--------- Committee to order. The committee would like to welcome audience. Viewers may watch live board committee meetings online at tcaps.net/board. Recorded meetings may be viewed on demand at the same address. It appears we do not have any public commenters
today. So, with that, um, we will move on to procedural items. And first up are our draft committee meeting minutes from May 27th. Um, I will defer to my fellow trustees to see if you had any comments or
corrections. Okay. I just noticed one thing which I've already shared. Um, I I'm sorry I didn't catch this earlier, but with our new committee meeting time of 8:30 a.m. instead of 8:15 a.m., I think the the header template, the header and the
template hadn't yet been updated. So, that's just the only thing. Um, and so with that that change, our minutes will be revised and reposted. Moving on to our 25 2025 to 2026 TCAPS district course catalog update. I will
defer to Jesse Hoden. Sure. Um the courses that you'll see in the memo here are all courses taught in Aselis. That ACL means um they're taught through that uh platform. And these are all courses that we are building out to
start the fully virtual programming over at East Middle School for the middle school students. So Mr. Ranger and his counselors went through course catalog and sell us what we currently offer to middle schools and made sure we had comparable courses. So that is what we're adding there.
question and it's going to show up more in the discussion with the handbooks. Okay. But there's a place in there in the elementary handbook where it says K through five you use Lincoln Center virtual courses. Yep.
Yep. Lincoln learning. Not Lincoln Center, but Lincoln learning. Yes. You know, and so I was just kind of curious about that. Yeah. We talked a little bit. I think it was last board curriculum about our virtual programming, right? So, we have a handful of students. Last year, we had six students that were part of the
Lincoln learning programs that take their elementary experience virtually uh for a variety of reasons from family to family. Uh when a family asks goes through the principal, principal then talks to me um because we want to make sure it's a perfect fit, right? That's a
unique situation. Sometimes it's health related, sometimes family has some travel that they do on a regular basis. So they need it. Um so with those six unique kids, that's how we handle that. And and just for the record, there are not many um platforms that do
elementary. There are very few. So LinkedIn is one that's been around quite a while that a lot of people have found success with. And so it's kind of a little bit of a if it's not broke, don't fix it. It's, you know, like it it really kind of I wouldn't say it, you know, it's 100%
perfect by any means, but as far as the platforms that are out there, it's one that quite a few people do use at the elementary and find success. And TCAPS has a retired teacher, Rhonda Bush, that helps us and helps those kids. They do the she brings them in, does the testing, but any questions they have with academics,
it's nice to have a support person also. Yeah. And also, we've been using Lincoln um since the fall of 2020 during co That's when the district started using it and Yeah. Yeah. If not spring of 2020 when we had to go
well when I first got here. That was still our teachers. That was still our teachers. Yeah. Yep. So, okay. Um I just noted that there about 18 courses here for the new middle school virtual program. Do we think this is going to be it or might there be more additions next month?
There might be more especially as we see what kids interests are who are in the programs, right? But we could at least add the basics. We have added a few. Remember we had a few um middle school students um who were online this last school year due to a variety of reasons.
We had just like two or three of them. They were actually at West Middle School. So we had already had added some courses for the middle school. So these are completing sort of that sixth through 8th grade run. But I I would anticipate like other things you guys typically we see the virtual courses.
You might see an NMC course. A lot of that is driven by what kids are interested in taking and then what's available through those programs too. Is there a deadline for their registration? Is it up until same as our student registration? So we take kids well we take any kids that
live within our jurisdiction all the time, right? Um we really want to get kids in obviously before school starts. So we're able to really do our due diligent, have a meeting with the counselor, set up the right, you know, but um yeah, it'll follow our regular student registration deadlines.
Do you find these courses are more they augment the whole program or are they more like to help because they're not doing so well with some of the existing in-person programming or is it because
they want to accelerate? It's really a wide variety of reasons. Beth I would say I pro probably at this point we haven't yet seen the kid who really wants to accelerate. I say that with the exception of and we'll see it at the high schools. They have kids who want to take a third year or fourth or
sixth year of the world language that we don't have a course for and so they're accelerating themselves. So we look to the virtual as a oneoff opportunity to provide a a good solid curriculum. At the middle school it's it's mostly not that though but it's a wide variety as to why students have selected to do a
fully virtual schedule. Okay. Um, moving on to field trip requests, we have an update. Um, we'll defer again to H Hotton or Mr. Esper. No, I unless you want to talk about this. This one is just a change of
location. This is uh the Carrie Levante, the German teacher at West Senior High, takes students on a German exchange. Um, and this was a request of location that came from the the school in Germany that we partner with. Um, two main reasons.
Number one is cost. um the cost for not us, the other school that we partner with, they weren't able to continue the partnership because of cost. And then there was um a little bit of um just what's going on in our political realm right now that the school that we currently partnered with was not wanting
to continue that partnership. It was mainly due to cost according to Carrie. But that's all right. Carrie already found another partnership school and so our stu 15 students who are traveling over there, this is for next year from now, June. um she feels like this is a great partnership, the school, she's got
relationships and connections there. So, I have no concerns about this and I appreciate her. She's always on top of it and has great connections over there. So, anything you want to add, Mr. Esper? No, it's just fantastic trip. It's been going on for a long time. Uh and and
that longtime partnership um that we're stepping on. She actually had multiple other um schools interested. So, she was able to evaluate that a little bit and recommend the one that we went with. So, it's not like it's the only other option we could find. It's like it's a little larger city. There's a little more
industry. Um, it's kind of a STEM focused school. So, she thought it'd be a really good fit uh for our students going over. And then, of course, like Jesse mentioned, the cost piece for the other school is this is a true two-way exchange. So, it needs to be a school, too, that they're going to send their
kids here in September to stay in Traverse City. I have admired this field trip from a distance for many years. So, I'm I'm excited to see it continue. And yet, as you noted, I think a key piece, too, is that for our parents, the cost is the
same. And it's it's a national kind of program. My daughter did it in Chapel Hill. All right. Um, moving on to the 2025 to 2026 elementary and secondary student
parent handbooks. I will defer to Dan Fisworth and Jesse Hoden. Yes. So, uh, this year we there was not a major overhaul in the handbooks. I will let you know some of the changes that we, uh, we did some clean up on some language changes. Um, we added in some AI wording into the handbooks that
was vetted by our principles and by Evan and his team. Um, we also had to update and sort of realign all the policy numbers with all the policy changes that you guys have seen come through full board. Um but there was no major adjustment or change um to the handbook
and sections. I agree in either handbook same process where we have a group of elementary principles that go through that look at little wording um some attendance things um and also the AI idea.
Nothing major. Um, I I spent several hours going through these yesterday and one of the things I noticed in the very beginning where you mention the board, you've got
um Erica's name misspelled in the first part where she's vice president and then she's listed again as a a trustee. So, you've got eight board members uh in both handbooks. Well, Erica called me and I wanted two
votes. So, she's got it, but she's spelling her name different. Well, that was kind of, you know, incognito a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she she won on that. We'll get that one fixed. Thank you. That's a small thing, you know. And um in elementary, I I was
going to ask there's a list of things that kids should kind of leave at home. They'll take to school. There's a discussion of we're not going to replace them. all that kind of thing. Cost, we don't put cell phones there. Um, and the next
thing, the next section is the cell phone policy. And I was thinking for elementary, why don't we just say we strongly recommend unless you have a an immediate need, leave your cell phone at home as well.
Um, and and we've just never done that. Yeah. and and the and the policy is actually personal electronic devices. So, they're smart watches and all the other Yeah, there's a place where it says PED. Um, I appreciate that thought, but I don't
think that was the intent of the board. I know you brought that up at the time, and if that is the intent of the board, that needs to be clarified. When we did the cell phone policy, it was not to encourage people to keep them home. It was discussed but it was not intently
given the board that that was something they wanted to endorse. K through8 I believe it was that stay away the agree with you away for the day. No backpack or which is different then
that's my point is what you're saying is different. And if you scroll up Kelly scroll up here. So in that paragraph um it says TCAPS will not assume electronic devices should not be brought to school but the list is those items who are deemed inappropriate. I I think that's sort of
the distinction that Dr. Van Wagner is talking a little bit about. A kid might bring their cell phone to school and check it into the office or leave it powered down because there's a certain reason why they need it after school or something like that. These are the things that we would deem as dangerous. They're all kind of violent,
you know, fire sightings kids like, you know, elementary kids bring a ton of trinkets to school, stuffed animals, turtles, fidget spinners. We just try to say, but to your point, you did bring that up. That was a discussion point for sure.
But that to me at least wasn't the final decision of the board. It was, you know, the the away. So, not you know once you hit the door that's not to be seen but you know and and I wouldn't be against it if the board wanted to go that far but that that is different than
as far as we we went in the policy. I I almost would look at that again because I I know at least two actually I think four board members that thought that elementary should clearly be away for the day.
Yes. um away for the day meaning not at school because that's the way the literature presents. So you're saying not brought at all? Not brought at all. So there is so there is a handful or more kids right that have after school events that need some kind of communication
where office phone is not available and and that is fine. Well they have to bring it to school to have it after school. But when I was talking to a a a a kid in elementary school at the time, I said, 'Well, what are you doing with your cell phone? You know, I thought she was leaving at home.
Oh, no. We all bring them. We all bring them. They're in our backpacks, you know, and we bring our backpacks to class, she said. So, they're not away from the day. No, but but I mean per that last paragraph on the screen, if they are
powered off and stored in the backpack or a locker during the school day, that is acceptable, right? I mean, I think that's the key thing. Elementary kids don't bring backpacks to classes. Elementary kids use their lockers. Getting to six six, they use
they use backpacks, but elementary powered off in their locker was a policy. That's a policy they continue to follow. I just hesitate because if you have a a latch key kid or someone who needs that phone after school to get a ride from their parent, I would hate to policy says no one can bring their phone
to school. Let's be very careful with policy and practice. There's two different things. Our practice is that but I just want them if possible to get into the habit of keeping it as a tool rather than as a constant companion.
Yes. you know, and I think we should do everything to really instill that. I think that that's healthy. It's often used, at least in my experience, in emergency purposes for contacting a parent after school, pickup changes.
Sure, I understand. And that's why we split the two. My feeling was if you have car keys, you should have access to a cell phone. But, you know, we were saying this is this is why we split them at K through eight, right?
You know, and we were seeing uh policies that were similar to that. Yeah. You know, it's not that I want it extreme or absolutely no circumstance, but just a real let this be kind of matter of fact that you're comfortable
not not having a cell phone at your back and call. I do think to Dan Dan's point though the afterchool issue is a big one and unfortunately you know kids can be on the bus even in elementary school and using their phones because we did make
that decision as a board that we don't want the poor bus driver to have to police that while he or she is driving you know um so you know it it's not there I don't think there's any perfect policy that's perfectly implemented and
enforced you know, but we we tried to draw the lines where we thought it was reasonable. So, I mean, I'm comfortable with encourage students being encouraged to leave their cell phones, but it's it's pretty hard, you know, to tell families
like they're prohibited and I know it's not what we do, right? Yeah. Okay. So, one more question on this and that is we only do report cards twice a year. that semester.
No, that's K12. Whereas in high school, they can every week look up information every day. Yeah, just about every hour. So, is there anything? Because it seems to me when you're getting your foundational
learning in, you'd really want to know when your kid began to to not connect, but they're not getting a grade. They're getting numbers. It's a little bit different than grading like in the
middle school, high school. Elementary is on a one through four. So it's not as solid, you know, what's being input, but that's why we have conferences early in the fall. But you only have conferences twice a
year, correct? And you only do cardid twice a year. The midpoint between the conf be between the first report card. So conferences would be like in October, November, then they'd get the report card. So there's
time to improve. And then again in February, March, time to improve. Okay. Because it seems like it'd be real easy to kind of a kid that's doing just getting by may not the parent won't get
the flag on that. That that could be better. Yeah, I know that. Uh unlike secondary, right, because secondary has the power school with the parent portal, right? And you can see grades. The only grades we have in elementary um is our tag. Our tag program does actual letter grades.
Um outside of that, you know, with a classroom, you know, a secondary teacher might have over a hundred students. You know, an elementary classroom has up to, you know, 30ish, you know, or less. And I think that communication happens on a more regular basis. So if there is a
student struggling or there is some red flags, I know between the teacher, the principal, social worker, um people doing intervention, I think that communication is on enough of a regular basis where it substitutes in for that portal because I just think, you know, when I
was a kid, when my kid was a kid, uh we saw a a formal back and forth more frequently and a lot of it was tied with a number that indicated sort of like how well they were reacting.
It was more of an attitudinal thing. Um, and then the grade which was sort of like where you were academically in relation to different subjects. You know, for a while it was the S for satisfactory, the S plus
as well as those type of things still would come home. Checked work still would come home. So your you as the parent would still see what your kid is doing and a lot of elementary classrooms have homework that
would go back and forth and see then parents sign and you realize when the kid is not bringing it home because you're not getting the signed return acknowledge it might not be signed necessarily but there's usually an established pattern
for that purpose at least when I taught was to establish some responsibility and so parents had an idea of what they were doing in the app and you know these are some gaps, these are some places that you can help or wow your kids's
really knocking it out of the park there. Um so if you're not seeing homework on whatever the established day is then that's kind of a clue to you as a parent. Yeah, you have not had homework in
because I think that when we talk about academic achievement, we need to make sure that we've got those pathways that are really good if you want to do cooperation with folks at home. I'll just I'll just add as a parent, my
kids, you know, are now in high school, but wasn't that long ago they were little and the amount of marked up, you know, graded homework that came home was voluminous. There's so much paper still K through five. And that's okay. I'm old school. I don't want it to be electronic
at that age. But they do they bring their backpacks are full of of papers that have been graded so you know parents can see incrementally what's going on. Um, and then the parent teacher conferences do conveniently fall like a little into not I don't know if
it's like exactly the midpoint of each semester, but it is partway in. So that's a checkpoint for the Yeah, it just seems like it's so far fewer than what I was used to either as a kid or as a parent. This is so much
the district moved away from quarters to semesters just a couple of years ago. Nice thing happened. You know, I got more grades going to college because you had a midterm and a final, but you had it each semester.
And so, it seems like you could really lose some of the more quiet kids. You know, I find that the report cards aren't necessarily as far as a communication for progress on standards. It's more of documentation. When a parent receives a report card, there should be nothing on
that report card. It's a surprise, right? There's communication going for the whole semester, especially when you talk about students falling, you know, between the cracks or any of that. That's where our tier 2 intervention comes in and parents get communication about their students being involved in tier 2.
So, a lot of our report cards, which is why we went down to two because it is a process for teachers to do report cards. It's a lot of time. Um and that's why we went to two because we found that this documentation was a much more efficient way to do it twice a year instead of
three times. So the communication about how the student is doing in the room is not necessarily report card based but rather you know that 18 weeks leading up to it. Okay. Okay. One more two actually two more. One is Lance
Morgan is referred to when uh in the section on attendance and credits and I was thinking you might want to put the current principle and then the other thing is in the section on athletics uh when they were
talking about heat dealing with heat I'd throw marching band in there as well because I've seen marching band competitive uh out on the field and the kids dropping their that heat index. Yeah.
So, it should apply not just to the sport. Yeah. We just need to I I need to read that section because uh Michigan High School Athletic Association has rules and procedures for managing heat. if we want to apply those to other kids who
are outside. I just need to think about that and what the implications and like how do we our band directors are educated on sort of where we're at. And anytime it just happened a few days ago when it was really hot, we got on as cabinet and we were texting and making sure that our athletic directors are all
aware where our latch key where you know um I I just want to be cautious of that because there are actual guidelines that our athletic directors are trained in through MHS. We'll we'll have an MHSA section because that's kind of mandated that we have, but we'll figure something
else for other activities as well. I I was figuring that. We'll figure that out. Can I throw one more question on you? And that is is the only one who would pay for parking at the high schools, students, are they the only ones that
have to buy a parking permit? Yes. Because when we have our students park versus take the school transportation, um it does cost us more for supervision and for ensuring we have that those available for kids. Um and so we want
our kids to register their cars. So if there are issues, we actually know who's on our campus. Um, and we do spend some time patrolling the campus to make sure that during the school hours, it's only our students who are parking in our parking lots and not kids from other schools, random strangers from the
community, people there to, you know, access kids or or our property or just people who think it's a public parking lot that we really are trying to, you know, maintain safety and security. So, we do want our kids to register cars. something that Joe and Ben and I have worked a lot on it and it helps those guys with safety and security when
there's an issue to right away be able to know um you know what students are involved and how do we support it is a modest amount like it is a modest amount. Yep. Yep. The only um addition would be for the central students if they choose um for
open campus which then means they're driving on and off of campus multiple times throughout the day. There's an additional fee for that, but that only applies to a small group of students, the juniors and seniors. So, the students that would do career tech might be in that group.
They might be in that group. Um, or they can ride the bus and not be in that group because we do provide transportation to and from career tech center every day. And we have quite a few students, two busorth uh at Central High School who know who ride that. So, anything else you guys want to add about No,
all right. Anything else in the handbooks that you'd like to highlight? No. You ever wanted? Those are some good ones. Those are some good catches. I didn't catch Lance's name. That's a good one.
Got to have eagle eyes. Okay. Um,formational items. First up is sex education curriculum updates. I will defer to Britney K and Dan McGee. Yes. Before I pass it over to Dian, um just to adhere to the legal obligations
that are set forth by MDE, TCAPS will hold two public hearings for this information at the following board meetings which will occur on Monday, July 14th, as well as Monday um August 25th. So now I will defer um to Dan McGee, who is our district sex education
coordinator to present um the uh sex education advisory board's proposed curricular changes. All right. Uh this year we have quite a few more than uh some years we had a excessively hardworking uh sexide
advisory board. Um some of these things like uh the fifth grade video, the first one. Are we going to watch all the videos today? No, they're they're available. So I had emailed the board previously that they are the password protected. So if you want to see one, just make an
appointment uh with Tammy and she'll get you set up for it. Yeah. same way to the public tried to see them and so so our fifth grade HIV uh change that is uh this video and the the all the guidelines and all the work and all that
stuff is is from Michigan Mile and that is available to our staff um through our ISD. They train they train our staff. I've been at those trainings and they they can provide that. This came from
from the fifth grade teachers. When I asked for feedback, they were like, "Yeah, we need to update." We just went to this Michigan model. So much better video. And we were using older versions and stuff. So, we updated uh and it came from it came from staff.
So, each one of those documents on here um and the video are all part of that package from from them. Most of them are teacher resources. A few of them are uh like the student promises worksheet. A
few things are things you do with at home uh with with uh you know that you can send home. You were talking about sending things home. Kids go through the program. Boom. That that particular document can be sent home. Um, do you
need any any questions about the fifth grade HIV or that package or do we want to look? No, I mean I think you you set it up well. Um, I remember last year there were there was quite a bit of update to HIV and AIDS and I think right there
were some members of the sex ed committee who had that expertise. Right. We have a wellrounded we have a number of medical people on there. We have a minister. We have uh a number a few a few educators
and more than half are parents. So we we have the criteria we have to we have to do. I think last year we may have presented our updates to our um uh what do you want to call it? The way
we operate under those guidelines. I'm trying to the bylaws were passed. We we did our bylaws last year and last year we had to do an evaluation and we did our evaluation. A lot of our changes this year were result of our evaluation
from the year before. Next year again I get to present our evaluation because it's an every other year thing. Um so um this I'm not going to get into other things other than what we're
presenting to change. So this is our uh presenting to change in our question in our fifth grade. Yes. Of course, the last time I looked at the mortality and uh morbidity data,
um HIV was definitely there and it was homosexual uh area where the greatest there's a larger there's a larger population which is where the population uh is showing where the the incidence of
infection is that I don't see in the literature. I see the literature as being benign across the population. It doesn't only affect that. It affects everyone. But yes, in this in the fifth grade level, I I don't think we're we're
addressing it that way. Um in other words, we don't have to say we don't have to say sexual versus heterosexuality. Say it exists. I I spent more time actually looking at some of the high school stuff right now we're talking about the
elementary so proper my mindset was I'm saying here we've really expanded that area but we haven't really talked about where the focus of infection is is currently
and the the the focus of infection could be a pregnant woman oh I It it is a variety of people. Now, is there a large larger um disproportionate into a certain group?
Yeah. Yeah. And and and that is I believe is discussed at the high school level. Well, the big case in the 1980s was Ryan White. And he was a young man who he wasn't even a young man. He was a kid
who got HIV through the blood because he was he he had hemophilia and he had frequent transfusions and he got it through the blood the same thing. And and so they've they've cleaned up a lot of the transfusion.
Yes. I mean it is it's much more stringent. Yeah. And and compared to the 80s, I mean we can we can discuss Magic Johnson. Yeah. Oh, sure. That's what I think of how incredible healthy he is today. When he came out that he had it,
it was a death sentence. them. Well, a big thing you'll see in the in the high school is that we are talking about the treatment and medications that are available now that make it basically
so you can't even pass it. You can get the viral load that low undetectable in the latency area. And that doesn't doesn't matter uh what type of sexual activity they they do. If there if
they're treated, diagnosed, treated, it is not cured, but it is getting uh the medical advances have been amazing. And we teach that because one of the things we have to do is teach medically accurate information
and and I I appreciate that. I do. Uh, and one of your most useful slides is the one where you show that antibiotics where you can use an antibiotic towards a bacteria is curable.
When you are using the antibiotic towards a virus, it is not curable. Yep. That's in our That's in our STI. Yes. Yes. And that is on the money. And part of the reason so much money has gone into research
uh HIV research is because we're looking at viruses as being the next really really big area I think a lot of innovations or comments about fifth grade before Dan moves on to middle school.
Okay. So in the middle school um we looked at we looked at Michigan model again and we thought okay what we actually we looked at at high school and didn't adopt it at the high school level but at the middle school we looked at it
again and we said okay we like the video uh there was a slideshow that has some uh facts that go with it that worked very well um and then some other teacher resources, the fact sheet, uh, and
whatnot. Those things can also not only just be teacher resources, but part of the unit where they're presenting the kids and and it's up to up-to-date medically factual information. So,
middle school questions. Uh just quickly, can you remind us what um through what classes do the students get? Yeah, it's a good question. Um we're asking for it to be approved for seventh
and eighth grade. Currently, it's taught in the eighth grade, but there has been discussion in the sex ed advisory board that we could be back here next year saying, you know what, we feel that
the what is currently taught in seventh grade, which is more puberty and anatomy and physiology, could be moved to the sixth grade. We haven't made that suggestion. We're not bringing that forward you today.
It's been a discussion. So being kind of thinking forward thinking if we take what's in eighth grade and we go well maybe we're going to teach some of this in seventh grade or we're going to we're going to do this in seventh and this in eighth and that would be
possible future. So, this is technically an eighth grade class still. Um, and it would be taught there this next year, but we're asking for seventh grade and above for the materials to be able to be used. Is there a class?
Yeah. Is it in their gym class? Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. It's in It's in an HP class. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, just, you know, big picture over the years, I've heard from a lot of kids, you know, they get exceptions to gym and maybe this is only at the high school level, not K through
eight, but I I just worry about middle school. Yeah. I worry about just getting 100% coverage. I mean, I do want to make sure every kid gets this education along with the other health education. There is an opt out. Well, there there is parental opt out. I understand that.
I would love 100% coverage, too. But they also we have testing out at the middle school. So there are kids that test out. Um and yes parents it's an opt out program all the way through. But it's a state requirement right that
kids get this or is it just a state requirement that the district offer it? It's we have to we have to provide it but it can be opted out. Yes. Including test outlet the HIV has to be offered at each each building level. So we do we do teach it
in uh fifth grade currently. So anything you can do working with your committee to try to identify ways to get deliver the education. I guess the only gap we could close would be that test out population. Um I don't know how you know disseminating the material to them
before they test out or after they test out. I mean do what we can right. Yeah the test out one would be be interesting. the opt out one the opt out one we don't have to worry about because we what we do in our opt out like when I notify my parents um
that I'm going to be teaching sex ed I give them two three four weeks notice I also get them as many documents as they possibly can view and see and they can make those decisions we're not you know we're upfront so even if a child
doesn't their parent opts them out that parent still has the curriculum and most of the documents and curriculum there for them. Yeah. So, thank you. And it's also on our website. Okay.
As much as we can. Now, this is um physical health education. Correct. Health and physical education. So, at the at the at the sixth, seventh, eighth grade and then the high school we have a class called HP. So at the sixth,
seventh to eighth grade general physical education class, they also offer weights and conditioning. Uh middle school help me. Are they doing weights and condition? They do sports activities. Most of they do a sports activities maybe do weights and conditioning. That's kind of a
And we have a sports activity at the high school, too. But the weights kids and the sports kids, whoops, that's not part of their curriculum. It's the HB. So, so my question is how extensive do you
do cardiac uh issues and diseases? I mean this is a big a big well sexed is one unit. Yeah. Sex headed. So at the we have units like a fitness unit that teaches
the cognitive part of being fit. We have nutrition and things, but we also are physically active and a big part of our program has been our our endurance and our cardiovascular fitness. We use the pacer test which is broadly used across
the country as one of our our ways of measuring. I give that test each month so I can the kids can see growth. I can have conversation and in between those tests we're doing work to to help them
grow. So cardiovascular fitness that's our number one killer. So we're trying to address that cognitively and physically and it it's um let me just note that we have a lot on the agenda so we need to focus on the
sex ad right now. Okay. No, I'm just trying to get a sense of of comparatively how much of the attention of the class is focused in sexed and and especially when
you know we're not saying that the the group that seems to be where HIV is growing is actually the homosexual population and it's it's male homosexuality is where it is. We'll ask them the committee to take a look at that for
next time. Yep. And take consideration and they'll make a decision. Look at if you're looking at accuracy. Dan, did you want to say anything more about the high school level? uh the high school level. There are um one of our
evaluation things we decided is that we decided we need a high school quiz because that will give us feedback on what kids have learned and not learned that that's been in the discussion for a couple years. This year we developed that quiz uh and we went through that.
Um the teen pregnancy um there are limit there were limited changes in that. Uh one of the one of the the first slide are you ready to be a parent? We had a number we had a couple people on our board this year
that said well what are the answers to those questions and I go well those questions are to prompt discussion and the teacher does well they thought those should be in there. So we added uh a number of slides uh pertaining to those with with what it
costs, the role of fatherhood, the amount of time and then waiting to be ready. Um the impacts of teen parenting were another thing that came up in there and
I think we had a couple additional slides and then we had an additional slide of uh the shared responsibility. So there was just a few additions in the teen pregnancy
uh the HIV and AIDS. Um, we had two videos links that are far superior to the video we had. Um, and they're fairly short.
Statistics. We had an update. So, we have two slides on the statistics that we had to update. Uh, then we have a video, the new videos. uh update on facts of HIV
and then we got into the we updated the therapy the anti uh retro uh viral therapies and then uh the other video there was a few graphic changes same information we had before but um just
better a better graphic And I think that was the end of Oh, we had a we had one more graphic at the end with that was a was an addition. Yeah,
Dan, I can you just back up to the one of uh ways to transmit. Looked like there was a couple kissing one right before that. here. Yeah. I mean, mouth kissing. Okay. Yeah.
I just want to see. Yeah. Close mouth kissing is a is a discussion topic because one of the ways they test is an oral swap and I explain to the kids and we we actually talk about dental hygiene at that time too. Good addition.
Yeah. I think in the the elementary the fifth grade one you really focused on blood and it's not just blood. No, they're Yeah, any fluid. Anybody bodily fluids.
That's why you put on gloves and bleach. Okay, great. Thank you. We have those videos. The the FTI had one um the proposed Sex in the law changes. We did have an
Aeron's Law video and the big changes in the proposed sex in the law after sexual assault was sexual abuse. And that felt we we put that under three topics. Erin's Law, if you watch Did you watch the video?
I didn't see that one. I saw the one with the lady who got it, I think through her husband. Okay, this Aaron is one that was sexually abused by a stepfather or someone in the family. Um, you should watch the video.
It's her story and she's dedicated the rest of her life so she can educate and this not happened to others because she did. She was quiet and she was quiet until her younger sibling said something and then she goes, "Oh, this is
happening to her too." And that it's um that was it. So, uh human trafficking has become a bigger and bigger uh topic and uh so we had some resources on human tra uh trafficking and how that falls
under sexual abuse. And then the other part was the impacts of pornography. Uh, everyone has access to pornography at a very young age and there was some very good resources uh that board
members brought to to us that we were able to grab information from uh to present to the kids on on what this is actually how this actually impacts us. And I think that pornography is
important. And at the high school level, we thought this was appropriate and important. Actually, the impact of porn and the and the the sex trafficking have been a topic for the last three years at least. And it's just been a work in progress trying to get something presentable
um with research back stuff. Yeah. I' I've had discussion with elementary kids over porn that, you know, get a hold of someone's magazine. Talk about what privacy is.
Usually, it's online. That's the thing. You know, when I was growing up, it was like there might be a a neighbor who's got a stack of Playboys. Now, kids can access it on their phones. And I'm reading the anxious generation and you know we've protected kids more in
the physical world less in the virtual world and there's so much more so much in this world for kids to access. Yeah. So any questions about the high school? No. Great. And great job. Thanks to your
committee as always. I know a ton of work goes into this every single year and so please pass on our to your committee. Okay. And then we'll see you again. You'll be at the board meeting the 14th. Yep.
And then the following. Thank you. And then the following month. We're good. Thank you. All right. Thank you all. Okay. U moving on to our curriculum learning series. This month it is student achievement data. So,
Jesse and Britney. Yeah. So, shifting gears a bit. Uh looking at kicking things off with elementary spring. We're going to focus on spring uh NWA achievement data for our elementary schools. So, just a quick review here about what percentiles mean
and how we deal with them. broadly. These are some just some broad statements about um each percentile and support students get. So, five different percentile ranges that we address with the NWA test. Generally speaking, this is a big generality because this varies
quite a bit, but over the 60th percentile usually correlates with some type of MSEP proficiency. So, that's definitely our green and our our blue band. So when I was going through this today and we discussed a little bit with Josie yesterday, um the idea of this
kind of presentation and the lens I'm taking with strategic planning and developing goals. So when I was when I was looking at this data and going through it, I was thinking, you know, how can we develop a goal around um elementary data? So I specifically want
more students in those green and blue bands because that is where our students generally show proficiency. So how can we develop a goal around that? Um after that when we look at those other bands then comes our different supports. And again this is a general 20th to 50th is
that tier 2 support. Not every student that's um in those bands receive a tier 2 support but generally speaking that's where that would land as far as in that tier 2 support for reading and math can look as in classroom small group or being pulled out. Um, and then below the
20th, again, a generality, not every student below the 20th receives a tier three support. Usually, it's even below the 10th is where we like to see that for special ed, but below that 20th percentile um is where we start to see more special ed support.
One other thing I add is to um keep in mind the algorithm in 2023 for math. So, when you look at this data from 2023 on, our math scores look substantially better. I think that is some of the things we're doing in our elementaryaries this year for the first
time. Uh every elementary did uh math data meetings and every elementary had a tier 2 support in place. We use Delta math. Um so that was done school by school in the past but every our 11 elementaryaries are now all doing that.
But specific I included a link to NWA um if you ever want to know more about it but uh it's quite in depth. Generally speaking, what it is is uh it's an adaptable test, right? So, as you get questions right or wrong, the test changes. What they used to do is you get
questions more and more right, they used to move grade level. So, fifth graders would then get uh questions from a sixth grade curriculum and that would affect their score. Now, they're keeping it within the grade level more. So, we're seeing more challenging questions, but it's within their same grade level. So,
naturally, they may be getting more questions right and so they're more proficient. But that's what we want to see, right? It does make sense that we want to see proficiency at grade level, not necessarily above grade level as far as using that data. So questions over our overview before we
dive into it. Okay. Okay. So we start out um I group the data instead of doing every single grade level with a different slide. We'd have um you know about 20 slides to go through. So just as again kind of combining the data, I did change this
yesterday. We do include JK2. So when we uh label a student here at TCAPS as junior kindergarten, they are actually labeled as a kindergartener as far as state reporting. So we included them in this data, I did change the label to say JK2. So one thing about when each slide I go
through and I look for some type of um trend in in the data. this particular one I do see a slow rise as we look at that low line right the red which is the direction we necessarily don't want to go but I think that's largely in part and I'm going to
in future presentations and moving forward in the fall with my elementary principles we're going to pull that JK data out because I think as our JK numbers grow that's going to influence um how that data looks proficiency wise so let me just ask here is this so this
is because junior kindergarteners are those who are eligible to be in kindergarten but for whatever reason the parent and teachers decide they need junior kindergarten. So in the past those kids were excluded from the data. Well in the past we didn't have it right. We didn't necessarily have a
junior kindergarten. Our numbers have grown to you know when you think of we offer in every building and that's a that's a percentage. It's much more of a playbased curriculum versus what we do in kind. Right. But it would seem that would make
your kindergarten numbers better. Well, even if you leave it in, you're going to have a balance, right? It's going to blend because you've got the advanced kindergarteners in their second year, right? So, your scores, I don't know if it outweighs it that
much because JK um was as low as some of those students are and like Dr. Dr. Van Wagner said it's not that necessarily that academic focus. So I I I agree with what you're saying. We're going to see our kindergarten scores go up hopefully because of the JK experience for some
kids, but I don't know if it's apples for apples, right? Because you're going to end up with kids that will know their letters and they're ready for kindergarten. Yeah. Well, they Yeah. And junior kindergarten wasn't started till the 2024 school year. Well, it
started we kind of have have slowly um brought it into each school. Like I believe the first couple years it was just in a couple schools and now now it's last year is the first year we said it was going to be average. Yeah. Okay. So these are percentages not numbers. So it reflects
five years. Okay. Of junior kindergarten. Okay. And then the second thing to look for is we if we talk about strategic planning is that again going back to that previous slide the idea that we want to see that yellow and below we want to see that to go down right because those are the scores where
kids we don't correlate to proficiency. So eventually when we talk about strategic planning and goals is combining the green and the blue number, the yellow, orange and red number would be a good idea and just to show that proficiency line.
Well, the thing though is as your blue line gets bigger, it also gives you a sense of the way the sophistication of your learners are going for more involved work. advance is
a correct term or more in depth. Yeah. Thank you. I like that. Going this way rather than right fine. So as we move through it obviously one other trend besides looking at that yellow line and below is the trend that
in the last five years we haven't seen much change. I mean if I go from slide to slide it's hard to decipher grade level and subject any slide I go to. Um, and that's obviously something that we want to address uh as a curriculum team. Some ways we're doing that, and this is
for all of our data. Obviously, we're changing our reading, our English language arts curriculum. Um, so that's a we're going all in on CQLA to to help these numbers change. We we've brought research in front of the board uh specifically for economically
disadvantaged uh which tend to fall in those orange and red bands and how we can address these numbers. Have you ever looked at this also by the kids that have uh 50 or
the different um uh plans that some of the kids are have you we did see some of the data you brought forward and so a lot of those kids was especially um with tier three support or IEPs are going to fall in those in those
orange and red bands. Not all of them because then every IP addresses learning. Uh 504 is a little more broad in that you know a lot of kids with just health concerns have 50 504s that are not related to learning whatsoever which is not Yeah. It's the idea of why
that law is in place. Um but you know outside of ADHD that's where I saw a lot of those 504s which would impact learning. Um that we'd have some accommodations around. Uh, I would say even maybe the majority of plans are more health related. U, so in a
discussion when we talk about strategic planning and I I was just talking to Tiffany about this. It came out yesterday in our one-on-one with Josie is that uh we we might look at some some strategic planning the goal around special education. Yeah, I was thinking even it's almost like a ven diagram and
you've got the income, you've also got the different special needs within your population and to see where the most overlap is if you're targeting certain um programs. And to give credit where it's due, that
was because you gave us input. No, no, it's because I got that information from Tiffany. It goes around and around, but I put on the strategic plan on it. Yeah. Yeah. And we do have a significant student
population with IEPs. I think it's about 13%. Yeah. Of our of our students with disabilities. So, okay. Thank you, D. Yeah. So, as you can see the distinct difference when we move into math uh in the last two years, we do see a little
more in our blue bands for sure. um and it's JK2 and you'll see the same in 35 where that band increases substantially based on some of those changes in the test. It'll be nice to have uh when we benchmark this as far as starting out data for strategic plan
starting in their next spring. Uh they're using they're moving through a new norm set. So every five years NWA does new national norms. So 2025 is coming up. I don't know how that'll impact our data necessarily, but it'll be nice to have starting with our spring
data uh in 2026 would be a good starting point as far as uh what our growth looks like year after year. And we're not the first cadre of states. Apparently, there's another group of states that started with that new norming earlier than us.
Yeah. As far as the um the algorithm is started in 2023, but the norms will actually start this fall. So be right in the fall, we'll be able to see how those norms impact our scores. And then we have a, you know, that baseline as far as when we talk about putting any type of strategic goal or percentage as far
as achievement goes, we have a nice point that we know that that those norms aren't going to change now for five years. So we won't see stuff like this, right, where it'll be inflated or deflated numbers based on the assessment. It's more based on what we're doing in classrooms.
And then we move to 67 um NWA reading and math. Again, I know that Jesse and Britney have been working um this summer a lot on moving into more intervention for our middle schools. It was hit and miss as far as you know when
I was lead principal at East Middle F. So, we used to just run um some math intervention. It was different on both sides. So if you want to speak to that more, but I know that the intervention in middle school is definitely more robust and more across the board on both
west and east. That was uh our NWA spring achievement. Hopefully more specific questions that you have. Yeah, just I would just uh say for context um you brought up the the CKLA
curriculum for elementary ELA. Um but then the middle school math just remind us like when we adopted new curricula so that we can kind of like look at the data and you know have that in mind
that actually be very interesting on future graphs is to name the curriculum underneath even though I know that the curriculum isn't the whole ball game but as we begin to look at putting money
into some of these curriculum which are hands down not cheap. It would be kind of good to have that. Yeah. So CPM was adopted a few years ago, right? For middle school math. Oh, yeah. I would say
probably on year four of it. Yeah. And that's our curriculum that we use sixth grade through algebra 2. So all the way through 11th grade. Um that was a change. I was leading the math uh back in the days and that was uh it's nice that we have the same curriculum 6th
through 11th grade. When you think about what curricula or what subject matter is really progressive skill-based um and you need strong coherence uh mathematics like is that so we have math expressions which is uh you know pay five and then
we have CPM that picks up sixth grade through algebra 2. CPM has two separate curriculums in the middle school. They have what are called the CCS. So CC1, CC2, and CC3. We use that for our accelerated students. Um, accelerated
math six and seven. And that feeds into their algebra 1 curriculum that we use in 8th grade and we use that in 9th grade. And then they came out with a new curriculum called IC um that was supposed to lower the reading level and be u more appropriate for students who
are on grade level or slightly below. We adopted that. Uh we piloted at the sixth grade year. We had great results. Uh this last year we adopted it 678. Uh the teachers at 8th grade really didn't feel like it was a good fit. Um,
and so we actually are going back to the CC curriculum for eighth grade on level eight next year. It's the same umbrella company though, just so we're clear. CPM owns they just have two different kind of branches of their curriculum. So very similar as far
as it does matter that like the layout and the verbiage and all of that is pretty consistent so that kids aren't struggling with that versus the actual mathematical thinking, right? you want them to struggle with how I'm how am I doing math, not what are they asking me
and how is this laid out, you know? Yeah. So every year when you get these new data results um you're probably with your team your curriculum leaders um and every teacher leaders I should say
looking at like is you're evaluating is how is well is the curriculum working versus you know are there additional supports through professional development or coaching or whatever. Um like I look at the three through five math and actually the band that's you
know green and blue the you know high higher kids who are proficient that's grown in the last two years and I don't I don't know if that's because um of math expressions or you know coach keep
the norming changed too it's the third variable in there you'd want to cross reference that with your MSTEP scores and I was going to say the one thing that we do have is there you might remember um last uh six seven months ago the Harvard study showed that we had some of the most largest math gains at
the elementary level in the state, right? Um above where we were before co um so from that and they used uh MSTEP from that element for that. So there's something there. Yeah. Direct correlation of why a lot of questions but there's something there.
Yeah, it's kind of cool if you could begin to pull out some of the variables that can impact you know so that you're not just looking at these charts. These charts are not that far off from just raw data. Yeah. Okay.
Um so what's really nice that we've got set up now is just so we're all we've got the same assessment system NWA K7 for math and ELA that we give in the fall and we give in the spring. So like
that's nice because it's a nice you know coherent consistent system. K7, we have a fall, you know, screening of kids. We've got a spring, you guys are looking at the spring results. All of that is, it's good to look at how the kids grow over the school year. It's also nice to look at year after year after year, what
are the trends, too? Um, and then to sort of mirror that, starting in 8th grade, 8th through 11th grade, we now have the same system for our PSAT, SAT, which are the assessments that come out of College Board, same people who own um
the AP rung 2. So, we will be doing fall and spring testing for our eighth, 9th, 10th, and 11th grades, all with the PSAT, SAT. So, there's the grade levels. So, starting this year, we're testing them all twice a year, which is awesome
because we get back results and can see where kids are. I put a little screenshot here of what kids actually see. And just so you're clear, kids actually own their scores. They own their accounts. They can follow with them. They do some great um college readiness coaching through College Board
on their thing. They they say, "Student, you scored in this band. Here are some scholarships that might be available to you. Here are some schools that in which you can align with if kids put more information about things they're interested in. They can even get more tailored towards kids, too." Uh Joe and Ben and I have looked a little bit at
they do have some educational post-secary planning through there. It's called Big Futures. Um, and as they develop that more, you might hear more about us wanting to partner with um, that because it just attaches the student interest. Um, it attaches some information about the kid, how the kid
is achieving, and then what are some available options. Um, and then you see like there's a reading and writing portion, there's multiple different like strands underneath that, there's a math portion, there's multiple strands underneath that. As the kids progress through the series, um the tests do get
longer and they cover more content. The eighth grade test is the shortest, the SAT is the longest. You're still talking done in one day in less than a half a day. Um and then the standards to reach benchmark increase, too. So, um, I
invited our two secondary lead principles, Ben Burgerer, he's the lead at Central High School, and Joe Esper, who's the lead at West Senior High here, because I want them to sort of take over here and reflect a little bit on, you're going to see some trends over time. So, how did our students perform over time?
Um, and then you're going to see some student scores for the spring, uh, PSAT and SAT versus grades, right? As we talked about a little bit earlier, grades are like the most fastest feedback we give to kids and parents and we look at those a lot and we look at them on the back side. Just so you guys
know, we look at them through different student subgroups, right? So, we'll look at them through our special ed kids. We'll look at them through male female. We'll look at them through grade levels. We also look at them through economically disadvantaged through our ELLL students. What are some other subgroups for student populations?
Ethnicities. Um, and then we look at them too through courses. What courses are kids struggling with? Um, there were 38 kids who failed algebra 1 this year at both of our high schools. We know that is a huge indicator of off track for graduation. They have a list of
those 38 kids. They are going to have some proactive meetings with counselors. Um, they also look at them through teachers. We have teachers who are more successful with students who are below grade level or above grade level and where can where does that match up with instructional practice they see in the classroom? How can they coach and
support on that too? That's what I was going to mention was the teacher distribution tends to be really beneficial as far as when we're planning site based professional development um when we're thinking about intentional groupings and you know partnerships between teachers so that splitting that up and giving the teachers so they'll
come in in August and they'll get um they'll see last year's kids cohort how they did in the SAT. So we use that as like a launching off point to say the kids that you were focusing on these skills here's how they ended up. So like let's look at the data as the dust has settled and then what does it look like
planning forward and here's your new cohort of kids and where they were. So we're kind of like closing the door on the cohort and seeing the achievement and the impact the teacher had on that group of kids. And then all right now let's plan forward with the group you're inheriting and their current levels.
And a big shout out to our tech department Sophie who's our data wizard. actually was emailing with her earlier this morning about getting all these attached to the right kids so that we can have that reflection with teachers. You guys are going to see a really really high level. All of that sort of happens behind the scenes. But what's
more meaningful to a teacher is actually seeing the names of the kids they actually had last year in their ELA 10 class and how did those kids do and making some patterns about what worked and what maybe didn't work and I need to do differently for kids who are at the
similar achievement level for this year. And that's really important, but that takes a lot of work on the back side to get all the data to sift and sort correctly. So, um, I'm going to turn it over to you guys. Okay. Um, so just a couple big picture
things. Uh, this was the first cycle that all of these tests were digital. We had piloted that on just a few of the grade levels early on. Um, it was I don't want to like overstate it. I didn't say it was super smooth, but it was it went really well. Yeah. Uh and if
if you you know if you had students that were part of any of the pilots like they didn't always go well. Uh often we found out that was on college board end and they they had to do a lot of things to be ready to do this nationally but our our tech department did a great job getting getting things ready. Uh Brian
Gwinny at Central High, Kaylee Meyers at at West. Um and and it really went well. And like for years, you know, we kind of debated back when Jesse and I used to do assessment for the district. Like, do we get a good read on kids with digital testing, but really when you look at it now, that's how they're taking the NWA
test up through seventh grade or early eighth grade. Um, that's how they're doing all their coursework. So, a lot of the students actually do better in that digital testing environment. Um, and I would just say the efficiency. I just want you guys to think about this. When we talk about this number of kids, we're talking about thousands and
thousands of tests. Before we literally had boxes that came in and we had to store them securely and then we had to sort them and then we had to get them back and then remember we'd always get the email this wasn't returned with this and then go find that piece of paper and
I mean just the manpower for for those Yeah. Yeah. And just the fidelity and the security of the assessment that it's good. There were so many things that had to be done in 40 individual classrooms before by hand. Um, and you you could get a time stamp wrong on a sheet and then a whole
group of students gets reviewed and could be invalidated. It's all automated now. So, all in all, that went really well. Um, Ben mentioned some of the things that staff do with the data. It's not really the data you're seeing here. This is more big picture. Um, but we do that when staff come back in the fall and we also do it again in December
after they do the the practice test in October. We get that back pretty quick. Um, and then on the student end, like Jesse mentioned, that score report there. There are so many useful tools on the student end uh if they want to practice uh if if they feel like a
higher score gets them access to something. There's tons of tools there. I would say the thing is just to keep reminding families that those are there because um when a when a student takes a test, certainly at the end of eighth grade, very few are engaged in that idea that they they want to get to a particular score level to go to U of M
or wherever they might want to get to. Um, but as they move through the grade levels, those tools continue to be there and there's there's a whole range of them. So, Ben's going to start with the um reading data. I see you kicked it to me, Joe, because you just got signed out of your Google doc.
I was fully prepared right after I complimented technology signed out of the club. So, we're good enough. have the same relationship. So, we're going to take you through some
macro data here. So, this is five-year trend. So, the the highlight here is that this is a different cohort of kids each red dot you see. So, when you're looking at upper left corner, that's eighth grade there. Those are five years of different eighth graders, so on and
so forth. And so, you can look at this allows us to look at trends. And so eth and 11th really pop out in reading and writing as far as having some pretty good upward trends. Um whereas when we look at ninth and tth it would be what are we digging into here that's leaving us stagnant regardless of that cohort.
Um you know sometimes you guys get to congratulate and shake hands with the national merit kids and you have some cohorts that um lean higher but when you look at the five-year data really allows us that picture to say you know Josie to your point is it the curriculum? are there specific teacher um strategies
that we can get into? But the trends allow us to either celebrate and say let's stay the course or hey, you know, we've given it um the fidelity of this 5-year window. Let's look at other options. I had a question about 12th graders.
Don't they get one opportunity in October of of their 12th grade year? No, the the school-based opportunities end in the spring of junior year. Uh, and then those juniors, you know, they'll get their scores back. They got them back last week, actually, officially, although I know a lot of them got them sooner. Um, then any of
those SATs they do after that are on their own. They self-register. They can do one. There's usually a summer one between junior and senior year and then one right in the fall of senior year. And that's kind of their last go at it if they're But that doesn't show up on our data. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Okay. And then the the same trend graphs in terms of mathematics, but not the same trend lines. Um you see this looks a little bit different. And as Ben pointed out, each of those dots is a different cohort. So you're not necessarily seeing one group of kids. Like if you look at eighth grade math,
it climbed for a little bit. It came down uh the last two years, which just means the last two cohorts didn't do as well as the cohorts in front of them. Um, that directly ties to what Jesse was talking about with the teacher feedback regarding the curriculum and it not
being a great fit. And so that's a clear area of improvement for us, mathematics overall, but specifically when you see that drastic of a trend line and then you can connect it to the story of teacher feedback regarding the curriculum not meeting the needs. And and the the kind of good news conclusion with that is we already had
made this decision. Um, I we had done a survey in the mid-inter. It was clear that teachers were supplementing in 8th grade in particular all over the place, which by the way, we love autonomy. We love our we trust our teachers who are professionals, but there's also a ton of research that they're not curriculum writers. And when they're when we're not
having a coherent curriculum and just kind of doing whatever we feel is necessary, we don't get consistent results. Um, and so we had already made the decision. And so I had already worked to return our license in, get a full refund in credit. that that doesn't that's not like a one phone call like
that took about 6 weeks to make it all happen and now that we're in the new fiscal year July 1 I can take that credit and reapply it to get back the licenses and the CC3 which was that curriculum they're using prior um I've also talked extensively with Ryan Ranger
and Kristen Studman who are the middle school lead principles about some things we're going to do differently and some things we're going to target a little bit about staffing too who are um who are strong superstars in eighth grade uh math and how do we help build some
capacity in some other areas too. But overall, a couple other things I'd mention with math uh that you'll see throughout the the percentage of kids that are at or above benchmark mathematics is always lower than reading and writing. Um you'll see that statewide, you'll see it nationally. Um
and you'll see that a little bit when we compare the scores to grading in a second. Um also keep in mind too when you're looking at big picture numbers, it hides a lot of things that we want to know. And so we look at this a lot of different ways with teachers. Um you don't see the kids on the high end here. It doesn't just tells you the percentage
of kids that are at the benchmark or above. You know, some groups we have way more kids over 1450 or 1500, that really high score range. Um you can have a lot of kids right below the line of um of hitting the benchmark, which we're going to kind of look at in the next graph.
And sometimes those kids that aren't meeting the benchmark, sometimes they're they're near the top of that and sometimes they're super super low, you know, and that's why sometimes at the high school level, we've brought in uh different courses. Years ago, we brought in the critical content course and
mathematics to address some of that. And then some of the like the TAI course and the Titan 9 10 courses we do um are to address some of the students needs so they can do math separately a different way, you know. So, we're constantly looking at that like the kids, the individual kids like within these
numbers. There's a lot you don't see with just the one dot for a cohort of 300 or 380 students. Joe, I just I apologize if I missed it, but um did you mention what the benchmark is? And I know for each one of
these grade levels that that score is going to be different, but it's like take the 11th grade 1600 max. What might be the benchmark? Yeah. for is it five 200? Yeah, I can pull it up. So I want to say I shouldn't pull these off the top of my head in each one
10 10 to 20 points. Yeah, I want to say like eighth grade that math benchmark might be 480 and then it kind of climbs from there. We have a different graph where we look at this with the same cohort kind of against that benchmark and as the benchmark goes up does the line line stay flat or does the line go
down as as the target moves up? you know. So the benchmark for 8th grade is 430 for math and then 450 and then 480 510 that's the fall 11th grade that's the national merit qualifier and then
it's 530 for the SAT and for ELA the bench for English and write reading and writing they are slower it's 390 for 8th grade it's 410 that's 40 points lower for 9th grade 420 for 10th grade that's 60 points slower for 60 for 11th grade
and then for the SAT it's 480. So like a 50 point difference and and all of those benchmarks are figured the college board figures them based upon then what the kids go and achieve in college and what grades they earn there and that's how they normate that. So we have no feedback on those benchmarks. Um but
they're consistent every year. So we like that at least. Thank you. So this is the the real fun portion of the presentation. So buckle up. Um this is uh on the right you have the PSAT results and then colorcoded as the green
and then the light green are met benchmark and approaching and then on the left you have the grades. So what grade the student earned in the teacher controlled grade book and so when you look um you would hope that there'd be maybe a little bit closer as far as abs
and c's we could would consider that kind of benchmark. You would hope that that so when you look at ELA, 87% of students earned a grade that met benchmark compared or 86% compared to 87% on the ELA test. That's great. We
that's a nice distribution. Whereas in math, you have 86% of kids earning an A, B, or C and only 51 hitting benchmark. And so for Joe and I, as we discussed in prep for this, it really um that backs
the the stringent grading. And we sometimes hear parents um having qualms with how their students being assessed in math, but we would actually argue that there needs more stringent grading in that mathematics because it's not when they take a nationally normmed test, they're not at that par. And so
what type of inflation is happening on the individual gradebook level that's leading to that student and parent thinking that they have a higher knowledge grasp than you do? So are you going to write an editorial in the Record Eagle explaining this? I
would love it. I don't know where my job security stands back as far as record eagle publications go, but I'm willing to talk at board curriculum. Yeah. Uh Mr. Ber will talk all day um about grading. Grading for learning is what I'm going
to evidence based grading. It's a discussion we've had a ton. Both the leadership teams at at Central and West uh have really been digging into that and it's going to be something we continue to talk about next year. So if you take this is eighth grade, you know, and again the the two graphs on the right of each pair are the mathematics
one and then if you look as it jumps to nth grade, um you'll see that I'm I'm just looking at math specifically, English correlates a little a little better between grades and the the ME benchmark. But if you look at math, you'll notice the number of A's and B's
decreases significantly. Um, and you can see it's actually if you put the A's and B's together, it's kind of closer to what the math proficiency is there than what we saw in eighth grade there, you know. And it's not it's not all about grading, but remember, grading is feedback, right? Grading is feedback to
the students. So, it's very easy uh in a traditional math sense to fall into the pattern of like unintentionally rewarding compliance behaviors, you know, turning in homework assignments, um grading those things that are are being completed and stuff versus as you move into high school and further into
high school, you're going to see more weight put on the assessments um like can you can you actually uh do all of those things in class in an assessment type format. It doesn't have to be a oneanddone. You can do revisions. You can go the kids always learn and sometimes they learn from their mistakes. You know, you can go back and
you can you can address that. But that is why Ben pointed out sometimes we get negative feedback about that like you know the student has always got an A in mathematics. There must be something wrong with your curriculum because now they have a B. Uh it actually should be kind of like pointing to like there's
there's some skills we need to boot up that they're going to need for where they're going. And and each grade level has its different distribution. When we look at 11th grade, if you'd go up, Joe, that has the highest math like math variance and that's the year that's the Super
Bowl for us when the kids are taking the SAT. And so, you know, 86% of students demonstrating proficiency is according to the grade books at 55% according to the nationally norm. This isn't like a a mandate to our staffs around like certain number of A's, B's or C's, but
it is really taking a look at that what are the tasks that we're assessing and when are we giving students opportunity develop to show mastery and understanding because that will inherently mirror more of what they can do on that nationally norm test. when we
take out variables that are either age-old educational practices or something that's been um just done year after year or would be compliance based and so you know when we look at the macro level stuff that's what Joe and I talk about and then you know pair that with the trends we showed you earlier
and that's where you get kind of our PD scope for grading for learning and really kind of using our leadership teams to dive into that. So, I just want to make sure I understand. Um, when you look at the semester 2 grades, you're looking at the A's, the B's, and the C's. The C's would be kids that you'd
like to see meeting benchmark or approaching benchmark. So, you add up those three, get 86% in this example in math. You look at the PSAT results for math and it's 55% on this. You're saying that's a big discrepancy. 31 percentage
points. I want to look at that student that's getting a C in our grade book and see how they're performing on the SAT and talk about where those skill gaps are. Yeah. I would say the analogy a little bit is if I was a coach and and I was preparing my kids to go play a
championship game. I if I haven't been giving them feedback all along that we're getting ready, it is misleading, right? I mean, the grades are what our parents and our kids see a lot. It's a method of feedback. Um, and so is that feedback accurate for what that kid is knows and is, you know,
is able to do and does that translate to something external? So, I say I mislabeled that graph. It should say SAT for 11. Sorry about that. That uh and the last thing on these, I'll just point out the two graphs on the right, that gray band in the middle, which is the approaching benchmark, uh,
which means they were close. Um it's always a group we focus on but you know just to kind of underscore the difficult job teachers have like the m we don't have huge chunks of kids at any grade level sitting in that gray band. You know teachers are have a lot of students
that are pretty advanced and we have to try continue to try to push them when they're at that level as the benchmark moves up and they get ready for work or they get ready for college. Uh but we're also dealing with like you know a group of students that are significantly below a significantly sized group that's
significantly below. You know those gray bands you know an ideal world the gold band would be would be the narrowest and your gray band would be larger and try to get kids over the hump but um the reality is that's not where it is. And what one more thing to throw into the
mix here which I am going to fully recognize this is not um something that would be popular for students and parents to hear but I also have to just wonder about grade inflation you know I mean there's
a lot of pressure I think from parents and students um they put upon themselves and they make demands of teachers and try to get those better grades so they they can get into college but Then like you said before, if it's mis it's a misleading indicator of their their
actual preparedness, you know, I just wonder how much grade inflation also might exist. Yeah, and it's a great point, Josie, and it really goes to to the type of support students are getting at home around the dinner table or are they going home and
working two jobs and where does that how are we capturing mastery there? It does go down a really a passionate rabbit hole that both of our leadership teams are kind of driving that and and again not trying to like you know get pitchforks coming at us but just do the
best by our kids and parents as far as like communicating clearly what they know and are able to do. Sydney, having sat on an admissions board, you know, it it's because not all grades coming at you are from the same
level of institution in performance, you know. So, we'd look at that, but then you'd also want to those national tests because that helped level some of that. Yeah. You know, um, great point.
Yep. It's a very subjective extremely no way to get around it. And so the more we can sort of hold our external measurements, you know, against it and sort of have these conversation and reflect, are we surprised by this?
Are there trends that we could we could do differently to, you know, to to motivate kids? Right? If I was a kid who was getting a B but knew that if I needed to learn something deeper, would I press myself more? And then would that translate over here? We we think it would. So, um, that's a good segue into
the next part of data that we have, which is hot off the presses. Literally was released yesterday morning. I pulled it up at like 6:30 and couldn't believe it was all there. It's awesome. Um, is our AP exam results. So, I'll let these guys talk about those. Yes. Yesterday was awesome for Joe and I
because it's middle of summer. Our offices are very lonely places and we got to have 18 or 19 congratulatory text message exchanges with these teachers and and the ownership that they have over these cohorts of kids because it's nationally normed is it speaks to a lot
of what we were just talking about. You know, there is no hiding in these courses. There is no, you know, it's really vulnerable when you get these scores back. And so our teachers, some of our best teachers, we're sending congratulatory texts and they're like, "Yeah, but there was two two students I thought could do a little bit better." you know, they're they're still grinding
away, but um we have 19 offerings, AP offerings, and you see the numbers between our schools, 17 over 1,700 kids taking an AP test. Um and we know that that's college level exposure. And we are, you know, well on our way through
courses like pre-calculus and AP seminar and increasing the exposure and and how cool a mindset shift that we've got our math departments um going to kids who have are on on level algebra 2 and pumping them up to take pre-calc because we have a 100% of our students pass
pre-calculus AP test exam at both sites which is pretty phenomenal. So uh this came out this data came out yesterday you see and then listed below we a student can take a course that we don't offer if they feel like they want to um if they have proficiency or if they're
taking it through alternate means. So, you know, we had a student at Central take German language AP exam and get a five on it this past year, but we don't offer German at our side of town. So, um below you see there's some other opportunities there as far as physics and and other AP courses as well. The the other things I'd point out with
these enrollment numbers, obviously there's the there there's the enormous numbers that jump out at you. uh AP gov it's just a huge thing in TCAPS page Paul and TAC ready it's like a it's like a right of passage every kid feels like they need to do and a lot of kids that don't see themselves as AP kids will
jump into gov right environmental science has grown Ben mentioned some of the newer ones to the curriculum but keep in mind too things like art 2D and 3D which are smaller numbers because remember you split that over central and west this this is both high schools combined in terms of enrollment those
are usually comboed into other courses in a period a lot of that is portfolio work that the kids work on independently and then they consult with their teacher. Um so it's not like we don't have an art 3D class that runs as six kids at West and five kids at Central or something. Um but also does underscore
like you know one of the challenges we continue to work together on both sides of town is like um how we keep some of these smaller AP enrollment classes going. you know, if you look at like the chemistry or the kelk or uh US history, some of those again, that's that's the
total number with both high schools combined, you know, and part of what really benefits our kids is the large body of AP courses that we offer, usually 16 to 19 courses in a given year. Um, so it's just some of the challenges that we work on on the site
level to keep those keep those going. physics? No, we we will usually have um you see it in Ben's list he talked about at the bottom. We usually have some kids take physics independently. Uh we put it in the request list. We have not had a large number of kids at either high
school large enough to run a section of it and quite a lot without math that you would have a strong physics group. It's interesting though, Beth, because when you look at a student's, you know, four years with us, AP biology and the addition of AP environmental science as
well as chem, you know, I think some of that subject diluted and so it just hasn't had a home beyond those kids taking honors physics and then jumping into AP Chem. I knew AP physics though was still offered at Central High School. Is that still the case? We do not have AP physics. No,
we've not had enough numbers. We offer we offer it and at west I don't think it's even in the course catalog but yeah we have not had it in in years. Honors physics is numbers have increased but no AP. It'd be interesting sometime just for
for fun if I may I'd love to look at the text for environmental science for AP environmental science. Uh yeah it's all online right through the college board I think. No, we we purchase this is one of the things that is unique about all of these for our
curriculum materials. We do have to purchase curriculum materials that college board we have a list of what is the approved um and you'll see some of those go through board finance on Thursday and come um and the curriculum department those are it's a fun fun puzzle that Emily and I are putting together. So, but I can see
if I can get you a copy of the environmental. I can get back to you then. You might be getting to this. I was just going to ask out of the 1,764 exams, how many unique is it? Well, and just like what's what's the average number freshman, junior, seniors
taking? So, there's your distribution as far as grade level goes. We have 39 freshmen taking an AP course all the way up to nearly half of our senior, you know, half of our junior class is taking one. So, it's cool that when you look at out of the exams written, 904 unique
students. So, one in three TCAPS high schoolers at Central or West is taking an AP cause. And it's definitely a balance depending on who you're talking to because um the one side of the coin is we don't want to overwhelm students and keeping up with the Joneses and you know they they need a life outside of
school. The other is how many students do we have when we're looking at that SAT data that may not think that they can take an AP course that they have the ability to. And so again, that's more of that conversation of our teachers and counselors identifying those kids and pumping them up to take an AP course so
that they have exposure and opening doors that they might not know they have post-secary and talking to the student who thinks they need five AP courses from freshman year on to talk about what that path might look like and how does it serve you and your end goals because
again I we have students at both of our high schools that could take and could handle five all four years but they would not be a well-rounded high school student and they would probably not be able to go to a single social event. And so it you have to have that nimleness to know your kid to talk about it. So it's
not just an all or nothing. I made the mistake of excitedly telling my staff like we're trying to pump these numbers up and some of you know the counseling staff said, "Well, there's some kids we're actually trying to tailor to what they need and taper it down." So it is not a one-sizefits-all. It's not a rush
to get a certain number, but it is cool to think over year the years how more kids have had exposure to college level courses and in our journey for grading for understanding and against nationally normed items. It gives us the best picture of where our kids are.
So, a few other things on that like you'll see 39 kids across the district taking an AP course as a freshman. Um, that tends to be like AP computer science is a very accessible one for freshmen. Sometimes at West they'll take human geography. Sometimes they'll take AP US, but you have to be a pretty
advanced student to be able to do that competently, but that number of sophomores has really jumped up and we've we've really like this this past school year in particular, we've really kind of monitored that and done a lot of messaging. Um, typically uh AP World was
really the one AP that sophomores at both high schools took. It's a very challenging AP, but it's attainable for a sophomore and it's a good kind of like introduction to them about what a real heavy reading, heavy homework AP load is going to look like. But what's come along the the pipe is AP precel in 10th
grade for our most advanced math cohort. Um, as Jesse mentioned, we had 100% pass rate on that, you know, so it's it's appropriate, but now, you know, you're also a sophomore and you see two AP titles in your course schedule, right? And then um we did a lot of work and our
teachers really wanted to try AP Seminar in 10th grade which we added this year which was a huge success. Um also saw 100% close to 100% pass rate in AP seminar. Um but there will be a few sophomores who have three classes or
half of their course load says AP on it which is a little just from face value like a little intimidating you know. So there's a little bit of messaging that needs to go around that because the pre-kelp and the seminar for an advanced sophomore and top third of the group is very accessible. Yeah. And I would say we've heard some
feedback from kids through some of the student advisory council that they want three options. They want a onrade level, an honors, and then an AP. And what we've actually found and we need to do a better job talking to our kids and our parents about what we actually like is an on-grade level and then an AP when
when appropriate because the AP gives that standard for colleges. What we've heard back from colleges is that calling it honors US, they're not sure what that means. That means nothing and it means the exact same as regular US. And all that's turned into is similar to the issues we we've been talking about in
middle schools. just sorts behaviors and it sorts kids um not really based on academic ability or drive. Um where the AP has that national curricular standard, um colleges do see that as having sort of a benchmark and something
that's objective that's out there. And so we really we are trying to, you know, we phased out a regular pre-calc and just gone towards AP because number one, we've seen our kids be highly successful on it. So it's very accessible. our teachers are phenomenal on both sides of town. So, why have both of those? It
really, you know, it doesn't serve the purpose. Our kids are ready for it. And so, let's um ensure that they're able to get into those courses. Yeah. The the other big decision point um it's similar to what we said about some of the SAT practice, some of these things that are there, and it's hard to
get um kids and families sometimes connect to it. But the other decision point and do I take three APs or do I take four or five? um which is I think it's rare when four or five is appropriate is to look at the AP credit policy search and that's that's a really
nice tool they have on the website we sent it out yesterday when we reminded kids to go on college board and check their scores but you can say like I'm interested in going to Michigan State and you can look and see which APs they take and at what score you know everything we talk about here um we say
like a three a four or a five those scores are passing but it doesn't mean that like if you get a three on AP that Michigan State is going to take it, right? And don't you also shouldn't assume that like the more prestigious the institution, the higher score they will require. It's all it's all over the
place, you know? So, I don't think families do it as much as they should, but we also encourage them to consult that when they're doing their course request stuff and thinking about how many APs and which APs. You do reach a point too where um you know if if you take four APs junior year and five
senior year and you took a few when you were sophomores, you may get to college, realize they're not all taken or you've knocked so much off the board your freshman year, you're you're taking a lot of uh psychology classes and other things that are out of your interest area, you know, or or else you're having to take upper
upper level and you're competing with college students at a different level. at the same time you're trying to assimilate this whole new experience and you'll see kids kind of drop back, drop off, drop out, you know, so you have to really be careful how you pace yourself.
Yeah. Especially freshman year. And you really have to recognize every student is different and talk to your counselor and talk to your parents and kind of figure out like based on where you want to go and what you want to do, what's the best path for you, not necessarily what your friend who you've always sat next to what they're doing. And I, you know, the number on here I
really like is that 411, right? 411 of our students this year took one AP, right? We know statistically that if kids just have success and they expose themselves to it, they're more likely to think about postsecary educational opportunities. Um, and so we
really love that that's the highest out of all of those as opposed to the 17 kids who took five APs. Like cool, great for you. Those kids are our sort of other end of the spectrum kids. Just historically, so you guys know, we pulled the numbers. So last year we had 821 unique kids take AP um exams. The
prior year it was 780. And so as you think about 780 to 821 to 9004 and the student populations at both of our high schools have has slightly declined. So we these guys have worked really hard to ensure that for kids that it's appropriate. How do we encourage them?
How do we sometimes it is that one-on-one conversation about you can do this, right? Well, how about some of those subgroups of kids who might be a first generation college kid or um whose parents don't know as much about this? How do we ensure that there aren't barriers just inherent barriers there
for these kids getting in? So, well, then also, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal, Josie's aware of it as well, they were talking about how they're actually lowering some of the uh standard isn't the correct term, but
they're lowering what's expected on those AP exams, some of them, so that more kids do better. Yeah. Well, what they're doing is it's similar to what Dan was talking about with NWA. they're norming and they're calibrating, you know. Um because again, much like the SAT
benchmark score should predict how they do in freshman classes, the AP score should predict that they have the level of knowledge and skills um of what they would need to to pass that freshman history course or the freshman bio course or whatever it is. So, they're constantly like um
calibrating and norming that. So, a lot of the scores have reset. We saw that in AP Lang this year, you know, so our pass rate went up a little bit, but it's not necessarily about like making the test easier. It's about making it more in line with I mean, we we'll always see this with kids. They come back in
December after their first semester in college and sometimes these kids are like, I thought college would be hard, you know, but they they took five or six AP courses and sometimes those were more rigorous than what they actually got to college and took. So, college board is just trying to bring those a little more
into alignment over time. Just personally, just Ava, my my oldest just did her bachelor's in three years and she still says that her AP lang course at West Senior is the most challenging course she's ever had as far. Wow. The next slide here has some
results for you guys on those. Yeah, this is great. when you look at uh the pass percentage again Joe spoke to we call that a three or higher just when we're looking at the macro data but it is spec you know important to note that you know what universities will accept
credit varies great deal but when you look at the global pass percentage to ours we are higher in TCPS in every single course except AP3D and again that sample size last year was single digits and so that like is a real point of pride um and then we also have graphs
when we look throughout the state of Michigan. How do we do? And we continually um are higher than the state and global averages in most all of our courses. Yeah. Um Joe, I just want to say thank you for raising that point about the threes, fours, and fives. Um because
that is we don't want to mislead parents and students that Yeah. Yeah. And I I've seen that firsthand. There are some highly competitive colleges out there that will only accept a five for credit or placing out of the test and but um and strangely there's colleges that are
not competitive that will only take four certain things. It's it's arbitrary. You know, every institution can decide. Yeah. That's right. Um and on the money side of things, I've made this point last year, but I think it's worth repeating. If you're a parent and you know you're you you're paying approximately $100 per
test, um say your kid takes 10 over four years, that's $1,000. But to Dan's point, you're buying you could be buying your kid a semester or even a full year. And I have known some parents to do that. That's it's like going to NMC dual
enrollment. You know, you are saving a lot of money. Um, related to that is is, you know, the equity drum. And I do really appreciate the efforts through the buildings to make sure families know that cost isn't a barrier um, God
willing, with our new budget that we can still continue to support that. But I just think that's really important when counselors also meet with the students when they're registering in February for next year that that kid knows cost, you know, is not a barrier. There are scholarships available for them. John,
did you want to say anything there about the budget? I mention that. And then the last slide here just gives you the distribution of uh all of this all 1700 scores together here. Um I was been asked for this before, right? What percentage are fours and fives and what
does that look like? Nationally for most of the tests it's it is a bell curve that sits right around three. Um as you pull up, there are some that are different, but most of them bell curve right around three. So again, really impressive. And I will say
just when you talk to anyone in this region, there is not another district that can offer this many courses. Nor is there another district that gets this type of outcome. And this really is a testament to how hard our teachers are working, how hard our counselors are working to get our kids in our classes, and how hard these guys are working just
to make sure that it all runs really smoothly for our kids and our families. Yeah. I mean, I think this graph is amazing. I always look at this again going back to that three, four or five and lumping that together and calling it a pass rate. When you look at our kids in Traverse City wrote as many fives as
they wrote threes like you you will not see that a lot of places. That's really hard. Are we able to access the test scores of private schools? No. So only public schools data are available. Okay. And it's pretty lagging.
And we do share time right with some of our AP courses with our local We do. They're their scores are not in here. These are all actual TCAPS kids, but almost all the AP courses taught at at least GTA are act are taught by
TCAPS teachers and we oversee them and similar curriculum and all that good stuff. Yep. Okay. So, we did I know we're approaching two hours for this meeting. Um, but we did stick this in here knowing that we wanted to potentially have a discussion um, especially after
all this data around the strategic plan. Um, I just sort of summarized Dan and I summarized the five areas. Obviously, there'll be word smithing in there. Um, so and then Dan and I did just give you an idea. Dan and I kind of went through some different schools in the state,
what their strategic plans look like, how do we organize the information. We really liked this one in particular. Well, we've we've tweaked it a little bit, but like for example, this would be under goal number one, which is increase um academic achievement, and then maybe we'd have multiple focus areas, right?
One focus area around literacy, one focus area around mathematics, one focus area around graduation rates is sort of what Dan and I were thinking, and then within those focus areas, what are those u measures of success? That would be some of those hard outcomes there. I know there's lots of words and it's tiny
on the screen. Apologize. And then for Dan and I and our principles and our leadership teams really like what are the strategies and activities we're going to do to reach those measures of success, right? We can say all the measures of success that we want, but the actual we have to move the system and change what we're doing or else
we'll be back to the flatline graphs, right? So, um this was one template that that Dan and I have played with u what would it look like and how it presents, right? A question. Oh, go ahead. and that is, you know, there are people that talk about
teaching to the test and being concerned about that. Um, and I'm not quite sure how you could teach to the test for ELA or math in general, but it seems
to me that what we also want to make sure, and I'm I don't know how to measure this, is to make sure that students are able to use this, take it out of the classroom and actually use it
as part of their approach to daily living. Um, and so I think I don't know how to measure that. I don't know if the tests that we have currently are able to encompass that,
but I think that's something else to kind of keep in our heads. The only thing on that note is um something that was brought up by Trustee Ty Schmidt. Um, you know, knowing that this was on our agenda today, there are a number of career and college readiness
um benchmarks that are collected by Michigan school data. My school data. Yeah, my school data. Um, so that career college readiness I mean especially that career side I think
of very practical skills and I personally number five you're thinking the terms. Yeah. I mean it it it is but like to best point um yeah that that that's just one benchmark I do know that's out there and I don't I'm not intimately familiar with it.
I'm pretty familiar with it. So a lot of it comes from uh national um data that the colleges report um I'll be honest with you it's always been felt a bit a bit sketchy of you know those that report those that
don't. It's based off of, you know, they don't necessarily have great numbers that track kids from high schools, especially. Yeah, we know. You know, so all that. So you we've always used it as a point, but like you know, like how strong is it? They don't
know. Um, and then the other part you have I like you have to ask is I I think there's some early on ones, but I guess how responsible are we for a 4-year graduation rate in college? Like there's
college readiness, but the college has a whole lot of, you know, components there. So I I guess I would just I'd be weary of especially long-term college postsecary rates
initial maybe but like I said the my school data what that feeds into the you know it it's a little you know it's it's just I've actually had the chance when in one of my former districts that was much smaller to compare that data to what we knew were
fact and it didn't match Yeah. Yeah. I And I did see another metric actually. Um it's and this comes from Governor Whitmer. I believe it's called progress. It's called 60 by 30. 60%
um I don't think proficiency is the right word, but readiness or whatever. By 2030, it's 60% attendance. Okay. By 2030 in some kind of postsecary opportunity, right? Or a certificate, a professional certificate program, right? Okay. 60%
participation by 2030. So that's another which would be look at our data. I think we meet already. Yeah. So those metrics do exist but but yeah I understand they it's like and I'm not trying to I you know I would love I would love if that data was
solid. I'd love it. You know just you know we as a state we don't do a great job of tracking kids especially postc career. Yeah. Like you know of of having a connection. We don't have anything that ties us to kids and alumni to be able to get that info.
Um Dan, if you just want to roll back to that measures of success. You know, one thing I noticed in here under uh measures of success five and six. Um those also to me look like they overlap
with goal four of developing highquality staff. So I wondered if some of these and the and the same thing came up in my mind under strategies and activities for number two ongoing professional learning for educators. Some of these you might be putting it towards both goals
or you might have a huge list for this first goal and like a small you know move things around but I just I noticed that that's got to be hard to kind of parse out what goes where. Yeah. Some overlap and and keep it to a point where it's doable. You know, one thing that is living so we've lived strategic plans,
blueprint things as building principles for the last several years and and I think in order to we talk about big data and we talk about that flatline that we want to address, we want to make these strategic plans usable at a school level with admin. Um, so when I talk about
like one of the stuck here there when I bring it bring up again we talked this is back in March now and we continue to talk about um data that we'll use for for metrics. So we can take all of our NWA now and again shout out to our wonderful tech team.
Sophie helps with with all the data we do for elementary um that we can take our NWA, we bring it into our system, we're able to disegregate, you know, economically um disadvantage versus non, right? So we talk about that achievement gap or also be able to make goals. Again, I would
focus on that, you know, the the yellow line or the blue and the greens and and combining them as far as achievement goes. So my my point is that you know as far as is this data being usable I can then take this graph that's 35 I can
make it for each school you know and then those principles can then bring that data into staff and say hey this is one of our goals as far as strategic planning goals because that hasn't been done in the past right as far as our strategic planning we make some connections but with an actual data goal
it' be nice to get this in front of every person that's in our district um to really address. Again, if we're not going to have necessarily a big financial push to address some of these areas, then I think we have to get buy in from every single educator in
order to do something about the flatline. Yeah. And I think we just need to be careful. The more goals we add, the more data points across your, you know, dashboard, the less we have found staff and principles, there's just it it's just too much,
right? Like if we have a math goal and then we have a math goal for these kids and then we have a math goal for the kids and then we have a math goal for these kids that applies to these kids but not these kids. It just ends up being nobody knows what they're supposed to be looking at and so everybody's looking different ways or everyone's just looking up. I don't know.
And that's why and then again I brought in the that's their ELA MSTEP and I know there's some discussion about including MSTEP. You know the issue is right MSTEP was done in the spring. we still don't have the scores back right and so getting actual data in front of teachers
that's why NWA is lock step as far as we are going to do NWA in the fall that data is processed in data meetings we make our tier 2 groups it is addressed in our in our PLC's MSTEP is not right because we get that back in the fall and quite honestly with six PLC's you know
we run out of time eventually as far as addressing all kinds of data so I would definitely lean I mean if we have to do both if that's a priority um but I would lean heavy towards NWA that it's a data that's in front of teachers, in front of admin all year long.
And and yeah, I mean I I definitely see the benefit of NWA too as a parent. You know, you your kid comes home and is excited about, you know, their score and and we do have that correlation. Again, it's not perfect, but the idea that, you know, 60th percentile and higher is
proficiency on MSTEP. Um that suffice as far as academic goals. The only issue with them stepping I mean you know this is that that's what goes into my school data. So is there a transparency issue if you know would anybody
there is a conversation happening at the state level of inputting I ready and NWA into my school data. There is that conversation a part of the Michigan data hub. So we don't know how quick that'll come to fruition, but that is in the conversation, right? So we can continue. I mean, by law, I
think we have to report the MSTEP data, right? It automatic. We don't it automatically, the state does it. They only. So I mean, that's going to be publicly available and we can always see that as a board, but it doesn't have to be in the strategic plan. No,
performance indicators or, you know, performance measures, whatever you want to call them, that the teachers are really focused. My fear would be we put it in there and it's just not used. Yeah. Right. It's just there as a you know placeholder. That's a technicality. And when it comes down to the school individual school building level
improvement plans I mean as long we should also be aligned between the district plan and there so that everybody's looking at on the same page looking at one data source or another that would be NWA. Yeah. If we really want to prioritize. Yeah.
The thing is I I like I mean your data is cool. The way you're uh addressing it I think is is so refreshing kind of um and I think that's laudatory.
My concern though is that why do you have this kind of information? You have it so that people can use it. It it it needs to have practical applicability. You know, it's like answering the question my father would do. You know,
he'd go and he he would fix something and he would look at me and he would say, "Okay, miss five years of college. What do you think about that?" You know, it's sort of like it's not all academic in life. And to be able to critique
things, to be able to think your way around to evaluate AI, that's going to be important. and we need to give kids confidence in how to use this. Um, and so that's a whole other
discussion, but this this isn't where we stop, where we think of how we're doing a good job. Yeah, I agree. That elementary focus, I think that all builds off of reading, you know, because I know often we have
discussions, you bring up the social studies and the science and proficiency around that and state measures. um that it's all based in reading and that's why we're so heavy in that tier one reading at in at elementary. Reading is is one heck of a gift when you have it. But so is being able to
proportionally look at things that mathematical skill or the way that you are driving a car into a curve and you think about centrifugal force, you know, because that's how you're going to get through the curve. Okay, Dan, I just want to ask you about
this particular slide. I think what you wanted to show us on the right here, that's the ELA proficiency right at the top and the nap below. These were just clips from our from our March, the fiveyear trends. Um, again, showing the achievement gap, right? There's I was just want to show also we can do it with NWA also, right?
Where we have all students, we have economically non-economically disadvantaged with the same idea as those bands. Right. Right. So, if we're looking at goals that are, you know, meaningful and achievable for, you know, to align with
our three-year strategic plan, I know we the board and the administration collectively, we all want to raise the bar for all students. We also want to help narrow that achievement gap between low-inccome and other students. If we are those two goals at odds with
each other or do you look at them as sympatico? You know, like in other words, if we try to raise the the you know, narrow that achievement gap, does that come at any cost to the middle and high learners in terms of like their
their growth might not be as high because we're trying to raise the bottom more. I mean, I think it depends on how you resources. It's the resources. That's what I was just thinking of. You know, like if you put more tier two,
you know, supports, you know, you are, you know, you might not be limiting class size because you have interventionists now, you know. So, I think that's a balance. That's a balance you have to, you know, we we always have
to I think we do our very best to try and say how can we spread that dollar in staffing to do the best here and the best here. And and I think that that's the approach we've taken. And I do think, you know, that we want to we're
trying right now to figure out how can we shift that a bit to do more tier 2 supports, especially middle school. um you haven't had any at high school, you know, and so two support. Yeah. And so that that's that's where that comes down. Tier two supports,
where where are you placing them and how much are you doing with that? That's where the bread is, especially I think with our economically disadvantaged kids, how much of an if how you know in the in the RTI pyramid of how many scoops of ice cream do you
give a kid? Every kid that is academically disadvantaged, the more scoops you give them, the more chance they are that they're going to achieve, but you only have so much ice cream. Right. Right. I would say in the high school, the biggest tier 2 support has been the TAI program. Right. But to run the TAI program, and both Joe
and Ben know this, it costs more FTE. So then, so do we not run some of those AP classes that you just saw phenomenal data for because we only have 20 kids, right? Right. Now, we'll still run that class, but then we got to run Tai. John is exactly right. like if we provide more tier 2 for me I I think tier two is
where where we can move the biggest group of kids and we can s we do not have a systematic tier 2 math support across elementaryaries elementaryaries just kind of we need that we 100% need that right uh which means depending on what elementary school you go go to it depends on what type of
support they have sort of left over from title or at risk as far as individuals we have the programming but Jesse's right there's no set we go all in on reading first and And e even more to that is depending what school you're at in the title funds they have available. Do you have a certified teacher doing tier 2 versus an
aid doing tier 2, right? Westwoods who has $50,000. Trevor Heights has $300,000. They're going to have FTE, right? A certified teacher doing tier 2 versus an aid. And do you get the quality of tier 2 intervention? So, and you have the same, right? You
still have the the economically disadvantaged kid at Westwoods in the tier two. Are they getting the same quality as a you know economically disable it just has their you know their percentage of population is more economically disadvantaged and so like
here's here's an interesting one that hit me that I think I'm going to say this right but please speak up if not Eastern Elementary does not have you know the percentage you know of their students that are economically disadvantaged however
because they're they're charge. They're 500 students. They have more economically disadvantage than Traverse Heights. At risk at risk percentage is low, but their number is high. But the number of students Yeah. Right. You know, if they were two separate
schools, one of them would would be would be a title one building. Yeah. We I mean, we did this. It almost turned out to be a case study when we closed interlocking and brought those kids into Westwoods. Those kids receive full title support, social work every day. we bring the 70 kids into Westwoods
now we don't have any title support even that didn't bump us up to uh my first year at Westwoods when we so it in a way it is an inequity from federal and state resources you know of saying this building because it reaches a threshold gets all those
resources but theoretically I think there's also an argument that because it's so much of a large prepoundonderance of economically disciplined students more of the direct resources should Yeah, go to it. You know, you can only split a teacher across maybe you can sometimes
do across two buildings but not four, you know. So that that's the hard part. So as a district we have put an extra FTE at Blair and Traverse Heights and that and a and a Westwoods for instance doesn't get that or a Silver Lake. I think Silver Lake and the Long Lake are
the two right now we're talking a lot. They're they're on that bubble, right? But you know, like like you may remember when we were out and central grade, right? But you might remember when we were at Silver Lake that the staff were like, "Don't forget we have title needs, too." Right. Remember? Exactly.
Well, they got the larger chunk of the And and this is the hard part that we deal with that I wish I had better answers. I really do. From a resource standpoint of of be able to provide more with that. And and if we do, it just has to come to the
cost of something else that at some point we have to decide. Yeah. Yeah. And and that's why I asked the question because you know I I would like to close the achievement gap, but I also want to make sure that our middle and high performers don't suffer as
well. You know that their potential is limited. Right. Right. Exactly. Don't want to limit their potential. In the in the end, I'm not sure you can achieve that goal with the resources we're given from the state and it's not all on on the schools.
It's but we kind of collectively agreed these were two big picture goals and if they're really at odds and we need to prioritize one or the other then that's going to that is going to be a conversation in future budgeting you know as we move forward. But also I mean in August when
you present the objectives and the and the performance measures that you know to but I guess I would say staffing now that's already figured out for this next year like you know we don't even know if we have what we have right you know so you're going to be a year away from be able to make shifts in
budget that might prioritize some things over others and that's sort of I mean I know we've talked a little bit about threeyear fiveyear what is that goal range I mean there's not much we can shift now for next school year to be honest. Dr. Van Wagner's our staffing has we've allocated the resources to the sites.
They've hired their people. Um so looking at a little bit longer data will allow us to get some data back and and respond. I think at one of the board meetings I was asked is the percentage is okay and I was like well that's a tough one to ask. Percentages are okay. We can talk every year about where do we maybe change some of those. I just wish
we had more of it to start with so that the percentages came out differently. Can I just have more ice cream, please? It'll make you sick. Oh, okay. Yeah. And this is a particularly tough year with the state budget. Yeah, it is.
12 not being passed yet, but um it sounds like we haven't done it. We're not al planning to allocate our dollars differently this next year than we have in past, right? Well, I'll bet because we have less I mean our atrisisk dollars, we had a million dollar cut. So, we actually have
less resources this year than we've had in the past. and we're unsure about where our federal funds are coming in at this point. We've been told that our title two, our title three and our title four funding were not funded at the federal level. Title two is professional development. Title
three is our uh ELLL or English language learners and title four is also professional development and development of our staff. So, at this point, that would be almost a half a million dollar cut as well. Well, I I want to thank everybody for their uh their patience and diligence
sticking here with us this long. Um I just want to try to wrap things up, but I wanted to say a couple of things. One is just respect uh for you guys doing all this hard work. As Beth said, you know, the graphics, all the data um analysis has been great. It's very
useful to the board. And I think when in August when you do present your draft proposal for the performance measures um if you can show us like where we are versus where we want to go. I think that would be helpful like so that we're not seeing in a vacuum like increase
proficiency by x% when we don't know what the current proficiency like we're all going to need that reminder. Where where is our proficiency now? Is it 40% or 80% 60%? You think you need a one year or do you want all five again? whatever you've got. I mean, you don't need to create anything new. I think
like what you presented today was great, but just to show like those graphs where we were seeing, okay, this is really flat over five years or we've seen some growth or some decline and then that helps us say, okay, yeah, where do we want to go from here? Um, the other
thing is like I I looked back at our April 1st curriculum committee meeting where you guys did the learning series on attendance and there's just such great data you pulled together for
that um on the 20% plus of our students who are chronically absent, you know, 10% or more of of the whole school year. Um, and there was a slide that you had about how to improve attendance rate through strong, positive, and supportive
culture. And I really see these tying in not they they should relate to academic achievement, but they really explicitly relate to our strategic goal and connectedness and well-being. So, the positive relationships, the belonging
with the within the community, the recognition of achievements. I know in elementary schools we used to recognize perfect attendance. Um those sorts of things, experiences during school day and outside and then communication to parents about attendance. I think that's really the
key that we've got to go after. So through building newsletters like the cell phone policy, I've seen that since the the board changed policy two years ago, the district's social media flyers at back to school orientation nights, um
parent teacher conferences. I think just promoting the benefits of regular attendance like it does lead to better academic outcomes and better connected kids and graduation on time. So I just would love to see something about trying to reduce our chronic absenteeism. More
more time learning will lead to better outcomes to support our strategic plan multiple goals. So with that, any other input from trustees? Okay. And we've got our celebrations and successes then. Thank
you guys so much for the strategic plan discussion. That was great. Just a short couple ones. Uh some photos from our end of the air joint principles. It's a great time had by all three hours of reflection on on where
and planning for this next year. It's just it we have a really we have a really great group of building administrators who who you know you've seen their two goals, right? Number one is to increase the student achievement and to close gaps and then number two is to manage everything else that goes into
running a school building um so that they can keep their eye on number one. and we just have a phenomenal group. So Dan and I have been very thankful. Uh robotics camp, this was at Central High's IMC. So Dr. May Wagner secured some funds uh to buy those robotics kits
and now I think we've doubled that here as we start to start to look at building an elementary uh robotics program. So, we started here just um and again some some side positives of this is, you know, this is a fundraiser that helps us offset some
LEAP costs. So, we clear about about 2,000 a camp that we can then kick back and then help with our free and reduced um participants during during the school year. So, we ran two sessions. Uh they filled up in about three days. So, next year we're going to be looking at uh
probably doing once a week uh five or six sessions. So that's smart. It was great to highlight those faces. All the parents are super positive. Central High, I know that West was under construction. We thought about doing on both sides of town, but we just did Central High Robotics coach was great to
work with. Also, their tech guys, so that was awesome to to kind of combo that together. So, and have some student volunteers, right? We did. Yep. The robotics team had student volunteers. Raptors. And then also we just wanted to highlight these are three different uh high school groups that went on
international trips, right? School gets out and then they all jump on planes and as you can see go to some pretty pretty cool places. This is from both Central and West different groups of kids um and now they're sort of all back home and in the swing of fall sports probably um and
activities and those sorts of things. So and great we thank our teachers who do this too by the way. I mean these were all led by teachers and who don't get compensated more for this right? they have chosen to go through the process of doing an international trip with students, which by the way is is there's
a lot of logistical um things for their protection and for our kids and families that they go through. But um super thankful to our staff that that give up some time to take our kids abroad. So this is Italy and Italy and then the upper right is Greece
and then Italy is on the left and the lower Yeah. Westico. Great job. Thank you to those teachers and chaperones. Nobody went to the Middle East. My goodness.
Okay. Well, um, if there are no other items, I we will just announce that our next board curriculum committee meeting is Tuesday, July 29th here at the administration at Glenn Lumis building and that will be at 8:30 a.m. Thank you
again everybody for your diligence and great discussion today. We are now adjourned. Part: 2
Ulum commission to order. The committee would like to welcome audience. Viewers may watch live board committee meetings online at tcaps.net/board. Recorded meetings may be viewed on demand at the same address. It appears we do not have any public commenters
today. So with that, um, we will move on to procedural items. And first up are our draft committee meeting minutes from May 27th. Um, I will defer to my fellow trustees to see if you had any comments or
corrections. Okay. I just noticed one thing which I've already shared. Um, I I'm sorry I didn't catch this earlier, but with our new committee meeting time of 8:30 a.m. instead of 8:15 a.m., I think the the header template, the header and the
template hadn't yet been updated. So, that's just the only thing. Um, and so with that that change, our minutes will be revised and reposted. Moving on to our 25 2025 to 2026 TCAPS district course catalog update. I will
defer to Jesse Hoden. Sure. Um the courses that you'll see in the memo here are all courses taught in Aselis. That ACL means um they're taught through that uh platform. And these are all courses that we are building out to
start the fully virtual programming over at East Middle School for the middle school students. So Mr. Ranger and his counselors went through course catalog and sell us what we currently offer to middle schools and made sure we had comparable courses. So that is what we're adding there.
question and it's going to show up more in the discussion with the handbooks. Okay. But there's a place in there in the elementary handbook where it says K through five, you use Lincoln Center virtual courses. Yep.
Yep. Lincoln learning. Not Lincoln Center, but Lincoln. Lincoln learning. Yes. You know, and so I was just kind of curious about that. Yeah. We talked a little bit. I think it was last board curriculum about our virtual programming. So, we have a handful of students. Last year, we had six students that were part of the
Lincoln learning programs that take their elementary experience virtually uh for a variety of reasons from family to family. Uh when a family asks goes through the principal, the principal then talks to me um because we want to make sure it's a perfect fit, right?
That's a unique situation. Sometimes it's health related, sometimes family has some travel that they do on a regular basis. so they need it. Um so with those six unique kids, that's how we handle that. And and just for the record, there are
not many um platforms that do elementary. They're very few. So Link is one that's been around quite a while that a lot of people have found success with. And so it's kind of a little bit of a it's not broke, don't fix it. It's, you know, like it it really kind of I
wouldn't say it, you know, it's 100% perfect by any means, but as far as the platforms that are out there, it's one that quite a few people do use at the elementary and find success. And TCAPS has a retired teacher, Rhonda Bush, that helps us and helps those kids. They do the she brings them in, does the testing, but any questions they
have with academics, it's nice to have a support person also. Yeah. And also, we've been using Lincoln um since the fall of 2020 during co That's when the district started using it and Yeah. Yeah.
If not spring of 2020 when we had to go well when I first got here. That was still our teachers. That was still our teachers. Yeah. Yep. So, okay. Um I just noted that there about 18 courses here for the new middle school virtual program. Do we think this is going to be it or might there be more
additions next month? There might be more especially as we see what kids interests are who are in the programs, right? But we could at least add the basics. We have added a few. Remember we had a few um middle school students um who were online this last
school year due to a variety of reasons. We had just like two or three of them. They were actually at West Middle School. So we had already had added some courses for the middle school. So these are completing sort of that sixth through 8th grade run. But I I would anticipate like other things you guys
typically we see the virtual courses. You might see an NMC course. A lot of that is driven by what kids are interested in taking and then what's available through those programs too. Is there a deadline for their registration is it up until same as our student registration. So we
take kids well we take any kids that live within our jurisdiction all the time. Right. Um we really want to get kids in obviously before school starts so we're able to really do our due diligent have a meeting with the counselor set up the right you know but um yeah it'll follow our regular student registration
deadlines. Do you find these courses are more they augment the whole program or are they more like to help because they're not doing so well with some of the existing in-person programming or is it because
they want to accelerate? It's really a wide variety of reasons, Beth. I would say I pro probably at this point we haven't yet seen the kid who really wants to accelerate. I say that with the exception of and we'll see it at the high schools. They have kids who want to take a third year or fourth or
sixth year of a world language that we don't have a course for and so they're accelerating themselves. So we look to the virtual as a oneoff opportunity to provide a a good solid curriculum. At the middle school it's it's mostly not that though but it's a wide variety as to why students have selected to do a
fully virtual schedule. Okay. Um, moving on to field trip requests. We have an update. Um, we'll defer again to H Hotton or Mr. Esper. No, I unless you want to talk about this one. This one is just a change of
location. This is uh the Carrie Leante, the German teacher at West Senior High, takes students on a German exchange. Um, and this was a request of location that came from the the school in Germany that we partner with. Um, two main reasons.
Number one is cost. um the cost for not us, the other school that we partner with, they weren't able to continue the partnership because of cost. And then there was um a little bit of um just what's going on in our political realm right now that the school that we currently partnered with was not wanting
to continue that partnership, but it was mainly due to cost according to Carrie. But that's all right. Carrie already found another partnership school and so our stu 15 students who are traveling over there, this is for next year from now, June. um she feels like this is a great partnership, the school, she's got
relationships and connections there. So, I have no concerns about this and I appreciate her. She's always on top of it and has great connections over there. So, anything you want to add, Mr. Esper? No, it's just fantastic trip. It's been going on for a long time. Uh and and
that longtime partnership um that we're stepping on and she actually had multiple other um schools interested. So, she was able to evaluate that a little bit and recommend the one that we went with. So, it's not like it's the only other option we could find. It's like it's a little larger city. There's
a little more industry. Um, it's kind of a STEM focused school. So, she thought it'd be a really good fit uh for our students going over. And then, of course, like Jesse mentioned, the cost piece for the other school is this is a true two-way exchange. So, it needs to be a school too that they're going to
send their kids here in September to stay in Traverse City. I have admired this field trip from a distance for many years. So, I'm I'm excited to see it continue. And yeah, as you noted, I think a key piece, too, is that for our parents, the cost is the
same. And it's it's a national kind of program. My daughter did it in Chapelville. All right. Um, moving on to the 2025 to 2026 elementary and secondary student
parent handbooks. I will defer to Dan Heisworth and Jesse Hoden. Yes. So, uh, this year we there was not a major overhaul in the handbooks. I will let you know some of the changes that we, uh, we did some clean up on some language changes. Um, we added in some AI wording into the handbooks that
was vetted by our principles and by Evan and his team. Um, we also had to update and sort of realign all the policy numbers with all the policy changes that you guys have seen come through full board. Um but there was no major adjustment or change um to the handbook
and sections. I agree in either handbook. Same process where we have a group of elementary principles that go through that look at a little working um some attendance things. Um and also the AI idea,
nothing major. Um, I I spent several hours going through these yesterday and one of the things I noticed in the very beginning where you mention the board, you've got um Erica's name misspelled
in the first part where she's vice president and then she's listed again as a a trustee. So, you've got eight board members uh in both handbooks. Well, Erica called me a one in two votes. So, she's got But she's spelling her
name different. Well, that was kind of, you know, incognito a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she she won on that one. We'll get that one fixed. Thank you. That's a small thing, you know. And um in elementary, I was
going to ask there's a list of things that kids should kind of leave at home. They'll take to school. There's a discussion of we're not going to replace them. All that kind of thing cost. We don't put cell phones there.
And the next thing, the next section is the cell phone policy. And I was thinking for elementary, why don't we just say we strongly recommend unless you have an immediate need, leave your cell phone at home as well.
Um and and we've just never done that. Yeah. and and the and the policy is actually personal electronic devices. So, they're smart watches and all the other Yeah, there's a place where it says PED. Um, I appreciate that thought, but I don't
think that was the intent of the board. I know you brought that up at the time, and if that is the intent of the board, that needs to be clarified. When we did the cell phone policy, it was not to encourage people to keep them home. It was discussed but it was not intently
given the board that that was something they wanted to endorse. K through8 I believe it was that stay away the agree with you away for the day. No backpack or which is different then
that's my point is what you're saying is different. And if you scroll up Kelly scroll up here. So in that paragraph um it says TCAPS will not assume electronic devices should not be brought to school but the list is those items who are deemed
inappropriate. I I think that's sort of the distinction that Dr. Van Wagner is talking a little bit about. A kid might bring their cell phone to school and check it into the office or leave it powered down because there's a certain reason why they need it after school or something like that. These are the things that we would deem as
dangerous. They're all kind of violent, you know, fire sightings kids like, you know, elementary kids bring a ton of trinkets to school, stuffed animals, turtles, fidget, the spinners. So, we just try to say, "Hey, leave." But to your point, you did bring that
up. That was a discussion point for sure. But that to me at least wasn't the final decision of the board. It was, you know, the the away. So, not, you know, once you hit the door, it's not to be seen, but you know, and and I
wouldn't be against it if the board wanted to go that far, but that that is different than as far as we we went in the policy. I I almost would look at that again because I I know at least two, actually, I think four board members that thought
that elementary should clearly be away for the day. Yes. um away for the day meaning not at school because that's the way the literature presents. So you're saying not brought at all not brought at all. So there is so there is a handful or more kids right that have after school
events that need some kind of communication where office phone is not available and and that is fine. Well they have to bring it to school to have it after school. But when I was talking to a a a a kid in elementary school at the time, I said, 'Well, what
are you doing with your cell phone? You know, I thought she was leaving at home. Oh, no. We all bring them. We all bring them. They're in our backpacks, you know, and we bring our backpacks to class, she said. So, they're not away for the
day. No, but but I mean per that last paragraph on the screen, if they are powered off and stored in the backpack or a locker during the school day, that is acceptable, right? I mean, I think that's the key thing. Elementary kids don't bring backpacks to
classes. Elementary kids use their lockers. Getting to six six, they use they use backpacks. But elementary powered off in their locker was a policy. That's a policy they continue to follow. I just hesitate because if you have a a latch key kid or someone who
needs that phone after school to get a ride from their parent, I would hate to know policy says no one can bring their phone to school. Let's be very careful with policy and practice. There's two different things. Our practice is that but I just want them if possible to get
into the habit of keeping it as a tool rather than as a constant companion. Yes. you know, and I think we should do everything to really instill that. I think that that's healthy. It's often used, at least in my
experience, in emergency purposes for contacting a parent after school, pickup changes. Sure, I understand. And that's why we split the two. My feeling was if you have car keys, you should have access to a cell phone.
But, you know, we were saying this is this is why we split them at K through eight, right? You know, and we were seeing uh policies that were similar to that. Yeah. You know, it's not that I want it extreme or absolutely no circumstance,
but just a real let this be kind of matter of fact that you're comfortable, not not having a cell phone that you're back in call. I do think to Dan Dan's point though the afterchool issue is a big one
and unfortunately you know kids can be on the bus even in elementary school and using their phones because we did make that decision as a board that we don't want the poor bus driver to have to police that while he or she is driving you know um so you know it it's not
there I don't think there's any perfect policy that's perfectly implemented and enforced you know, but we we tried to draw the lines where we thought it was reasonable. So, I mean, I'm comfortable with encourage students being encouraged to
leave their cell phones, but it's it's pretty hard, you know, to tell families like they're prohibited and I don't think that's what we do, right? Yeah. Okay. So, one more question
on this and that is we only do report cards twice a year. that semester. Really? That's K12. Whereas in high school, they can every week look up information every day.
Yeah. Just about every hour. So, is there anything someone Because it seems to me when you're getting your foundational learning in, you'd really want to know when your kid began to to not connect,
but they're not getting uh great. They're getting numbers. It's a little bit different than grading like in the middle school, high school. Elementary is on a one through four. So, it's not as
solid. You know what's being input, but that's why we have conferences early in the fall. But you only have conferences twice a year, correct? And they're only report card. midpoint between the comp be between the
first report card. So conferences would be like in October, November, then they'd get the report card. So there's time to improve and then again in February, March, time to improve. Okay? Because it seems like it'd be real
easy to kind of a kid that's doing just getting by may not the parent won't get the flag on that. that that could be better. Yeah, I know that uh unlike secondary, right, because secondary has the power
school with the parent portal, right? You can see grades. The only grades we have in elementary um is our tag. Our tag program does actual letter grades. Um outside of that, you know, with a classroom, you know, a secondary teacher might have over a hundred students. You know, an elementary classroom has up to,
you know, 30ish, you know, or less. And I think that communication happens on a more regular basis. So if there is a student struggling or there is some red flags I know between the teacher, the principal, social worker, um people doing intervention, I think that
communication is on enough of a regular basis where it substitutes in for that portal because I just think, you know, when I was a kid, when my kid was a kid, uh we saw a a formal back and forth more
frequently and a lot of it was tied with a number that indicated sort of like how well they were reacting. It was more of an attitudinal thing. Um, and then the grade which was sort of
like where you were academically in relation to different subjects. You know, for a while it was the S for satisfactory, the S plus as well as those type of things still would come home. Checked work still would come home. So
your you as the parent would still see what your kid is doing and a lot of elementary classrooms have homework that would go back and forth and see then parents sign and you realize when
the kid is not bringing it home because you're not getting the signed return acknowledge. It might not be signs necessarily, but there's usually an established pattern for that purpose, at least when I taught was to establish some responsibility.
And so parents had an idea of what they were doing in that. And you know, these are some gaps. These are some places that you can help or wow, your kids really knocking it out of the park there. Um, so if you're not seeing homework on
whatever the established day is, then that's kind of a clue to you as a parent. Yeah. You have not had homework in because I think that when we talk about academic achievement, we need to make sure that we've got those pathways that
are really good if you want to do cooperation with folks at home. I'll just I'll just add as a parent, my kids, you know, are now in high school, but wasn't that long ago they were little and the amount of marked up, you
know, graded homework that came home was voluminous. There's so much paper still K through five. And that's okay. I'm old school. I don't want it to be electronic at that age. But they do they bring their backpacks are full of of papers that have been graded so you know
parents can see incrementally what's going on. Um, and then the parent teacher conferences do conveniently fall like a little into not I don't know if it's like exactly the midpoint of each semester, but it is partway in. So that's a checkpoint for the
Yeah, it just seems like it's so far fewer than what I was used to either as a kid or as a parent. Yeah, this is so much. The district moved away from quarters to semesters just a couple of years ago. Nice thing happened. You know, I got
more grades going to college because you had a midterm and a final, but you had it each semester. And so, it seems like you could really lose some of the more quiet kids. You know, I find that the report cards
aren't necessarily as far as a communication for progress on standards. It's more of documentation. When a parent receives a report card, there should be nothing on that report card. It's a surprise, right? There's communication going for the whole semester, especially when you
talk about students falling, you know, between the cracks or any of that. That's where our tier 2 intervention comes in and parents get communication about their students being involved in tier 2. So, a lot of our report cards, which is why we went down to two because it is a process for teachers to do report cards.
It's a lot of time. Um and that's why we went to two because we found that this documentation was a much more efficient way to do it twice a year instead of three times. So the communication about how the student is doing in the room is not necessarily report card based but rather you know that 18 weeks leading up
to it. Okay. Okay. One more two actually two more. One is Lance Morgan is referred to when uh in the section on attendance and credits and I
was thinking you might want to put the current principle and then the other thing is in the section on athletics uh when they were talking about heat dealing with heat I'd throw marching band in there as well
because I've seen marching band competitive uh out on the field and the kids brought their that heat index. Yeah. So, it should apply not just to the sport. Yeah. We just need to I I need to read that section because uh Michigan High
School Athletic Association has rules and procedures for managing heat. if we want to apply those to other kids who are outside. I just need to think about that and what the implications and like how do we our band directors are educated on sort of where we're at and
anytime it just happened a few days ago when it was really hot we got on as cabinet and we were texting and making sure that our athletic directors are all aware where our latch key where you know um I I just want to be cautious of that because there are actual guidelines that our athletic directors are trained in
through MHS. We'll have an MHSA section because that's kind of mandated that we have, but we'll figure something else for other activities as well. I was figuring that. We'll figure that out. Can I throw one more question on you? And that is is the only one who would
pay for parking at the high schools, the students, are they the only ones that have to buy parking permit? Yes. Because when we have our students park versus take the school transportation, um it does cost us more for supervision
and for ensuring we have that those available for kids. Um and so we want our kids to register their cars. So if there are issues, we actually know who's on our campus. Um, and we do spend some time patrolling the campus to make sure that during the school hours, it's only our students who are parking in our
parking lots and not kids from other schools, random strangers from the community, people there to, you know, access kids or or our property or just people who think it's a public parking lot that we really are trying to, you know, maintain safety and security. So, we do want our kids to register cars.
It's something that Joe and Ben and I have worked a lot on it and it helps those guys with safety and security when there's an issue to right away be able to know um you know what students are involved and how do we support and it is a modest amount like it is a modest amount. Yep. Yep. The only um addition would be for the
central students if they choose um for open campus which then means they're driving on and off of campus multiple times throughout the day. There's an additional fee for that, but that only applies to a small group of students, the juniors and seniors. So, the students that would do career
tech might be in that group. They might be in that group. Um or they can ride the bus and not be in that group because we do provide transportation to and from career tech center every day. And we have quite a few students two bus worth uh at Central High School that
anything else you guys want to add about No, all right. Anything else in the handbooks that you'd like to highlight? No. Nothing you ever wanted. Those are some good ones, though. Those are some good catches.
I didn't catch Lance's name. That's a good one, Beth. Got to have eagle eyes for that. Okay. Um,formational items. First up is sex education curriculum updates. I will defer to Britney K and Dan McGee.
Yes. Before I pass it over to Dan, um just to adhere to the legal obligations that are set forth by MDE, TCAPS will hold two public hearings for this information at the following board meetings which will occur on Monday, July 14th, as well as Monday um August
25th. So now I will defer um to Dan McGee, who is our district sex education coordinator to present um the uh sex education advisory board's proposed curricular changes. All right. Uh this year we have quite a few more Then uh some years we had a
excessively hardworking uh sexide advisory board. Um some of these things like uh the fifth grade video, the first one. Are we going to watch all the videos today? No, they're they're available. So I had emailed the board previously that they
are the password protected. So if you want to see one, just make an appointment uh with Tammy and she'll get you set up for it. Yeah. Same way to the public. tried to see them and I so so our fifth grade HIV uh change that
is uh this video and the the all the guidelines and all the work and all that stuff is is from Michigan Mile and that is available to our staff um through our ISD. They train they train our staff.
I've been at those trainings and they they can provide that. This came from from the fifth grade teachers. When I asked for feedback, they were like, "Yeah, we need to update." We just went to this Michigan model. So much better video. And we were using older versions
and stuff. So, we updated uh and it came from it came from staff. So, each one of those documents on here um and the video are all part of that package from from them. Most of them are
teacher resources. A few of them are uh like the student promises worksheet. A few things are things you do with at home uh with with uh you know that you can send home. You were talking about sending things home. Kids go through the program. Boom. That that particular
document can be sent home. Um, do you need any any questions about the fifth grade HIV or that package or do we want to look? No, I mean I think you you set it up well. Um, I remember last year there
were there was quite a bit of update to HIV and AIDS and I think right there were some members of the sex ed committee who had that expertise. Right. We have a wellrounded we have a number of medical people on there. We have a minister. We have uh a number a few a
few educators and more than half our parents. So we we have the criteria we have to we have to do. I think last year we may have presented our updates to our um
uh what do you want to call it? The way we operate under those guidelines. I'm trying to bylaws. bylaws were passed. We We did our bylaws last year and last year we had to do an evaluation and we did our evaluation. A lot of our changes this year were result of our
evaluation from the year before. Next year again I get to present our evaluation because it's an every other year thing. Um so um this I'm not going to get into
other things other than what we're presenting to change. So this is our uh presenting the change in our question in our fifth grade. Yes, of course. The last time I looked at the mortality and uh morbidity data
um HIV was definitely there and it was homosexual uh area where the greatest there's a larger there's a larger population which is where the population uh is showing where the the incidence of
infection is that I don't see in the literature I see the literature as being benign across the population. It doesn't only affect that. It affects everyone. But yes, in this in the fifth grade level, I I don't think we're we're
addressing it that way. Um, in other words, we don't have to say sexual versus heterosexuality. Say it exists. I I spent more time actually looking at some of the high school Yeah. stuff.
Well, right now we're talking about the elementary. So, for my mindset was I'm saying here we've really expanded that area, but we haven't really talked about where the focus of infection is is currently
and the the the focus of infection could be a pregnant woman. Oh, I understand. It is a variety of people. Now, is there a large larger um disproportionate into a certain group. Yeah.
Yeah. And and and that is I believe is discussed at the high school level. Well, the big case in the 1980s was Ryan White and he was a young man who he wasn't even a young man. He was a kid
who got HIV through the blood because he was he he had hemophilia and he had frequent transfusions and he got it through the blood crash. The same thing and and so they've they've cleaned up a lot of the transfusion.
Yes. I mean it is it's much more stringent. Yeah. And and compared to the 80s I mean we can we can discuss Magic Johnson. Yeah. Oh, sure. That's what I think of 19 how incredible healthy he is today. When he came out that he had it,
it was a death sentence. Well, a big thing you'll see in the in the high school is that we are talking about the treatment and medications that are available now that make it basically
so you can't even pass it. you can get the viral load that low undetectable in the latency area. And that doesn't doesn't matter uh what type of sexual activity they they do if there if they're treated, diagnosed,
treated, it is not cured, but it is getting uh the medical advances have been amazing. And we teach that because one of the things we have to do is teach medically accurate information
and and I I appreciate that. I do. Uh and one of your most useful slides is the one where you show that antibiotics where you can use an antibiotic towards a bacteria is curable.
When you are using the antibiotic towards a virus, it is not cured. Yep. That's in our that's in our STI. Yes. Yes. And that is on the money, you know, and part of the reason so much money's gone into research
uh HIV research is because we're looking at viruses as being the next really really big area I think for a lot of innovation. All right. Yep. Any other questions or comments about fifth grade before Dan moves on to
middle school? Okay. So, in the middle school, um, we looked at we looked at Michigan model again and we thought, okay, what we actually we looked at at high school and didn't adopt it at the high school
level. But at the middle school, we looked at it again and we said, "Okay, we like the video. Uh there was a slideshow that has some uh facts that go with it that worked very well. Um and then some other
teacher resources, the fact sheet uh and whatnot. Those things can also not only just be teacher resources, but part of the unit where they're presenting the kids and and it's up to up-to-date
medically factual information. So, middle school questions. Uh just quickly, can you remind us what um through what classes do the students? Yeah, it's a good question. Um, we're
asking for it to be approved for seventh and eighth grade. Currently, it's taught in the eighth grade, but there has been discussion in the sex ed advisory board that we could be back here next year saying, you know what, we feel that
the what is currently taught in seventh grade, which is more puberty and anatomy and physiology, could be moved to the sixth grade. We haven't made that suggestion. We're not bringing that forward you today.
It's been a discussion. So being kind of thinking forward thinking, if we take what's in eighth grade and we go, well maybe we're going to teach some of this in seventh grade or we're going to we're going to do this in seventh and this in eighth and that would be
possible future. So this is technically an eighth grade class still. Um, and it would be taught there this next year, but we're asking for seventh grade and above for the materials to be able to be used. Is your class?
Yeah. In their gym class. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. It's in it's in an HP class. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, just, you know, big picture over the years, I've heard from a lot of kids, you know, they get exceptions to gym and maybe this is only at the high school level, not K through
eight, but I I just worry about middle school, too. Yeah. I worry about just getting 100% coverage. I mean, I do want to make sure every kid gets this education along with the other health education. There is an opt out. Well, there there is parental opt out. I
understand that. I would love 100% coverage, too. But they also we have testing out at the middle school. So, there are kids that test out. Um, and yes, parents, it's an opt out program all the way through. But it's a state requirement, right,
that kids get this or is it just a state requirement that the district offer it? No, it's it's we have to we have to provide it, but it can be opted out. Yes. including test out like the HIV has to be offered at each each building level. So we do we do teach it
in uh fifth grade currently. So anything you can do working with your committee to try to identify ways to get deliver the education. I guess the only gap we could close would be that test out population. Um I don't know how you know disseminating the material to them
before they test out or after they test out. I mean do what we can right. Yeah the test out one would be be interesting. the opt out one the opt out one we don't have to worry about because we what we do in our opt out like when I notify my parents um
that I'm going to be teaching sex ed I give them two three four weeks notice I also get them as many documents as they possibly can view and see and they can make those decisions we're not you know we're upfront so even if a child
doesn't their parent opts them out that parent still has the curriculum and most of the documents and curriculum there for them. Yeah. So, thank you. And it's also on our website. Okay.
As much as we can. Now, this is um physical health education correct health and physical education. So, at the at the at the sixth, seventh, eighth grade and then the high school we have a class called HP. So at the sixth,
seventh, and eighth grade general physical education class, they also offer weights and conditioning. Uh middle school help me. Are they doing weights? They do sports activities. Most of they do sports activities. Maybe do weights and conditioning. That's kind of a
And we have a sports activity at the high school, too. But the weights kids and the sports kids. Whoops. That's not part of their curriculum. It's the HBE. So, so my question is how extensive do you
do cardiac uh issues and diseases? I mean this is a big a big well sexed is one unit sex. So at the we have units like a fitness unit that teaches
the cognitive part of being fit. We have nutrition and things, but we also are physically active and a big part of our program has been our our endurance and our cardiovascular fitness. We use the pacer test which is broadly used across
the country as one of our our ways of measuring. I give that test each month so I can the kids can see growth. I can have conversation and in between those tests we're doing work to to help them
grow. So cardiovascular fitness that's our number one killer. So we're trying to address that cognitively and physically and it it's um let me just note that we have a lot on the agenda so we need to focus on the
sex ed right now. Okay. No, I'm just trying to get a sense of of comparatively how much of the attention of the class is focused in sex ed and and especially when
you know we're not saying that the the group that seems to be where HIV is growing is actually the homosexual population and it's it's male homosexuality is where it is. We'll ask them the committee to take a look at that for
next time. Yep. And take consideration and they'll make a decision. Look at if you're looking at accuracy need to be Dan, did you want to say anything more about the high school level? uh the high
school level. There are um one of our evaluation things we decided is that we decided we need a high school quiz because that will give us feedback on what kids have learned and not learned that that's been in the discussion for a
couple years. This year we developed that quiz. Uh and we went through that. Um the teen pregnancy um there are limit there were limited changes in that. Uh one of the one of
the the first slide are you ready to be a parent? We had a number we had a couple people on our board this year that said well what are the answers to those questions and I go well those questions are to prompt discussion and the teacher does well they thought those should be in there. So we added uh a
number of slides uh pertaining to those with with what it costs, the role of fatherhood, the amount of time and then waiting to be ready.
Um the impacts of teen parenting were another thing that came up in there and I think we had a couple additional slides and then we had an additional slide of uh the shared responsibility. So there was just a few additions in the
teen pregnancy. Uh the HIV and AIDS. Um we had two videos links that are far superior to the video
we had. Um and they're fairly short. Statistics. We had an update. So we have two slides on the statistics that we had to update. Uh then we have a video the new videos
uh update on facts of HIV and then we got into the we updated the therapy the anti uh retro uh viral therapies and then uh the other video there was a few graphic changes same
information we had before But um just better a better graphic. And I think that was the end of Oh, we had a we had one more graphic at the end
with that was a was an addition. Yeah. Dan, I could you just back up to the one of uh ways to transmit? It looked like there was a couple kissing one right before that.
Yeah, I mean mouth kissing. Okay, interesting. Yeah, I just want to see. Yeah, closed mouth kissing is a is a discussion topic because one of the ways they test is an oral swap and I explain to the kids and we we actually talk
about dental hygiene at that time too. Good addition. Yeah, I think in the the elementary the fifth grade one, you really focused on blood and it's not just blood. No, they're Yeah,
any fluid. Anybody bodily fluids. That's why you put on gloves and bleach. Okay, great. Thank you. We had those videos. the the STI had one um the proposed sex in the law changes.
We did have an errands law video and the big changes in the proposed sex in the law after sexual assault was sexual abuse and that felt we we put that under three topics. Aaron's Law. If you watch, did
you watch the video? I didn't see that one. I saw the one with the lady who got it, I think, through her husband. Okay. This Aaron is one that was sexually abused by a stepfather or someone in the family. Um, you should
watch the video. It's her story and she's dedicated the rest of her life so she can educate and this not happen to others cuz she did. She was quiet and she was quiet until her younger sibling said something and
then she goes, "Oh, this is happening to her too." And that it's um that was it. So, uh human trafficking has become a bigger and bigger uh topic and uh so we had some resources on human tra uh
trafficking and how that falls under sexual abuse. And then the other part was the impacts of pornography. Uh, everyone has access to pornography at a very young age and there was some very good resources uh that board
members brought to to us that we were able to grab information from uh to present to the kids on on what this is actually how this actually impacts us. And I think that pornography is
important. And at the high school level, we thought this was appropriate and important. Actually, the impact of porn and the and the the sex trafficking have been a topic for the last three years at least. And it's just been a work in progress trying to get something presentable
um with research back stuff. Yeah. I' I've had discussion with elementary kids over porn that you know get a hold of someone's magazine. Talk about what privacy is.
Usually it's online. That's the thing. You know, when I was growing up, it was like there might be a a neighbor who's got a stack of Playboys. Now kids can access sit on their phones. And I'm reading The Anxious Generation. And you know, we've protected kids more in
the physical world, less in the virtual world. And there's so much more. So much world for kids to access. Yeah. So, any questions about the high schools? No. Great. And great job. Thanks to your
committee as always. I know a ton of work goes into every single year and so please pass on our to your committee. Okay. And then we'll see you again. You'll be at the board meeting the 14th. Yep.
And then the following. Thank you. And then the following month. Thank you. All right. Thank you all. Okay. Uh moving on to our curriculum learning series. This month it is student achievement data. So
Jesse and Britney. Yeah. So shifting gears a bit. uh looking at kicking things off with elementary spring. We're going to focus on spring uh NWA achievement data for our uh elementary school. So just a quick review here about what percentiles
mean and how we deal with them broadly. These are some just some broad statements about um each percentile and support students get. So five different percentile ranges that we address with the NWA test. Generally speaking, this is a big generality because this varies
quite a bit, but over the 60th percentile usually correlates with some type of MSTEP proficiency. So that's definitely our green and our our blue band. So when I was going through this today and we discussed a little bit with Josie yesterday, um the idea of this
kind of presentation and the lens I'm taking with strategic planning and developing goals. So when I was when I was looking at this data and going through it, I was thinking you know how can we develop a goal around um elementary data. So I specifically want
more students in those green and blue bands because that is where our students generally show proficiency. So how can we develop a goal around that? Um after that when we look at those other bands then comes our different supports. And again this is a general 20th to 50th is
that tier 2 support. Not every student that's um in those bands receive a tier two support, but generally speaking, that's where that would land as far as in that tier two support for reading and math can look as in classroom small group or being pulled out. Um and then
below the 20th, again, a generality, not every student below the 20th receives a tier three support. Usually it's even below the 10th is where we like to see that for special ed, but below that 20th percentile um is where we start to see more special ed support.
One other thing I add is to um keep in mind the algorithm in 2023 for math. So when you look at this data from 2023 on our math scores look substantially better. I think that is some of the things we're doing in our elementaryaries this year for the first
time. Uh every elementary did uh math data meetings and every elementary had a tier 2 support in place. We use Delta math. Um so that was done school by school in the past but every our 11 elementaryaries are now all doing that.
But specific I included a link to NWA um if you ever want to know more about it. But uh it's quite indepth generally speaking what it is is uh it's an adaptable test right. So as you get questions right or wrong, the test changes. What they used to do is you get
questions more and more right. They used to move grade level. So fifth graders would then get uh questions from a sixth grade curriculum and that would affect their score. Now they're keeping it within the grade level more. So we're seeing more challenging questions, but it's it was in their same grade level.
So naturally, they may be getting more questions right and so they're more proficient. But that's what we want to see, right? It does make sense that we want to see proficiency at grade level, not necessarily above grade level as far as using that data. So questions over our overview before we
dive into it. Okay, so we start out um I group the data instead of doing every single grade level with a different slide, we'd have um you know about 20 slides to go through. So just as again kind of combining the data, I did change this
yesterday. We do include JK2. So when we uh label a student here at TCAPS as junior kindergarten, they are actually labeled as a kindergartener as far as state reporting. So we included them in the state, I did change the label to say JK2. So one thing about when each slide I go
through and I look for some type of um trend in in the data. this particular one I do see a slow rise as we look at that low line right the red which is the direction we necessarily don't want to go but I think that's largely in part and I'm going to
in future presentations and moving forward in the fall with my elementary principles we're going to pull that JK data out because I think as our JK numbers grow that's going to influence um how that data looks proficiency wise so let me just ask here is this so this
is because junior kindergarteners are those who are eligible to be in kindergarten but for whatever reason the parent and teachers decide they need junior kindergarten. So in the past those kids were excluded from the data. Well in the past we didn't have it right. We didn't necessarily have a
junior kindergarten. Our numbers have grown to you know when you think of we offer in every building you know and that's a that's a percentage. It's much more of a playbased curriculum versus what we do in Canada. Right. But it would seem that would make
your kindergarten numbers better. And it would result well even if you leave it in, you're going to have a balance, right? It's going to blend because you've got the advanced kindergarteners in their second year, right? So your scores,
I don't know if it outweighs it that much because JK um was as low as some of those students are and like Dr. Survey Wagner said it's not that necessarily that academic focus. So I I I agree with what you're saying. We're going to see our kindergarten scores go up hopefully
because of the JK experience for some kids, but I don't know if it's apples for apples, right? Because you're going to end up with kids who will know their letters and they're ready for kindergarten. Yeah. Well, they Yeah. And junior kindergarten wasn't started till the 2024 school year.
Well, it was started. We kind of have have slowly um brought it into each school. Like I believe the first couple years it was just in a couple schools and now now it's last year's the first year we said it was going to be in every Yeah. Okay. So these are
percentages not numbers. So it reflects five years. Okay. Of junior kindergarten. Okay. And then the second thing to look for is we if we talk about strategic planning is that again going back to that previous slide the idea that we want to see that yellow and below. We want to
see that to go down, right? Because those are the scores where kids we don't correlate to proficiency. So eventually when we talk about strategic planning and goals is combining the green and the blue number, the yellow, orange, and red number would
be a good idea and just to show that proficiency line. Well, the thing though is as your blue line gets bigger, it also gives you a sense of the way the sophistication of your learners are
going for more involved work. Advance is a correct term or more in depth. Yeah, thank you. I like that. Going this way rather than Right. Right. Fine. So as we move through it obviously one
other trend besides looking at that yellow line and below is the trend that in the last five years we haven't seen much change. I mean if I go from slide to slide it's hard to decipher grade level and subject any slide I go to and that's obviously something that we want
to address uh as a curriculum team. In some ways we're doing that and this is for all of our data. Obviously, we're changing our reading, our English language arts curriculum. Um, so that's a we're going all in on CQLA to to help these numbers change. We we've brought
research in front of the board uh specifically for economically disadvantaged uh which tend to fall in those orange and red bands and how we can address these numbers. Have you ever looked at this also by the kids that have
uh 50 or the different um uh plans that some of the kids are have you we did see some of the data you brought forward and so a lot of those kids was especially um with tier three support or IEPs are going to fall in those in those
orange and red bands. Not all of them because not every IEP addresses learning. Uh 504 is a little more broad in that you know a lot of kids with just health concerns have f 504s that are not related to learning whatsoever. Cool. Which is not Yeah. It's the idea of why
that law is in place. Um but you know outside of ADHD you know that's where I saw a lot of those 504s which would impact learning. Um that we'd have some accommodations around. Uh I would say even maybe the majority of plans are more health related. Uh so in a
discussion when we talk about strategic planning and I I was just talking to Tiffany about this. It came out yesterday in our one-on-one with Josie is that uh we we might look at some some strategic planning the goal around special education. Yeah. I was thinking even it's almost
like a ven diagram and you've got the income you've also got the different special needs within your population. and to see where the most overlap is if you're targeting certain um programs
and to give credit where it's due. That was because you gave us input. No, no, it's because I got that information from Tiffany. It goes around and around, but I strategic on it. Yeah. Yeah.
And we do have a significant student population with IEPs. I think it's about 13% Yeah. of our of our students with disabilities. So, okay. Thank you, Dan. Yeah. So, as you can see the distinct difference when we move into math uh in
the last two years, we do see a little more in our blue bands for sure. Um and it's JK2 and you'll see the same in 35 where that band increases substantially based on some of those changes in the test. It'll be nice to have uh when we
benchmark this as far as starting out data for strategic plan starting in their next spring uh they're using they're moving through a new norm set. So every five years NWA does new national norms but 2025 is coming up. I don't know how that'll impact our data
necessarily but it'll be nice to have starting with our spring data. Uh 2026 would be a good starting point as far as uh what our growth looks like year after year. And we're not the first cadre of states. Apparently, there's another
group of states that started with that new norming earlier than us. Yeah. As far as the um the algorithm is started in 2023, but the norms will actually start this fall. So, be right in the fall, we'll be able to see how those norms impact our scores. And then
we have, you know, that baseline as far as when we talk about putting any type of strategic goal or percentage as far as achievement goes. we have a nice a point that we know that that those norms aren't going to change now for five years. So we won't see stuff like this, right? Where it'll be inflated or
deflated numbers based on the assessment. It's more based on what we're doing in classrooms. And then we move to 67 um NWA reading and math. Again, I know that Jesse and Britney have been working um this summer a lot on moving into more
intervention for our middle schools. It was hit and miss as far as you know when I was lead principal at East Middle uh what we had FTE for. So, we used to just run um some math intervention, it was different on both sides. So, if you want to speak to that more, but I know that
the intervention in middle school is definitely more robust and more across the board on both west and east middle. That was uh our NWA spring achievement for any more specific questions that you have. Yeah, just I would just uh say for
context um you brought up the the CKLA curriculum for elementary ELA. Um but then the middle school math just remind us like when we adopted new curricula so that we can kind of like
look at the data and you know have that in mind that actually be very interesting on future graphs is to name the curriculum underneath even though I know that the curriculum isn't the whole ball game but
as we begin to look at putting money into some of these curriculum which are hands down not cheap. It would be kind of good to have that. Yeah. So CPM was adopted a few years ago, right? For middle school math.
Oh, yeah. I would say probably on year four of it. Yeah. And that's our curriculum that we use sixth grade through algebra 2. So all the way through 11th grade. Um that was a change. I was leading the math uh back in the days and that was uh it's nice that we have the same curriculum 6th
through 11th grade. When you think about what curriculum or what subject matter is really progressive skill-based um and you need strong coherence uh mathematics like is that so we have math expressions which is uh you know K5 and then we have
CPM that picks up sixth grade through algebra 2. CPM has two separate curriculums in the middle school. They have what are called the CC's. So CC1, CC2, and CC3. We use that for our accelerated students. Um, accelerated
math six and seven. And that feeds into their algebra 1 curriculum that we use in 8th grade and we use that in 9th grade. And then they came out with a new curriculum called IC um that was supposed to lower the reading level and be u more appropriate for students who
are on grade level or slightly below. We adopted that. Uh we piloted at the sixth grade year. We had great results. Uh this last year we adopted it 678. Uh the teachers at 8th grade really didn't feel like it was a good fit. Um,
and so we actually are going back to the CC curriculum for eighth grade on level math eight next year. It's the same umbrella company though, just so we're clear. CPM owns they just have two different kind of branches of their curriculum. So very similar as far
as it does matter that like the layout and the verbiage and all of that is pretty consistent so that kids aren't struggling with that versus the actual mathematical thinking, right? you want them to struggle with how I'm how am I doing math, not what are they asking me
and how is this laid out, you know. Yeah. So every year when you get these new data results um you're probably with your team your curriculum leaders um and every teacher leaders I should say
looking at like is you're evaluating is how is well is the curriculum working versus you know are there additional supports through professional development or coaching or whatever. Um like I look at the three through five math and actually the band that's you
know green and blue the you know high higher kids who are proficient that's grown in the last two years and I don't I don't know if that's because um of math expressions or you know coach
keep the norming changed too it's a third variable in there you'd want to cross reference that with your MSTEP scores and I was going to say the one thing that we do have is there you might remember um last uh six months ago the Harvard study showed that we had some of the most largest math cans at the
elementary level in the state right um above where we were before co so from that and they used uh MSTEP from that element for that so there's something there direct correlation of why a lot of questions but there's something there
yeah it's kind of cool if you could begin to pull out some of the variables that can impact you know so that you're not just looking at these charts these charts are not that far off from just raw data. Yeah. Okay.
Um so what's really nice that we've got set up now is just so we're all we've got the same assessment system NWA K7 for math and ELA that we give in the fall and we give in the spring. So like
that's nice because it's a nice you know coherent consistent system. K7 we have a fall you know screening of kids. We've got a spring. You guys are looking at the spring results. All of that is it's good to look at how the kids grow over the school year. It's also nice to look at year after year after year. What are
the trends too? Um and then to sort of mirror that starting in 8th grade, 8th through 11th grade, we now have the same system for our PSAT SAT which are the assessments that come out of College Board, same people who own um the AP
rung 2. So, we will be doing fall and spring testing for our eighth, 9th, 10th, and 11th grades, all with the PSAT, SAT. So, there's the grade levels. So, starting this year, we're testing them all twice a year, which is awesome because we get back results and can see
where kids are. I put a little screenshot here of what kids actually see. And just so you're clear, kids actually own their scores, they own their accounts, they can follow with them. They do some great um college readiness coaching through College Board on their thing. They they say student,
you scored in this band. Here are some scholarships that might be available to you. Here are some schools that in which you can align with if kids put more information about things they're interested in. They can even get more tailored towards kids too. Uh Joe and Ben and I have looked a little bit at they do have some educational
post-secondary planning through there. It's called Big Futures. Um, and as they develop that more, you might hear more about us wanting to partner with um, that because it just attaches the student interest. Um, it attaches some information about the kid, how the kid is achieving, and then what are some
available options. Um, and then you see like there's a reading and writing portion, there's multiple different like strands underneath that, there's a math portion, there's multiple strands underneath that. As the kids progress through the series, um, the tests do get
longer and they cover more content. The eighth grade test is the shortest, the SAT is the longest. You're still talking done in one day in less than a half a day. Um, and then the standards to reach benchmark increase, too. So, um, I invited our two secondary lead
principles, Ben Burgerer, he's the lead at Central High School, and Joe Esper, who's the lead at West Senior High here, because I want them to sort of take over here and reflect a little bit on, you're going to see some trends over time. So, how did our students perform over time? Um, and then you're going to see some
student scores for the spring, uh, PSAT and SAT versus grades, right? As we talked about a little bit earlier, grades are like the most fastest feedback we give to kids and parents. And we look at those a lot and we look at them on the back side. Just so you guys know, we look at them through
different student subgroups, right? So we'll look at them through our special ed kids. We'll look at them through male female. We'll look at them through grade levels. We also look at them through economically disadvantaged through our ELLL students. What are some other subgroups for student populations? Ethnicities. Um and then we look at them
too through courses. What courses are kids struggling with? Um, there were 38 kids who failed algebra 1 this year at both of our high schools. We know that is a huge indicator of off track for graduation. They have a list of those 38 kids. They are going to have some
proactive meetings with counselors. Um, they also look at them through teachers. We have teachers who are more successful with students who are below grade level or above grade level and where can where does that match up with instructional practice they see in the classroom? How can they coach and support on that too? That's what I was going to mention was
the teacher distribution tends to be really beneficial as far as when we're planning sitebased professional development um when we're thinking about intentional groupings and you know partnerships between teachers so that splitting that up and giving the teachers so they'll come in in August
and they'll get um they'll see last year's kids cohort how they did in the SAT. So we use that as like a launching off point to say the kids that you were focusing on these skills here's how they ended up. So like let's look at the data as the dust has settled and then what does it look like planning forward and
here's your new cohort of kids and where they were. So we're kind of like closing the door on the cohort and seeing the achievement and the impact the teacher had on that group of kids and then all right now let's plan forward with the group you're inheriting and their current levels.
And a big shout out to our tech department Sophie who's our data wizard. I actually was emailing with her earlier this morning about getting all these attached to the right kids so that we can have that reflection with teachers. You guys are going to see a really really high level. All of that sort of happens behind the scenes. But what's
more meaningful to a teacher is actually seeing the names of the kids they actually had last year in their ELA 10 class and how did those kids do and making some patterns about what worked and what maybe didn't work and I need to do differently for kids who are at the
similar achievement level for this year. And that's really important, but that takes a lot of work on the back side to get all the data to sift and sort correctly. So, um, I'm gonna turn it over to you guys. Okay. Um, so just a couple big picture
things. Uh, this was the first cycle that all of these tests were digital. We had piloted that on just a few of the grade levels early on. Um, it was I don't want to like overstate it and say it was super smooth, but it was it went really well. Yeah. Uh and if if you you
know if you had students that were part of any of the pilots like they didn't always go well. Uh often we found out that was on college board end and they they had to do a lot of things to be ready to do this nationally but our our tech department did a great job getting getting things ready. Uh Brian Gwinny at
Central High, Kaylee Meyers at at West. Um and and it really went well. And like for years, you know, we kind of debated back when Jesse and I used to do assessment for the district. Like, do we get a good read on kids with digital testing, but really when you look at it now, that's how they're taking the NWA test up through seventh grade or early
eighth grade. Um, that's how they're doing all their coursework. So, a lot of the students actually do better in that digital testing environment. Um, and I would just say the efficiency. I just want you guys to think about this. When we talk about this number of kids, we're talking about thousands and thousands of tests. Before we literally
had boxes that came in and we had to store them securely and then we had to sort them and then we had to get them back and then remember we'd always get the email this wasn't returned with this and then go find that piece of paper and I mean just the manpower for for those
Yeah. Yeah. And just the fidelity and the security of the assessment that it's good. There were so many things that had to be done in 40 individual classrooms before by hand. Um, and you you could get a time stamp wrong on a sheet and then a whole group of students gets reviewed and
could be invalidated. It's all automated now. So, all in all, that went really well. Um, Ben mentioned some of the things that staff do with the data. It's not really the data you're seeing here. This is more big picture. Um, but we do that when staff come back in the fall and we also do it again in December after they do the the practice test in
October. We get that back pretty quick. Um, and then on the student end, like Jesse mentioned, that score report there. There are so many useful tools on the student end, uh, if they want to practice, uh, if if they feel like a higher score gets them access to
something. There's tons of tools there. I would say the thing is just to keep reminding families that those are there because, um, when a when a student takes a test, certainly at the end of eighth grade, very few are engaged in that idea that they they want to get to a particular score level to go to U of M or wherever they might want to get to.
Um, but as they move through the grade levels, those tools continue to be there. And there's there's a whole range of them. So, Ben's gonna start with the um reading data. I see. You kicked it to me, Joe, because you just got signed out of your Google. I was fully prepared right after I complimented technology.
decided decided on the club. So, it wasn't good enough. I have the same relationship. So, we're going to take you through some macro data here. So, this is five-year trend. So, the the highlight here is
that this is a different cohort of kids each red dot you see. So, when you're looking at upper left corner, that's eighth grade there. Those are five years of different eighth graders. So on and so forth. And so you can look at this allows us to look at trends. And so
eighth and 11th really pop out in reading and writing as far as having some pretty good upward trends. Um whereas when we look at 9th and 10th it would be what are we digging into here that's leaving us stagnant regardless of that cohort. Um you know sometimes you guys get to congratulate and shake hands
with the national merit kids and you have some cohorts that um lean higher. But when you look at the five-year data really allows us that picture to say, you know, Josie, to your point, is it the curriculum? Are there specific teacher um strategies that we can get into? But the trends allow us to either
celebrate and say, let's stay the course, or hey, you know, we've given it um the fidelity of this five-year window. Let's look at other options. I had a question about 12th graders. Don't they get one opportunity in
October of of their 12th grade year? No. The the school-based opportunities end in the spring of junior year. Uh and then those juniors, you know, they'll get their scores back. They got them back last week actually officially, although I know a lot of them got them sooner. Um then any of those SATs they do after that are on their own. They
self-register. They can do one. There's usually a summer one between junior and senior year and then one right in the fall of senior year. And that's kind of their last go at it if they're That doesn't show up on our data. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And then the the same trend graphs
in terms of mathematics, but not the same trend lines. Um you see this looks a little bit different. And as Ben pointed out, each of those dots is a different cohort. So you're not necessarily seeing one group of kids. Like if you look at eighth grade math, it climbed for a little bit. It came
down uh the last two years, which just means the last two cohorts didn't do as well as the cohorts in front of them. Um, that directly ties to what Jesse was talking about with the teacher feedback regarding the curriculum and it not being a great fit. And so that's a clear
area of improvement for us, mathematics overall, but specifically when you see that drastic of a trend line and then you can connect it to the story of teacher feedback regarding the curriculum not meeting the needs. And and the the kind of good news conclusion with that is we already had made this decision. Um, I we had done a
survey in the mid- winter. It was clear that teachers were supplementing in eighth grade in particular all over the place, which by the way, we love autonomy. We love our we trust our teachers who are professionals, but there's also a ton of research that they're not curriculum writers. And when they're when we're not having a coherent
curriculum and just kind of doing whatever we feel is necessary, we don't get consistent results. Um, and so we had already made the decision. And so I had already worked to return our license in, get a full refund in credit. that that doesn't that's not like a one phone
call like that took about 6 weeks to make it all happen and now that we're in the new fiscal year July 1 I can take that credit and reapply it to get back the licenses and the CC3 which was that curriculum they're using prior um I've also talked extensively with Ryan Ranger
and Kristen Studman who are the middle school lead principles about some things we're going to do differently and some things we're going to target we've talked a little bit about staffing too who are um who are our strong superstars in eighth grade uh math and how do we help build some capacity in some other
areas too. But overall, a couple other things I'd mention with math uh that you'll see throughout the the percentage of kids that are at or above benchmark mathematics is always lower than reading and writing. Um you'll see that statewide, you'll see it nationally. Um
and you'll see that a little bit when we compare the scores to grading in a second. Um also keep in mind too when you're looking at big picture numbers, it hides a lot of things that we want to know. And so we look at this a lot of different ways with teachers. Um you don't see the kids on the high end here. It doesn't just tells you the percentage
of kids that are at the benchmark or above. You know, some groups we have way more kids over 1450 or 1500 that really high score range. Um you can have a lot of kids right below the line of um of hitting the benchmark, which we're going to kind of look at in the next graph.
And sometimes those kids that aren't meeting the benchmark, sometimes they're they're near the top of that and sometimes they're super super low, you know, and that's why sometimes at the high school level, we've brought in uh different courses. Years ago, we brought in the critical content course and mathematics to address some of that. And
then some of the like the TAI course and the Titan 9 10 courses we do um are to address some of the students needs so they can do math separately a different way, you know. So, we're constantly looking at that like the kids, the individual kids like within these numbers. There's a lot you don't see
with just the one dot for a cohort of 300 or 380 students. Joe, I just I apologize if I missed it, but um did you mention what the benchmark is? And I know for each one of these grade levels that that score is
going to be different, but it's like take the 11th grade 1600 max. What might be the benchmark? Yeah. for is it 55? Yeah, I can pull it up. So I want to say I shouldn't quote these off the top of my head in each one 10 10 to 20 points. Yeah, I want to say
like eighth grade that math benchmark might be 480 and then it kind of climbs from there. We have a different graph where we look at this with the same cohort kind of against that benchmark and as the benchmark goes up does the line line stay flat or does the line go down as as the target moves up? you
know, so the benchmark for 8th grade is 430 for math and then 450 and then 480 510 that's the fall 11th grade that's the national merit qualifier and then it's 530 for the SAT and for ELA the
bench for English and write reading and writing they are slower it's 390 for 8th grade it's 410 that's 40 points slower for 9th grade 420 for 10th grade that's 60 points slower for 60 for 11th grade
and then for the SAT it's 480. So 50 point difference and and all of those benchmarks are figured the college board figures them based upon then what the kids go and achieve in college and what grades they earn there and that's how they norm and aggregate that. So we have no feedback on those benchmarks. Um but
they're consistent every year. So we like that at least. Thank you. So this is the the real fun portion of the presentation. So buckle up. Um this is uh on the right you have the PSAT results and then colorcoded as the green
and then the light green are met benchmark and approaching and then on the left you have the grades. So what grade the student earned in the teacher controlled grade book and so when you look um you would hope that there'd be maybe a little bit closer as far as ABS
and C's. We could would consider that kind of benchmark. You would hope that that so when you look at ELA, 87% of students earned a grade that met benchmark compared or 86% compared to 87% on the ELA test. That's great. We
that's a nice distribution. Whereas in math, you have 86% of kids earning an A, B, or C and only 51 hitting benchmark. And so for Joe and I, as we discussed in prep for this, it really um that backs
the the stringent grading. And we sometimes hear parents um having qualms with how their students being assessed in math, but we would actually argue that there needs more stringent grading in that mathematics because it's not when they take a nationally normmed test, they're not at that par. And so
what type of inflation is happening on the individual gradebook level that's leading to that student and parent thinking that they have a higher knowledge grasp than you do? So are you going to write an editorial in the record eagle explaining this? I
would love it. I don't know where my job security stands back as far as record eagle publications go, but I'm willing to talk at board curriculum. Uh Mr. Ber will talk all day um about grading. Grading for learning is what I'm going
to evidence based grading. It's a discussion we've had a ton. Both the leadership teams at at Central and West uh have really been digging into that and it's going to be something we continue to talk about next year. So if you take this is eighth grade, you know, and again the the two graphs on the right of each pair are the mathematics
one and then if you look as it jumps to ninth grade, um you'll see that I'm I'm just looking at math specifically, English correlates a little a little better between grades and the the ME benchmark, but if you look at math, you'll notice the number of A's and B's
decreases significantly. Um, and you can see it's actually if you put the A's and B's together, it's kind of closer to what the math proficiency is there than what we saw in eighth grade there, you know. And it's not it's not all about grading, but remember, grading is feedback, right? Grading is feedback to
the students. So, it's very easy uh in a traditional math sense to fall into the pattern of like unintentionally rewarding compliance behaviors, you know, turning in homework assignments, um grading those things that are are being completed and stuff versus as you move into high school and further into
high school, you're going to see more weight put on the assessments um like can you can you actually uh do all of those things in class in assessment type format. It doesn't have to be a oneanddone. You can do revisions. You can go the kids always learn and sometimes they learn from their mistakes. You know, you can go back and
you can you can address that. But that is why Ben pointed out sometimes we get negative feedback about that like you know the student has always gotten an A in mathematics. There must be something wrong with your curriculum because now they have a B. Uh it actually should be kind of like pointing to like there's
there's some skills we need to boot up that they're going to need for where they're going. And and each grade level has its different distribution. When we look at 11th grade, if you'd go up, Joe, that has the highest math like math variance and those that's the year that's the
Super Bowl for us when the kids are taking the SAT. And so, you know, 86% of students demonstrating proficiency is according to the grade books at 55% according to the nationally normmed test. And this isn't like a a mandate to our staffs around like certain number of
A's, B's or C's, but it is really taking a look at that what are the tasks that we're assessing and when are we giving students opportunity develop to show mastery and understanding because that will inherently mirror more of what they can do on that nationally norm test when
we take out variables that are either age-old educational practices or something that's been um just done year after year or would be compliance based. And so, you know, when we look at the macro level stuff, that's what Joe and I talk about. And then, you know, pair that with the trends we showed you
earlier, and that's where you get kind of our PD scope for grading for learning and really kind of using our leadership teams to dive into that. So, I just want to make sure I understand um when you look at the semester 2 grades, you're looking at the A's, the B's, and the C's. The C's would
be kids that you'd like to see meeting benchmark or approaching benchmark. So you add up those three, get 86% in this example in math. You look at the PSAT results for math and it's 55% on this. You're saying that's a big discrepancy,
31 percentage points. I want to look at that student that's getting a C in our grade book and see how they're performing on the SAT and talk about where those skill gaps are. Yeah, I would say the analogy a little bit is if I was a coach and and I was preparing my kids to go play a
championship game, if I haven't been giving them feedback all along that we're getting ready, it is misleading, right? I mean, the grades are what our parents and our kids see a lot. It's a method of feedback. Um, and so is that feedback accurate for what that kid is
knows and is, you know, is able to do and does that translate to something external? So, I will say I mislabeled that graph. It should say SAT for 111. that uh and the the last thing on these I'll just point out the two graphs on the right that gray band in the middle which
is the approaching benchmark uh which means they were close um it's always a group we focus on but you know just to kind of underscore the difficult job teachers have like the m we don't have huge chunks of kids at any grade level
sitting in that gray band you know teachers are have a lot of students that are pretty advanced and we have to try continue to try to push them when they're at that level as the benchmark moves up and they get ready for work or they get ready for college. Uh but we're also dealing with like you know a group
of students that are significantly below a significantly sized group that's significantly below. You know those gray bands you know an ideal world the gold band would be would be the narrowest and your gray band would be larger and try to get kids over the hump but um the
reality is that's not where it is. And what one more thing to throw into the mix here which I am going to fully recognize this is not um something that would be popular for students and parents to hear but I also have to just wonder about
grade inflation you know I mean there's a lot of pressure I think from parents and students um they put upon themselves and they make demands of teachers and try to get those better grades so they they can get into college but Then like
you said before, if it's mis it's a misleading indicator of their their actual preparedness, you know, I just wonder how much grade inflation also might exist. Yeah, and it's a great point, Josie, and it really goes to two the type of
support students are getting at home around the dinner table or are they going home and working two jobs and where does that how are we capturing mastery there? So it does go down a really a passionate rabbit hole that both of our leadership teams are kind of driving that and and again not trying to
like you know get pitchforks coming at us but just do the best by our kids and parents as far as like communicating clearly what they know and are able to do. sitting having sat on an admissions board, you know, it it's because not all
grades coming at you are from the same level of institution in performance, you know. So, we'd look at that, but then you'd also want the those national tests because that helped level some of that. Yeah.
You know, um grade point. Yep. It's a very subjective extremely no way to get around that and so the more we can sort of hold our external measurements you know against it and sort of have these conversation
and reflect are we surprised by this? Are there trends that we could we could do differently to you know to to motivate kids? Right? If I was a kid who was getting a B but knew that if I needed to learn something deeper would I press myself more and then would that translate over here? We we think it
would. So, um, that's a good segue into the next part of data that we have, which is hot off the presses. Literally was released yesterday morning. I pulled it up at like 6:30 and couldn't believe it was all there. Awesome. Um, is our AP exam results. So, I'll let
these guys talk about those. Yes. Yesterday was awesome for Joe and I because it's middle of summer. Our offices are very lonely places and we got to have 18 or 19 congratulatory text message exchanges with these teachers and and the ownership that they have
over these cohorts of kids because it's nationally normed is it speaks to a lot of what we were just talking about. You know, there is no hiding in these courses. There is no, you know, it's really vulnerable when you get these scores back. And so our teachers, some of our best teachers, we're sending congratulatory texts and they're like,
"Yeah, but there was two two students I thought could do a little bit better." you know, they're they're still grinding away, but um we have 19 offerings, AP offerings, and you see the numbers between our schools, 17 over 1,700 kids taking an AP test. Um and we know that
that's college level exposure. And we are, you know, well on our way through courses like pre-calculus and AP seminar and increasing the exposure and and how cool a mindset shift that we've got our math departments um going to kids who
have are on on level algebra 2 and pumping them up to take pre-calc because we have a 100% of our students pass pre-calculus AP test exam at both sites which is pretty phenomenal. So, uh, this came out, this data came out yesterday. You see, and then listed below, we a
student can take a course that we don't offer if they feel like they want to, um, if they have proficiency or if they're taking it through alternate means. So, you know, we had a student at Central take German language AP exam and get a five on it this past year, but we don't offer German at our side of town.
So, um, below you see there's some other opportunities there as far as physics and other AP courses as well. The the other things I'd point out with these enrollment numbers, obviously there's the there there's the enormous numbers that jump out at you, uh, AP gov, it's just a huge thing in TCAPS, page Paul
and TAC ready. It's like a it's like a right of passage every kid feels like they need to do. And a lot of kids that don't see themselves as AP kids will jump into gov, right? Environmental science has grown. Ben mentioned some of the newer ones to the curriculum, but keep in mind too things like art 2D and 3D which are smaller numbers because
remember you split that over central and west. This this is both high schools combined in terms of enrollment. Those are usually comboed into other courses in a period. A lot of that is portfolio work that the kids work on independently and then they consult with their teacher. Um so it's not like we don't
have an art 3D class that runs as six kids at West and five kids at Central or something. Um but also does underscore like you know one of the challenges we continue to work together on both sides of town is like um how we keep some of these smaller AP enrollment classes
going you know if you look at like the chemistry or the calcul or uh US history or some of those again that's that's the total number with both high schools combined you know and part of what really benefits our kids is the large body of AP courses that we offer usually
16 to 19 courses in a given year Um, so that's just some of the challenges that we work on on the site level to keep those keep those going. Physics, no, we we will usually have um you see it in Ben's list he talked about at the bottom. We usually have some kids take
physics independently. Uh we put it in the request list. We have not had a large number of kids at either high school large enough to run a section of it in quite a long without math that you would have a strong physics group. It's interesting though, Beth, because when you look at a
student's, you know, four years with us, AP biology and the addition of AP environmental science as well as chem, you know, I think some of that subject diluted and so it just hasn't had a home beyond those kids taking honors physics and then jumping into AP Chem.
Last time you knew AP physics though was still offered at Central High School. Is that still the case? We do not have AP physics. No, we've not had enough numbers. We offer you offer it right and at West I don't think it's even in the course catalog but we have not had it in in years. Honors
physics is numbers have increased but no AP. It'd be interesting sometime just for for fun if I may I'd love to look at the text for environmental science for AP environmental science. Uh yeah
it's all online right through the college board I think. No, we we purchase this is one of the things that is unique about all of these for our curriculum materials. We do have to purchase curriculum materials that college board they have a list of what is being approved. Um and you'll see
some of those go through board finance on Thursday and come um and the curriculum department those are it's a fun fun puzzle that Emily and I are putting together. So, but I can see if I can get you a copy of the environmental. I can get back to you then. You might be getting to this. I
was just going to ask out of the 1,764 exams, how many unique is it? Well, and just like what what's the average number freshman, junior seniors taking? So, there's your distribution as far as grade level goes. We have 39 freshmen
taking an AP course all the way up to nearly half of our senior, you know, half of our junior class is taking one. So, it's cool that when you look at out of the exams written, 904 unique students, so one in three TCAPS high schoolers at Central or West is taking
an AP cause. And it's definitely a balance depending on who you're talking to because um the one side of the coin is we don't want to overwhelm students and keeping up with the Joneses and you know they they need a life outside of school. The other is how many students do we have when we're looking at that
SAT data that may not think that they can take an AP course that they have the ability to. And so again, that's more of that conversation of our teachers and counselors identifying those kids and pumping them up to take an AP course so that they have exposure and opening doors that they might not know they have
post-secary and talking to the student who thinks they need five AP courses from freshman year on to talk about what that path might look like and how does it serve you and your end goals because again I we have students at both of our high schools that could take and could handle five all four years but they
would not be a well-rounded high school student and they would probably not be able to go to a single social event. And so it you have to have that nimleness to know your kid to talk about it. So it's not just an all or nothing. I made the mistake of excitedly telling my staff like we're trying to pump these numbers
up and some of you know the counseling staff said, "Well, there's some kids we're actually trying to tailor to what they need and taper it down." So it is not a one-sizefits-all. It's not a rush to get a certain number, but it is cool to think over year the years how more kids have had exposure to college level
courses and in our journey for grading for understanding and against nationally normed items. It gives us the best picture of where our kids are. So, a few other things on that like you'll see 39 kids across the district taking an AP course as a freshman. Um,
that tends to be like AP computer science is a very accessible one for freshmen. Sometimes at West they'll take human geography. Sometimes they'll take AP US, but you have to be a pretty advanced student to be able to do that confidently, but that number of sophomores has really jumped up and
we've we've really like this this past school year in particular, we've really kind of monitored that and done a lot of messaging. Um, typically, uh, AP World was really the one AP that sophomores at both high schools took. It's a very challenging AP, but it's attainable for
a sophomore and it's a good kind of like introduction to them about what a real heavy reading, heavy homework AP load is going to look like. But what's come along the the pipe is AP precel in 10th grade for our most advanced math cohort. Um, as Jesse mentioned, we had 100% pass
rate on that, you know, so it's it's appropriate, but now, you know, you're also a sophomore and you see two AP titles in your course schedule, right? And then um we did a lot of work and our teachers really wanted to try AP Seminar in 10th grade which we added this year
which was a huge success. Um also saw 100% close to 100% pass rate in AP seminar. Um but there will be a few sophomores who have three classes or half of their course load says AP on it which is a little just from face value
like a little intimidating you know. So there's a little bit of messaging that needs to go around that because the pre-KELT and the seminar for an advanced sophomore that top third of the group is very accessible. Yeah. And I would say we've heard some feedback from kids through some of the student advisory council that they want
three options. They want a ongrade level, an honors, and then an AP. And what we've actually found and we need to do a better job talking to our kids and our parents about what we actually like is an on-grade level and then an AP when when appropriate because the AP gives that standard for colleges. What we've
heard back from colleges is that calling it honors US, they're not sure what that means. That means nothing and it means the exact same as regular US. And all that's turned into is similar to the issues we we've been talking about in middle schools. just sorts behaviors and it sorts kids um not really based on
academic ability or drive. Um where the AP has that national curricular standard, um colleges do see that as having sort of a benchmark and something that's objective that's out there. And so we really we are trying to you know we phased out a regular pre-calc and
just gone towards AP because number one we've seen our kids be highly successful on it. So it's very accessible. our teachers are phenomenal on both sides of town. So, why have both of those? It really, you know, it doesn't serve the purpose. Our kids are ready for it. And so, let's um ensure that they're able to
get into those courses. Yeah. The the other big decision point um it's similar to what we said about some of the SAT practice, some of these things that are there, and it's hard to get um kids and families sometimes connect to it. But the other decision point and do I take three APs or do I
take four or five? um which is I think it's rare when four or five is appropriate is to look at the AP credit policy search and that's that's a really nice tool they have on the website we sent it out yesterday when we reminded kids to go on college board and check their scores but you can say like I'm
interested in going to Michigan State and you can look and see which APs they take and at what score you know everything we talk about here um we say like a three a four or a five those scores are passing but it doesn't mean that like if you get a three on AP then
Michigan State is going to take it, right? And don't you also shouldn't assume that like the more prestigious the institution, the higher score they will require. It's all it's all over the place, you know? So, I don't think families do it as much as they should. But we also encourage them to consult
that when they're doing their course request up and thinking about how many APs and which APs you do reach a point too where um you know if if you take four APs junior year and five senior year and you took a few when you were sophomores you may get to college realize they're not all taken or you've
knocked so much off the board your freshman year you're you're taking a lot of uh psychology classes and other things that are out of your interest area, you know, or or else you're having to take upper upper level and you're competing competing with college students at a different level at the same time you're
trying to assimilate this whole new experience and you'll see kids kind of drop back, drop off, drop out, you know, so you have to really be careful how you pace yourself. Yeah. Especially freshman year and you really have to recognize every student is different and talk to your
counselor and talk to your parents and kind of figure out like based on where you want to go and what you want to do, what's the best path for you, not necessarily what's your friend who you've always sat next to what they're doing. And I, you know, the number on here I really like is that 411, 411 of
our students this year took one AP, right? We know statistically that if kids just have success and they expose themselves to it, they're more likely to think about postsecary educational opportunities. Um, and so we really love that that's the highest out of all of
those as opposed to the 17 kids who took five APs. Like cool, great for you. Those kids are our sort of other end of the spectrum kids. Just historically, so you guys know, we pulled the numbers. So last year we had 821 unique kids take AP
um exams. The prior year it was 780. And so as you think about 780 to 821 to 9004 and the student populations at both of our high schools have has slightly declined. So we these guys have worked really hard to ensure that for kids that it's appropriate. How do we encourage
them? How do we sometimes it is that one-on-one conversation about you can do this, right? How about some of those subgroups of kids who might be a first generation college kid or um whose parents don't know as much about this? How do we ensure that there aren't barriers just inherent barriers there
for these kids getting in? So, well then also I think it was in the Wall Street Journal, Josie's aware of it as well. They were talking about how they're actually lowering some of the uh standard isn't the correct term, but
they're lowering what's expected on those AP exams, some of them, so that more kids do better. Yeah. Well, what they're doing is it's similar to what Dan was talking about with NWA. they're norming and they're calibrating, you know. Um because again, much like the SAT
benchmark score should predict how they do in freshman classes, the AP score should predict that they have the level of knowledge and skills um of what they would need to to pass that freshman history course or the freshman bio course or whatever it is. So, they're constantly like um
calibrating and norming that. So, a lot of the scores have reset. We saw that in AP Lang this year, you know, so our pass rate went up a little bit, but it's not necessarily about like making the test easier. It's about making it more in line with I mean, we we'll always see this with kids. They come back in
December after their first semester in college and sometimes these kids are like, I thought college would be hard, you know, but they they took five or six AP courses and sometimes those were more rigorous than what they actually got to college and took. So, college board is just trying to bring those a little more
into alignment over time. Just personally, just Ava, my my oldest just did her bachelor's in three years and she still says that her AP lang course at West Senior is the most challenging course she's ever had as far. Wow. The next slide here has some
results for you guys on those. Yeah, this is great. When you look at uh the pass percentage again Joe spoke to, we call that a three or higher just when we're looking at the macro data. But it is spec you know important to note that you know what universities will accept
credit varies great deal. But when you look at the global pass percentage to ours we are higher in TCAPS in every single course except AP3D. And again that sample size last year was single digits. And so that like is a real point of pride. Um and then we also have
graphs when we look at throughout the state of Michigan. How do we do and we continually um are higher than the state and global averages in most all of our courses. Yeah. Um Joe, I just want to say thank you for raising that point about the threes, fours, and fives. Um because
that is we don't want to mislead parents and students that Yeah. Yeah. And I I've seen that firsthand. There are some highly competitive colleges out there that will only accept a five for credit or placing out of the test. And but um and strangely, there's colleges that are not competitive that will only take
four. It's it's arbitrary. You know, every institution can decide. Yeah. That's right. Um and on the money side of things, I've made this point last year, but I think it's worth repeating. If you're a parent and you know you're you you're paying approximately $100 per
test. Um say your kid takes 10 over four years, that's $1,000. But to Dan's point, you're buying you could be buying your kid a semester or even a full year. And I have known some parents to do that. That's an it's like going to NMC
dual enrollment. You know, you are saving a lot of money. Um related to that is is you know the equity drum and I do really appreciate the efforts through the buildings to make sure families know that cost isn't a barrier
um God willing with our new budget that we can still continue to support that. But I just think that's really important when counselors also meet with the students when they're registering in February for next year that that kid knows cost, you know, is not a barrier. There are scholarships available for them.
John, did you want to say anything there about the budget mention that? And then the last slide here just gives you the distribution of uh all of this all 1700 scores together here. Um I was been asked for this before, right? what percentage are fours and fives and what
does that look like nationally for most of the tests it's it is a bell curve that sits right around three um as you pull up there are some that are different but most of them bell curve right around three so again really impressive and I will say
just when you talk to anyone in this region there is not another district that can offer this many courses nor is there another district that gets this type of outcome and this really is a testament to how hard our teachers are working how hard our counselors are working to get our kids in our classes and how hard these guys are working just
to make sure that it all runs really smoothly for our kids and our families. Yeah, I mean I think this graph is amazing. I always look at this again going back to that three, four or five and lumping that together and calling it a pass rate. When you look at our kids in Traverse City wrote as many fives as
they wrote threes like you you will not see that a lot of places. That's really hard. Are we able to access the test scores of private schools? No. So, only public schools data are available. Okay. And it's pretty lagging.
And we do share time, right, with some of our AP courses with our local We do. They're not their scores are not in here. These are all actual TCAPS kids, but almost all the AP courses taught at at least GTA are act are taught by TCAPS teachers and we oversee
them. similar curriculum and all that good stuff. Yep. Great. Okay. So, we did I know we're approaching two hours for this meeting. Um but we did stick this in here knowing that we wanted to potentially have a discussion um especially after all this
data around the strategic plan. Um I just sort of summarized Dan and I summarized the five areas. Obviously, there'll be word smithing in there. Um, so and then Dan and I did just give you an idea. Dan and I kind of went through some different schools in the state,
what their strategic plans look like, how do we organize the information. We really liked this one in particular. Well, we've we've tweaked it a little bit, but like for example, this would be under goal number one, which is increase um academic achievement. And then maybe we'd have multiple focus areas, right?
one focus area around literacy, one focus area around mathematics, one focus area around graduation rates is sort of what Dan and I were thinking. And then within those focus areas, what are those u measures of success? That would be some of those hard outcomes there. I know there's lots of words and it's tiny
on the screen. Apologize. And then for Dan and I and our principles and our leadership teams really like what are the strategies and activities we're going to do to reach those measures of success, right? we can say all the measures of success that we want but the actual we have to move the system and change what we're doing or else we'll be
back to the flatline graphs right so um this was one template that that Dan and I have played with what would it look like and how it presents right question oh go ahead and that is you know there are people that talk about teaching to
the test and being concerned about that um and I'm not quite sure how you could teach to the test for ELA or math in general, but it seems to me that what we
also want to make sure, and I'm I don't know how to measure this, is to make sure that students are able to use this, take it out of the classroom and actually use it as part of their approach to daily living.
Um, and so I think I don't know how to measure that. I don't know if the tests that we have currently are able to encompass that, but I think that's something else to kind of keep in our heads.
The only thing on that note is um something that was brought up by Trustee Ty Schmidt. Um, you know, knowing that this was on our agenda today, there are a number of career and college readiness um benchmarks that are collected by
Michigan school data. My school data. Yeah, my school data. Um, so that career college readiness I mean especially that career side I think of very practical skills and I personally number five you're thinking the terms.
Yeah. I mean it it it is but like to Beth's point um yeah that that that's just one benchmark I do know that's out there and I don't I'm not intimately familiar with it. I'm I'm pretty familiar with it. So a lot of it comes from uh national um data that the colleges
report um I'll be honest with you it's always been felt a bit a bit sketchy of you know those that report those that don't. It's based off of, you know, they don't necessarily have great numbers that track kids from high schools, especially. Yeah, we know.
You know, so all that. So you we've always used it as a point, but like you know, like how strong is it? They don't know. Um, and then the other part you have I like you have to ask is I I think
there's some early on ones, but I guess how responsible are we for a 4-year graduation rate in college? Like there's college readiness, but the college has a whole lot of, you know, components there. So I I guess I would just I'd be
weary of especially long-term college postsecary rates initial maybe but like I said the my school data what that feeds into the you know it it's a little you know it's it's just I've actually
had the chance when in one of my former districts that was much smaller to compare that data to what we knew were fact and it didn't match job. Yeah. I And I did see another metric actually. Um it's and this comes from
Governor Whitmer. I believe it's called progress. It's called 60 by 30. 60% um I don't think proficiency is the right word, but readiness or whatever by 2030. It's 60% attendance. Okay. By 2030 in some kind of
postsecary opportunity, right? Or a certificate, a professional certificate program, right? Okay. 60% participation by 2030. So that's another which would be looking at it. I think we meet already. Yeah. So those metrics do exist but but
yeah I understand they it's like and I'm not trying to I you know I would love I would love if that data was solid. I'd love it. You know just you know we as a state we don't do a great job of tracking kids especially postc career. Yeah. Like you know of of having a connection.
We don't have anything that ties us to kids and alumni to be able to get that info. Um Dan, if you just want to roll back to that measures of success. You know, one thing I noticed in here under uh measures of success five and six. Um
those also to me look like they overlap with goal four of developing high quality staff. So I wondered if some of these and the and the same thing came up in my mind under strategies and activities for number two ongoing professional learning for educators.
Some of these you might be putting it towards both goals or you might have a huge list for this first goal and like a small you know move things around but I just I noticed that that's got to be hard to kind of parse out what goes where. Yeah. Some overlap and and keep it to a point where it's
doable. You know, one thing that is living so we've lived strategic plans, blueprint things as building principles for the last several years and and I think in order to we talk about big data and we talk about that flatline that we want to address, we want to make these
strategic plans usable at a school level with admin. Um, so when I talk about like one of the stuck here there when I bring it bring up again we talked this is back in March now but we continue to talk about um
data that we'll use for for metrics. So we can take all of our NWA now and again shout out to our wonderful tech team. Sophie helps with with all the data we do for elementary um that we can take our NWA, we bring it into our system, we're able to disagregate, you know, economically um disadvantage versus non,
right? So we talk about that achievement gap or also be able to make goals. Again, I would focus on that, you know, the the yellow line or the blue and the greens and and combining them as far as achievement goes. So my my point is that you know as far as is this data being
usable I can then take this graph that's 35 I can make it for each school you know and then those principles can then bring that data into staff and say hey this is one of our goals as far as strategic planning goals because that hasn't been done in the past right as far as our strategic planning we make
some connections but with an actual data goal it' be nice to get this in front of every person that's in our district um to really address. Again, if we're not going to have necessarily a big financial push to address some of these areas, then I think we have to get
buy in from every single educator in order to do something about the flatline. Yeah. And I think we just need to be careful. The more goals we add, the more data points across your, you know, dashboard, the less we have found staff and principles,
there's just it's just too much, right? Like if we have a math goal and then we have a math goal for these kids and then we have a math goal for these kids and then we have a math goal for these kids that applies to these kids but not these kids. It just ends up being nobody knows what they're supposed to be looking at and so everybody's looking different
ways or everyone's just looking up. I don't know. That's why and then again I brought in the that's their ELA MSTEP and I know there's some discussion about including MSTEP. You know the issue is right MSEP was done in the spring. we still don't have the scores back right and so
getting actual data in front of teachers that's why NWA is lock step as far as we are going to do NWA in the fall that data is process in data meetings we make our tier 2 groups it is addressed in our in our PLC's MSTEP is not right because we get that back in the fall and quite
honestly with six PLC's you know we run out of time eventually as far as addressing all kinds of data so I would definitely lean I mean if we have to do both if that's a priority um but I would lean heavy towards NWA that it's a data that's in front of teachers, in front of
admin all year long. And and yeah, I mean I I definitely see the benefit of NWA too as a parent. You know, you your kid comes home and is excited about, you know, their score and and we do have that correlation. Again, it's not perfect, but the idea that, you
know, 60th percentile and higher is proficiency on MSTEP. Um that suffice as far as academic goals. The only issue with them Stephan I mean you know this is that that's what goes into my school data. So is there a transparency issue if you
know would anybody there is a conversation happening at the state level of inputting I ready and NWA into my school data there is that conversation a part of the Michigan data hub so I don't know how quick that'll come to fruition but that is in the conversation right
so we can continue I mean by law I think we have to report the MSTEP data right now it automatic we don't it automatically the state does it they only so I that's going to be publicly available and we can always see that as a board but it doesn't have to be
in the strategic plan performance indicators or you know performance measures whatever you want to call them that the teachers are really focus my fear would be we put it in there and it's just not used right it's just there as a you know placeholder that's a technicality and when it comes down to the school
individual school building level improvement plans I mean as long we should also be aligned between the district plan in there so that everybody's looking at on the same page looking at one data source or another and that would be NWA. Yeah. If we really want to prioritize. Yeah.
The thing is I I like I mean your data is cool. The way you're uh addressing it I think is is so refreshing kind of um and I think that's auditory.
My concern though is that why do you have this kind of information? You have it so that people can use it. It it it needs to have practical applicability. You know, it's like answering the question my father would do. You know,
he'd go and he he would fix something and he would look at me and he would say, "Okay, miss five years of college, what do you think about that?" You know, it's sort of like it's not all academic in life. And to be able to critique
things, to be able to think your way around to evaluate AI, that's going to be important. And we need to give kids confidence in how to use this. Um, and so that's a whole other discussion.
But this this isn't where we stop, where we think of how we're doing a good job. Yeah, I agree. That elementary focus, I think that all builds off of reading, you know, because I know often we have discussions, you bring up the social studies and the science and proficiency
around that and state measures. Um, that it's all based in reading and that's why we're so heavy in that tier one reading in elementary. Reading is is one heck of a gift when you have it, but so is being able to proportionally look
at things. That mathematical skill or the way that you are driving a car into a curve and you think about centrifugal force, you know, because that's how you're going to get through the curve. Okay, Dan, I just want to ask you about
this particular slide. I think what you wanted to show us on the right here, that's the ELA proficiency right at the top and then that below. These were just clips from our from our March the 5year trends. Um, again showing the achievement gap, right? There's I was just want to show also we can do it with NWA also, right?
Where we have all students, we have economically and non-economically disadvantaged with the same idea as those bands. Right. Right. So, if we're looking at goals that are, you know, meaningful and achievable for, you know, to align with
our three-year strategic plan, I know we the board and the administration collectively, we all want to raise the bar for all students. We also want to help narrow that achievement gap between low-inccome and other students. If we are those two goals at odds with
each other or do you look at them as satico? You know, like in other words, if we try to raise the the you know, narrow that achievement gap, does that come at any cost to the middle and high
learners in terms of like their their growth might not be as high because we're trying to raise the bottom more. I mean, I think it depends on how you distribute resources to resources. That's what I was just thinking of, you know, like if you put more tier 2,
you know, supports, you know, you are, you know, you might not be limiting class size because you have interventionists now, you know. So, I think that's a balance. That's a balance you have to, you know, we we
always have to, I think we do our very best to try and say how can we spread that dollar in staffing to do the best here and the best here. And and I think that that's the approach we've taken. And I do think, you know, that we want
to we're trying right now to figure out how can we shift that a bit to do more tier 2 supports, especially middle school. um you haven't had any at high school, you know, and so two support. Yeah. And so that that's that's where that comes down. Tier two supports,
where where are you placing them and how much are you doing with that? That's where the bread is, especially I think with our economically disadvantaged kids, how much of an if how you know in the in the RTI pyramid of how many scoops of ice cream do you
give a kid? Every kid that is academically disadvantaged, the more scoops you give them, the more chance they are that they're going to achieve, but you only have so much ice cream. Right. Right. I would say in the high school, the biggest tier 2 support has been the TAI program. Right. But to run the TAI program, and both Joe
and Ben know this, it costs more FTE. So then, so do we not run some of those AP classes that you just saw phenomenal data for because we only have 20 kids, right? Right now we'll still run that class, but then we got to run Tai. John is exactly right. like if we provide more tier 2 for me I I think tier two is
where where we can move the biggest group of kids and we can s we do not have a systematic tier 2 math support across elementaryaries elementaryaries just kind of we need that we 100% need that right uh which means depending on what elementary school you go go to it depends on what type of
support they have sort of left over from title or at risk as far as individuals we have the programming but Jesse's right there's no set we go all in on reading first and And e even more to that is depending what school you're at and the title funds they have available. Do you have a certified teacher doing tier 2 versus an
aid doing tier 2, right? Westwoods who has $50,000. Travers Heights has $300,000. They're going to have FTE, right? A certified teacher doing tier 2 versus an aid. And do you get the quality of tier 2 intervention? So, and you have the same, right? You still have
the the economically disadvantaged kid at Westwoods in the tier two. or are they getting the same quality as a you know economically disable it just has their you know their percentage of population is more economically disadvantaged and so like
here's here's an interesting one that hit me that I think I'm going to say this right but please speak up if not Eastern Elementary does not have you know the percentage you know of their students that are economically disadvantaged however
because they're they're large. They're 500 students. They have more economically disadvantage than Traverse Heights. At risk at risk percentage is low, but their number is high. But the number of students Yeah. Right. You know, if they were two separate
schools, one of them would would be would be a title one building. Yeah. We I mean, we did this. It almost turned out to be a case study when we closed interlocking and brought those kids into Westwoods. Those kids received full title support, social work every day. we bring the 70 kids into Westwoods
now we don't have any title support even that didn't bump us up to uh my first year at Westwoods when we so it in a way it is an inequity from federal and state resources you know of saying this building because it reaches a threshold gets all those
resources but theoretically I think there's also an argument that because it's so much of a large preponderance of economically disciplined students more of the direct resources should So yeah, go to it. You know, you can only split a teacher across maybe you can sometimes
do across two buildings but not four, you know. So that that's the hard part. So as a district, we have put an extra FTE at Blair and Travers Heights and that and and a and a Westwoods for instance doesn't get that or a Silver Lake. I think Silver Lake and the Long
Lake are the two right now we're talking a lot. They're they're on that bubble, right? partial, but you know, like like you may remember when we were out and central grade, right? But you might remember when we were at Silver Lake that the staff were like, "Don't forget we have title needs, too." Right. Remember? Exactly.
Well, they got the larger chunk of that. And and this is the hard part that we deal with that I wish I had better answers. I really do from a resource standpoint of of be able to provide more with that. And and if we do it just has to come to the cost of something else
that at some point we have to decide. Yeah. Yeah. And and that's why I asked the question because you know I I would like to close the achievement gap but I also want to make sure that our middle and high performers don't suffer as well. You know that their potential is
limited. Right. Right. Exactly. Don't want to limit their in the in the end. I'm not sure you can achieve that goal with the resources we're given from the state and it's not all on on the schools.
It's but we've kind of collectively agreed these were two big picture goals and if they're really at odds and we need to prioritize one or the other then that's going to that is going to be a conversation in future budgeting you know as we move forward. But also I mean in August when
you present the objectives and the and the performance measures that you know to but I guess I would say staffing now that's already figured out for this next year like you know we don't even know if we have what we have right you know so you're going to be a year away from be able to make shifts in
budget that might prioritize some things over others and that's sort of I mean I know we've talked a little bit about threeyear fiveyear what is that goal range we there's not much we can shift now for next school year to be honest Dr. Van Wagner's our staffing has we've allocated the resources to the sites.
They've hired their people. Um so looking at a little bit longer data will allow us to get some data back and and respond. I think at one of the board meetings I was asked is the percentage is okay and I was like that's a tough one to ask. Percentages are okay. We can talk every year about where do we maybe change some of those. I just wish we had
more of it to start with so that the percentages came out differently. Can I just have more ice cream, please? It'll make you sick. Oh, okay. Yeah. And this is a particularly tough year with the state budget. Yeah, it is. 12 not being passed yet. But,
um, it sounds like we haven't done it. We're not all planning to allocate our dollars differently this next year than we have in past, right? The consistenc I mean, our atrisisk dollars, we had a million dollar cut. So, we actually have less resources
this year than we've had in the past. and we're unsure about where our federal funds are coming in at this point. We've been told that our title two, our title three and our title four funding. We're not funded at the federal level. Title two is professional development. Title
three is our uh ELLL or English language learners and title four is also professional development and development of our staff. So, at this point, that would be almost a half a million dollar cut as well. Well, I I want to thank everybody for their uh their patience and diligence
sticking here with us this long. Um I just want to try to wrap things up, but I wanted to say a couple of things. One is just respect uh for you guys doing all this hard work. As Beth said, you know, the graphics, all the data um analysis has been great. It's very
useful to the board. And I think when in August when you do present your draft proposal for the performance measures um if you can show us like where we are versus where we want to go. I think that would be helpful like so that we're not seeing in a vacuum like increase
proficiency by x percent when we don't know what the current proficiency like we're all going to need that reminder. Where where is our proficiency now? Is it 40% or 80% 60%? You think you need a one year or you want all five again? whatever you've got. I mean, you don't
need to create anything new. I think like what you presented today was great, but just to show like those graphs where we were seeing, okay, this is really flat over five years or we've seen some growth or some decline and then that helps us say, okay, yeah, where do we want to go from here?
Um, the other thing is like I I looked back at our April 1 curriculum committee meeting where you guys did the learning series on attendance and there's just such great data you pulled together for
that um on the 20% plus of our students who are chronically absent, you know, 10% or more of of the whole school year. Um, and there was a slide that you had about how to improve attendance rate through strong, positive, and supportive
culture. And I really see these tying in not they they should relate to academic achievement, but they really explicitly relate to our strategic goal and connectedness and well-being. So, the positive relationships, the belonging
with the within the community, the recognition of achievements. I know in elementary schools we used to recognize perfect attendance. Um those sorts of things, experiences during school day and outside and then communication to parents about attendance. I think that's really the key that we've got to go
after. So through building newsletters like the cell phone policy, I've seen that since the the board changed policy two years ago. The district's social media flyers at back to school orientation nights. Um parent teacher conferences. I think just promoting the
benefits of regular attendance like it does lead to better academic outcomes and better connected kids and graduation on time. So I just would love to see something about trying to reduce our chronic absenteeism more more time
learning will lead to better outcomes to support our strategic plan multiple goals. So with that, any other input from trustees. Okay. And we've got our celebrations and successes then. Thank
you guys so much for the strategic plan discussion. That was great. Just a short couple ones. Uh some photos from our end of the year joint principles. It's a great time had by all three hours of reflection on on where
the other and planning for this next year. It's just it we have a really we have a really great group of building administrators who who you know you've seen there two goals, right? Number one is to increase the student achievement and to close gaps and then number two is to manage everything else that goes into
running a school building um so that they can keep their eye on number one and we just have a phenomenal group. So Dan and I have been very thankful. Uh robotics camp this was at Central High's IMC. So Dr. Wagner secured some funds uh to buy those robotics kits and
now I think we've doubled that here as we start to start to look at building an elementary uh robotics program. So we started here just um and again some some side positives of this is you know this is a fundraiser that helps us offset some
leap costs. So, we clear about about 2,000 a camp that we can then kick back and then help with our free and reduced um participants during during the school year. So, we ran two sessions. Uh they filled up in about three days. So, next year we're going to be looking at uh
probably doing once a week uh five or six sessions. So, that's smart. It was great to highlight those faces. All the parents are super positive. Central High know that West was under construction. We thought about doing on both sides of town, but we just did Central High robotics coach was great to
work with. Also, their tech guy, so that was awesome to to kind of combo that together. So, and it has some student volunteers, right? We did. Yep. The robotics team had student volunteers. Raptors. And then also, we just wanted to highlight these are three different uh high school groups that went on
international trips, right? School gets out and then they all jump on planes and as you can see, go to some pretty pretty cool places. This is from both Central and West, different groups of kids. Um, and now they're sort of all back home and in the swing of fall sports probably um, in activities and those sorts of
things. So, and great, we thank our teachers who do this too, by the way. I mean, these were all led by teachers and who don't get compensated more for this, right? they have chosen to go through the process of doing an international trip with students, which by the way is is there's a lot of logistical um things
for their protection and for our kids and families that they go through. But um super thankful to our staff that that give up some time to take our kids abroad. So this is Italy and Italy and then the upper right is Greece and then Italy is on the left
and the lower Yeah. Westico. Great job. Thank you to those teachers and chaperones. Nobody went to the Middle East. My goodness. Okay. Well, um, if there are no other items, uh, we will just announce that
our next board curriculum committee meeting is Tuesday, July 29th here at the administration at Glen Lumis building, and that will be at 8:30 a.m. Thank you again everybody, for your diligence and great discussion today. We are now adjourned.