--------- [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music]
this meeting of the board curriculum committee to order. The committee would like to welcome the audience and viewers may watch live board committee meetings online at tcaps.net/board. Recorded meetings may be viewed on demand at the same address. The
committee is set aside this time for public comment. Kelly, we have a public comment. >> We do. Diane Arnold. >> Okay. Individuals addressing the board shall have one opportunity to speak during public comment and shall be limited to three minutes each. Individuals should not make personal
attacks unrelated to actions affecting the school system. We strongly encourage common courtesy and constructive feedback. Detailed rules and procedures including a complaint process are outlined in board practice board policy 25504.
>> Good morning. My name is Dian Arnold and I did write a letter to the school board in this regard about TAG. So I will try to keep my comments really brief. Um we have three children. Our oldest is in fifth grade in the TAG program and we
love it for her. It's been wonderful. and our other two children go to Eastern Elementary School. Um, TAG right now, obviously, it's a long-standing program. It's been around for many, many years, and we have this amazing opportunity to really make it even better, uh, and help
more more children, which I think is the goal for this. I think one way to do that is to make it more accessible. Um, and I don't mean that we, you know, open the doors to everyone. I think that's what makes TAG important. um is that it
is limited to those children who've taken the test and entered the program the way it's normally done. I I mean we need more children to take the test. Uh I think that lots of children don't take the test because it's not inclusive. We do not uh have busing for children. It's
very difficult for parents especially working parents who have children in other schools and many children simply don't want to leave their home school. It's very difficult and frankly I think schools discourage it. I don't think that it's it's something that schools
necessarily want to do to let all their their best and brightest lead their school. Um so if there was a way to make it maybe instead of an an opt in an opt out I have friends and other parents that I know very smart great people who
didn't even know about the tag test so they missed it. So, I know that's my three minutes. Thank you so much. And Oh, is that not it? >> No, you have another minute and 15. >> No, you're good. Another 15 minute and 15 seconds. >> Um, but yeah, so basically just to to um
make it so that we get the most children possible into the program that should be in the program. I know that my younger children, third and first grade, um they are pulled out of their classroom to do higher level and and it really comes down to equity. there should be equity
for all children, including those children that are advanced learners. And so, um, I know that I I've already sent an email, so you can definitely refer back to that and feel free to give me a call if you have any questions. Um, it and I know people that didn't that chose
not to send their children to TAG this year because of the uncertainty. So, I think the sooner we get some certainty for where our children will be, how we can plan for that, I think the better for our community. So, and this is our opportunity and I really thank you guys
for all you do. >> Thank you. >> And then we're going to go to school. >> Good call. >> Thank you. >> Bye guys. Have a good day. >> You too. >> Thank you for coming.
>> Thank you. >> That's the end. >> Okay. Great. So, we're going to move on to uh the procedural items. And first up are the draft committee meeting minutes from August 25th, 2025. Um, fellow
trustees, any suggestions for changes, additions, deletions? Okay. I did catch one thing and I apologize to you in particular for not flagging this sooner. Um, under theformational items for the district assessment
schedule 5A, uh, we just have a bank a blanket statement that we went over the Michigan Department of Education requirements for testing, but the administration also shared a decision to drop some testing. um specifically the K
through5 NWA reading in winter, the sixth and seventh grade NWA spring and eighth grade NWA al together to reduce testing fatigue and also um you know the imposition on instructional days. So I just would like to reflect that somehow
as I think this is for people hey when did the district decide to do that. So if you want to pull that up to a higher level summary, you know that there was some changes K through eight, I'm fine with that. Or you could be specific as I just was. >> Okay,
thank you. >> All right. Uh moving on, we have the district course catalog, Miss Hen. >> Um yes, lots of courses that you see here. Um a couple things to keep in mind. The MVHS
is our Michigan Virtual High School courses. So, those are courses that students this year are interested in taking that have not taken in the past or potentially new courses being offered through Michigan virtual that students were interested in. So, we're adding those. Um, the ACL is our Aselis
courses. So, keep in mind we've got our virtual programming running up at the middle school. Have about 15 students right now full-time in that. We anticipate for that enrollment to grow, but those are all of our Celis courses. Um, NMC acronyms, I think you are all familiar with those. Again, these could
be um shared time students or students who currently attend one of our high schools who NMC is either offering these courses and have not offered in the past or a student is interested in adding them to their schedule and they do meet our requirements for dual enrollment
courses. Uh the most interesting one on here is the history of rock. So our stu our teachers at both of our high schools are able to uh propose a new course. We have a process in which the teachers in the department um brainstorm.
Typically we're looking for a gap in the curriculum or a gap in um potentially something students are interested in um that we don't offer right now. and we have a social studies teacher who is at Central High School who proposed this course. It would be an elective um
course in the social studies department. Um an interesting course and so it will not run unless we know we have enrollment. Um but we are asking to put this on our course selection sheet for next year for our students to potentially choose that as a one semester history elective. Um we do
share that with our counterparts at West Senior High. They reviewed it. um unsure if they will pick it up as well, but um that's kind of how our new courses at our sites roll. >> So that is actually a geology class, history of rock. >> No, rock and roll. Correct. History of
rock and roll. >> You're taking >> It is social studies. But I think >> Well, then you said science. I'm like, okay, I guess it social studies. Social studies. >> Okay, got it. But the thing that concerns me, history of rock is very
American, very very kind of inclusive. >> British rock. >> There's a lot >> lot of British Rolling Stones. Come on. >> I don't Queen. Okay. >> I can see you guys have a lot of input to the course syllabus. I will be sure to uh
>> listen to the Rolling Stones. >> So, can we just make it rock and roll so it's quite clear? It's not geology class. the kid who will take it will know what that means. >> Uh there is will be a course description. Um it is under the social studies department courses. Um but I can
take it back to them and ask them if they want to change the name. >> That's what those old records. >> Well, I think you should have blues and country in there too in time. >> That's great. >> Yeah. And that will be interesting because there is kind of that thought of rock is not necessarily rock and roll.
Like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has actually it's actually debated the genre >> and rock is considered a much narrower group. So they may stick to their guns on that. Just be prepared. >> Okay. >> I don't know why I know all this. >> It's like Yeah. It's like a Jeopardy
question. I don't have no idea why I know it, but I know it. >> I actually once interned at Rolling Stone magazine, but I am definitely now a middle-aged mom who is not up to speed on it. >> Fair enough. >> Fair enough. All right. Um I just had a
question about um the AP calculus AB um through Michigan virtual because I know I mean don't our high schools also offer calculus AB or is it just BC? Now they offer both in person. AB remember is the one that gives the equivalent of
the calc 1. The BC is the one that gives the equivalent of the calc 1 and calc 2. But remember they're not offered every hour. Typically we have one or two sections at each high school. So if we have a student who really wants to take it but it's a conflict with yearbook
career tech um jazz band I mean like we have a lot of singletons that are students who are advanced we call singleton's a course that runs one hour a day and they're just our conflicts right we schedule based on what's the what's the least amount of conflicts >> is what our software uses but that
doesn't mean zero conflicts right >> are so it sounds like this is a response to more demand than there were there was supply of teachers But I just wonder by introducing the virtual do you think >> not necessarily I want to be doesn't mean more demand. It just means that somebody wants this course who wasn't
able to get in a seat in person. That's what it means. It doesn't mean we have more kids who want to take it necessarily. Does that make sense? >> You think this might change that dynamic and create more kids who want to go virtual now rather than a TCAPS teacher? >> No. No. Kids overall are more successful
when they're in seats with teachers all the way through. when you look at AP scores and engagement in the course um >> so the the difference between those two lines one they're committing to a year like both semesters and the other one they're just committing to semester is that the difference between those two
bullets where it says AP calc and then AP calc AB semester one is that the difference I the second and third bullets oh okay you know what it's changed from the memo the printed memo we had
>> oh I'm Sorry. That's okay. Um, no, it's it's just once. Yeah. On our on our printed memo, it it had it twice. Okay. >> Jesse. >> Yeah. >> Will it give people more of an opportunity for another elective >> that history of of Rock,
>> for instance? >> Um, yes. And I I do have the course description up. Are you interested in me reading the course description? Okay, >> I'm good on that. But I was just thinking because we're so tight on a lot of electives >> that I was wondering if it just gave
them a little bit more flexibility. >> That's the idea. That's the idea. Social studies is the one that students need three years of to graduate. But oftentimes we see kids wanting to take a fourth year or an elective. We have crime and justice which falls under that. We have a history of sports which
is a really cool elective. We have some AP, but it's nice just to have another elective that's in that discipline. Yeah, you know. Yeah, >> appreciate it. >> All right, my last question on this topic. Um, I remember y'all said a couple of months ago that the AP
environmental science was getting really popular. >> I don't know if you were able to accommodate everybody this year, but did they look at um adding an MBHS class for AP environmental science? >> Um, we added sections. So, at Central High School, we now have two teachers
who are teaching it. Um, and at West Senior High, the teacher who normally had had two sections, we ran an additional section. So, we have more actual kids in seats on those. Um, and I would guess cuz it's not on here, but I'd have to look at the course catalog. It might already be in the course catalog.
>> Yeah. >> Um, these are ones that are additional. >> Yeah. >> Great. All right. >> All right. If there are >> We'll double check that though, Josie. >> Yeah. Okay. Then I think if there are no further questions, we will move on to uh
put that on the agenda as usual, the consent agenda, and move on to the learning series. Um Dan Tisworth. >> Yeah. Um so today we wanted to highlight um our English learner program and invited um two teachers with us today. Nicole Vanderol Grind is our content
leader for our elementary program and then Amanda White is our content leader for our secondary program. both EL teachers in the district and they'll be going through some information today with us also. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Um just a quick overview of uh the
students in TCAPS. Uh how many we have? So 140 elementary, 64 at middle, and 79 at high school. And that's kind of fluctuating day by day. Um students are first identified. What they do is a home language survey. So when they come in, if they indicate that they have a
language spoken at home um other than English, they go through the home language survey and then we continue to u monitor them as we uh during the WEDA process, the WEDA test that they take on a yearly basis. Um elementary EL uses something similar as we did 2 in that um
our EL teachers will push into classrooms and they'll also pull out to do separate lessons. Um and secondary they actually enroll in an e ESL class uh that they attend on a a daily basis. And then we have two family uh liaison
that help with um interpreter needs in our district. DB Craig does Spanish and Alicia Powers helps with Ukraine Ukrainian. And then also on top of that we have an interpreting service called Genie that we started last year. uh kind
of a virtual live that can interpret for we haven't found the language it can interpret for at this point. So it's really nice that you have a live person on the other end is similar to a FaceTime call and they can come in and interpret. Again, if these two interpreters are not uh easily
available, they also can jump into that. >> Are they so those two family liaison they're full-time staff who come in? >> They're hourly. So what they do is they keep track they're they're contractual. So they keep track when when they are needed they write those hours down and
then turn those in. So there's no set schedule they have rather they kind of keep track of their hours again by contract >> and they move from building to building as >> very much so. >> Okay. >> That's what we did at the hospital
interpreters on everything. >> Now is that a relatively new development or like has been open hours for them or anything like that? No, we've always had um interpreters in the district that help and you know outside of doing interpreters, they also help again the
idea of their family leaison. So they help as that conduit at times for all needs that these families have >> um throughout the school year. >> Cool. Great. Thank you. >> And the good thing about that too is it's not just the language, it's context
also and that could be really important. cultural context. >> Yes. Yes. >> So, these are our current elementary numbers. Um, and as Dan mentioned, we're still very much in the identification process. So, um, these numbers do kind
of change daily. And we also have students that have achieved a high enough English um, proficiency level that they're still in our buildings, but um, don't require English language services anymore. So, um you can notice that just some trends that our in city
limit buildings tend to be our biggest ones and that's historically been true. Um whereas some of our like Corte we we see less students and that really helps drive some of our department goals with um student connections and and where we
um concentrate some of our resources. >> Would you say that there's been any significant change in recent years in these student populations or like you just seen growth in those same areas? Central grade and Traverse Sites in particular. >> I think generally speaking they're
pretty similar. We have seen more students coming to us with more limited English. So these numbers don't tell us proficiency levels. So um that's maybe a bigger difference. I think Traverse Heights has grown. Um and when you think about the total number of that school,
we're looking at a little over 20% of the building is English learners. Um, and I do think that is a newer trend, but part of that is probably tied to housing in our city. >> Yeah, a lot of growth around Traverse sites for sure.
>> Okay, >> thank you. >> Okay, these numbers represent the secondary numbers that we have within our five buildings serving East Middle School, West Middle School, Central High School, West Senior High, and Trevor City High. And as Dicki mentioned, we
have seen shifts within populations within buildings. Um, so overall the numbers are consistent as we look at some trends, but we see some buildings that may have higher populations because of where students are living. We also
may see a change because of student um foreign exchange students at the high school level >> which qualify for EL services. I was surprised to see that the middle school where the middle school is high, the high school is smaller, that it
seemed like they seesaw a little bit. They're interested >> and sometimes students are exiting EL services by the time they get to high school. So,
you will see those numbers drop. >> Yeah. The ultimate goal is, you know, Amanda's at East Middle School. She does a phenomenal job. She hopes that her students, if they're with her all three years, will grow their English skills and proficiencies and will actually not
need as much intensive support as they move into high school. So, >> I was wondering if that's what was happening with Central. I wasn't quite sure what was happening with West because you have considerably fewer
down in middle school and then it more than doubles when it hits high school. >> My guess is the east population, the East Middle School is based on the housing that we're, you know, that direct pipeline of >> Heights Central,
>> East Middle School. >> Is that a fair statement? >> I would say that's accurate. >> Yeah. And then do we get a certain amount of kids that are older that are moving like I think >> into West High School like maybe especially like our youth population you
know like so we may get kids that are high school age >> when they come to us more too. So >> it's interesting that is an interesting trend. Yeah, it but it's to your point it's not >> it's the opposite almost of you know that the high school it's interesting
that Central High School is lower but again but also the fact that >> we're getting a lot of kids hopefully prepared >> is what's happen >> and that could literally change next year next three years with these these middle school students up to high school it's not like they're all defecting to the west side
>> it's a very transient population I think these guys would say that very much so um and so Yeah, a lot of it's based on where the families and where the locations right now are. >> And this is a this is currently as of today. So as we move through, right, we
didn't if we were to show last year's data, maybe we see the middle schools higher and therefore they've moved up >> as it abs and flows. Yeah. >> So these are just the languages represented. We have at least 18 languages that we know of that um
families speak at home. Um, and then this is just a general breakdown again on the data that we do have. So almost half of our population speaks Spanish. Our second most frequently spoken language is Ukrainian and then um Vietnamese and Chinese follow. And then
some of those other smaller languages we we tend to sometimes see in pockets. So you might have one building that has a high percentage of students who speak Persian um but then it's not spoken at any other building. So that's also kind of a fun trend to follow. Um, and that's
where Genie has been really helpful. That was the interpreter service that the district adopted last year because I've sat through like an IEP meeting where we're able to basically FaceTime someone that speaks Vietnamese who can help us interpret those really important
um, parent meetings for us. And then Debbie and Alita, our two liaison are able to also help with the bulk of our families and their interpreting needs. and like Dan said, help them connect with resources like our student health clinic or get them enrolled in LEAP
sports. So, we've we have been really happy to adopt that interpreting service to help with some of those smaller, less frequently spoken languages. >> Yeah, I um any any feedback on the Genie service from the students or the
families? Um I would say that from on our end on the building end it's been really amazing like if a child let's say gets sick and um the parent requires an interpreter all of our AAS have access to those accounts there are
the ones that actually hold the accounts and so it's made those types of things a lot easier. Um, we are still working for ways to let our parents contact us. And so, like something that we worked on at the elementary level is we're now doing
a bilingual attendance form where we send families home with a business card and a QR code and it links them to a Google form so a parent can call in their own child's um, attendance if they're sick. So, we are working on more ways that the parents can get through to
us in that sense. And we're really lucky that Google has an amazing suite of translation services that are free. Um, and as we have more bilingual staff members in our program, I think we're becoming more aware of those needs as well, like gaps that we didn't
necessarily see before um with just a monolingual um staff. So, I think that's where we're headed is just thinking of more creative ways to to have our parents contact us when they need us. Excellent. >> And some of the learning platforms like
Seesaw, they could interpret into their own language. So if you would send a message, elementary sends a message out, >> they can receive all of that information. >> Class dojo is embedded. Um, >> yeah, and some of our curricular supports, we're starting to see two in multiple languages. So
>> I have to say this was really fascinating. I knew about the Spanish and the Ukrainian, the Vietnamese, but not the rest. So, um, really interesting to see the district grow that way. Um, so this is our elementary staff. We
have Emily Federers at Blair and Long Lake. He K at Cherry Noan Corte. Jessica Leinsky is at Eastern Monastery and Willow Hill. Kathleen Schneider at Central Grade Silver Lake and Westwoods. And then I am at Traverse Heights. And um, three of us have our masters in
teaching ESL. and um two of us are bilingual and another two of us have a really extensive background in teaching reading intervention. So really excited about the team that we have this year and the experience that everyone brings to it.
And this is our secondary team which also includes Tanya Donghue, Ben Lance, and Heidi Gregory. And what's really nice about our secondary team is we are also teaching in the content area and can help our students succeed and interact with our colleagues to help
students not only in ESL but other classes that they may be taking. This is a little bit of a change from prior years. At our elementary we had just two certified teachers and a lot of instructional aid support. And we really I mean Dan really took the lead with
changing Dan and Nikki and changing the model and providing all certified staffing who's doing the servicing to our students. Um funding wise just so you guys know um we do get a little bit of categorical funds to support EL. We get a little bit in our federal title
three very little like I say like $25,000 and then we get a little bit in what's called 41A also less than $100,000. And when you think about this population of students, they they need
additional supports to access um the school to access all components of it. Um these guys have separate curriculum they use with our students. We do like we said the translating skills, all of those things. Um and so that then all comes because those categoricals
don't cover it all. That just comes then out of general funds for us. >> Yeah. So that was a change this year from >> Yeah. Nikki was going to touch base on that also, but just to thank the board and Dr. Vin Wagner to kind of see the need as far as it was a it was a huge
transition. We had two EL elementary teachers in previous years and and aid support and as far as contact hours with with students, the state only recognized those those contact hours that teachers certified teachers have. So although although we are still servicing kids
with aid support, um it didn't actually fall within the requirements of the state. So we uh like Jesse mentioned we have put more funding towards our EL program through at risk and general fund so that every now we have a teachers with case loads that are manageable. We
want to keep those case loads right around 30ish. They're a little higher especially with Nikki at driver's heights with that population but we find one teacher at one location is better than splitting a population up. Um but it's a it's we've made huge strides. So we we appreciate your support. I have a
question for the kids that are that that is their first language and then English is their second. Do they ever go on and major into that language literature as well as the language? I mean, if you
come in speaking Russian, it just opens up all the Russian literature to you. You don't have to translate. So, I'm wondering if if we're able do we encourage them basically to piggyback
piggyback off of what they already have. We definitely leverage home language support and that is up to each individual family if they continue to pursue an education in their native language. Um, I don't have a specific
scenario to share where a student has natered in their home language. I was just kind of curious, >> you know, I had a friend I knew u people that were bilingual in quite a few languages and I had one friend that was
getting her masters in French because she wanted to be an interpreter at the UN and you have to be fluent in six languages to do that. So Pansy had five and was going for her sixth. Um, and by
fluent it means she could be in one language and move just very fluidly right into another and just the it was just amazing. Um, so I was kind of wondering, you know, you kind of see a lot of times immigrant families shut
down one language to only let the language most commonly spoken be the dominant language. And I'm kind of hoping that we encourage kids also to keep what they have. >> Absolutely. And some of our students,
for example, will attend Ukrainian school in the evening or even maintain status as Ukrainian students virtually in the evening. Some of our fifth graders as they're selecting their electives for middle school also get very excited if they're
Spanish speakers to take Spanish classes. So, um I mean that is a language that we can very easily support um that and I wanted to come back to the the teaching model changes that Jesse and Dan mentioned. Another thing just
from my perspective aside from the um more contact time with students. It's also allowed us to attend all staff professional development in meetings of the buildings that we're working in. And so something that's been tremendously helpful for me is I am now able to work
with a lot of the gened teachers at Traverse Heights, especially as we roll out CKLA. Um, having that contact time instead of being at five buildings instead of one, that's been really helpful. And then you can see from here, one of our goals is really to hone in on
helping our students feel connected at their local buildings. And so even little things like um before we couldn't require a to attend parent teacher conferences, for example, or, you know, Eastern does a carnival and Traverse Heights does a fancy dance. These are
opportunities now that we're not spread so thin that we're able to to attend. We will be able to attend parent teacher conferences and some of those extra school events and help make sure that our families are engaged in them. So, aside from being more compliant with
having more certified ESL teachers, we're also just gaining a lot more time in our buildings, which I think will certainly benefit our students and their families. Um, and then speaking of CKLA, that's been another tremendous help in giving our department direction because,
um, a lot of our teachers right now are kind of in lock step on rolling out CKLA. We have um two areas that really support English language learning. There are parts embedded right into the GenEd CKLA curriculum that um really give
helpful tips for all levels of English language proficiency speakers. So something I might do at Traverse Heights is take all of the kindergarteners and work on that particular lesson that they're also getting in their general education class. And then they also have
a separate component that supports CKLA that we're starting to get oriented with called Language Studio. Um, and so we have that this year that we're trying to work with too to help support and supplement that. Um, and then the final change that we've made is um, and this
is a big thanks to um, Dan and Jesse and the board for supporting this, but we have a new software system that allows us to communicate better with general education teachers what the language needs are of our students. So the WEDA
test is something that we are required annually to give, but it spits out numbers that can be really nebulous to someone who doesn't have an extensive background in teaching ESL. So we purchased a software system called Edu Skills that was created by a former um
head of ESL for Oklahoma City Public Schools. And basically it allows us to tell teachers what those numbers mean and what English language development standards they're tied to. So that has been a tremendous help. It also allows
us to put in any WEDA um accommodations, MSTEP accommodations so that those are going to follow students especially as they transition from fifth to sixth grade so that our secondary teachers don't have to backtrack and figure out hey like what supports were these
students getting? So that has been incredibly helpful purchase for our program. It saved us a lot of time and especially our general education teachers. it's given them a clear picture of what students need quickly. Um, and then I just wanted to share at the elementary level our department
goals. So, we're really trying to help boost that student achievement and it's really really possible and tangible now with CKLA. So, we're really locking down into that. And then, like I mentioned earlier, our our our objective as a department, we're really looking for
ways to boost that family engagement. So that that bilingual Google attendance form and then you know we'll be meeting more to discuss how what are other ways we can really connect our families at the local school level. Um what are ways we can really engage with them and get
them what they need so their students feel like a part of this community even if language is a significant barrier. One other question and it kind of blends across not just to foreign language but to English as well. What do you do when
we have so many forms but people are basically illiterate in whatever language the form is in? Um how do we deal with that? >> Well, we're lucky that some of us are bilingual. So, like for example, if a
student enrolls and they're unable to read the enrollment form, like they can pull a teacher who's bilingual to go read it to them. But we also have iPads that you can take a picture and it will read it out loud. And that's true even with CKLA students who are really fluent in their first language but not
literate. Sometimes we use that to really help boost comprehension. So, I feel grateful to be teaching this in 2025 when we have so many technologies that assist with that process. But it's not um even though that we encounter that, it really hasn't been a barrier
for our families. We have enough bilingual adults in our community to really help get what we need done. >> Do we >> And we've done I know Jesse can speak in more detail about communications, but we've done a lot on the communications
end to make sure everything that we have frontward facing for our families can be interpreted in some way, shape, or form. So, for instance, we moved all of our schools over to S'more newsletters. S'more is a software and you can every newsletter that goes out, you just drop
down and interpret. So, we're we're aware of that. Everything that's out on our web or any form we have, we continue to work on making sure that it's translated. >> And we mark these guys help us mark and find families who only read in their native language. So when they get communication pushed through our powers
school through our SIS, it goes and we have a tag in which their communication comes through in the language in which they read. It's already set for that. So we've got that sort of in play, too. Um >> what what languages are y'all bilingual
in? >> I speak Spanish and English. I used to be a Spanish teacher at West. Um, and then another one of our elementary ESL teachers also speaks Spanish. And then we have noticed, um, Ukrainians are second most represented language. A lot of our Ukrainian parents are either
learning English or are very literate in Ukrainian and so they don't necessarily face the same challenges that some of our other language families do. And Amanda can speak for secondary. Yeah. >> Yes. I also speak Spanish and we have several staff members at East Middle
School that speak Spanish as well. >> Okay. And Russian and Ukrainian I think are pretty pretty kinship. >> Yeah, they are. And we have um a junior kindergarten aid at Trevor Heights that speaks Ukrainian. And then Alisa, our
longtime liaison. She's she really knows everyone. So we call on her a lot too. >> Thank you. Looking at what we offer at the secondary level, it is a little different at the middle school versus the high school. At the middle school, I
have two ESL sections which are organized by grade level or proficiency level. And the same is true at West Middle School. So, two sections putting our newcomers, students that are new to learning English in a section and then higher level students that require different needs in another section. the
middle school teachers. We also have a time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays called seminar that we're able to support our content area teachers or work with students individually with different reading interventions or fluency or take a look at a teachers lesson plan and see how it may become
more accessible for our EL learners. At the high school level, they also they have something similar. Um, they have a section with class, a multi-grade class, as well as a part of their day to help support content area teachers to help
with success in those classrooms. Our curriculum is new. This is our second year using it is the National Geographic Learning. So, there is a unique curriculum for English language learning that is different than an ELA class. We
focus on English language acquis acquisition to help with content mastery in the classroom and it offers five different options. And so we look at a student's proficiency level and what would best fit that students need when
we're developing curriculum. We also, as I mentioned, look for where students need comprehensive support in other parts of their day or even outside of their school day to make sure that they're engaged in the school and the community. We work with our colleagues
in the LEAP office to see how we can help enroll them in sports or clubs or other activities or even attend school events such as the homecoming dance that we just had. >> Excellent. I'm just curious about that National Geographic Learning Curriculum.
Um, so if this is the second year, what what was the feedback like from the teachers year one? It's a very engaging curriculum. It uses authentic resources to draw students in. It's really
comprehensive with listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It also has an online Spark platform which complements what we're doing in the classroom and allows us to really tear out needs that different students have. When you're working with multi-grade level students, that's really important that you have a
curriculum that is going to allow some personalization. Students find it very engaging and it also does a really nice job of supporting the content areas. >> Great. And I just have one more question about um these sections at the secondary
level. Sure. >> That constitutes their their ELA. >> It does not. >> Oh, so it's an elective, >> correct? >> Okay. Okay. So that does have some implication for them like in terms of they have one other elective to pick a
STEM or an arts class or whatever. >> Absolutely. And at the middle school for example with higher level students, we have some flexibility with our scheduling. For example, I have a student that just sees me on A days instead of B days because the student
wants to play in the orchestra. And so, we make that happen. There is flexibility. And at the high school, um, our students still are required two credits in world language, but a lot of times we will see these students earn those two credits because they have that proficiency in
their home language, right? And so they're able to like not have to necessarily take that additional world language class because they have the proficiency in this. There are ways in which we call it a a PC at the high school personal curriculum. We're able to write for these students that can
that can fulfill that Michigan merit requirement. So >> perfect sense. That does make sense. Yeah. >> Yeah. Dan and I just really >> once in a while we got that one right backed. Um, yeah, Dan and I just really wanted you guys to
meet Amanda and Nikki. We wanted to kind of give them a little kudos. This is the first year we've had some EL leadership. They're teacher leaders that get receive a a small stipen to help us just organize and make sure we're supporting teachers. I mean, this program, we're talking about about 5% or so of our
student population, but they're very vulnerable, right? It they're they need a lot of support. We have to make sure we're intentional about what does it look like K12 for that support? How does it change? How do we I mean Amanda's or sorry Nikki's right. We have to how do we build relationships with these
families, right? How do we build trust and how do we make them feel welcome when language and not having that language is such a barrier? Um and so we really we've done a lot of work this last year led by these guys to reorganize it and make sure the teachers have the resources they need and we just thought it was worth us bringing it to
the board and making sure you guys are aware of the work that's happened behind the scenes. So >> I think it's great. One last question, forgive me. And that is do we in any place in the curriculum include uh is it
anishnabi? >> Anishnabi. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So that is our indigenous education program. That's a work in progress. So I've been working with uh Lydia and working with tribe because we received a grant recently um to include that in our curriculum. So, we're going
to we're trying to figure out we had this program oh about 15 years ago at the middle schools where we had inab one and two. Um, and that is has since gone away, but now we've we have the grant to bring it back. So, we're just trying to figure out the format and what that
looks like. Uh, I've also talked to some some people at Michigan Virtual to see if they could help us build out a class that can be um supported by the tribe here, Grand Travers Band. I think that's great because I'd hate to see it be a dead language. >> Yeah, for sure.
>> Thank you. >> Yeah, that that's a different conversation for another day. I I know y'all will keep us in progress in that language. >> Yes, absolutely. >> I I hate to talk dollars and cents, but uh have to think of the finance side of
things, too. So with the changes this year um you mentioned and I I concur that the state and federal funds are minimal um and the rest will have to come from the general fund. So what did would the district have to you know
offset that with? >> Well it depends I guess how you look at it as far as offsetting what our original program was with with teacher aids. I'm going to give you some approximate numbers here. So we had to offset what we were paying in teacher aid and we took that money and then hired FTE. So that was a one for one. U
beyond that we probably added just a little more than another FTE which we had to take out of a combination of of at risk. We're we're probably looking at about 150 grand. >> I'd consider that a well spent at risk >> between that and general fund. But there
is a again going back to state of Michigan there's a level of compliance we have to hit and previously we weren't near that. >> I understand it's not it wasn't a choice. >> It really wasn't. I think we had to write the ship. We all recognize it and we and we just don't know what pot right now that comes out of it.
>> Right. Couldn't you know as of right now we don't as we sit here right now I couldn't tell you. >> I would say FTE wise we have about I think it's 6.6 or 6.5 FTE teaching staff. And so if you guys kind of do the multiplier of what an FTE is
approximately 110. Does that sound about right? And I would say between our 41A and our title three which we're allowed to spend on that. I mean that maybe covers one and a half FTE. So the rest of it um and then that doesn't even count curricular resources, the EDU
skills that Nikki talked about. Um release time like things that they that we know that our teachers need to be prepared to serve these kids. that's a little bit um above and beyond what our general um education teachers need. Um and then we Dan and I just kind of yeah
like as Dr. Rand Wagner said just try to look at the pots of money and figure out what can we access. At risk is a great one. We don't know what's in there though. It's like this unknown. Um but it's a great one for us to try to support that. >> It's great. Great. Thanks so much for
being here today and helping give us this overview of the program. and they're going to depart back to their classroom. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Keep up the great work. >> Thanks so much.
>> Okay, we're moving on to our discussion item on the talented and gifted program, otherwise known as TAG. I'm going to defer again to Dan Tisworth >> and I'll just I'll kind of just start out with this is a conversation that um
is is really now precipitated by the move of Central grade. So, uh, as you all know, our our TAG program has been housed for many years at Central Grade. And with us vacating Central Grade, um, and coming in this building next year,
we knew that we didn't have quite enough room for our preschool and our TAG programs to stay housed in here while the three-year construction phase is going on at Central Grade. So, the conversation that we've had is where
would we have room in the district to be able to house the TAG kids while that three-year construction phase is going on. So, that's the first thing that we've had to do. And so, um we've looked at a lot of different options which
includes even funding with title and buildings and all those things. And at this point, uh, we are prepared, uh, right now looking at having, uh, two classes, um, at Eastern Elementary and two at Silver Lake Elementary is our
plan as of right now. Um, and that, uh, we we have room uh, both. We will have a preschool classroom at Eastern that we're going to have to figure out where that goes. We're looking at different options with that. Um but uh th those
are the two right now that um that create that and and that creates just because of space right now an east and a west side tag program. Um the question from there is um after the three years then what one
of the things that's also in play is that the architects right now are figuring out number of classrooms and space to be redesigned um at central grade and so they're asking us the question of how many and
this is a conversation I've had with most of the if not all board members um over the last couple of years of just there's been idea We had a public comment this morning about trying to create some type of equity. Um, and so we we have had that conversation about
do you create more opportunity if you have something on the east side and the west side of town. Um, transportation is uh still an an issue, but if you can get a kid into this the busing boundaries of
Silver Lake or Eastern, it it is a little easier. Um, and in the future, if we had more bus drivers, which we've struggled with for many years now, so I don't I don't want to give a false hope, but if there was, we could try and figure out maybe some type of transfer
system um from our middle school. So, we could have kids ride the secondary routes in the morning and then be a shuttle to um each of the sites. Again, not possible right now at all with our bus driver situation, but maybe just maybe in the future. That's something
that could be considered if we wanted to do that. So, the conversation um this month needs to happen at the board um just first just of a notification of what our plans are um for for the construction period, but it also now
needs to really be determined um after that three years what that looks like. Um, and so I know that talking to board members and having this on there, there's some different data points and things that were asked, we were able to put together what we were able to um
over uh the weekend with that. Um, so with that, I'll kind of um kick it off to Dan and and kind of run with the conversation here where the committee wants to go. So yeah, so we just started with just a general overview. I think we're we're all aware of most of these
things. four sections of TAG, two fourth grade sections, two fifth grade sections have been traditionally what we've done over the past several years. I don't actually remember a program that that didn't run this way. Um, admission to TAG, it's based on the KOGAT score as well as NWA scores and teacher input.
So, as mentioned by our public comment today, um, we have a KAT test that's given to third graders. I thought we did a pretty good job and I guess we can look at how to promote this even more. But as far as getting it out to school, newsletter, social media posts, press
releases. We try to make this as many people aware of this test as possible because we know and and Kelly does a lot of the makeup testing that any testing we can't get done during that testing window in February, they're just oneoff tests and it's quite time inensive. So
>> clarification and those tests happen at the home school of the child. Correct. They do. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Yep. So that's during February, we do the we do about a month of sign up. Uh students will sign up. We assign sometimes we have several students outside of the district. Uh Pathfinder,
Woodland, Trinity Lutheran, schools like that that want to come in and test. We assign them to the Old Mission Land. >> Yeah. >> Uh we assign them to their closest school. They come in that day and test with those students. um go through the process keeping in mind, you know, Kogat
is a is kind of that a test that looks at that reasoning um not necessarily like specific questions that where they're doing actual math or language arts problems, right? They're looking for patterns. It's more that it's looking more towards that IQ based four. Three parts of it
that we give verbal, quantitative, and non-verbal. We really when we're looking at who gets as far as trying to figure out the best cut scores for TAG, we really focus on that quantitative and verbal uh the quantitative math portion essentially. And I've discussed this
before I think in individual conversations, but as they go through, we talk about how um certain subjects are are accelerated or or they're enriched, right? That the math is actually accelerated. So when they leave TAG um they're moving into seventh grade
math going into middle school. So they cover three years of math in two years. >> Dan, do we set what the line is the cut off line for the invitation to go into TAG or is that set by the overall whatever
there might be? >> No, we we set it on originally on numbers, right? We know that we have two sections. We have 60 spots. So >> we start for 60 spots unless we see like maybe an anomaly in the testing where we see an abundant amount of students who
national percentile and Kogat and NWA line up that we think we could support another section, we would do so. But traditionally what we do is we take those first 60 and what we usually see is that when we invite we usually invite people that might be outside the percentile that usually would maybe
struggle successfully in an in an actual gifted program. Right? So we usually invite more I think as far as a gifted program goes um that might be able to actually excel in the program. We haven't had a spot where we look at and we go, we need to open another section
because we have this many that are 99th percentile on their winter and on their spring and WA, right? We haven't been in that spot yet. >> Like an A group that are the top test scorers and then you have like a B group that you can dip down to, right?
>> Yes, we have a yes, a waiting list, and a no is is what we generally generally go with. and they have to accept and like public comment said and this is there's a lot of factors that that go into accepting the tag right they have the score and then I and I'll show in some stats here coming up that even
though they're invited uh there are a lot of students that don't attend to stay at their own school and then what they decide to do then is move into seventh grade math when they get into middle school so they stay caught up whether that's in the classroom that's during summer work but regardless if
they qualify for the Kogat in elementary, that qualification can they can use that to then skip sixth grade math during their uh during their middle school years, >> but then they do that on their own basically to prepare for the seventh grade. >> Yeah. Or they have Yeah. And there's
some schools that have pockets of of enough kids in it or in any school actually in fifth grade, right, where there's a differentiation that takes place where the teacher can then help, you know, move the students along. Is that is that a 100% in every school with with every student? It's hard to say as
far as the number of students that have that differentiation going on in pockets. But there is there is a large component where we would have teachers as a middle school principal. We'd have parents come in and say, "We'd like our child to take seventh grade math." And then we would have a pretty much a packet of supports a teacher would give
us to help them throughout the summer so they would be ready. >> Yeah. I that is that is my concern with tag. >> Um and that is that I I can see where it's great if you can move faster, you'd
rather move faster than sit there and be bored. I understand that 100%. However, then somebody like John Hattie comes along and says, "You need that mix of kids that moves the whole classroom
in." And um you know I there were a couple of schools where it was giving the numbers tested the ones offered a position and then the ones who actually took the tag opportunity and you could maybe only have a third of the kids that
were offered the opportunity who actually took it. Mhm. And so again, how that plays out. And then another question that I had um that I didn't see in the material, the material was great.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um was does it impact at all when you looked at at the overall testing scores? Are you factoring the TAG student scores into Traverse City's overall
uh NWA and those scores? So, >> yeah, they're factored in the central grade scores >> and our district. >> Yeah. >> But then when you look at independently the different schools comparatively are some of those schools
just a little bit lower simply because their tag students are pulled out. >> Yeah. I I I I think there's there's some of that that happens. I think you see it more on the central grade side and we when we look at data with central grade, right, and they do data meetings there, they look at their fifth grade data, they separate it out, right? As far as
>> I was going to say we used to take that data out. >> It's but you know to give you an idea of an inverse from a resource standpoint if this does go out of central grade and correct me if I'm wrong, but I know we've had this conversation. Central grade is close to becoming a full title
one school. >> Yes. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, there are more resources that come with a full title one school like Blair and Carver. >> And we ran numbers with Silver Lake and it wouldn't pull them out of title. >> Silver Lake would still be eligible. That that was one of our concerns. Right
now, Silver Lake is a partial title school and if we if the free and reduced percentage were to change over if we add >> um >> anywhere from 50 to 60 kids because we have one section each right of the tag over here. Sandy ran some numbers in it
and it did not. So >> yeah and it looks like a third of the kids in tag now are 15% 15% are free and reduced. >> Yep. >> So you know that's why looking at the sites is like it it's a bit of a science
of figuring out from a resource of federal funding of all those things. So that's a big part of where we landed especially with the westside um school is Silverlake was that fit. And you also look at, you know, the the reality of trying to bring people in. So, you know,
the two schools, Silver Lake is kind of that center of the hub of Blair, Westwoods, Long Lake, you know, that fit. And then Eastern, you know, we really did don't have and and with our growing population, Traverse Heights is
is packed. Obviously, we're adding three classrooms. Long Lake, the amount of of building and housing that's going up there right now with apartments especially is big. You know, at that point, Corte is obviously the far edge of the district. So, that's where the landed on the two buildings we did for
the program and also looking at those resources federal and state. >> Would you be able to to consider some place like Blair, which has more open classrooms, are they solid enough that it wouldn't undercut the funding? I
think the problem is is that they're on so far the edge of the district that a lot of people won't select it because they may be coming to work in town again because they're looking at transportation. So those far edges of the district generally struggle. I'll give you an example of where that's been done and and help me out history-wise
but there was a international balorate program that was tried to interlock an ele school >> really struggled to get enrollment from that standpoint. Birth of birth of as well. They tried the far too extremes and it and it didn't have success. >> Didn't work. Yeah,
>> because the east side I mean Court would be another option. They have room. >> But again, if we talk about the same idea as equity, right, as far as when Dr. Van Wagner mentioned the idea of maybe using some type of middle school busing or or some type of shuttle service if we go to that route
eventually, that makes it even harder to accomplish that the farther out those schools are. >> That's our struggle. That's our geography struggle that as tecaps we have that a lot of other places do not. >> Yeah. The only other one I thought I think the west side one was Silver Lake being right in the middle of Willow
Hill, Long Lake, Westwoods. I mean that's that's a really great spot on the west side. Um on the east side I just want to acknowledge Eastern is still very far north. So Traverse
Heights to me would be a little bit >> we don't have room and we're already you know struggling. >> We keep adding to Traverse Heights. >> We're running out of space in that direction really you know from that point. So >> I thought we were capacity with Eastern too but if we pull out
>> and I and I I did want to ask this is just a logistical thing um potentially financial but with Eastern and Silver Lake for that matter. Is there is there going to be any cost in retrofitting rooms like particularly converting a preschool to a fourth or fifth grade?
>> No, you would have the opposite with bathroom and stuff, but no. You know, because what we'll do is we'll just shift younger kids >> into those and then we'll have kids because by law, like in our two-story buildings, you have to have your younger kids on the first floor. Okay? >> So, we would just shift that down. And
so, um, it, you know, that's that's a challenge what we're working on. We've talked with the vote board about the future of Oak Park, you know, right there as well as in in the long run to be able to have that early childhood center concept that also helps that
cause that you're with Eastern, you know. Um, so in the three years, yeah, it could cause a little bit, but we're committed to not have, you know, like there there's one classroom there that's a library currently at Eastern that we want to maintain. So we we we'll figure out
we're trying to work with our ISD partners on possibly we had a preschool at Oak Park previously um and and took out. So is that maybe an option? So we've got our work cut out for us to figure that out, but we'll figure that out. >> Okay. So it's just one preschool classroom at Eastern that would have
>> one's already um we're down one this year already. And so it'd be one more one more preschool classroom that would um be at a different site um there to be able to have the younger kids go into that and open up those two older older kid classrooms.
>> Okay. So just to be clear, if we don't have space at Oak Park, what are other alternatives and what are the financial implications to the district? Like we're looking at renting space. Just want to be very proactive and transparent here. you know, could be, you know, we we have
space at Central High School there that's where the robotics was a possibility. Um, you know, so there there are multiple options there to look at. Um, we're not that far yet. You know, this is we kind of need a decision, you know, like, you know, and and long-term where the board goes also
kind of might play into this, >> you know, of of how we we go of a plan of attack with it. And another thing I think we have to think about and that is how do you handle the traffic that would be a problem I think more driver signs if you
had a lot of people bringing their kids picking their kids up >> you know I I'll just be honest with you it's a struggle no matter what building we're in right now I mean we have a lot with you know with our buses pretty packed because of the lack of drivers >> is easier because you have >> agreed I would you know to be clear
would love to be able to figure out a way to have more at Blair and Corte just that is a geographic challenge that is really really hard for us to figure out, you know, and as you as the board knows, we've limited our school at Treystone like almost to nothing at our city
schools, you know, to make sure that we can maintain and be able to, you know, do this. Um, the other thing too, Josie, is that from a preschool standpoint, going out to those elementaryaries is also adding another preschool. It may be a little bit of a hike for folks, but it
would still be an option and an opportunity at that standpoint to be able to do as well as kind of a plan C, you know, if we can't get it closer to town from that standpoint as well for that other preschool classroom. >> Yeah. Could you just remind us like what are the legal obligations in terms of
preschool? So for if you're if you live within the boundaries of Eastern Elementary, >> you want to enroll your kids there K through, >> but you do not necessar if you you know if you do from that standpoint, obviously you have that right. But if you have kids in preschool and you live outside of that boundary, you have no
automatic right to that building, >> right? But within boundary, I mean, are you, you know, by law entitled to a spot at a preschool at that building? So >> no, we're not we're not required to offer preschool in any building. >> Okay. I just want to be clear. an ISD
program that we you know that we host for you know that coordinates it and that we host and and do get the funding for and we want to obviously do that as much as possible but from that standpoint we are not obligated from that standpoint we are obligated to offer it in the district >> um from that standoint
>> just as we might get some disgruntled parents that we're moving the preschool out of Eastern Elementary we just have to be aware and prepared to deal with that >> and hopefully like I say we're hoping to be able to have it real close you know from that standoint inconvenient, but we're we're putting our feelers out and
getting down that work from that standpoint. But, um, we know we have room in other buildings and places um, we'll see where this building for sure lands out, you know, um, for that. Um, we know we don't have the room for all of the tech. There's no doubt here. But like I say, as we get a little bit
closer, those conversations, we'll let the board know. we'll figure out a place for them and and hopefully it's close, but we know we have spaces to add at some of the the other elementary schools. >> Right. And going back to Oak Park >> right from 2026 through 20 29.
>> Yeah. >> Um is it at full capacity with IS? Well, it has been, but you know, that's one of the questions right now they're looking at is they have purchased um the um uh at their headquarters um over on uh Drive by the Commons. They've purchased
the other part of Pinerest >> and so they have um doing that and staff going in there. So, that might free up some staff space. So, that's the conversations I'm trying to have right now, okay, >> with them. And they they you know, we mentioned it. they have had the chance to follow up to check back and have
that. But like that's that's one of our our hopes right now, but haven't had enough, you know, feedback from that standpoint yet to know if that's a viable option. >> And and it may be a year here till they're able to figure that out based on what's happening over there and what they're able to do.
>> Okay. Well, I know this is also on the finance committee agenda for Thursday. So that's why I just keep, >> you know, questioning, are there financial implications? It sounds like right now none are known but there are potential >> financial implications like if the
district had to lease space >> correct >> or renovate a space but >> but we you know and we probably wouldn't it would be a very last option if we have classroom space somewhere else in the district at that point. >> Um but you know right now it would be
minimal of what we we believe our first options would be. >> Okay. And back to the central grade architects um because this has come up a couple of times. So I I mean I know a couple of us are
very familiar with that tag space those four classrooms. >> I thought that they were going to design those to be classrooms no matter what whether it's TAG or something else. So like on that second floor in that tower area what what would that area be used
for if not classrooms? It would be classrooms, but it would be traditional third, fourth grade, fifth grade classrooms. >> So, you know what, right now, I mean, you know, in the budget, it is much more of a limited scope. It's designed >> um, you know, for about the amount of kids that we have now minus a tag.
>> Okay. Now, third floor is a question that we've talked about many times. There's no reason the third floor in the future can't be used. We're just not building it out at in this phase for that purpose. But, it will be renovated. it will be brought up to code all those
kind of things as an option. But right now there's the amount of actual first floor and second floor classrooms is being right sized to the enrollment of that building minus the tag program is what right now we're running under the assumption of why we're bringing it to
the board in that conversation. If we were to do four more classrooms that increases the budget all those things already for something that if we don't you know plan on doing we don't want that. We're we're making sure we're also keeping some space for a little bit of
growth within town. Also making sure that we have space for storage and things for Lars Hawkstead that really doesn't have now. So that's kind of the question of you know just simply are you going to spend the money for more
renovations of classrooms or not? you know, with that future in mind and and why do that if the board is feeling like it's a good idea to try and create an east and a west side to create more opportunity, more opportunity and those kind of things again that is possible or
nope, we want to go back to central grade and leave it as is in the future. That's where we're at that point of of of decision making now for the board to give that thought to. >> Yeah. Okay. All right. Right. So, now that we've covered the financial and the logistical issues, um I think just
philosophically, I think, you know, we that's the important most important. >> Let's let Dan go ahead and go through the rest. And there a lot of data you guys asked for to kind of put into and and go from there. >> Shout out to Kelly Walter. She helped. >> Thank you. Thank you.
>> Um so, just to go through it right now, 98 um TAG students in a program that's lower than traditionally what we have. I think a lot of the obviously families concerned about what the next building is and they would have to move three different buildings in three years that they decided to elect in the tag. Uh
just under 10% for fourth and fifth grade in the district. Uh we talked about some um statistics around economically disadvantaged um students. Right now we're about 15% u 504 plans. It looks like there's two and
then there's four with IEPs. Yeah. I just want to acknowledge I mean what I've observed over the years is that we normally have like up to 110 >> students. Yes. >> Like 2728 per classroom, 55 per grade level. So this is a small out probably
an outlier year >> for sure. Right. Again, it goes to the idea if they're coming in here fourth grade, right? >> They're at whatever school they're third grade, fourth grade, different school, fifth grade, different school, and then obviously they go to middle school. So it's actually four different schools in four years. So that's a lot of transition.
>> Sure. >> To participate in in the program itself. So we talk about I think there were some questions too about what is a you know a price tag or financial commitment for the district to host TAG or to have a TAG program. You know as long as our numbers stay close to you know that 28
to 30. I mean that that's our divider anyway when we do missionbased budget. Now, there is the idea that if you were to take those kids and spread them back out into all their other schools, would that push other schools into a section or push other schools into overload? And I think that's such a year-to-year. Um,
I think as long as a district we always keep in mind are 27.8 what our divider is. So, if we keep it 28 or higher, I think that's fiscally responsible as far as a teacher in front of them. >> And because that would have pushed six more students out to Willow Hill. >> Exactly. Mhm.
>> And and and Westwood's also was was pretty full, too. So that's the idea, right? And from year to year, I mean, we could look at every number in every kid, >> but it doesn't automatically mean that all those schools can absorb a hundred some kids and there'll be no extra sections at those schools, right? There's going to be more split
classrooms or more favorite choice. >> Yes. But then if we' taken 15 of those kids who didn't go into TAG that were offered TAG, it might have relieved some of the congestion in those classes. >> It could work inversely. >> Exactly.
>> Then we had another section of central grade. And then and then you get into the the numbers, right? Where you need a number that's pretty much we want it to divisible by 28, right? So I used to run numbers when we did honors for instance at middle school, right? is that we run the number of the section. You know, you
have 42 kids. 42 is a number that you know fiscally is 21 and 21. >> So then you start to you want to either fill the section or or move down in the section because 42 is a tough number. So it's a there's some numbers that go into that also to make sure that we're
>> you know that that responsibility piece with >> I understand. Yeah. >> So this has been as far as testing in the district. um we're about 22% of our third graders took the test. I know there's been a lot of discussion about um taking the test and getting the
information out. We do like Dr. Van Wagner mentioned, we do it at the home school. Um try to make it accessible as possible for kids. Um it's a three-day, so they do about a half and we do we break it up into three sections about a half an hour to 45 minutes a
day. >> Yeah. And I mean that that again is just one year of data. We don't know if that's an outlier. Pretty average, but >> I would say it's pretty average because one thing we can do is we can pull >> what's what's tough for our data is that we we have to spreadsheet and I can work
with Sophie on this, but the Kogat test and who takes it is stored in the Kogat, you know, that system that we use that supplies us with the licenses for the test. Um, outside of that, when we talk about who gets in and in and the different groupings of kids, that starts getting on spreadsheets. And whenever we
put anything on a spreadsheet, we can't keep in power school. Pulling historical data can be a challenge. It can be done. But like this, for instance, when we compare to past years, we're always around that 25% mark. >> And I don't know what the magic number,
the ideal number would be for percentages. I don't, you know, I don't think I think that's highly subjective or whatever, but I mean, it just does seem to me like one out of five, one out of four, I guess, technically one out of 4.5 students are taking the test. I do
think, like the public commenter said, um, my observation over the years is that not every building or every third grade teacher promotes it the same. So, you know, district-wide communication is great, but that building level
newsletter in the weekly email is really, really important for parents, but parents miss they can't, you know, one mode of communication. It's like, you know, parent can easily miss, but because K through five students come home with paper. I know their backpacks are stuffed with paper like you know
third maybe you know the third grade teachers giving handouts but anyway all this is all just over the years I've heard of you know certain building principles and teachers not promoting it as much as others so just to create equal opportunity for kids
>> to really reinforce that idea we want to give everybody the opportunity to test there could be kids who are not necessarily doing great with in the classroom room, but they have hidden talent. They could have that non-verbal
side, that spatial, and they could be on the border with the verbal and and math. And I just want to create more opportunities for more kids as part of our equity work. >> Well, part I just kind of played with some numbers doing nothing else. You know, I don't watch TV. What are you
going to do? >> Right. >> So, some of our buildings we teach one and we test one in 20 students. One, the outliers are at one school we teach one in 85 and another outlier we
teach roughly and these are very ballparky. >> Yep. Yep. >> One in 160. >> So there's a lot of variance in our testing by building and I understand all populations aren't the same. I mean be first
>> and and resources. I just think there's a lot of parents that go I don't have the transportation. I don't have that. I don't have the So they just don't even >> consider having the kid test. So that's what will be interesting in a study if we do an east and a west,
>> you know, and they go, "Well, the bus stops just a mile down the road into, you know, the Silver Lake, you know, boundary. >> I'd be willing to drop them off there, but I'm not driving them all the way into, you know, central grade." And I I
I do think there are a fair number of students who just don't test their families, whether it's an economic issue or we're just staying within our home school. We're good with what the elementary schools are doing and we'll make decisions at the middle school.
>> We're going to see a nudge on numbers on >> less central grade students going to TAG next year, more Silver Lake because we provide busing, >> right? That's the idea. I think central grade, as you can see in all the stats we have, Central grade has a pretty high number of
>> of kids who test. Even the kids who test, I know they're they have a higher population at the school, but you're going to see that move, >> right? >> Because we're no longer having a bus go to central obviously central grade for >> for tag and silver lake you will. So >> there's a lot of siblings there, too.
Yeah. So that brings kids. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> And that's all I mean that's been the case since I was in elementary school. >> Right. Yeah. >> So next one we we did look at we kind of stack this one up as far as tested qualified accepted. So you get to kind of see that ratio. Always the
interesting one here for me is qualified and then actually took the invitation. Right. And >> we saw that was a little more this year than in previous years where they did qualified and we had less that accepted as we went down because every person that was um on the wait list got in. So
the entire weight list. So if we had our first 60 then we went down to wait lists and those all also were all accepted. So I think that might have been a location or or not knowing as far as future buildings. >> And did the the tag kids comparably do
very similar? That's >> that's the case. So even Yeah. So even if you end up with most of your kids coming off the weight list, >> those those kids continue to shine pretty much in that.
>> Yes. As far as going for weight, again, the concern is math again. As far as going down the weight list when we talk about qualifying, I mean that because the last thing you want to do is have a kid in the program that ends up not liking school anymore because the math is so hard. So, if we go back to like
what because you mentioned this um Josie just as far as verbal, quantitative, non-verbal, that quantitative score is one of our biggest measures of the three. So, we just don't even if a non-verbal might be through the roof. The problem is is that equate out and the TAG teachers that help us during
this process have been doing this, you know, for years and we do have a turnover and we're bringing those other teachers into these meetings as far as as far as how we qualify for TAG. I mean, they they can see it crystal clear as far as those scores go and and who's going to struggle and who's not.
>> And they're very open at their open house, too, about that, right? Like >> do you have any data on retention >> as far as >> how many kids complete tag? How many kids >> fourth to fifth? I would >> just just talking to teachers I say
we're well over 95%. It is like this year I think we have one student >> who um went from four to five and again we're struggling with the math component >> um went back to to a fifth grade classroom in central grade. >> Okay. So that's generally what we see.
It's it's either most of the time it's none. It's like 100%. They start in fourth grade. Now how that moves up and you had some questions about national merit. We that that's a tough one to track as far as going back and because those aren't even marked in power school. We'd have to go actually back on
social media and backtrack five to six, seven, eight years to see that kind of connection. And maybe secondary could talk a little more about it. But what we see what what what I kind of point to is what is our geometry number at? Because in theory a TAG student, the one class that they would come through if they're
advanced a year is they would take eighth grade geometry. And those numbers would indicate maybe that we do see a dip, right? I think our geometry numbers to speak too far off what actual data is here, but I'd say our geometry at west
and east right now are probably low 20s. uh west metal is higher than east is but because the split isn't 5050 it >> is not but >> anyway that retention I had asked for that I mean you know >> four to five retention is
>> but I think it's important to like you know when we select when the district selects >> rising fourth graders for this program you know how good of a predictor are those co-et source for success and one metric would be well do it's like metriculation you know do they graduate
from the TAG program. And so if it's between 95 and 100% I think that's just good for the board to know that this program is >> we don't like is dropping out between fourth and fifth grade. >> Yeah. >> And some data just to show that. So this is at three years of NWA where we see
vast majority um high high average. Um same thing with ELA a little bit different. We still have the vast majority in high average and then proficiency for MSTEP as far as math and ELA mirrors that
have a 96 last year and then a 99 in ELA last year. >> Yeah. And that 2% would probably be one kid, right? And 4% two kids. So very very small numbers. And that's just on the ELA side.
>> Yeah. No, I'm really glad that we got this data. It's very telling. >> And then just off and then historical also to kind of look at that that east west as far as uh students who tested. So I just you know added them up after
we went through every school just to give you an idea of our split the idea of splitting east and west um and what that could look like. Central grade's a tricky one, right? Because central grade is in theory an east side school um but they can see West Middle. So, we have a
ton of kids open enroll uh in general, right? West is West is a bigger building. West is about 300 kids bigger than East. They actually hold the same amount, right? They're both built for about 1,500. Um but a lot of those kids are obviously right there on the line or
downtown. And then we actually see a little bit of influx, I think, back to Central >> because again, it's that's closer to them as far as schools go. So, >> but we limited that down a lot. a ton, >> you know. So that'll >> So what you're saying is Oh, sorry. In
that definition of west, you're not counting what grade school or elementary school they went to at the time they took. >> I split up. What I did is because generally what we see from central grade just from a middle school is when we see those we that's one of those schools that we pretty intently as far as
enrollment goes. um especially with TAG because we start to build out our seventh grade sections and then we have to mix them in with other seventh graders is that we try to figure out how many are going to east and how many are going to west and usually it's right around a 6040. So when I did these numbers I took the central grade and
just bumped it 6040 to kind of see where they're coming from. It's general the trend that we see 60% of those go to west and 40% head to east. >> Yeah, I just looked up your geometry numbers. You have 42 at West Middle School and 21 at East Middle School. So it's almost spot on. >> Yeah.
>> Okay. >> And then what about uh Monasuri? How did they get counted? West or east side? >> I split them. >> Okay. 50/50. And Blair as well. >> Blair I also split six and six. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Blair actually is I could have probably done an eight and four because generally
there are it's a it's more east side kids at Blair actually than >> I see more. >> Okay. >> From the east side. >> Yeah. >> Interesting. So it it I mean obviously that breakdown here it makes it look like you know a
westside kid is more likely to test for >> tag than than the east side and >> well not necessarily because if you look at the numbers especially of Eastern elementary they had a lot of kids test and qualify and not go >> not go right that's just tested not not
attending right here this is testing just testing >> not attending and I think again it could be It's going to be interesting when we split to see if these numbers hold. I think it's going to actually it might move back to a more of a 50/50 because the idea of location, >> right, >> with the central grade and the west side
with West Middle is that's a family flow, right? That's a flow that's happened historically over years >> is how they they move through the open moment. >> It kind of brings us back to one of Diane Arnold's points though and that is
whether you want to have more sessions of tag spread throughout the district. >> So, you know, we're going we're doubling it right now if you go east. No, you're not. No one exactly. >> Same same number of sections.
>> Yeah, but I'm talking geographically. You're going from one location >> to two locations >> to two locations. That's I'm sorry. >> Yep. >> Y >> I know I'm hard to follow. >> And then, you know, do we have enough possibility
to maybe even split it before? It's something to look at you, you know, and that's something that could like we've talked about that possibility future down the road and if you had one that you did centrally located back at central grade there there will be room for one class you know like you know
from that element like you know that and >> you don't have enough to fill a classroom. >> No, but you know it it history has told us no. But we'll see when this happens and if that happens, it's a conversation that the the the administration board will just have to text, you know, but
there's no indication that tells us that that there's enough demand for that. But if there is, then you you'll you'll you'll look at that >> or or we could structurally adjust the elementary to fit students needs, right? There are other options to fit a
student's academic needs. >> We're actually talking about that tag. Is there some ways? So, um I informed the board in my update that um we had Kate uh had the chance to go with us from Long Lake to a a competency based and there was some interesting
conversation about a couple schools there that are running some split multi-age kind of like Monasuri does but allowing kids to maybe move at their own pace and maybe is there a way to advance in math especially with that. So, I think that there's some some things we
want to look at also just innovation wise to see if part of our goals of raising our metrics to raise that bar and and is there ways, you know, to do that that are even innovative yet that's in one yet model and and could we do that and like we were excited about a
long lake would be a great candidate for maybe something like that that allows us something like that. >> We'll see. And when you look at Willow Hill again, you know, with 20 students, you only have to take what, six more
kids from the outside and you could fill it right there >> of the students that tested. Yeah. >> And in Willow Hill, you our biggest struggle is we're very much sizewise locked and we're landlocked, >> you know, so like >> like there's, you know, that's a hard spot with that building.
>> Yeah. So, >> well, like Trevor's Heights is kind of >> Well, at least we had some room to expand it. We don't have like, you know, >> Well, you expanded. >> You would have to add a whole lot of dirt to a a hill or cut one down or, you know, there's there's some logistic
challenges there. >> Well, for what it's worth, I just have to say this the district might be looking at this because it's forced to right now with such a grade school, but for what it's worth, this is a dream come true for me. This is something I have advocated for for five years that
we do have a westside and an east side location because I I just know firsthand how many families really they struggled with transportation. You know, they just can't make it work with their work schedules. They've they've just given up that opportunity for their kids who got
into TAG to drive to Central grade every day. um you know, other families might like physically have to sell their house and move into such a great district just to give that opportunity to their kids. Um and that's kind of drastic. So, I just
think this is going to not just preserve but potentially grow and and it, you know, the data tells a great story right now and in the future. That will be the proof in the pudding. But I think it's going to be really exciting to see what can happen here. I just I just want to
stress agreed. Um it's still not quite maybe what everybody want with transportation wise. You know, it you do have to get into a bus stop of you know those two buildings to be able to do it. Again, find a way to find more bus drivers in the future. You know, there's
a there's a an ability to have a conversation on something that's more shuttle-wise, but it it does at least give you at least one more busing area, you know, to be able to drop off into to consider. Yeah, absolutely. >> The other thing is, you know, we have a
tier system for helping kids that are having a hard time struggling. >> Do we have an ability or this is just conceptual? No answer. I don't think we're answering definitively
anything related to this today. But can we had another tier for the students that are actually needing to move faster? Otherwise, you're going to lose them to boredom. >> And >> yep. And that's that was our conversation. The conference or the
meeting we went to was exactly that. Yes. >> Like how can we move kids at their their speed for some kids need need more time, >> some kids need less time. >> It can vary over the course of the year. >> Yeah. And and and and so you know, our structures, the way they're built of
third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade is a little bit anti that personalization. And so, you know, the question is is can we there there are districts around the country that are are innovating some models that allow less rigidity between
grade levels. And it's just a group of kids together multi-age that can move at that pace. And so that's what we're interested in piloting whether something like that could look like, you know, especially when we have splits. Can we
use splits maybe to our advantage in that way? >> You know, with some teachers and aids working and have kids not have artificial barriers necessarily of, you know, I I may be a third grader but reading at a fourth grade level, but my math is still at a third grade level. How can we group and restrategize that?
And so that was exactly the the the cohort of this group, the innovation we're a part of called the future learning council. We're going to continue to look at are there ways to maybe create that middle between our traditional our legacy tag. Is there
somewhere in the middle here? And we think there might be. So, we're going to look at >> Yeah, I've I've been thinking about that. And when you think about the old one room school thing, I mean that ultimately >> it was a multi-age >> precisely what it was all over the place and kids that were
very capable a lot of times were subinstructing the other kids. I mean >> it just moved all over and it created a different kind of community. Yep. >> An educational community. >> So we're going to take a look at that. >> Yeah.
And I Sorry. [Music] >> All right, Dan or Jesse, was there anything more you wanted to add there? In terms of data, I I will share with you all. I did crunch some numbers about
the National Merit Scholars this year, but I don't have prior years obviously, but I can share that of the four semifinalists this year, one was in TAG. of the 17 commended, eight were in TAG.
So that averages out nine out of 21 kids total, 43% were in tag just this year. So I, you know, that's just if we if we had any kind of like longitudal data like their eighth and 11th grade SAT
scores, PSAT scores, you know, it would just kind of show what that long-term investment might yield. Um, and I don't love having just one year's worth of data, but I thought that was worth sharing. >> Only 43% >> 43%
>> of the 17 National Merit Scholars. Yeah. So, just >> less than half >> less than half were TAG students, but TAG students are less than 10% of the whole district. So, >> okay. Next step.
>> Okay. Uh little overview just about the assessment. Nothing here I think that I need to read for you. I think most of you guys um are pretty seasoned with the MSTEP, but um thought I would include that on here so you have an idea about what the test looks like. Any questions
about any of these details here? No. Okay. Uh a little chart here to let you know again and the public what grade levels are assessed. Um, I think it's pretty clear on the red and the green there. Um, this is a once
a year test that's done in the spring for all of our students. >> I love the chart. >> Easy way to see it. >> It's for new board members. >> There you go. >> I can make really clear charts, you guys. Add that to my
>> for a while. >> Does have a little holiday flare to it. Okay. Um, this I I'm a big fan of of I agree with you, Josie, trends of data, right? Not looking at one year. So, this is some trends for you on um four years
worth of data. It's got five grade levels across the bottom. There's a lot here. Um, but you can kind of see the proficiency rates in reading over time, different cohorts of kids, and then that red dot stick signifies where the state average was that year. Again, I think
one of the biggest things that, you know, Dan and I wanted the board and the public to know, you know, are we happy when we see a number like 50% of our kids are proficient at reading? Nobody is happy. That's nobody wants that. Um, we are well above the
state average and the region average um as well. And and I I would say that MSTEP is an interesting score test. as a classroom teacher of 12 years, if I had a test that kids got 50% on all the time, I probably would adjust my test. But that's just me as a classroom
teacher, you know. >> No, I 100% agree with you on that, having been a classroom teacher. >> So, >> and something that the curriculum team has discussed, um, Britney and I, Jesse, is the, um, the 49% at third grade, right? We saw an 8% drop. Other grades
maintained or grew. So we've been kind of racking our brains to figure out what exactly obviously with teaching and testing we have thousands of variables. One thing we did look at as a state as a whole drop for third grade. We did look at the cohort also because their math
also dropped. So if we were to see like for instance an 8% drop in reading their math goes up and or the state would go up that would mean probably it's not a cohort issue but we think that there is a relationship here with cohort and we think you know Britney and I talked about what they received one uh grades
one and two and how they really went down to some uh we focused more on foundational reading skills and how that could have impacted them as third graders. We had some feedback from principles because what they do is they get data back from MSTEP um kind of on the multiple choice the comprehension
items first and then on the back end of it they get the writing and they thought their scores were higher before that writing came in. So and we we've also heard feedback from CLA that the rigor level right now with writing is far beyond what we've seen in the past. So hopefully that starts to address that
and plug that hole >> and we're able to differentiate it from AI >> for third grade. Right now for elementary we're okay but we're one step ahead of them. So >> did you want to say anything about this? I know you had some notes too. >> Yeah. So I just think just you know we
did some really deep dives into other data sets we had to and I think for third grade it's really important to note that people call it the pivot year for a reason, right? because you're really like taking that opportunity of kindergarten through 2 grade where you're really focusing on building those foundational skills. Um, and they're
really having to be really automatic and incredibly accurate as they make really that complex shift to really like knowledge like really complex knowledge um text um specifically on a summitive test like MSTEP. And so if students
aren't really uh fluent in their word recognition skills, that's going to dramatically impact their ability to access the complex text to which they see on state tests such as MSTEP. Um and so I pulled some AMS plus data for that third grade cohort in particular um
because and we'll get into M or get into AMS as well plus I think in um some subsequent sessions. But really we want to see that oral reading fluency for those students be at the 50th percentile or higher. Um particularly the 75th where the K where students can actually
make that shift into focusing on making meaning from what they read. And that particular cohort of students had 28% below the 25th percentile in the spring. So a huge chunk of students who are still not automatic and potentially not accurate when they are reading grade
level text um in comparison to the norm across the nation. So just some some other correlation with that particular group of students which may have contributed or one of the variables that contributed to that decline or that decrease. And I will add on seventh
grade, right? That's the kind of trend we like seeing. When I pulled apart and was looking at the East Middle School, West Middle School, Monastery is so small, they don't have the numbers to impact. It really was a gain at West Middle School. We've seen East Middle School scores be pretty consistent, but these last few years, West Middle School
scores have definitely had a positive trend in that direction, especially for reading. So that's kind of how they're overall trended that way. So, I heard you all attribute, you know, some success to curriculum. What else? I mean, new teachers, professional
learning. Are there uh instructional coaches, behavioral coaches, other you know inputs that >> Yeah, I think the instructional coaches so we've changed again and some of it was based on some some at risk funding that um was budget that we lost where we
talked we've talked about the free and reduce but as far as structure goes it may have helped us focus instructional coaching on instruction. Um most of our schools if not all have a halftime instead of a full-time and we noticed like when instructional coaching started
at the district there was quite a there was a lot of behavior that was included into that even to the point of you know response to behavior not necessarily even coaching a classroom but part of behavior response teams and now that we've moved 100% and Britney's done a fantastic job of working with coaches
she meets with them on a regular cadence that they are 100% now doing coaching cycles that are teaching and learning within the classroom. So that's kind of where we shifted. Um again with all the variables that pinpoint everything we want to see and when Jesse and I talk
about strategic plan and that idea of upward trend that's where we can I think harness all these variables and see an impact >> instead of just saying this does it or this does it. You know coaching curriculum professional learning organization in the district efficiencies communication. These are
all the things we're trying to work on and hopefully those variables together we see that upward trend. >> Wanted to give one nod here to to examining that subgroup. Part of this was a test for myself to see if I could pretty efficiently pull the data. Yes, I could. That was good. Just so we know because as that's a subgroup, one of the
things is can we pull the data? Do we have the reports built? We work with Sophie on that to make sure that we can monitor things, right? Um, so this is just last year's data, right? And I pulled it apart with your economically disadvantaged and you're not economically disadvantaged. And then I pulled apart the state in the same exact
way. One thing just to give it just to give some overview for reading the state difference between those two groups is about 30% across all of those grade levels. Again, one year of data here. Our difference was about 25%. So although our gap exists, it's larger
than you know the board had like that Dan and I would like that. that I think I know our principles would like. It is less than the gap at the state. One thing that's interesting though to notice is that our kids who are not economically disadvantaged outperform the state about 7% last year. Um but our
non I'm sorry, our economically disadvantaged students outperform the state's economically disadvantaged by about 12%. So actually our kids who are um in that group that subop are not only outperforming the state but outperforming the state more than our
note economically disadvantaged kids are outperforming the note economically disadvantaged kids at the state level. which was an interesting in the third grade when when we looked into those numbers more deeply that that percentage drop we saw the majority of that
percentage drop was in the note economically disadvantaged our economically disadvantage from from the previous from two years ago to last year was pretty much uh on level. It's our note economically uh disadvantage that we saw that that about a 5 to 6% drop.
just an interesting point that we throw into kind of our thoughts and another variable. Why would that happen and how can we support it? >> Here's our math uh data. I will tell you just um from an angle of math, we've we've have continued to look at fourth
grade. We know that there are some standards gaps there. You see that's the closest again outperforming the state all the years across the board, but you see that fourth grade is like that closest. Um, and that that's really that year that they should be they learn the multiplication in third grade. That's
the next skill they pick up there in the fall. Um, and by fourth grade now they're doing it across fractions across um double digits. They're um expected now to start working on the opposite of multiplication which is division which is just it's a tough concept for kids.
So >> it's a it's work with fluency. I know that Aaron Sorenson is our content leader for math and last year she started additional programming just around fluency as Jesse has mentioned moving into fourth grade long division fractions not having that fluency just
obviously stalls out. So we did see a slight uptick you know that 2% we're going to celebrate but then again we're looking for upward trend. Just curious on both math and reading. How did 2021 look? And I think about that because we were still in COVID, but
there was testing. So, was that, you know, like similar to the 2022 two year? >> It was pretty similar to be honest. I um felt like the fifth year made it really crowded. So, we we did went with four years of the data for this. So,
>> that's fine. I just wonder if it was significantly different. was not um also had the subgroup population here in mathematics. Just a note again, state difference across all four five grade levels was about 31%. We were about 25%.
So again, our gap is less. Again, our note economically disadvantaged only outperformed about 2% or right at as you see in some of those areas. um as opposed to our economically disadvantaged students who outperform the state at closer to 8%. That's an
average across those five. You see like fourth grade you're right at where the state was performing there. >> And then we move on to social studies which is only assessed in three of our grade levels. Um so you can see those again how our students performed and
then the state average there. I will tell you go ahead. >> Is that partly curriculum? >> Yes, >> for sure. >> For sure. And then I would also say 11th grade is a really you look at our if you
look at our SAT like you know which is math and reading writing which does include non-fictional test does include some um social studies concepts and ideas and um readings and writing from that I would say content area and genre. um as opposed to MSTEP. Our kids uh it's
a very hard to motivate a junior who the MSTEP means absolutely nothing to besides I have to get this done as part of my requirement. They use the scores for nothing as far as college entry. They're not reported on anything. Um I was actually sort of surprised that we
were close to where the state average was. Um but yeah, that's a tough one just to motivate kids to make a meeting in that. Same with the signs. And it shouldn't be because right now there is so much that people are
reacting to and what they're reacting to is built follow this general area which means somehow there's not some good communication with discussion that's going on and that something I'm hoping
we'll look at. >> Same with science. >> Yeah. Yeah, I would just say what you I don't know if these data points are the best to assess our instruction, our curriculum in these two disciplines. I would look more towards how are we doing in our AP courses? How are we doing in
reading and writing across all of our areas? How are kids making sense of things just like you were talking about? How are they understanding one historical situation and um event and how it might link to another one, right? and and how do they use evidence and
text to site s sources, those types of things. I don't necessarily know if MSTEP is the best assessment as to how we're doing in those two areas, but it's one. >> Yeah. And then I mean I think you've you've uh >> hinted at this just we talked about it
last month and months prior about all the testing for the fifth, eth, and 11th graders in particular. I guess fifth and eighth because they're taking four subjects in in MSTEP plus a lot of NWA and by and they take the science of the
social studies last right always last and I have definitely heard kids tell me not just my own but like birthday parties whatever interactions like >> you know they're they're just done and they're like >> they just hit option multiple choice
option number A repeatedly and then they're done in half an hour and the kid who's like actually trying take the test was like wait how is everybody done and you know somehow they're also getting the message like it doesn't really matter so I mean that is I think something in terms of messaging from our
teachers like to impart that hey just still give it your best shot >> so that we don't look like you know we aren't doing a great job with social studies and science >> statistically they should mark Cam >> I don't I don't actually know that's Exactly. What stance class did you find
that just for the record here? >> Um, lots and lots of great stuff to celebrate here. Um, and so Dan and I will flip through some of these for you. >> Central, we highlighting our English language learner program. Um, this is
Kathleen Schneider at Central Grade School doing some instruction with our English language learners. And then this is a shot from Miss Taplan's math class over at West Middle School. Really working on engaging um our students, especially during a topic
that's mathematics, not necessarily intuitively to be engaged in. So, >> Willow Hill, we have some uh math and action and CLA. Uh, third graders played long vowel baseball as part of the
TCAP's new CKLA curriculum. >> Long vowel baseball. >> Yes. >> Did somebody strike out? >> I know. >> Home runs. >> Uh, we are we are really proud this year. We have four TCAP semi finalists.
Um, these students are now in the competition um to see if they can move on to become finalist. They submit essays, uh, portfolio, uh, their transcript, their counselors do some work. So, four of those students there and two different pictures with that's
Ben Burgerer. He's not a national merit semiinalist. >> But he does have almost the exact same poaching pictures. >> Burger's face always looks like he's those roller coaster picks, >> you know, when you get your >> um, and then at Central High School, we
had five commended scholars. So, these are students who scored in the top 3% nationally. Not quite that top one or half a percent to be a semi, but just an incredible feat for these five students here. And then West just had a banner day. I mean, man, they had 12 students
who earned that commended scholar. Yeah, what a strong class they have over there. Um, so some familiar faces there, I think. So >> both schools >> and again half of these kids were in TAG West and two of the five at Central High
for the commen. >> So huge honors for those kids. Congratulations. >> And we did I mentioned fluency that um Aaron Sornson was working on math and this is the exact fluency kits that they're working with here at Corte to help drill into that and kind of expand
a little bit on our curriculum. Uh here we have some East Middle School students working on can Halloween candy be endangered orangutans. I don't know what they found out on their conclusions but that's pretty interesting. >> Based on this I'm going to be giving out
potato chips instead of candy. I'm concerned of candy. You might be >> maybe they don't get enough of it. That's what's the problem. >> Uh books from birth uh contacted me. They're working with AM Rotary. They work with um Dolly Parton Imagination
Library giving books to students um at Mson right in the delivery room and then not in the delivery room but >> yeah, >> we're going to give you this four times. >> Four times. Something I would do.
>> Ban and the Bradley method. Just get their mind off of it. Right. >> We'll take the baby down. Next slide. Next slide. >> Your books first. >> Anyway, they did come in and talk to our elementary principles and our organizing volunteers uh in every school in the in
classroom. So, it's nice to make that connection, Sunrise Rotary to our elementary principles to be able to make this happen in buildings. >> And I think they were at the full board and did a public comment, too. Yes. Just such a really cool program. I'm part of Sunrise Rotary and so I see them talk a
lot about this and um just a great option for all of our families in this region to get those books in their kids hands >> and I would say they've been a proponent to help support uh when kids are about to turn three uh and have their very first IEP. I bring a book to their home
every time when I visit them and welcome to the TCAPS family. So >> huge proponent of them. Um, couple little just fun videos we threw in here. Uh, this is Central High Schools who we're just coming off of our
two homecoming weeks. So, it's a little snapshot of, you know, this is that idea of building community service, right? Our community feel, community culture in your school and how do you make kids feel like they belong and have a place? Um, having these types of events does
does matter and plays into that. So, little video here from Central. Um, and then on the next slide here, we've got Wes video here too from just some fun activities for students to enjoy their school community. So,
and then next up for our high schools, they're going to be gearing up for Patriot game. that is the that week is sort of that week of October 20th. I know we've done um a little bit of a communication about saving the date on that, but there'll be more information you'll see coming out about that. And we've worked really hard, you know, our
student senate both schools work together to choose who will be receiving the funds that'll be coming out hopefully this week. Um I know they're meeting together really to celebrate our community um and to make it a Traverse City event. um as much as even though there's a score at the end of the night,
but really how do we have fun together? So, >> Constitution Day around our different elementary schools um September 17th, so specifically on this day, part of a state requirement, but regardless, uh students learn different items around
the Constitution and uh and history. >> Awesome. >> Next one, we had our Detroit Red Wings camp at Traverse Heights. So they come in uh every kid I believe gets a t-shirt and then they go through some drills with some Detroit Redwing players. So great opportunities for those kids to to
kind of meet some of those people and and get some physical activity. >> Another highlight here of our ESL uh class. So this would be Amanda's counterpart across town. Um just getting these kids out, exposing them to different things. Um they've got a
great, you know, access to the botanical gardens across the street there. So Oh, sorry, Dan. >> There was one back one. >> And Long Lake introduced their house system. That was last Friday. Um, I was part of that assembly as far as they got
their their wheel there as the signing points and uh this is it right here. Thanks for including this. This is wonderful. >> Sorry, the volume's >> Dan's getting assigned to a house. >> Watch this wheel now. This reminds me of
uh Price's right. >> Didn't quite make it into the other scissor right here. [Music] >> Awesome. >> Lightkeepers. >> Yeah, the old lightkeepers. >> You get a t-shirt. >> You didn't wear it today.
>> I did not. No. Well, it's polo today. Should I change it up? >> Well, great. Excellent meeting all. I know we went long today, but lots of really good information and discussion and we appreciate all the data you pulled together for us. Um, and with
that, uh, I know there was some giddiness at the end as we approach the twohour mark. Our next board curriculum committee meeting will be Tuesday, October 28th at 8:30 a.m. here at Glen Lumis building. And
with that, we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Part: 2
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music]
I'm just meeting up the board curriculum committee to order. The committee would like to welcome the audience and viewers may watch live board committee meetings online at tcaps.net/board. Recorded meetings may be viewed on demand at the same address. The
committee is set aside this time for public comment. Kelly, we have a public comment. We do. Diane Arnold. Okay. Individuals addressing the board shall have one opportunity to speak during public comment and shall be limited to three minutes each. Individuals should not make personal
attacks unrelated to actions affecting the school system. We strongly encourage common courtesy and constructive feedback. Detailed rules and procedures including a complaint process are outlined in board practice board policy 25504.
Good morning. Hi, my name is Dian Arnold and I did write a letter to the school board in this regard about TAG. So, I will try to keep my comments really brief. Um, we have three children. Our oldest is in uh fifth grade in the TAG
program and we love it for her. It's been wonderful. And our other two children go to Eastern Elementary School. Um, TAG right now obviously it's a long-standing program. It's been around for many, many years. and we have this amazing opportunity to really make
it even better uh and help more more children which I think is the goal for this. I think one way to do that is to make it more accessible. Um and I don't mean that we you know open the doors to everyone. I think that's what makes TAG
important. Um is that it is limited to those children who've taken the test and entered the program the way it's normally done. I I mean we need more children to take the test. Uh I think that lots of children don't take the test because it's not inclusive. We do
not uh have busing for children. It's very difficult for parents especially working parents who have children in other schools and many children simply don't want to leave their homeschool. It's very difficult and frankly I think schools discourage it. I don't think
that it's it's something that schools necessarily want to do to let all their their best and brightest lead their school. Um, so if there was a way to make it maybe instead of an an opt in, an opt out, I have friends and other
parents that I know very smart, great people who didn't even know about the tag test so they missed it. So I know that's my three minutes. Thank you so much. And oh, is that not it? No, you got another minute and 15. No, you're good.
Another 15 minute and 15 seconds. Um, but yeah, so basically just to to um make it so that we get the most children possible into the program that should be in the program. I know that my younger children, third and first grade, um they
are pulled out of their classroom to do higher level and and it really comes down to equity. there should be equity for all children, including those children that are advanced learners. And so, um, I know that I I've already sent an email, so you can definitely refer
back to that and feel free to give me a call if you have any questions. Um, it and I know people that didn't that chose not to send their children to TAG this year because of the uncertainty. So, I think the sooner we get some certainty for where our children will be, how we
can plan for that, I think the better for our community. So, and this is our opportunity and I really thank you guys for all you do. Thank you. And then we're going to go to school. Good call.
Thank you. Bye guys. Have a good day. You too. Thank you for coming. Thank you. That's the end. Okay. Great. So, we're going to move on to uh the procedural items. And first up
are the draft committee meeting minutes from August 25th, 2025. Um, fellow trustees, any suggestions for changes, additions, deletions? Okay. I did catch one thing and I apologize
to you in particular for not flagging this sooner. Um, under theformational items for the district assessment schedule 5A, uh, we just have a bank a blanket statement that we went over the Michigan Department of Education requirements for testing, but the
administration also shared a decision to drop some testing. um specifically the K through5 NWA reading in winter, the sixth and seventh grade NWA spring and eighth grade NWA al together to reduce testing fatigue and also um you know the
imposition on instructional days. So I just would like to reflect that somehow as I think this is for people hey when did the district decide to do that. So if you want to pull that up to a higher level summary, you know that there was some changes K through eight, I'm fine with that. Or you could be specific as I
just was. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh moving on, we have the district course catalog is um yes, lots of courses that you see here. Um a couple things to keep in
mind. The MVHS is our Michigan Virtual High School courses. So, those are courses that students this year are interested in taking that have not taken in the past or potentially new courses being offered through Michigan virtual that students were interested in. So, we're adding
those. Um, the ACL is our Aselis courses. So, keep in mind we've got our virtual programming running up at the middle school. Have about 15 students right now full-time in that. We anticipate for that enrollment to grow, but those are all of our CELILS courses. Um, NMC acronyms, I think you are all
familiar with those. Again, these could be um shared time students or students who currently attend one of our high schools who NMC is either offering these courses and have not offered in the past or a student is interested in adding them to their schedule and they do meet
our requirements for dual enrollment courses. Uh the most interesting one on here is the history of rock. So our stu our teachers at both of our high schools are able to uh propose a new course. We have a process in which the teachers in
the department um brainstorm. Typically we're looking for a gap in the curriculum or a gap in um potentially something students are interested in um that we don't offer right now. and we have a social studies teacher who is at Central High School who proposed this
course. It would be an elective um course in the social studies department. Um an interesting course and so it will not run unless we know we have enrollment. Um but we are asking to put this on our course selection sheet for next year for our students to potentially choose that as a one
semester history elective. Um we do share that with our counterparts at West Senior High. They reviewed it. um unsure if they will pick it up as well, but um that's kind of how our new courses at our sites roll. So that is actually a geology class, the history of rock.
No, rock and roll. Correct. History of rock and roll. You're taking It is social studies class. But I think Well, then she said science. I'm like, okay, I guess it's social studies. Social studies. Okay, got it. But the thing that
concerns me, history of rock is very American, very very kind of inclusive. British rock. There's a lot lot of British Rolling Stones. Come on. Queen. Okay. I can see you guys have a lot of input
to the course syllabus. I will be sure to uh listen to the Rolling Stones. So, can we just make it rock and roll so it's quite clear? It's not geology class. the kid who will take it will know what that means. Uh there is will be a course description um is under the social studies
department courses. Um but I can take it back to them and ask them if they want to change the name. That's what I think you should have blues and country in there too at time. That's great. Yeah, and that will be interesting because there is kind of
that thought of rock is not necessarily rock and roll. Like the rock and roll hall of fame has actually it's actually debated the genre and rock is considered a much narrower group. So they may stick to their guns on that. Just be prepared. Okay. I don't know why I know all this.
It's like Yeah, it's like a Jeopardy question, you know. No idea why I know it, but I know. I actually once interned at Rolling Stone magazine, but I am definitely now a middle-aged mom who is not up to speed on it. Fair enough. So, fair enough.
All right. Um, I just had a question about um the AP calculus AB um through Michigan virtual because I know I mean are don't our high schools also offer calculus AB or is it just BC? Now, they offer both in person. AB
remember is the one that gives the equivalent of the calc one. The BC is the one that gives the equivalent of the kelk one and kelk 2. But remember, they're not offered every hour. Typically, we have one or two sections at each high school. So, if we have a student who really wants to take it, but it's a conflict with yearbook, career
tech, um, jazz band. I mean, like we have a lot of singletons that are students who are advanced. We call singleton's a course that runs one hour a day and they're just our conflicts, right? We schedule based on what's the what's the least amount of conflicts is what our software uses but that
doesn't mean zero conflicts right are so it sounds like this is a response to more demand than there were there was supply of teachers but I just wonder by introducing the virtual do you think not necessarily I want to be doesn't mean more demand it just means that somebody wants this course who wasn't
able to get in a seat in person that's what it means it doesn't mean we have more kids who want to take it necessarily does that make sense you think this going to change that dynamic and create more kids who want to go virtual now rather than a TCAPS teacher? No. No. Kids overall are more successful
when they're in seats with teachers all the way through. When you look at AP scores and engagement in the course um so the the difference between those two lines, one they're committing to a year like both semesters and the other one they're just committing to semester. Is that the difference between those two
bullets where it says AP calc AB and then AP calc AB semester 1? Is that the difference? I the second and third bullets. Oh, okay. You know what? It's changed from the memo, the printed memo we had.
Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. Um, no, it's it's just once. Yeah, on our on our printed memo, it it had it twice. Okay, Jesse. Yeah. Will it give people more warm an opportunity for another elective? That history of of rock.
You mean for instance? Um, yes. And I I do have the course description up. Are you interested in me reading the course description? Okay, I'm good on that. But I was just thinking because we're so tight on a lot of electives that I was wondering if it just gave them a little bit more
flexibility. That's the idea. That's the idea. Uh, social studies is the one that students need three years of to graduate, but often times we see kids wanting to take a fourth year or an elective. We have crime and justice which falls under that. We have a history of sports which
is a really cool elective. We have some AP, but it's nice just to have another elective that's in that discipline. So, yeah. Yeah. Appreciate it. All right. My last question on this topic. Um, I remember you all said a couple of months ago that the AP
environmental science was getting really popular. I don't know if you were able to accommodate everybody this year, but did they look at um adding an MBHS class for AP environmental science? Um we added sections. So at Central High School, we now have two teachers who are
teaching it. Um and at West Senior High, the teacher who normally had had two sections, we ran an additional section. So we have more actual kids in seats on those. Um and I would guess because it's not on here, but I'd have to look at the course catalog. It might already be in the course catalog. Yeah.
Um, these are ones that are all additional. Yeah. Great. All right. All right. If there are We'll double check that though, Josie. Yeah. Okay. Then I think if there are no further questions, we will move on to put that on the agenda as usual, the
consent agenda, and move on to the learning series. Um, Dan Tisworth. Yeah. Um, so today we wanted to highlight um our English learner program and invited um two teachers with us today. Nicole Vanderol Grind is our content leader for our elementary
program and then Amanda White is our content leader for our secondary program. Both EL teachers in the district and they'll be going through some information today with us also. Welcome. Thank you. You're welcome. Um just a quick overview of uh the
students in TCAPS. Uh how many we have? So 140 at elementary, 64 at middle, and 79 at high school. And that's kind of fluctuating day by day. Um students are first identified what they do is a home language survey. So when they come in if they indicate that they have a language
spoken at home um other than English they go through the home language survey and then we continue to u monitor them as we uh during the WEDA process the WEDA test that they take on a yearly basis. Um, elementary ELEL uses something similar as we did tier 2 in
that um, our ELE teachers will push into classrooms and they'll also pull out to do separate lessons. Um, and secondary, they actually enroll in an EL ESL class uh that they attend on a a daily basis. And then we have two family uh, liaison
that help with um, interpreter needs in our district. DB Craig does Spanish and Alicia Powers helps with Ukraine. Ukrainian. And then also on top of that, we have an interpreting service called Genie that we started last year. Uh kind
of a virtual live that can interpret for we haven't found the language it can interpret for at this point. So it's really nice that you have a live person on the other end. It's similar to a FaceTime call and they can come in and interpret. Again, if these two interpreters are not uh easily
available, they also can jump into that. Are they so those two family liaison they're full-time staff who come in? They're hourly. So what they do is they keep track they're they're contractual. So they keep track when when they are needed. They write those hours down and
then turn those in. So there's no set schedule they have rather they kind of keep track of their hours again by contract and they move from building to building very much so. Okay. That's what we did at the hospitals
on everything. Now, is that a relatively new development or like has there been hours for them or anything like that? No, we've always had um interpreters in the district that help and you know outside of doing interpreters, they also
help again the idea of their family leaison. So, they help as that conduit at times for all needs that these families have um throughout the school year. Cool. Great. Thank you. And the good thing about that too is it's not just the language, it's context also. And
that could be really important, cultural context. Yes. Yes. So these are our current elementary numbers. Um and as Dan mentioned, we're still very much in the identification process. So um these numbers do kind of
change daily. And we also have students that have achieved a high enough English um proficiency level that they're still in our buildings but um don't require English language services anymore. So um you can notice that just some trends
that are in city limit buildings tend to be our biggest ones and that's historically been true. Um whereas some of our like Corte we we see less students and that really helps drive some of our department goals with um student connections and and where we um
concentrate some of our resources. Would you say that there's been any significant change in recent years in these student populations or like you just seen growth in those same areas, Central Grade and Traverse Sites in particular? I think generally speaking they're
pretty similar. We have seen more students coming to us with more limited English. So these numbers don't tell us proficiency levels. So um that's maybe a bigger difference. I think Traverse Heights has grown. Um, and when you think about the total number of that
school, we're looking at a little over 20% of the building is English learners. Um, and I do think that is a newer trend, but part of that is probably tied to housing in our city. Yeah, a lot of growth around Traverse sites for sure.
Okay, thank you. Okay, these numbers represent the secondary numbers that we have within our five buildings serving East Middle School, West Middle School, Central High School, West Senior High, and Trevor City High. And as Dicki mentioned, we
have seen shifts within populations within buildings. Um, so overall the numbers are consistent as we look at some trends, but we see some buildings that may have higher populations because of where students are living. We also
may see a change because of student um foreign exchange students at the high school level which qualify for EL services. I was surprised to see that the middle school where the middle school is high the high school is smaller that it
seemed like they seesaw a little bit interesting and sometimes students are exiting EL services by the time they get to high school. So
you will see those numbers drop. Yeah. The ultimate goal is you know Amanda's at East Middle School. She does a phenomenal job. She hopes that her students, if they're with her all three years, will grow their English skills and proficiencies and will actually not
need as much intensive support as they move into high school. So, I was wondering if that's what was happening with Central, but wasn't quite sure what was happening with West because you have considerably fewer down
in the middle school and then more than doubles when it hits high school. My guess is the east population, the East Middle School is based on the housing that we're, you know, that direct pipeline of Heights Central,
East Middle School. Is that a fair statement? I would say that's accurate. Yeah. And then do we get a certain amount of kids that are older that are moving like I think into West High School like maybe especially like our population
you know like so we may get kids that are high school age when they come to us more too. So it's interesting that is an interesting trend. Yeah, it but it's to your point it's not it's the opposite almost of you know that the high school it's interesting
that central high school is lower but again but also the fact that we're getting a lot of kids hopefully prepared is what's happening and that could literally change next year next three years with these these middle school students up to high school it's not like they're all defecting to the west side
it's a very transient population I think these guys would say that very much so um and so Yeah, a lot of it's based on where the families and where the locations right now are. And this is a this is currently as of today. So as we move through, right, we
didn't if we were to show last year's data, maybe we see the middle schools higher and therefore they've moved up as it abs and flows. Yeah. So these are just the languages represented. We have at least 18 languages that we know of that um
families speak at home. Um, and then this is just a general breakdown again on the data that we do have. So almost half of our population speaks Spanish. Our second most frequently spoken language is Ukrainian and then um Vietnamese and Chinese follow. And then
some of those other smaller languages we we tend to sometimes see in pockets. So you might have one building that has a high percentage of students who speak Persian um but then it's not spoken at any other building. So that's also kind of a fun trend to follow. Um, and that's
where Genie has been really helpful. That was the interpreter service that the district adopted last year because I've sat through like an IEP meeting where we're able to basically FaceTime someone that speaks Vietnamese who can help us interpret those really important
um, parent meetings for us. And then Debbie and Elita, our two liaison are able to also help with the bulk of our families and their interpreting needs. and like Dan said, help them connect with resources like our student health clinic or get them enrolled in LEAP
sports. So, we've we have been really happy to adopt that interpreting service to help with some of those smaller, less frequently spoken languages. Yeah. I um any any feedback on the Genie service from the students or the
families? Um, I would say that from on our end, on the building end, it's been really amazing. Like if a child, let's say, gets sick and um the parent requires an interpreter, all of our AAS have access to those accounts.
They're the ones that actually hold the accounts. And so, it's made those types of things a lot easier. Um, we are still working for ways to let our parents contact us. And so like something that we worked on at the elementary level is
we're now doing a bilingual attendance form where we send families home with a business card and a QR code and it links them to a Google form so a parent can call in their own child's um attendance if they're sick. So we are working on more ways that the parents can get
through to us in that sense. And we're really lucky that Google has an amazing suite of translation services that are free. Um, and as we have more bilingual staff members in our program, I think we're becoming more aware of those needs as well, like gaps that we didn't
necessarily see before um with just a monolingual um staff. So, I think that's where we're headed is just thinking of more creative ways to to have our parents contact us when they need us. Excellent. And some of the learning
platforms like Seesaw, they could interpret into their own language. So if you would send a message, elementary sends a message out, they can receive all of that information. Class dojo is embedded. Um yeah, and some of our curricular supports we're starting to see too in multiple languages. So
I have to say this was really fascinating. I knew about the Spanish and the Ukrainian, the Vietnamese, but not the rest. So um really interesting to see the district grow that way. Um, so this is our elementary staff. We
have Emily Feder's at Blair and Long Lake. He kit at Cherry Noan Corte. Jessica Loginsky is at Eastern Monastery and Willow Hill. Kathleen Schneider at Central Grade Silver Lake and Westwoods. And then I am at Traverse Heights. And um, three of us have our masters in
teaching ESL and um, two of us are bilingual and another two of us have a really extensive background in teaching reading intervention. So really excited about the team that we have this year and the experience that everyone brings to it.
And this is our secondary team which also includes Tanya Donnie who Ben Lance and Heidi Gregory and what's really nice about our secondary team is we are also teaching in the content area and can help our students succeed and interact with our colleagues to help students not
only in ESL but other classes that they may be taking. This is a little bit of a change from prior years. At our elementary, we had just two certified teachers and a lot of instructional aid support. And we really, I mean, Dan really took the lead
with changing Dan and Nikki and changing the model and providing all certified staffing who's doing the servicing to our students. Um, funding wise, just so you guys know, um, we do get a little bit of categorical funds to support EL. We get a little bit in our federal title
3, very little, like I say like $25,000. And then we get a little bit in what's called 41A, also less than $100,000. And when you think about this population of students, they they need additional
supports to access um the school, to access all components of it. Um these guys have separate curriculum they use with our students. We do, like we said, the translating skills, all of those things. Um and so that then all comes because those categoricals don't cover it all. That just comes then
out of general funds for us. Yeah. So that was a change this year from Yeah. Nikki was going to touch base on it also, but just to thank the board and Dr. Vane Wagner to kind of see the need as far as it was a it was a huge transition. We had two EL elementary
teachers in previous years and and aid support. And as far as contact hours with with students, the state only recognized those those contact hours that teachers certified teachers have. So although although we are still servicing kids with aid support, um it
didn't actually fall within the requirements of the state. So we uh like Jesse mentioned, we have put more funding towards our EL program through at risk and general fund. So that every now we have a teachers with case loads that are manageable. We want to keep
those case loads right around 30ish. They're a little higher especially with Nikki at Travers Heights with that population but we find one teacher at one location is better than splitting the population up. Um but it's a it's we've made huge strides. So we we appreciate your support.
I have a question for the kids that are that that is their first language and then English is their second. Do they ever go on and major into that language literature as well as the language? I
mean, if you come in speaking Russian, it just opens up all the Russian literature to you. You don't have to translate. So, I'm wondering if if we're able do we encourage them basically to piggyback
piggyback off of what they already have? We definitely leverage home language support and that is up to each individual family if they continue to pursue an education in their native language. Um I don't have a specific
scenario to share where a student has natered in their home language. I was just kind of curious. You know, I had a friend I knew u people that were bilingual in quite a few languages and I
had one friend that was getting her masters in French because she wanted to be an interpreter at the UN and you have to be fluent in six languages to do that. So, Pansy had five and was going for her sixth. Um, and by fluent it
means she could be in one language and move just very fluidly right into another and just the it was just amazing. Um, so I was kind of wondering, you know, you kind of see a lot of times immigrant families shut down one
language to only let the language most commonly spoken be the dominant language. And I'm kind of hoping that we encourage kids also to keep what they have. Absolutely. And some of our students, for example, will attend Ukrainian
school in the evening or even maintain status as Ukrainian students virtually in the evening. Some of our fifth graders as they're selecting their electives for middle school also get very excited if they're Spanish speakers to take Spanish
classes. So, um I mean that is a language that we can very easily support. Um that and I wanted to come back to the the teaching model changes that Jesse and Dan mentioned. Another thing just from my perspective aside from the um more contact time with
students. It's also allowed us to attend all staff professional development in meetings of the buildings that we're working in. And so something that's been tremendously helpful for me is I am now able to work with a lot of the gened teachers at Traverse Heights, especially
as we roll out CKLA. Um, having that contact time instead of being at five buildings instead of one, that's been really helpful. And then you can see from here, one of our goals is really to hone in on helping our students feel connected at their local buildings. And
so even little things like um before we couldn't require assistants to attend parent teacher conferences for example or you know Eastern does a carnival and Traverse Heights is a fancy dance. These are opportunities now that we're not spread so thin that we're able to to
attend we will be able to attend parent teacher conferences and some of those extra school events and help make sure that our families are engaged in them. So, aside from being more compliant with having more certified ESL teachers, we're also just gaining a lot more time
in our buildings, which I think will certainly benefit our students and their families. Um, and then speaking of CKLA, that's been another tremendous help in giving our department direction because, um, a lot of our teachers right now are kind of in lock step on rolling out
CKLA. We have um two areas that really support English language learning. There are parts embedded right into the Genad CKLA curriculum that um really give helpful tips for all levels of English language proficiency speakers. So
something I might do at Traverse Heights is take all of the kindergarteners and work on that particular lesson that they're also getting in their general education class. And then they also have a separate component that supports CKLA that we're starting to get oriented with
called Language Studio. Um, and so we have that this year that we're trying to work with too to help support and supplement that. Um, and then the final change that we've made is um, and this is a big thanks to um, Dan and Jesse and the board for supporting this, but we
have a new software system that allows us to communicate better with general education teachers what the language needs are of our students. So the WEDA test is something that we are required annually to give, but it spits out numbers that can be really nebulous to
someone who doesn't have an extensive background in teaching ESL. So we purchased a software system called Edu Skills that was created by a former um head of ESL for Oklahoma City Public Schools. And basically it allows us to tell teachers what those numbers mean
and what English language development standards they're tied to. So that has been a tremendous help. It also allows us to put in any WEDA um accommodations, MSTEP accommodations so that those are going to follow students especially as
they transition from fifth to sixth grade so that our secondary teachers don't have to backtrack and figure out, hey, like what supports were these students getting? So that has been incredibly helpful purchase for our program. It saved us a lot of time and especially our general education
teachers. it's given them a clear picture of what students need quickly. Um, and then I just wanted to share at the elementary level our department goals. So, we're really trying to help boost that student achievement and it's really really possible and tangible now
with CKLA. So, we're really locking down into that. And then, like I mentioned earlier, our our our objective as a department, we're really looking for ways to boost that family engagement. So that that bilingual Google attendance form and then you know we'll be meeting
more to discuss how what are other ways we can really connect our families at the local school level. Um what are ways we can really engage with them and get them what they need so their students feel like a part of this community even
if language is a significant barrier. One other question and it kind of blends across not just to foreign language but to English as well. What do you do when we have so many forms but people are basically illiterate in whatever
language the form is in? Um how do we deal with that? Well, we're lucky that some of us are bilingual. So, like for example, if a student enrolls and they're unable to read the enrollment form, like they can pull a teacher who's bilingual to go
read it to them. But we also have iPads that you can take a picture and it will read it out loud. And that's true even with CKLA students who are really fluent in their first language but not literate. Sometimes we use that to really help boost comprehension. So, I feel grateful to be teaching this in
2025 when we have so many technologies that assist with that process. But it's not um even though that we encounter that, it really hasn't been a barrier for our families. We have enough bilingual adults in our community to really help get what we need done.
We've done I know Jesse can speak in more detail about communications, but we've done a lot on the communications end to make sure everything that we have frontward facing for our families can be interpreted in some way, shape, or form. So for instance, we moved all of our
schools over to SM'more newsletters. S'more is the software and you can every newsletter that goes out, you just drop down and interpret. So we're we're aware of that. Everything that's out on our web or any form we have, we continue to work on making sure that it's translated.
And we mark these guys help us mark and find families who only read in their native language. So when they get communication pushed through our powers school through our SIS, it goes and we have a tag in which their communication comes through in the language in which they read. It's already set for that. So
we've got that sort of in play, too. Um what what languages are y'all bilingual in? I speak Spanish and English. I used to be a Spanish teacher at West. Um, and then another one of our elementary ASL teachers also speaks Spanish. And then
we have noticed, um, Ukrainians, our second most represented language. A lot of our Ukrainian parents are either learning English or are very literate in Ukrainian and so they don't necessarily face the same challenges that some of our other language families do. And
Amanda can speak for secondary. Yeah. Yes. I also speak Spanish and we have several staff members at East Middle School that speak Spanish as well. Okay. And Russian and Ukrainian I think are pretty pretty kinship.
Yeah, they are. And we have um a junior kindergarten aid at Trevor Heights that speaks Ukrainian. And then Alisa, our longtime liaison. She's she really knows everyone. So we call on her a lot too. Thank you. Looking at what we offer at
the secondary level, it is a little different at the middle school versus the high school. At the middle school, I have two ESL sections which are organized by grade level or proficiency level. And the same is true at West Middle School. So, two sections putting our newcomers, students that are new to
learning English in a section and then higher level students that require different needs in another section. the middle school teachers. We also have a time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays called seminar that we're able to support our content area teachers or work with students individually with
different reading interventions or fluency or take a look at a teacher's lesson plan and see how it may become more accessible for our EL learners. At the high school level, they also h they have something similar. Um, they have a section with class, a multi-grade class,
as well as a part of their day to help support content area teachers to help with success in those classrooms. Our curriculum is new. This is our second year using it is the National Geographic Learning. So, there is a unique
curriculum for English language learning that is different than an ELA class. We focus on English language acquis acquisition to help with content mastery in the classroom and it offers five different options. And so we look at a
student's proficiency level and what would best fit that students need when we're developing curriculum. We also, as I mentioned, look for where students need comprehensive support in other parts of their day or even outside of their school day to make sure that
they're engaged in the school and the community. We work with our colleagues in the LEAP office to see how we can help enroll them in sports or clubs or other activities or even attend school events such as the homecoming dance that we just had.
Excellent. I'm just curious about that National Geographic Learning Curriculum. Um, so if this is the second year, what what was the feedback like from the teachers year one? It's a very engaging curriculum. It uses authentic resources
to draw students in. It's really comprehensive with listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It also has an online spark platform which complements what we're doing in the classroom and allows us to really tear out needs that different students have when you're working with multi-grade level students.
That's really important that you have a curriculum that is going to allow some personalization. Students find it very engaging and it also does a really nice job of supporting the content areas. Great. And I just have one more question
about um these sections at the secondary level. Sure. That constitutes their their ELA. It does not. Oh, so it's an elective, correct? Okay. Okay. So that does have some implication for them like in terms of they have one
other elective to pick a STEM or an arts class or whatever. Absolutely. And at the middle school for example with higher level students, we have some flexibility with our scheduling. For example, I have a student that just sees me on A days
instead of B days because the student wants to play in the orchestra. And so, we make that happen. There is flexibility. And at the high school, um, our students still are required two credits in world language, but a lot of times we will see these students earn those two credits
because they have that proficiency in their home language, right? And so they're able to like not have to necessarily take that additional world language class because they have the proficiency in this. There are ways in which we call it a a PC at the high school personal curriculum. We're able
to write for these students that can that can fulfill that Michigan merit requirement. So perfect. That does make sense. Yeah. Yeah. Dan and I just really once in a while. We got that one right back the stage. Um, yeah, Dan and I just really wanted
you guys to meet Amanda and Nikki. We wanted to kind of give them a little kudos. This is the first year we've had some EL leadership. They're teacher leaders that get receive a a small stipen to help us just organize and make sure we're supporting teachers. I mean, this program, we're talking about about 5% or so of our student population, but
they're very vulnerable, right? It they're they need a lot of support. We have to make sure we're intentional about what does it look like K12 for that support? How does it change? How do we I mean Amanda's or sorry Nikki's right. We have to how do we build relationships with these families, right? How do we build trust and how do
we make them feel welcome when language and not having that language is such a barrier? Um and so we really we've done a lot of work this last year led by these guys to reorganize it and make sure the teachers have the resources they need. And we just thought it was worth us bringing it to the board and making sure you guys are aware of the
work that's happened behind the scenes. So I think it's great. One last question, forgive me. And that is do we in any place in the curriculum include uh is it anishnabi? Anishnabi. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So that is our indigenous education program. That's a work in progress. So I've been working with uh Lydia and working with tribe because we received a grant recently um to include that in our curriculum. So, we're going to we're trying to figure out we had
this program oh about 15 years ago at the middle schools where we had innab one and two. Um, and that is has since gone away, but now we've we have the grant to bring it back. So, we're just trying to figure out the format and what that looks like. Uh, I've also talked to
some some people at Michigan Virtual to see if they could help us build out a class that can be um supported by the tribe here, Grand Travers Band. I think that's great because I'd hate to see it be a dead language. Yeah, for sure. Thank you.
Yeah, that that's a different conversation for another day. I I know y'all will keep us in progress in that language. Yes, absolutely. I I hate to talk dollars and cents, but uh have to think of the finance side of things, too. So
with the changes this year um you mentioned and I I concur that the state and federal funds are minimal um and the rest will have to come from the general fund. So what did with the district have to you know offset that with?
Well it depends I guess how you look at it as far as offsetting what our original program was with with teacher aids. I'm going to give you some approximate numbers here. So we had to offset what we were paying in teacher aid and we took that money and then hired FTE. So that was a one for one. U
beyond that we probably added just a little more than another FTE which we had to take out of a combination of of at risk. We're we're probably looking at about 150 grand. I'd consider that a well spent at risk between that and general fund. But there
is a again going back to state of Michigan there's a level of compliance we have to hit and previously we weren't near that. I understand it's not it wasn't a choice. It really wasn't. I think we had to write the ship. We all recognize it and we and we just don't know what pot right now that comes out of
right because you know as of right now we don't as we sit here right now I couldn't tell you. I would say FTE wise we have about I think it's 6.6 or 6.5 FTE teaching staff. And so if you guys kind of do the multiplier of what an FTE is
approximately 110 is that sound about right and I would say between our 41A and our title three which we're allowed to spend on that I mean that maybe covers one and a half FTE. So, the rest of it um and then that doesn't even count curricular resources, the edgy
skills that Nikki talked about, um release time, like things that they that we know that our teachers need to be prepared to serve these kids that's a little bit um above and beyond what our general um education teachers need. Um and then we Dan and I just kind of Yeah,
like I Dr. Rand Wagner said, just try to look at the pots of money and figure out what can we access. At risk is a great one. We don't know what's in there though. It's like this unknown. Um, but it's a great one for us to try to support that. That's great.
Great. Thanks so much for being here today and helping give us this overview of the program. And they're going to depart back to their classroom. So, thank you. Thank you. Good work.
Keep up the great work. Thanks so much. Okay, we're moving on to our discussion item on the talented and gifted program, otherwise known as TAG. I'm going to defer again to Dan Ksworth. And I'll just I'll kind of just start
out with this is a conversation that um is is really now precipitated by the move of Central Grade. So, uh, as you all know, our our TAG program has been housed for many years at Central Grade. And with us vacating Central Grade, um,
and coming in this building next year, we knew that we didn't have quite enough room for our preschool and our TAG programs to stay housed in here while the three-year construction phase is going on at Central Grade. So, the
conversation that we've had is where would we have room in the district to be able to house the tagged kids while that three-year construction phase is going on. So, that's the first thing that we've had to do. And so, um, we've
looked at a lot of different options, which includes even funding with title and buildings and all those things. And at this point, uh, we are prepared, uh, right now looking at having, uh, two classes, um, at Eastern Elementary and
two at Silver Lake Elementary is our plan as of right now. Um, and that, uh, we we have room uh, both. We will have a preschool classroom at Eastern that we're going to have to figure out where that goes. We're looking at different
options with that. Um but uh th those are the two right now that um that create that and and that creates just because of space right now an east and a west side tag program. Uh the question
from there is um after the three years then what? One of the things that's also in play is that the architects right now are figuring out number of classrooms and space to be redesigned um at central grade. And so they're
asking us the question of how many and this is a conversation I've had with most of the if not all board members um over the last couple of years of just there's been idea we had a public comment this morning about trying to
create some type of equity um and so we we have had that conversation about do you create more opportunity if you have something on the east side and the west side of town. Um, transportation is uh
still an an issue, but if you can get a kid into this the busing boundaries of Silver Lake or Eastern, it it is a little easier. Um, and in the future, if we had more bus drivers, which we've struggled with for many years now, so I
don't I don't want to give a false hope, but if there was, we could try and figure out maybe some type of transfer system um from our middle school. So, we could have kids ride the secondary routes in the morning and then be a shuttle to um each of the sites. Again,
not possible right now at all with our bus driver situation, but maybe, just maybe, in the future, that's something that could be considered if we wanted to do that. So the conversation um this month needs to happen at the board um just first just of a notification of
what our plans are um for for the construction period, but it also now needs to really be determined um after that three years what that looks like. Um, and so I know that talking to board members and having this on there,
there's some different data points and things that were asked, we were able to put together what we were able to um over uh the weekend with that. Um, so with that, I'll kind of um kick it off to Dan and and kind of run with the conversation here where the committee
wants to go. So yeah, so we just started with just a general overview. I think we're we're all aware of most of these things. four sections of TAG, two fourth grade sections, two fifth grade sections have been traditionally what we've done over the past several years. I don't actually remember a program that that
didn't run this way. Um, admission to TAG, it's based on the KOGAT score as well as NWA scores and teacher input. So, as mentioned by our public comment today, um, we have a KOAT test that's given to third graders. I thought we did a pretty good job and I guess we can
look at how to promote this even more. But as far as getting it out to school newsletter, social media posts, press releases. We try to make this as many people aware of this test as possible because we know and and Kelly does a lot of the makeup testing that any testing
we can't get done during that testing window in February, they're just oneoff tests and it's quite time inensive. So clarification, those tests happen at the home school of the child. Correct. They do. Correct. Yep. So that's during February, we do the we do about a month of sign up. Uh
students will sign up. We assign sometimes we have several students outside of the district, Pathfinder, Woodland, Trinity Lutheran, schools like that that want to come in and test. We assign them to the Old Mission. Yeah. Uh we assign them to their closest school. They come in that day and test
with those students. um go through the process keeping in mind, you know, Kogat as a is kind of that a test that looks at that reasoning um not necessarily like specific questions that where they're doing actual math or language arts problems, right? They're looking
for patterns. It's more that it's looking more towards that IQ based for three parts of it that we give verbal, quantitative, and non-verbal. We really when we're looking at who gets as far as trying to figure out the best cut scores for TAG, we really focus on that
quantitative and verbal uh the quantitative math portion essentially. And I've discussed this before I think in individual conversations, but as they go through, we talk about how um certain subjects are are accelerated or or they're
enriched, right? That the math is actually accelerated. So when they leave TAG um they're moving into seventh grade math going into middle school. So they cover three years of math in two years. Dan, do we set what the line is the cut
off line for the invitation to go into TAG or is that set by the overall whatever there might be? No, we we set it on originally on numbers, right? We know that we have two sections. We have 60 spots. So we start
for 60 spots unless we see like maybe an anomaly in the testing where we see an abundant amount of students who national percentile and Kogat and NWA line up that we think we could support another section, we would do so. But traditionally what we do is we take
those first 60 and what we usually see is that when we invite we usually invite people that might be outside the percentile that usually would maybe struggle as successfully in an in an actual gifted program. Right? So we usually invite more I think as far as a
gifted program goes um that might be able to actually excel in the program. We haven't had a spot where we look at and we go, we need to open another section because we have this many that are 99th percentile on their winter end on their spring and WA. Right? We haven't been in that spot yet.
You have like an A group that are the top test scorers and then you have like a B group that you can dip down to, right? Yes. We have a yes, a waiting list, and a no is is what we generally generally go with. and they have to accept and like public comment said and this is there's a lot of factors that that go
into accepting the tag right they have the score and then I and I'll show in some stats here coming up that even though they're invited uh there are a lot of students that don't attend to stay at their own school and then what they decide to do then is move into seventh grade math when they get into
middle school so they stay caught up whether that's in the classroom that's during summer work but regardless if they qualify for the Kogat in elementary that qualification can they can use that to then skip sixth grade math during their uh during their middle school
years. But then they do that on their own basically to prepare for the seventh grade. Yeah. Or they have Yeah. And there's some schools that have pockets of of enough kids in it or in any school actually in fifth grade, right? Where there's a differentiation that takes
place where the teacher can then help, you know, move the students along. Is that a is that a 100% in every school with with every student? It's hard to say as far as the number of students that have that differentiation going on in pockets, but there is there is a large component where we would have
teachers as a middle school principal. We'd have parents come in and say, "We'd like our child to take seventh grade math." And then we would have a pretty much a packet of supports a teacher would give us to help them throughout the summer so they would be ready. Yeah. I that is that is my concern with
tag. Um and that is that I I can see where it's great if you can move faster, you'd rather move faster than sit there and be bored. I understand that 100%. However, then somebody like John Hattie
comes along and says, "You need that mix of kids that moves the whole classroom in." And um you know I there were a couple of schools where it was giving the numbers tested the ones offered a
position and then the ones who actually took the TAG opportunity and you could maybe only have a third of the kids that were offered the opportunity who actually took it. And so again, how that plays out. And
then another question that I had um that I didn't see in the material. The material was great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um was does it impact at all when you looked at at the overall testing scores? Are you factoring the
TAG student scores into Traverse City's overall uh NWA and scores? So, yeah, they're factored in the central grade scores and our district. Yeah. But then when you look at independently
the different schools comparatively are some of those schools just a little bit lower simply because their tag students are pulled out. Yeah. I I I think there's there's some of that that happens. I think you see it more on the central grade side. And when we when we look at data with central
grade, right, and they do data meetings there, they look at their fifth grade data, they separate it out, right? As far as I was going to say we used to take that data out. It's but you know, to give you an idea of an inverse from a resource standpoint, if this does go out of central grade, and correct me if I'm
wrong, Dan, but I know we've had this conversation, Central Grade is close to becoming a full title one school. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, there are more resources that come with a full title one school like Blair and Travis have and we ran numbers with Silver Lake and it wouldn't pull them out of title,
Silver Lake would still be eligible. That that was one of our concerns. Right now, Silver Lake is a partial title school and if we if the free and reduced percentage were to change over if we add um anywhere from 50 to 60 kids because
we only have one section each, right, of the tag over here. Sandy ran some numbers in it and it did not. So yeah and it looks like a third of the kids in tag 15% 15% are free and reduced.
Yep. So you know that's why looking at the sites is like it it's a bit of a science of figuring out from a resource of federal funding of all those things. So that's a big part of where we landed especially with the westside um school is Silver Lake was that fit. And you
also look at you know the the reality of trying to bring people in. So, you know, the two schools, Silver Lake is kind of that center of the hub of Blair, Westwoods, Long Lake, you know, that fit. And then Eastern, you know, we really didn't don't have and and with
our growing population, Traverse Heights is is packed. Obviously, we're adding three classrooms. Long Lake, the amount of of building and housing that's going up there right now with apartments especially is big. You know, at that point, Corte is obviously the far edge of the district. So that's where that
landed on the two buildings we did for the program and also looking at those resources federal and state. Would you be able to to consider some place like Blair which has more open classrooms? Are they solid enough that
it wouldn't undercut the funding? I think the problem is is that they're on so far the edge of the district that a lot of people won't select it because they may be coming to work in town again because they're looking at transportation. So those far edges of the district generally struggle. I'll give you an example of where that's been
done and and help me out history-wise. But there was a international baloria program that was tried to interlock an ele school. Really struggled to get enrollment from that standpoint of Austin as well. They tried the far two extremes and it and it
didn't have success. Didn't work. Yeah. Yeah. Because the east side court would be another option. They have room. But again, if we talk about the same idea as equity, right, as far as when Dr. Van Wagner mentioned the idea of maybe using some type of middle school busing or or some type of shuttle service, if we go
to that route eventually, that makes it even harder to accomplish that the farther out those schools are. That's our struggle. That's our geography struggle that as tecaps we have that a lot of other places do not. Yeah. The only other one I thought I think the westside one was Silver Lake
being right in the middle of Willow Hill, Long Lake, Westwoods. I mean, that's that's a really great spot on the west side. Um, on the east side, I just want to acknowledge Eastern is still very far north.
So, Traverse Heights to me would be a little bit we just don't have room and we're already, you know, struggling. Keep adding to Traverse. We're running out of space in that direction really, you know, from that point. So, I thought we were capacity with Eastern
too, but if we pull out and I and I I did want to ask, this is just a logistical thing. Um, potentially financial, but with Eastern and Silver Lake for that matter, is there is there going to be any cost in retrofitting rooms like particularly converting a
preschool to a fourth or fifth grade? No, you would have the opposite with bathroom and stuff. But no, you know, cuz what we'll do is we'll just shift younger kids into those and then we'll have kids because by law like on our two-story buildings, you have to have your younger kids on the first floor.
Okay. So, we would just shift that down. And so, um, it, you know, that that's that's a challenge, but we're working on. We've talked with the vote board about the future of Oak Park, you know, right there as well as in in the long run to be able to have that early
childhood center concept that also helps that cause that you're with Eastern, you know. Um, so in the three years, yeah, it could cause a little bit, but we're committed to not have, you know, like there there's one classroom there that's a library currently at Eastern that we want to
maintain. So, we we we'll figure out we're trying to work with our ISD partners and possibly we had a preschool at Oak Park previously um and and took out. So, is that maybe an option? So, we've got our work cut out for us to figure that out, but we'll figure that out. Okay. So, it's just one preschool
classroom at Eastern that would have one's already um we're down one this year already. And so, it'd be one more one more preschool classroom that would um be at a different site um there to be able to have the younger kids go into that and open up those two older older
kid classrooms. Okay. So, just to be clear, if we don't have space at Oak Park, what are other alternatives and what are the financial implications to the district? like we're looking at renting space. Just want to be very proactive and transparent here.
Could you could be, you know, we we have space at Central High School there. That's so where the robotics was a possibility. Um, you know, so there there are multiple options there to look at. Um, we're not that far yet. you know, this is we kind of need a decision, you know, like, you know, and
and long-term where the board goes also kind of might play into this, you know, of of how we we go of a plan of attack with it. And another thing I think we have to think about and that is how do you handle the traffic? That would be a
problem I think more drivers if you had a lot of people bringing their kids, picking their kids up. You know, I I'll just be honest with you. It's a struggle no matter what building we're in right now. I mean, we have a lot with, you know, with our buses pretty packed because of the lack of drivers. Is easier because you have
agreed. I would, you know, to be clear, would love to be able to figure out a way to have more at Blair and Corte just that is a geographic challenge that is really really hard for us to figure out you know and as you as the board knows we've limited our school at Tristtown like almost nothing at our city schools
you know to make sure that we can maintain and be able to you know do this. Um the other thing too Josie is that from a preschool standpoint going out to those elementaryaries is also adding another preschool. It may be a little bit of a hike for folks, but it would still be an option and an
opportunity at that standpoint to be able to do as well as kind of a plan C, you know, if we can't get it closer to town from that standpoint as well for that other preschool classroom. Yeah. Could you just remind us like what are the legal obligations in terms of preschool? So for if you're if you live
within the boundaries of Eastern Elementary, you want to enroll your kids there K through but you do not necess if you you know if you do from that standpoint obviously you have that right but if you have kids in preschool and you live outside that boundary you have no automatic right to that building
right but within boundary I mean are you you know by law entitled to a spot at a preschool at that building so no we're not we're not required to offer preschool in any building okay I just want to be clear an ISD program that we, you know, that we host
for, you know, that coordinates it and that we host and and do get the funding for and we want to obviously do that as much as possible, but from that standpoint, we are not obligated from that standpoint. We are obligated to offer it in the district. Um, from that standpoint, just as we might get some disgruntled
parents that we're moving the preschool out of Eastern Elementary, we just have to be aware and prepared to deal with that. And hopefully, like I say, we're hoping to be able to have it real close, you know, from that standpoint, convenient. But we're we're putting our feelers out and getting down that work
from that standpoint. But, um, we know we have room in other buildings and places. Um, we'll see where this building for sure lands out, you know, um, for that. Um, we know we don't have the room for all of the tech. There's no doubt here. But, like I say, as we get a
little bit closer, those conversations, we'll let the board know. we'll figure out a place for them and and hopefully it's close, but we know we have spaces to add at some of the the other elementary schools. Right. And going back to Oak Park right from 2026 through 20 29.
Yeah. Um is it at full capacity with IS? Well, it has been, but you know, that's one of the questions right now they're looking at is they have purchased um the um uh at their headquarters um over on uh Drive by the Commons. They've purchased
the other part of Pinerest. And so they have um doing that and staff going in there. So that might free up some staff space. So that's the conversations I'm trying to have right now, okay, with them. And they they you know, mentioned it. They have had the chance to follow up to check back and have
that. But like that's that's one of our our hopes right now, but haven't had enough, you know, feedback from that standpoint yet to know if that's a viable option. And and it may be a year here till they're able to figure that out based on what's happening over there and what they're able to do.
Okay. Well, I know this is also on the finance committee agenda for Thursday. So that's why I just keep, you know, yeah, questioning, are there financial implications? It sounds like right now none are known, but there are potential financial implications like if the
district had to lease space, correct? Or renovate a space. Correct. But but we you know and we probably wouldn't it would be a very last option if we have classroom space somewhere else in the district at that point. Um but you know right now it would be
minimal of what we we believe our first options would be. Okay. And back to the central grade architects um because this has come up a couple of times. So I I mean I know a couple of us are
very familiar with that tag space, those four classrooms. I thought that they were going to design those to be classrooms no matter what, whether it's TAG or something else. So like on that second floor in that tower area, what what would that area be used
for if not classrooms? It would be classrooms, but it would be traditional third, fourth grade, fifth grade classrooms. So, you know what, right now, I mean, you know, in the budget, it is much more of a limited scope. It's designed um, you know, for about the amount of kids that we have now minus a tag.
Okay. Now, third floor is a question that we've talked about many times. There's no reason the third floor in the future can't be used. We're just not building it out at in this phase for that purpose. But, it will be renovated. it will be brought up to code all those
kind of things as an option. But right now there's the amount of actual first floor and second floor classrooms is being right sized to the enrollment of that building minus the tag program is what right now we're running under the assumption of why we're bringing it to
the board in that conversation. If we were to do four more classrooms that increases the budget all those things already for something that if we don't you know plan on doing we don't want that. We're we're making sure we're also keeping some space for a little bit of
growth within town. Also making sure that we have space for storage and things for Lars Hawkstead that really doesn't have now. So that's kind of the question of you know just simply are you going to spend the money for more
renovations of classrooms or not? you know, with that future in mind and and why do that if the board is feeling like it's a good idea to try and create an east and a west side to create more opportunity, more opportunity and those kind of things again that is possible or
nope, we want to go back to central grade and leave it as is in the future. That's where we're at that point of of of decision making now for the board to give that thought to. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, now that we've covered the financial and the
logistical issues, um I think just philosophically, I think, you know, we that's the important most important. Let's let Dan go ahead and go through the rest. And there a lot of data you guys asked for to kind of put into and and go from there. Shout out to Kelly Walter. She helped.
Thank you. Thank you. Um so, just to go through it right now, 98 um TAG students in a program that's lower than traditionally what we have. I think a lot of the obviously families concerned about what the next building is and they would have to move three different buildings in three years if
they decided to elect in the tag. Uh just under 10% for fourth and fifth grade in the district. Uh we talked about some um statistics around economically disadvantaged um students. Right now we're about 15% u 504 plans. It looks like there's two and
then there's four with IEPs. Yeah. I just want to acknowledge I mean what I've observed over the years is that we normally have like up to 110 students. Yes. Like 2728 per classroom, 55 per grade level. So this is a small out probably
an outlier year for sure. Right. Again, it goes to the idea if they're coming in here fourth grade, right? They're at whatever school they're at. I mean, third grade, fourth grade, different school, fifth grade, different school, and then obviously they go to middle school. So it's actually four different schools in four years. So that's a lot of transition.
Sure. To participate in the program itself. So we talk about I think there was some questions too about what is a you know a price tag or financial commitment for the district to host TAG or to have a TAG program. You know as long as our numbers stay close to you know that 28
to 30. I mean that that's our divider anyway when we do missionbased budget. Now, there is the idea that if you were to take those kids and spread them back out into all their other schools, would that push other schools into a section or push other schools into overload? And I think that's such a year-toear. Um, I
think as long as a district, we always keep in mind our 27.8 what our dividers. So, if we keep it 28 or higher, I think that's fiscally responsible as far as a teacher in front of them. And because that would have pushed six more students out to Willow Hill. Exactly.
and and and Westwood's also was was pretty full too. So that's the idea, right? And from year to year, I mean, we could look at every number in every kid, but it doesn't automatically mean that all those schools can absorb a hundred some kids and there'll be no extra sections at those schools, right? There's going to be split classrooms
or more favorite choice. Yes. But then if we' taken 15 of those kids who didn't go into TAG that were offered TAG, it might have relieved some of the congestion in those classes. It could work inversely. Exactly. Then we had another section essential
grade and then and then you get into the the numbers, right? Where you need a number that's pretty much we wanted to divisible by 28, right? So I used to run numbers when we did honors for instance at middle school, right? is that we run the number of the section. You know, you
have 42 kids. 42 is a number that you know fiscally is 21 and 21. So then you start to you want to either fill the section or or move down in the section because 42 is a tough number. So it's a there's some numbers that go into that also to make sure that we're
you know that that responsibility piece with I understand. Yeah. So this has been as far as testing in the district. um we're about 22% of our third graders took the test. I know there's been a lot of discussion about um taking a test and getting the
information out. We do like Dr. Van Wagner mentioned, we do it at the home school. Um try to make it accessible as possible for kids. Um it's a three-day so they do about a half and we do we break it up into three sections about a half an hour to 45 minutes a
day. Yeah. And I mean that that again is just one year of data. We don't know if that's an outlier. Pretty average, but I would say it's pretty average because one thing we can do is we can pull what's what's tough for our data is that we we have to spreadsheet and I can work
with Sophie on this, but the Kogat test and who takes it is stored in the Kogat, you know, that system that we use that supplies us with the licenses for the test. Um, outside of that, when we talk about who gets in and in and the different groupings of kids, that starts getting on spreadsheets. And whenever we
put anything on a spreadsheet, we can't keep in power school. Pulling historical data can be a challenge. It can be done. But like this, for instance, when we compare to past years, we're always around that 25% mark. And I don't know what the magic number,
the ideal number would be for percentages. I don't you know I don't think I think that's highly subjective or whatever but I mean it just does seem to me like one out of five one out of four I guess technically one out of 4.5
students are taking the test. I do think like the public commenter said um my observation over the years is that not every building or every third grade teacher promotes it the same. So, you know, district-wide communication is
great, but that building level newsletter in an weekly email is really, really important for parents, but parents miss, they can't, you know, one mode of communication. It's like, you know, parent can easily miss, but because K through five students come home with paper. I know their backpacks
are stuffed with paper like you know third maybe you know the third grade teachers giving handouts but anyway all this is all just over the years I've heard of you know certain building principles and teachers not promoting it as much as others so just to create
equal opportunity for kids to really reinforce that idea we want to give everybody the opportunity to test there could be kids who are not necessarily doing great with in the classroom room, but they have hidden
talent. They could have that non-verbal side, that spatial, and they could be on the border with the verbal and and math. And I just want to create more opportunities for more kids as part of our equity work. Well, part I just kind of played with some numbers doing nothing else. You
know, I don't watch TV. What are you going to do? Right. So, some of our buildings we teach one and we test one in 20 students. One, the outliers are at one school we teach one in 85 and another outlier we
teach roughly these are very ballparky. Yep. Yep. One in 160. So there's a lot of variance in our testing by building and I understand all populations aren't the same. I'm be first and and resources. I just think there's
a lot of parents that go I don't have the transportation. I don't have that. don't have the and so they just don't even consider having the kid test. So that's what will be interesting in a study if we do an east and a west, you know, and they go, well, the bus
stops just a mile down the road into, you know, the Silver Lake, you know, boundary. I'd be willing to drop them off there, but I'm not driving them all the way into, you know, central grade. And I I I do think there are a fair number of students who just don't test their
families, whether it's an economic issue or we're just staying within our home school. We're good with what the elementary schools are doing and we'll make decisions at the middle school. We're going to see a nudge on numbers on less central grade students going to TAG
next year, more Silver Lake because we provide busing, right? That's the idea. There's I think Central grade, as you can see in all the stats we have, Central grade has a pretty high number of of kids who test. Even the kids who test, I know they're they have a higher
population at the school, but you're going to see that move, right? Because we're no longer having a bus go to central obviously central grade for for TAG and Silver Lake you will. So there's a lot of siblings there, too. So that brings kids. Yes. Yes.
And that's all I mean that's been the case since I was in elementary school. Right. Yeah. So next one we we did look at we kind of stack this one up as far as tested, qualified, accepted. So you get to kind of see that ratio. Always the interesting one here for me is qualified and then actually took the invitation.
And we saw that was a little more this year than in previous years where they did qualified and we had less that accepted as we went down because every person that was um on the wait list got in. So the entire weight list. So if we had our
first 60 then we went down to weight lists and those all also were all accepted. So I think that might have been our location or or not knowing as far as future buildings. And did the the TAG kids comparably do
very similar year? That's that's the case. So even Yeah. So even if you end up with most of your kids coming off the weight list, those those kids continue to shine pretty much in that.
Yes. As far as going for weight, again, the concern is math again. As far as going down the weight list when we talk about qualifying, I mean that because the last thing you want to do is have a kid in the program that ends up not liking school anymore because the math is so hard. So, if we go back to like
what because you mentioned this um Josie just as far as verbal, quantitative, non-verbal, that quantitative score is one of our biggest measures of the three. So, we just don't even if a non-verbal might be through the roof. The problem is is that it doesn't equate out and the TAG teachers that help us
during this process have been doing this, you know, for years and we do have a turnover and we're bringing those other teachers into these meetings as far as as far as how we qualify for TAG. I mean, they they can see it crystal clear as far as those scores go and and who's going to struggle and who's not.
And they're very open at their open house, too, about that, right? Like do you have any data on retention as far as how many kids complete tag? How many kids fourth to fifth? I would just just talking to teachers I say
we're well over 95%. It is like this year I think we have one student who um went from four to five and again we're struggling with the math component um went back to to a fifth grade classroom in central grade. Okay. So that's generally what we see.
It's it's either most of the time it's none. It's like 100%. They start in fourth grade. Now how that moves up. I mean you had some questions about national merit. We that that's a tough one to track as far as going back and because those aren't even marked in power school. We'd have to go actually
back on social media and back five to six, seven, eight years to see that kind of connection. And maybe secondary could talk a little more about it. But what we see, what what I kind of point to is what is our geometry number at? Because in theory, a TAG student, the one class that they would come through if they're
advanced a year is they would take eighth grade geometry. And those numbers would indicate maybe that we do see a dip, right? I think our geometry numbers to speak too far off what actual data is here, but I'd say our geometry at West
and East right now are probably low 20s. uh west metal's higher than east is but because the split isn't 5050 it is not but anyway that retention I had asked for that I mean you know four to five retention is
but I think it's important to like you know when we select when the district selects rising fourth graders for this program you know how good of a predictor are those co-et scores for success and one metric would be well do it's like metriculation you know do they graduate
from the TAG program. And so if it's between 95 and 100%, I think that's just good for the board to know that this program is we don't like is dropping out between fourth and fifth grade. Yeah. And some data just to show that. So this is at three years of NWA where we see
vast majority um high high average. Um same thing with ELA, a little bit different. We still have the vast majority in high average and then proficiency for MSTEP as far as math and ELA mirrors that
I think it's a 96 last year and then a 99 in ELA last year. Yeah. And that 2% would probably be one kid, right? And 4% two kids. So very very small numbers. And that's just on the ELA side.
Yeah. No, I'm really glad that we got this data. It's very telling. And then just off and then historical also to kind of look at that that east west as far as uh students who tested. So I just, you know, added them up after
we went through every school just to give you an idea of our split the idea of splitting east and west um and what that could look like. Central grade is a tricky one, right? Because central grade is in theory an east side school um but they can see West Middle. So, we have a
ton of kids open enroll uh in general, right? West is West is a bigger building. West is about 300 kids bigger than East. They actually hold the same amount, right? They're both built for about 1,500. Um, but a lot of those kids are obviously right there on the line or
downtown. And then we actually see a little bit of influx, I think, back to Central because again, it's that's closer to them as far as schools go. So, but we've blimed that down a lot. a ton, you know. So that'll So what you're saying is, oh, sorry. In
that definition of west, you're not counting what grade school or elementary school they went to at the time they took. I split up. What I did is because generally what we see from central grade just from a middle school is when we see those we that's one of those schools that we pretty intently as far as
enrollment goes. um especially with TAG because we start to build out our seventh grade sections and then we have to mix them in with other seventh graders is that we try to figure out how many are going to east and how many are going to west and usually it's right around a 6040. So when I did these numbers I took to central grade and just
bumped it 60/40 to kind of see where they're coming from. It's general the trend that we see 60% of those go to west and 40% head to east. I just looked up your geometry numbers. You have 42 at West Middle School and 21 at East Middle School. It's almost spot on. Yeah.
Okay. And then what about uh Monasuri? How did they get counted? West or east side? I split them. Okay. 50/50. And Blair as well. Blair. I also split six and six. Yeah. Okay. Blair actually is I could have probably done an eight and four because generally
there are it's a it's more east side kids at Blair actually. I see more. Okay. From the east side. Yeah. Interesting. So it it I mean obviously that breakdown here it makes it look like you know a
westside kid is more likely to test for tag than than the east side and well not necessarily because if you look at the numbers especially of Eastern elementary they had a lot of kids test and qualify and not go not go right this is tested not not
attending right here this is testing just testing not attending and I think again it could be It's going to be interesting when we split to see if these numbers hold. I think it's going to actually it might move back to a more of a 50/50 because the idea of location, right, with the central grade and the west side
with West Middle is that's a family flow, right? That's a flow that's happened historically over years is how they they move through the opener. It kind of brings us back to one of Diane Arnold's points though, and that is whether you want to have more
sessions of tag spread throughout the district. So, you know, we're going we're doubling it right now. If you go east and No, you're not exactly same same number of sections. Yeah, but I'm talking geographically.
You're going from one location to two locations to two locations. That's I'm sorry. Yep. Yep. I know I'm hard to follow. And then, you know, do we have enough possibility to maybe even split it before?
It's something to look at you, you know, and that's something that could like we've talked about that possibility future down the road. And if you had one that you did centrally located back at central grade there there will be room for one class you know like you know from that element like you know that and
you don't have enough to fill a classroom. No, but you know it it history has told us no, but we'll see when this happens and if that happens, it's a conversation that the the the administration board will just have to text, you know, but there's no
indication that tells us that that there's enough demand for that. But if there is, then you you'll you'll you'll look at that or or we could structurally adjust the elementary to fit students needs, right? there are other options to fit a student's academic needs.
We're actually talking about that tag. Is there some ways? So, um I informed the board in my update that um we had Kate uh had the chance to go with us from Long Lake to a a competency based and there was some interesting conversation about a couple schools
there that are running some split multi-age kind of like Monasuri does but allowing kids to maybe move at their own pace and maybe is there a way to advance in math especially with that. So, I think that there's some some things we want to look at also just innovation
wise to see if part of our goals of raising our metrics to raise that bar and and is there ways, you know, to do that that are even innovative yet that's in one yet model and and could we do that and like we were excited about a Long Lake would be a great candidate for
maybe something like that that that allows us something like that. We'll see. And when you look at Willow Hill again, you know, with 20 students, you only have to take what, six more kids from the outside and you could fill
it right there of the students that tested. Yeah. And in Willow Hill, you our biggest struggle is we're very much sizewise locked and we're landlocked. You know, so like like there's, you know, that's a hard spot with that building. Yeah. So,
well, like Trevor's Heights is kind of Well, at least we have some room to expand that. We don't have like, you know, Well, you expanded. You would have to add a whole lot of dirt to a a hill or cut one down or, you know, there's there's some logistic challenges there. Well, for what it's worth, I just have
to say this the district might be looking at this because it's forced to right now with central grade school, but for what it's worth, this is a dream come true for me. This is something I have advocated for for five years that we do have a westside and an east side location because I I just know firsthand
how many families really they struggled with transportation, you know, they just can't make it work with their work schedules. They've they've just given up that opportunity for their kids who got into TAG to drive to Central Grade every day. um you know, other families might like
physically have to sell their house and move into such a great district just to give that opportunity to their kids. Um and that's kind of drastic. So, I just think this is going to not just preserve but potentially grow and and it, you
know, the data tells a great story right now and in the future. That will be the proof in the pudding. But I think it's going to be really exciting to see what can happen here. I just I just want to stress agreed. Um it's still not quite maybe what everybody want with transportation wise. You know, it you do
have to get into a bus stop of you know those two buildings to be able to do it. Again, find a way to find more bus drivers in the future. You know, there's a there's a an ability to have a conversation on something that's more shuttle-wise, but it it does at least
give you at least one more busing area, you know, to be able to drop off into to consider. Yeah, absolutely. The other thing is, you know, we have a tier system for helping kids that are having a hard time struggling. Do we have an ability or this is just
conceptual? No answer. I don't think we're answering definitively anything related to this today. But can we had another tier for the students that are actually needing to
move faster? Otherwise, you're going to lose them to boredom. And yep. And that's that was our conversation. The conference or the meeting we went to was exactly that. Yes. Like how can we move kids at their their speed for some kids need need more time? Some kids need less time.
It can vary over the course of the year. Yeah. And and and and so you know our structures the way they're built of third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade is a little bit anti that personalization. And so, you know, the question is is can
we there there are districts around the country that are are innovating some models that allow less rigidity between grade levels. And it's just a group of kids together multi-age that can move at
that pace. And so that's what we're interested in piloting whether something like that could look like, you know, especially when we have splits. Can we use splits maybe to our advantage in that way? You know, with some teachers and aids working and have kids not have
artificial barriers necessarily of, you know, I I may be a third grader but reading at a fourth grade level, but my math is still at a third grade level. How can we group and restrategize that? And so that was exactly the the the cohort of this group, the innovation we're a part of called the future
learning council. And we're going to continue to look at are there ways to maybe create that middle between our traditional our legacy tag. Is there somewhere in the middle here? And we think there might be. So we're going to look at Yeah, I've I've been thinking about that. And when you think about the old
one room school thing, I mean that ultimately it was a multi-age precisely what it was kids all over the place and kids that were very capable a lot of times were subinstructing the other kids. I mean
it just moved all over and it created a different kind of community. Yep. An educational community. So we're going to take a look at that. Yeah. And I Sorry. [Music] All right, Dan or Jesse, was there
anything more you wanted to add there? Okay. In terms of data, I I will share with you all. I did crunch some numbers about the National Merit Scholars this year, but I don't have prior years obviously, but I can share that of the
four semi finalists this year, one was in TAG. of the 17 commended, eight were in TAG. So that averages out nine out of 21 kids total, 43% were in TAG just this
year. So I, you know, that's just if we were, if we had any kind of like longitudinal data like their eighth and 11th grade SAT scores, PSAT scores, you know, it would just kind of show what that long-term investment might yield.
Um, and I don't love having just one year's worth of data, but I thought that was worth sharing. Only 43% 43% of the 17 National Merit Scholars. Yeah. So, just less than half
less than half were TAG students, but TAG students are less than 10% of the whole district. So, okay. Next step. Okay. Uh little overview just about the assessment. Nothing here I think that I
need to read for you. I think most of you guys um are pretty seasoned with the MSTEP, but um thought I would include that on here so you have an idea about what the test looks like. Any questions about any of these details here? No.
Okay. Uh a little chart here to let you know again and the public what grade levels are assessed. Um, I think it's pretty clear on the red and the green there. Um, this is a once a year test that's done in the spring for all of our students.
I love the chart. This is a good easy way to see it. It's for new board members. There you go. I can make really clear charts and add that to my for a while. Does have a little holiday flare to it.
Okay. Um this I I'm a big fan of of I agree with you, Josie, trends of data, right? Not looking at one year. So this is some trends for you on um four years worth of data. It's got five grade levels across the bottom. There's a lot here. Um but you can kind of see the
proficiency rates in reading over time, different cohorts of kids, and then that red dot stick signifies where the state average was that year. Again, I think one of the biggest things that, you know, Dan and I wanted the board and the public to know, you know, are we happy when we see a number like
50% of our kids are proficient at reading? Nobody is happy. That's nobody wants that. Um, we are well above the state average and the region average um as well. And and I I would say that MSTEP is an interesting score a test. as a classroom teacher of 12 years, if I
had a test that kids got 50% on all the time, I probably would adjust my test. But that's just me as a classroom teacher, you know. No, I 100% agree with you on that, having been a classroom teacher. So, and something that the curriculum team has discussed, um, Britney and I, Jesse,
is the, um, the 49% at third grade, right? We saw an 8% drop. Other grades maintained or grew. So we've been kind of racking our brains to figure out what exactly obviously with teaching and testing we have thousands of variables. One thing we did look at as a state as a
whole dropped for third grade. We did look at the cohort also because their math also dropped. So if we were to see like for instance an 8% drop in reading their math goes up and or the state would go up that would mean probably it's not a cohort issue but we think that there is a relationship here with
cohort and we think you know Britney and I talked about what they received one uh grades one and two and how they really went down to some uh we focused more on foundational reading skills and how that could have impacted them as third graders. We had some feedback from
principles because what they do is they get data back from MSTEP um kind of on the multiple choice the comprehension items first and then on the back end of it they get the writing and they thought their scores were higher before that writing came in. So and we we've also
heard feedback from CLA that the rigor level right now with writing is far beyond what we've seen in the past. So hopefully that starts to address that and plug that hole and we're able to differentiate it from AI for third grade. Right now for
elementary we're okay but we're one step ahead of them. So did you want to say anything about this? I know you had some notes too. Yeah. So I just think just you know we did some really deep dives into other data sets we had to and I think for third grade it's really important to note that people call it the pivot year
for a reason, right? because you're really like taking that opportunity of kindergarten through 2 grade where you're really focusing on building those foundational skills. Um, and they're really having to be really automatic and incredibly accurate as they make really that complex shift to really like
knowledge like really complex knowledge um text um specifically on a summitive test like MSTEP. And so if students aren't really uh fluent in their word recognition skills, that's going to dramatically impact their ability to
access the complex texts to which they see on state tests such as MSTEP. Um and so I pulled some AMS web plus data for that third grade cohort in particular um because and we'll get into M or get into AMS as well plus I think in um some subsequent sessions. But really we want
to see that oral reading fluency for those students be at the 50th percentile or higher. Um particularly the 75th where the K where students can actually make that shift into focusing on making meaning from what they read. And that particular cohort of students had 28%
below the 25th percentile in the spring. So a huge chunk of students who are still not automatic and potentially not accurate when they are reading grade level texts um in comparison to the norm across the nation. So just some some other correlation with that particular
group of students which may have contributed or one of the variables that contributed to that decline or that decrease. And I will add on seventh grade, right? That's the kind of trend we like seeing. When I pulled apart and was looking at the East Middle School, West Middle School, Monastery is so
small, they don't have the numbers to impact. It really was a gain at West Middle School. We've seen East Middle School scores be pretty consistent, but these last few years, West Middle School scores have definitely had a positive trend in that direction, especially for reading. So that's kind of how they're
overall trended that way. So, I heard you all attribute, you know, some success to curriculum. What else? I mean, new teachers, professional learning. Are there uh instructional coaches, behavioral coaches, other you know inputs that
Yeah, I think the instructional coaches so we've changed again and some of it was based on some some at risk funding that um was budget that we lost where we talked we've talked about the free and reduce but as far as structure goes it may have helped us focus instructional
coaching on instruction. Um most of our schools if not all have a halftime instead of a full-time and we noticed like when instructional coaching started at the district there was quite a there was a lot of behavior that was included into that even to the point of you know
response to behavior not necessarily even coaching the classroom but part of behavior response teams and now that we've moved 100% Britney's done a fantastic job of working with coaches she meets with them on a regular cadence that they are 100% now doing coaching cycles that are teaching and learning
within the classroom. So that's kind of where we shifted. Um again with all the variables that pinpoint everything we want to see in Jesse and I talk about strategic plan and that idea of upward trend that's where we can I think harness all these variables and see an
impact instead of just saying this does it or this does it. You know coaching curriculum professional learning organization in the district efficiencies communication. These are all the things we're trying to work on and hopefully those variables together we see that upward trend.
Wanted to give one nod here to to examining that subgroup part of this was a test for myself to see if I could pretty efficiently pull the data. Yes, I could. That was good. Just so we know because as that's a subgroup. One of the things is can we pull the data? Do we have the reports built? We work with Sophie on that to make sure that we can
monitor things, right? Um so this is just last year's data, right? And I pulled it apart with your economically disadvantaged and you're not economically disadvantaged. And then I pulled apart the state in the same exact way. One thing just to give it just to give some overview for reading the state
difference between those two groups is about 30% across all of those grade levels. Again, one year of data here. Our difference was about 25%. So although our gap exists, it's larger than you know the board had like that Dan and I would like that I think I know our principles would like it is less
than the gap at the state. One thing that's interesting though to notice is that our kids who are not economically disadvantaged outperform the state about 7% last year. Um but our non I'm sorry our economically disadvantaged students outperform the state's economically
disadvantaged by about 12%. So actually our kids who are um in that group that subop are not only outperforming the state but outperforming the state more than are not economically disadvantaged kids are outperforming the note economically
disadvantaged kids at the state level. which was an interesting in the third grade when when we looked into those numbers more deeply that that percentage drop we saw the majority of that percentage drop was in the note economically disadvantaged our
economically disadvantage from from the previous from two years ago to last year was pretty much uh on level. It's our note economically uh disadvantage that we saw that that about a 5 to 6% drop. just an interesting point that we throw
into kind of our thoughts and another variable. Why would that happen and how can we support? Here's our math uh data. I will tell you just um from an angle of math, we've we've have continued to look at fourth grade. We know that there are some
standards gaps there. You see that's the closest again outperforming the state all the years across the board, but you see that fourth grade is like that closest. Um, and that that's really that year that they should be they learn the multiplication in third grade. That's the next skill they pick up there in the
fall. Um, and by fourth grade now they're doing it across fractions, across um double digits. They're um expected now to start working on the opposite of multiplication, which is division, which is just it's a tough concept for kids. So,
it's a it's work with fluency. I know that Aaron Sorenson is our content leader for math and last year she started additional programming just around fluency as Jesse has mentioned moving into fourth grade long division fractions. Not having that fluency just obviously stalls out. So we did see a
slight uptick you know that 2% we're going to celebrate but then again we're looking for upward trend. Just curious on both math and reading. How did 2021 look? And I think about that because we were still in COVID, but there was testing. So, was that, you
know, like similar to the 2022 year? It was pretty similar to be honest. I um felt like the fifth year made it really crowded. So, we we did went with four years of the data for this. So, that's fine. I just wonder if it was significantly different. was not
um also had the subgroup population here in mathematics. Just to note again, state difference across all four five grade levels was about 31%. We were about 25%. So again, our gap is less. Again, our note economically
disadvantaged only outperformed about 2% or right at as you see in some of those areas. um as opposed to economically disadvantaged students who outperform the state at closer to 8%. That's an average across those five. You see like fourth grade you're right at where the
state was performing there. And then we move on to social studies which is only assessed in three of our grade levels. Um so you can see those again how our students performed and then the state average there. I will
tell you, go ahead. Is that partly curriculum? Yes, for sure. For sure. And then I would also say 11th grade is a really you look at our if you look at our SAT like you know which is math and
reading writing which does include non-fictional test does include some um social studies concepts and ideas and um readings and writing from that I would say content area and genre. Um, as opposed to MSTEP, our kids, uh, it's a very hard to motivate a junior who the
MSTEP means absolutely nothing to besides I have to get this done as part of my requirement. They use the scores for nothing as far as college entry. They're not reported on anything. Um, I was actually sort of surprised that we were close to where the state average
was. Um, but yeah, that's a tough one just to motivate kids to make meaning in that. Same with the signs. And it shouldn't be because right now there is so much that people are reacting to and what they're reacting to
is built follow this general area which means somehow there's not some good communication with discussion that's going on and that something I'm hoping.
Same with science. Yeah. I would just say Is that what you think? Yeah, I I don't know if these data points are the best to assess our instruction, our curriculum in these two disciplines. I would look more towards how are we doing in our AP courses? How are we doing in reading and writing
across all of our areas? How are kids making sense of things just like you were talking about? How are they understanding one historical situation and um event link to another one, right? and and how do they use evidence and text to site s
sources, those types of things. I don't necessarily know if MSTEP is the best assessment as to how we're doing in those two areas, but it's one. Yeah. And then I mean I think you've you've uh hinted at this just we talked
about it last month and months prior about all the testing for the fifth, eth, and 11th graders in particular. I guess fifth and eighth because they're taking four subjects in in MSTEP plus a lot of NWA and by and they take the
science of the social studies last right always last and I have definitely heard kids tell me not just my own but like birthday parties whatever interactions like you know they're they're just done and they're like they just hit option multiple choice
option number A repeatedly and then they're done in half an hour and the kid who's like actually trying to take the test is like wait how is everybody done and you know somehow they're also getting the message like it doesn't really matter so I mean that is I think something in terms of messaging from our
teachers like to impart that hey just still give it your best shot so that we don't look like you know we aren't doing a great job with social studies and statistically they should mark Cam I don't I don't actually know that's Exactly. What dance class did you find
that out? Just for the record here. Um, lots and lots of great stuff to celebrate here. Um, and so Dan and I'll flip through some of these for you. Central, we highlighting our English language learner program. Um, this is
Kathleen Schneider at Central Grade School doing some instruction with our English language learners. And then this is a shot from Miss Taplan's math class over at West Middle School. Really working on engaging um our students especially during a topic
that's mathematics not necessarily intuitively to be engaged in. So Willow Hill, we have some uh math and action and CLA. Uh, third graders played long vowel baseball as part of the
TCAP's new CKLA curriculum. Long vowel baseball. Yes. Did somebody strike out? I know. Home runs. Uh, we are we are really proud this year. We have four TCAP semi finalists.
Um, these students are now in the competition um to see if they can move on to become finalist. They submit essays, uh, portfolio, uh, their transcript, their counselors do some work. So, four of those students there and two different pictures with that's
Ben Burgerer. He's not a national merit semi finalist. This, but he does have almost the exact same potent. Burger's face always looks like he's those roller coaster picks, you know, when you get um, and then at Central High School, we
had five commended scholars. So, these are students who scored in the top 3% nationally. Not quite that top one or half a percent to be a semi, but just an incredible feat for these five students here. And then West just had a banner day. I mean, man, they had 12 students
who earned that commended scholar. Yeah, what a strong class they have over there. Um, so some familiar faces there, I think. So, both schools. Mhm. And again, half of these kids were in TAG West and two of the five at
Central High for the committee. So huge honors for those kids. Congratulations. And we did I mentioned fluency that um Aaron Sorson was working on was math and this is the exact fluency kits that they're working with here at Corte to help drill into that and kind of expand
a little bit on our curriculum. Uh, here we have some East Middle School students working on can Halloween candy be endangered in orangutans. I don't know what they found out on their conclusions, but that's pretty interesting. Based on this, I'm going to be giving
out potato chips instead of candy. I'm concerned. I know of candy. You might be Maybe they don't get enough of it. That's what's the problem. Uh, Books from Birth uh contacted me. They're working with AM Rotary. They
work with um Dolly Parton Imagination Library giving books to students um at Mson right in the delivery room and then not in the delivery room but yeah we're going to give you this four times.
Four times something I would do. That and the Bradley method just get their mind off of it. Right. We'll take the baby down. Next slide. Next slide. Do your books first. Anyway, they did come in and talk to our elementary principles and our organizing
volunteers uh in every school in the in classroom. So, it's nice to make that connection Sunrise Rotary to our elementary principles to be able to make this happen in buildings. And I think they were at the full board and did a public comment, too. Yes. Just such a really cool program. I'm part of Sunrise Rotary and so I see them
talk a lot about this and um just a great option for all of our families in this region to get those books in their kids' hands and I would say they've been a proponent to help support uh when kids are about to turn three uh and have their very first IEP. I bring a book to their home
every time when I visit them and welcome to the TCAPS family. So huge proponent of them. Um, couple little just fun videos we threw in here. Uh, this is Central High Schools. We're just coming off of our
two homecoming weeks. So, it's a little snapshot of, you know, this is that idea of building community service, right? Our community feel, community culture in your school and how do you make kids feel like they belong and have a place? Um, having these types of events does
does matter and plays into that. So, little video here from Central. Um, and then on the next slide here, we've got Wes video here too from just some fun activities for students to enjoy their school community. So,
and then next up for our high schools, they're going to be gearing up for Patriot game. that is the that week is sort of that week of October 20th. I know we've done um a little bit of a communication about saving the date on that. There'll be more information you'll see coming out about that. And we've worked really hard, you know, our
student senate both schools work together to choose who will be receiving the funds that'll be coming out hopefully this week. Um I know they're meeting together really to celebrate our community um and to make it a Traverse City event. um as much as even though there's a score at the end of the night,
but really how do we have fun together? So, Constitution Day around our different elementary schools um September 17th, so specifically on this day, part of a state requirement, but regardless, uh students learn different items around
the Constitution and uh and history. Awesome. Next one, we had our Detroit Red Wings camp at Traverse Heights. So, they come in, uh, every kid, I believe, gets a t-shirt and then they go through some drills with some Detroit Redwing players. So, great opportunity for those
kids to to kind of meet some of those people and and get some physical activity. Another highlight here of our ESL uh, class. So, this would be Amanda's counterpart across town. Um, just getting these kids out, exposing them to different things. Um, they've got a
great, you know, access to the botanical gardens across the street there. So, Oh, I'm sorry, Dan. There was one back one. And Long Lake introduced their house system. That was last Friday. Um, I was part of that assembly as far as they got
their their wheel there as the signing points and uh this is it right here. Thanks for including this. This is wonderful. Sorry, the volume's Dan's getting assigned to a house. Watch this wheel now. This reminds me of
uh Price's right. Didn't quite make it into the other right here. [Music] You awesome. Lightkeepers. Yeah, the old lightkeepers. You get a t-shirt. You didn't wear it today.
I did not. No. Well, it's polo today. Try to change it up. Well, great. Excellent meeting all. I know we went long today, but lots of really good information and discussion and we appreciate all the data you pulled together for us. Um, and with
that, uh, I know there was some giddiness at the end as we approach the twohour mark. Our next board curriculum committee meeting will be Tuesday, October 28th at 8:30 a.m. here at Glen Lumis building. And
with that, we are adjourned. Thank you. Get you.