I appreciate it because I just want I just want to, like, come
back to what I have heard, which is so we have a slightly higher growth rate than the state level. We're not seeing the SDE one third bump, but we
are seeing a slightly higher level, which is good, right? We still want to we want to aim for that one third bump that we standard deviation bump that we we get right. We are hitting
the achievement which again we want to see that standard deviation shift a little bit so that it's with all with all students. We need to ask the why we are having the
participation gap in the testing. And we need to look at the possibilities of looking at a five day week transition program instead of a three day week, three day a week
transition program. Pathways. And I feel like that those things, looking at all of those things is going to help us figure out. Well, let me back
up just a moment. Those like what you had said, those are good things that we're getting. We are the fact that we're getting the higher achievement, the fact that we are getting standard, the state level, at
least we want more. Please don't read, you know, read anything less into that. We definitely want more. And I think there's there's
possibilities in looking at these things with the participation and the five day week program to go ahead and make that graduation rate also shift higher, because it sounds like the kids have the
achievement, the kids have the growth, the kids have the ability to graduate, but they don't have a place to land. And what we need to figure out is, how do we do that? And I feel
like asking these questions will help us find a better place for for the kids to be able to land safely and well
into adulthood. So. Anything else? Yeah. Go ahead. Jess, I feel like we've done a lot of grand things, and now I just have questions again. So I'm going to bring us right back
down. I want to navigate that 50 students because there are other high schools. We said they're not counted in that on time graduation because they're staying at their high school. Of that 51, do we know how many
could have graduated or could have been counted? So I tell you, for the cohort that received their oh, sorry for the, the 20, the the ones who
graduated with their the first cohort for the pathway that was last May. Out of those 18, nine went on to transition pathways,
nine stayed at their high school. Okay. So is it nine of the entire 51 that could have or are there more? And that's
just one portion of it. That's one portion of the story. Okay. Can we get an idea. Do we have a method? Okay I'm seeing the shaking head. Thank you. We can get you those. My other
question is earlier you mentioned part of the reason that students may want to just stay because it's comfortable. And they they don't maybe have the community support. If you're only getting three days
that transitions pathways and you haven't done the the legwork to get the additional days, what is that timeline for a family to be able to get those additional days of
support through community courts rather than district support? And I don't know if this is entirely something you can answer right now, but how do we support them so that they
know what they are? They know how to to get at them, and we do that in a timely manner, because I've heard that's a really long process, but I don't personally know what that looks like. I mean, I've seen
community agencies come to ninth graders meetings. I don't think you can start too soon to start planning for that, but that is the idea behind a facet of that integrated services
social worker devoted to this work is to help parents navigate that, and how how to, you know, figure out which one,
which agency is the right one, waitlist. What paperwork, what do you need to do? And I envision her going out and doing home visits and helping
parents get this established. Ninth grade is very early, so that's like both exciting and concerning that a family would have to start that early in order to just they don't have
to start that early. I'm just saying that's like best practice is to start really thinking about transition early on in high school. Yeah, okay. I had one other comment. I
don't necessarily expect a full answer because it's really I think it's in the weeds. I think it's similar to some of the other questions around, you know, maybe individuals or individual schools. But one of
the questions I asked before our meeting was around, we have this 87% of students that are in their class in the gen ed classroom getting services. And,
you know, I've I've talked to some parents who who are sitting with their students and are not in gen ed work. They're not even they're not accessing anything close to gen ed work.
And so I have some concerns that we may have some spaces where they, they don't know, or some teachers who don't know what really to do when they have students who need extra support in a classroom. And so
they end up giving them something that's not not really about the content, and it's not really supporting their learning. And so I don't expect necessarily to have an answer
on like, how do we crack down on that per se, but more how do we investigate that so that teachers who are not specialists can actually know how to integrate students
better into their classroom? I mean, whenever you can give me specifics, that's super helpful for me. I mean, I want to know which teacher said that. And and that way I can follow up
and coach and train. But in a more broad sense, we are we are recognizing that we need to have more training for our general education teachers on how to scaffold and to
implement an IEP. And so during the spring peel days, we've identified several different sessions that we're going to have and be able to. In the past, we just have not logistically had gen ed
teachers in front of us. So I'm really excited about this change. So I'll be doing sessions on co-teaching. We're going to be doing some on UDL. And also just how do you understand an IEP? Learning about all the different
disability categories and best practices for serving those students. So that's coming. We have always had long standing evening classes that are optional. A lot of those classes gen ed teachers need to
take in order for their licensure renewal. So we're getting some traction with them attending those. But optional is always a challenge, right? When not everyone will opt in
to take it. But I'm excited about the new opportunities that will be out in front of gen ed teachers more often. And parents do get extensive training. We can always do better. But when I came here, I
was blown away when I first came to this district to see how much training we do do for our paras. So they have we have coaches who help onboard them, and they go out and they train
the paras on sort of the generic role. And then that coach will cover for the teacher so the teacher can give really specific training for those specific student needs
and go over each student their IEP snapshot and give that teacher time to have that. Why the other person subbing in the classroom? They have learning plans and they have very specific classes. They have to
take around crisis prevention intervention, academics and behavioral supports, and trauma informed behavioral supports. And we are really lucky we host two classified academy days. It
was it was amazing. I mean, what do we have 800 people attend. It was our our classified professional development school 1200 1200. So it's really well attended.
They could take the day off. They don't. They're hungry for it. I just want to share the narrative about the. So we also have our CSU. Excuse me, our UNC grow a teacher program.
Many paras are in that program becoming special ed teachers. They get up to $800 in tuition reimbursement if they want to take college. Classes always get better, but there are a lot
of things out there to help grow our paras and support our paras. It's hard work though. It is the hardest work and I want to acknowledge that too before I lose it. It's not a
question, I just want to say how proud I am and how appreciative I am that we're having a very real conversation about data that we want to disrupt, and we're not shying
away from it. And I think we've named a lot of celebrations, a lot of things that have been improvements in the last few years, as well as naming some things that are challenges. And I don't think that's easy. I
don't think anyone in this room is super comfortable with it all the time or almost ever. But I really, really appreciate this conversation because I think it's been a long time coming, something that we've desperately needed. And thank
you so much for being here. Pleasure is going to take all of us. It's going to take all of us to to shift some of these things that we need to grow in. Lots of work to be done. Yeah. Well said. Thank you. Really
appreciate it and appreciate the the time you took to walk us through the presentation and answer all the questions and. Yeah. And look forward to the next one okay. Sounds good.
Thank you so much. Thank you all. Thank you. All right. And with that this meeting is adjourned at 8:05 p.m. on
November 4th. Have a great evening, everyon