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[Music] Welcome the audience. 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 has set a time this time
for public comment. Kelly, it looks like we do not have any public comments. Okay, great. Well, then we will move on to procedural items. First up are our draft committee meeting minutes from April 1st. Um, are there any changes to
the draft meeting minutes? I just had one question and that is it's going to be on page the last page and it's where it says um the chairman suggested the board keep this information in mind for strategic plan work. And I was thinking
that actually all of us were thinking that as well. So the committee versus board something. So that it's the committee chair but it's the board in the the committee in support of the chair. Yeah. Something
along that line. So that it just says yeah we're all kind of thinking that that was important. I think probably the notes just reflected who said it versus But you're saying like everybody supports that? Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Anything else? Okay. All right. So, with that that amendment, um, we can ask that the minutes be
revised as suggested and we can move on sort of to the TCAST district course catalog updates. But since there are none, I think we can let's move on to and actually I wanted to ask
procedurally do we even need to add that to the consent calendar uh the consent agenda because it's a standing agenda item but when there are no web piece I don't even know the only reason we do it is a little bit just always a reminder
because if we ever mess up then it we could get in pupil accounting trouble. Okay. So, the the district lost a million dollars before I got here in an issue with not having an updated course catalog. Yeah. And so, since I've been here, we've just done it
that way. The board always affirms, everybody asks the question. Okay. And it's always there from that as a matter of record as as opposed to looking like it's an oversight. It is because and every time we do it, we don't just approve that actual class. We actually reapprove the entire course catalog. And that from a pupil accounting standpoint,
I never have to worry that because you have to prove that the board approved the course catalog whenever there's a change. So that's why so you don't have to, but that's my we'll move the TCAPS district course catalog 2024 to 2025 to
the consent agenda with no changes. Right. Okay. Um, next up is the date change proposal for the August 26th board commi curriculum committee meeting. And I'm going to defer to Miss H Hotton and M and Mr. Tyworth on that.
Yeah, we were just thinking as it landed also this year that uh usually board um curriculum lands the week that teachers are back and that Tuesday in particular this year is going to be um staff meetings and buildings and Jesse and I
like to be out at those buildings if possible. Well, it's just a big day. First day teachers are back on that Tuesday. So, backing it up a week would be would be nice for us. Could we even move it
forward to the second of September? That's cutting it close to the full board meeting. Our issue is that we don't have items for the packet in time. Yeah. In time for the board to review before the full board meeting. You could switch it to a different day right there if you wanted. I mean,
there's lots of options, but ahead does squeeze us. Not impossible, but it does squeeze us. Like even the 20th or the I mean, the week of the 18th, I don't know what you got, but like Monday the 18th would be fine. Monday, just that Tuesday
cabinet, all of us, Dr. Man Wagner, or or we could go Monday. Monday the 25th. Monday 25th. So the teachers are back for their professional development, right? On starting Tuesday. Yes. Yeah. And then the 25th in the evening, we have a study session,
right? Yeah. But could do it before. Okay. I'm fine with anything. How about the calendar? I mean, well, not necessarily. our new proposed date for the study session. That was the is the that was a
strategic plan one that we had as a third. So, we really have to talk about that one. The board may choose to keep that, but okay. I just wouldn't want to say guarantee. But that that doesn't curriculum timing doesn't
interfere the study session and vice versa. So, okay. Um, what would be preferable for you all knowing you have to prepare for professional development week? Would you like to have it the week of eight the 18th or Monday the 25th?
That Monday is good with me. The 25th would work. Okay. How about you, Beth? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So, we'll just move it back a day then to Monday the 25th. And do we want to move at 8:30 a.m.?
I think we talked last time about changing our that's something you got to discuss community meetings going forward. Yeah. To 8:30 a.m. Cuz we were started at 8:30 and then we moved to 8:15. Right. Because Holly's schedule.
Mhm. Okay. So, we'll do Monday. It sounds like Monday, August 25th at 8:30 a.m. While we're on that note, do we want to move at least as of right now to 8:30 for moving forward?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was I couldn't remember if we talked about that a month ago. We did not. So, um, but yeah, I think that would probably work better. I know in the winter it it's it's pretty dodgy getting here knowing that you'll have a new member may have to revisit
but as of right now we'll plan on next month being at 8:30 and and then continuing unless something changes. Yeah. Is that okay with uh everybody else in the administration too? Okay. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Then we'll move
on to the field trip request for the German exchange program. Sure. I am actually going to highlight this later on at the end, but um this is an exchange program we've been having going on with our German teacher Carrie Levante who's over at West Senior High. So, this is a field trip request for
next summer. So, uh she did Carrie travels extensively, has a lot of connections over in Germany and has taken students um for quite a few years over there and it's been a pretty cool experience for us. So, good. Yeah, I'm very supportive of
the program. Um, I think she runs it every two years, every other year. Um, and for for students who've completed German three, I believe that fairly advanced level. Um, the only thing that caught my eye was it looks like she
they're asking for permission for up to 15 students, but then in the cost estimate it had only 13. So she had like the co total cost estimate divided by 13 and then it came out to nearly 4,000 but
if obviously you bump that up to 15 if you divide by 15 it's going to be slightly lower and right now the cost is 4,300 estimated. So I was curious about you know that difference. Does anybody know why? I think she was just sort of
being a lot of our adviserss would rather tell families this is the ceiling of what the trip will cost. If we get more kids then the cost will go down. Um I believe that's what she was thinking about. Okay. And and the other thing is
do we have a a scholarship fund for kids whose families might not be able to raise that kind of amount? Is it pretty steep? We don't. TCAPS does not um that doesn't mean we don't have connections with other area organizations that might
look to scholarship a student. Uh we also work with families to do payment plans on that and we do have a lot of our adviserss who do international trips that are this costly. We'll work on fundraising opportunities too like help them organize some type of a fundraising. Um the nice thing is when
part of the reason why they plan these over a year in advance is to help families sort of put like spread that cost out and help kids you know who might be working towards part of that as well. But we do not TCAPS does not own a scholarship. Well, you know this is something we are
talking about. We are talking about you know the the Washington DC trip. you know, there's kids that get to go and don't and there's a real equity issue with that. And um you know, it as as I've talked with all of you about trying to look at that philanthropic arm of our
organization that like is this something like for some of these, maybe not all, but at least some like the Washington DC trip is one that a lot of schools, you know, are able to fund and do for every kid. I think, you know, I I think as we
continue to look at our resources and the inequities that we have as a district compared to others that we just, you know, like like we like, you know, with athletics, for instance, we we have a large p, you know, pay to participate that our area districts don't. Yeah. You know, and like like
across the board, there's those kind of things. And so I think the SSN does a good job picking up where they can, but I think that really starting to maybe identify some of these and some goals and a way for us to have a scholarship fund or something like that. But how do
we fund that? Like it is something in the future for us I think to talk about. Yeah. I mean with LEAP we have the full price and then the discounted rate and then you know for those who qualify for reduced right lunch and then we have the
even I think an even further reduced rate for free people who qualify for free but SSM's covering that you know so that's less for other things you know and and and like I said and so I think it's it's just having a very
intentional conversation an intentional structure those kind of things for these kind of things moving forward that I think collectively as a cabinet we're we're discussing and think that there's some inequities there that we we need to try and look at some structure and find
a way. And I I do wonder like with Rotary Charities being so involved in international exchange programs if they might help. They don't do a lot unfortunately. They kind of really are very structured in their funding and like seating and and you know like
systems change. Not really. they don't really give that way unfortunately. Um but there are others there and like I said there may be phil you know people in the philanthropic world but they don't know you know I think that that's conversations I've had with you know
continuing to have with all of you is is if they don't know they don't give and so I think we've got some work to do in really identifying some of these pillars and I think this is one of them definitely the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation I know they're a
great partner to I think it's a good conversation for but does just to that point does the community foundation give directly to TCAPS? It depends on what it is. You know we have we have a few things but not a lot like and I think that's worth exploring. I think there's
opportunities and I think there's there's a shift in in culture of of supporting directly to schools versus supporting organizations that support our kids. So, I you know, I've talked about this with you a long time and I'm excited uh especially if it helps to support those kids further from
opportunity. I'm I think we're ready for it and I think we have a powerful story to tell. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think um probably goes without saying we're all in support of this program moving forward to the consent calendar, but you have to go
through finance committee as well. So, all right then. Um, moving on toformational items, we've got the board curriculum learning series and focusing on student assessments this month. Everyone's favorite topic, student
assessments. She loves it. I'll text her quick. Um, no, we thought we we'd sort of break a little bit of this down for you guys before we show you. We do have a proposal for what we're recommending for our student assessments um for this next school year. for a little bit of a
change, but I thought we'd start with what does uh the Michigan Department of Education require for us to do? Um list is really long here, but keep in mind that not every kid does all of these on this list, right? Um so like the PSAT,
SAT is just that's a grade specific one there. um our my access one that is specifically for students who are not on the diploma track. They're on a certification track that aligns with um their goals and their IEPs there. Our
WEDA is for our our EL students. That is a requirement that we have to give that. So these are all required assessments. Um that top one is that literacy and math assessment um that we uh we have a list that we're allowed to choose different programs that we can do that.
that has to be to monitor the learning um through our students. You guys are familiar with MSTEP and PSAT. Any questions about this slide? I don't think these are any surprises for you guys. Okay,
great. And then Dian's going to talk a little bit about Okay, so what is best practice recommend? Right. I like to start there, too. So, yeah. So, four things we look at. Um the idea of a balance system. So the idea of the formative summitive assessments um and
the interim assessments, you know, that summitive assessment what we look like uh with MSEP when we talk about NWA or AS web, those are more of the formative and interim assessments that can inform instruction. Well, that summitive assessment we look at at the district
level um create our our uh strategic plan goals around um help in inform long-term curriculum purchase. Um that's a lot of of what we see there. Um also we always want to have some kind of literacy focus, right? That's our a lot
of our um assessments in elementary are around literacy. Um and really dig down to, you know, those five components of li literacy and and evaluating each one on a regular basis. And then last but certainly not least, is to limit over testing. That's kind of why we're here
today is the idea to look at that big picture of testing and our kids are being tested a lot. We continue to add and we're looking for opportunities to now start to take away a little without detracting from that data that we need
um like I said to inform instruction and to grow our students. Yeah. And keep in mind too when a student is taking an assessment they are practicing the skills that should be corresponding to their grade level too, right? It is good for us to engage our students in deliberate academic practice in an
assessment is a good way to see you know what is a student able to independently know and able to do um for not only the teacher but also for the student themselves and to strengthen their skills. So one problem I have though is most of the testing is is multiple
choice you know so you can't always see how they process the information that they have. Uh, so I think that that is really one of the flaws that we've gone to in testing and I understand why it's a lot easier. You're dealing with
discrete things that can easily be uh identified as being right or wrong. So I I understand that, but I think that that's a bit of a problem. And then the other thing that occurred to me was if you don't read
well, how do you do well on the math test, you know, and so one thing is a little bit soft automatically you're you're going to stumble twice when you get the other thing. Yeah. So first response is both the MSTEP and the PSAT
do all have open-ended questions. So it's not all 100% multiple choice. multiple choice is a component of it, but they do have some open-ended on both of those assessments. Um, and then for the second part, any of our students who do have a learning disability in reading, a lot of times they'll do use
text to speech for the math portion. So, it is read to them for exactly what you're trying to get at. We want to know how their math skills are, not I couldn't even read the question. How do I assess what my math skills are at? In addition to that, there are she also talks special ed about other special
populations like our EL students. So now they're taking their MSTEP. MSTEP is added over the last couple years. They call them a stack. The accommodation is called stack testing which they have the ability to learn in their their current languages is for mathematics, right? Because we don't want to assess reading
if they can't read. That's what we're that has. So be in Spanish. Yeah. the math portion would be so them are actually testing their mathematic ability not how to read how to read English and a lot of the you know we use when I used to take the those standardized tests you know the old
meeps unlike now these tests are adaptive so even though they're multiple choice which is an obviously best case scenario an NWA and I think this has been explained before that when you get a question wrong or right the test actually adapts there's no two students in the room taking the same test their
questions that they get are based on how how many right or wrong they get and continue to challenge them or continue to go down um till you hit where they are to exactly where they're at in in many different categories. Yeah, there's a lot of uh tests are staggered that
way. But then I also heard and and correct me, I mean I simply haven't taken a third grade test in a number of years. Um but they said that they'll read to them what in second grade but they won't necessarily read to them for
the third grade test. Is is there a a plateau in there? There is. So in NWA we actually have the there's a there's a K2 test and then a 25 test and then a 6A test for NWA. um in TECAPS we decided to
start uh them reading the own test starting in second grade and everybody doing the same thing. This is something that we've gone back and forth on um with the with the idea that we want the same of the data coming through on the same kids so that we can actually
compare apples to apples because if you have some buildings decide well we want our second graders to hear it and we have some buildings say well we want some of our kids to read it but in our board meetings or we're looking at data for curriculum or we're trying to support missionbased budget uh with
reading intervention the scores don't differentiate who's reading it and who's not. So we decided TCAPS at 25 they have to read the test and that does give us a little more accuracy on where they are with their reading skills more than their listening skills.
25 they read the test. K1 it's read and there'll be some kids I'm sure they just hit the wall on that. they struggle and so that's you know that that's a tough one as far as kids who struggle with reading
trying to force through a test right and figure out where they land but it's still data even and it's data we use in an IEP so if they are in the second percentile obviously they struggled mightily to read the test but we still have that data that we need right in a
PLA in an IEP to provide services if we don't have that and that test is read to them and they come out in the NWA and reading on the 35th percentile, they might not qualify for the services they need. And that's why we focus on literacy, early literacy skills with
younger students. Yeah. And it applies you we all know that applies across the four core, right? Without that you you don't have that baseline to, you know, to be successful in mathematics, to explore reading and history, etc. Yeah, there's a lot of upstream thinking with that, right? teaching kids how to read
early and us monitoring that and making sure they're getting those skills is going to pay dividends down the road. So, yeah, I just um also concerned about kids that basically fail a little bit too early and and that is a whole
different issue. But you're also concerned about that because what is it? Patty says that one of the greatest predictors of success is a confidence that you can do it. So that one's a hard one.
Thank you for that background, y'all. Yeah. And and gonna ask Miss K just to expand a little bit on this slide here. Yeah. So Dan mentioned a little bit with regards to when we look kind of about broad research that need for that balance assessment system. So what the Michigan Department of Education did was
take that research and essentially provide guidance for districts on how to build or ensure that we have components that kind of um go across those four main buckets of a balanced assessment system. And it's really under the guise of the need and recognition that there
isn't one assessment that's going to be able to provide a full picture of student growth and achievement. and that need to have those multiple data points over the course of of a year and beyond to ensure that we really have the most accurate picture we can um of the skills and understandings that students glean
over the course of their educational experience. And so what MDE did was essentially provide guidance in ensuring that districts have identified assessments that fall into these four buckets of a diagnostic assessment, formative assessment, interim benchmark, and then sumitive. And you'll see kind
of going from left to right, they really categorize it more so into leading and lagging indicators. And really that leading indicator is those assessments are assessments for learning. So that data is going to be utilized to actually make instructional adjustments and
intentional planning with regards to instruction. Where the further we go to the right, we're looking more at those lagging indicators, which is really those assessments of learning. So, how are students able to apply and transfer those skills and strategies that have been explicitly taught over the course
of the year on more of those summitive assessments through PSAT, SAT, MSTEP, and then for some of our students, my access? Could you just speak a little bit more about the Ames Web Plus? Yep. um and how
what unique um you know testing does it offer compared to NWA and so on. Yeah, so Ames plus is um plays quite an integral role I think um in terms of those early literacy skills we're talking about um
just previously. Um, so NWA is not going to measure whether or not a student is able to actually um uh accurately identify without listening accurate letter sounds, accurate letter naming, oral reading fluency, all of those precursor
foundational skills that are necessary to actually make meaning when they're reading, which is what we usually see when we're looking at NWA scores. Um, and so it's that additional layer that says what are do our kids have that solid foundation of those foundational
skills for accessibility to actually be able to access the text to then essentially kind of shift their their uh their cognitive bandwidth and to actually understanding what they're reading. Um so we utilize um at the
elementary level in particular those skills to actually form more skills-based groups of if we notice a lagging skill in a student's um uh some of those precursor foundational skills, we're actually able to better align and target intervention to remediate those
skills necessary so that we are developing those fluent readers. So yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say it's a similar concept to Delta math, right? Well, we'll deal well we have NWA that gives us a large score and to you can go down to a band.
Teachers need to go down even further than that, right? To look at the actual skill that the that the student needs support at. So we can have the precise intervention. So Delta Math does the same thing is that they get it down to like five different actual um standards.
A standard of let's say two digit two-digit addition, right? So, we know that we're going to bring that student in for two weeks, work with that two-digit addition, see that they're proficient in it, and then move on to to another standard. So, it's that kind of that that laser focus that really helps.
We we're filling holes, right? As far as where they're at. If there's a whole lot of holes, and they might need more support, that's tier three. But that's what that's the essence of intervention, right? is we're looking for where things that they missed in their education so we can fill them so that they're able to build larger concepts on top of those
those standards. Two questions. One, does that mean that they have fewer quizzes uh in their their classroom because they're tested so much, you know? And secondly, it almost seems like you'd
have a fluid grade, you know, so that you have all the second graders that are tested using the same tests and the kids that need to focus, you could have a couple in Miss Jones class, five in Miss Brown's class, 16 in Miss Little's
class, and you combine all those kids together for a time to do that particular math class. Right. That's correct. Britney could probably talk to it as she actually lives it at Blair is a targeted intervention time. So yeah, so a lot of
our district or a lot of our elementary buildings um have set aside um common grade level differentiated blocks and so essentially for anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes a day all third graders have an opportunity to get what they need in terms of either remediating or extending
their skills. Um, and so the data sets, particularly with Delta Math and AMSA pluses, it allows us to have um more similar skills and needs because especially on NWA, you might have four kids that are at the same score, but they all have varying needs that are
contributing to the results of that score. And so as Dan spoke with Delta Math and I think it's similar to AMSA plus is those data sets allow us to specifically and more and better pinpoint those skills so that we can form um more aligned groupings to your
point of I can pull two kids from one third grade class and three kids from another that have the similar need and I can better align an intervention and provide it during that sacred 30 to 45 minute block of time. And then they
would get another testing basically to see how they and then that block would fill differently. Yes. Y depending on the testing. So how frequently would that So AMSO plus is administered three times a year similar to NWA. So fall,
winter, and spring. It's also normed like NWA and it's nationally normed. So it's in comparison to their peers nationally. Um, and so what's also nice with AMSA Plus is that it's not only a benchmarking platform or a screening platform, it also has embedded progress
monitoring. So you can set individually specific goals for a student based on what their baseline score is. Um, and so that's nice to be able to track progress over time of how are kids actually able to apply and transfer the skills that
they're learning in that intervention period. Um, and so usually for the progress monitoring data that's reviewed once formally in between those benchmark periods. So we have as much fluidity as we possibly can and we avoid kind of
this um quote unquote like life sentence so to speak. We want to be able to exit kids from intervention as as quickly as we possibly can um just to kind of remediate those skills um to fill those gaps. And then how what grades does that
uh cover? And then how long have we been doing this? Kindergarten through fifth grade um for um AMSA plus. And I believe Delta Math can be administered kindergarten through fifth, but it's most primarily utilized first through 5th because there aren't kindergarten
aligned lessons to the results of that data. Please correct me if I'm wrong. No, that's correct. Kindergarten's correct because they're just in kindergarten. So, as far as what they don't know, they don't know type thing. Um, in ASW Webb, as far as K5, this is the first year everybody has done it.
We've done um we've worked with special ed education students with Ames Web um with and Ames Webb does have a math component um that they use Ames Webb for for special education students. This year is the first year we've done everybody K5 on Ames Webb um to more
properly see where where interventions can be placed. And and when she says progress monitoring, keep in mind that doesn't mean that kid is sitting down for a what you think of as a traditional test, a lot of times what that looks like is that they're doing the intervention and um it's got really
scripted and and intentional practice. And as students are successful, it like will move that kid on and you see, okay, we got the Dan's example, two-digit regrouping, addition, right? Second grade standard. Oh, the kids done it correct. The kids done it correct. they've had enough times in which
they've they've done it correctly. They've demonstrated this skill. Cool. We're ready to move that kid on. It's not quite as don't think of it as like I a kid sits independently and and does a test. It's more what is that intentional practice look like? Oh, I've made a mistake. Let's give them another chance
and see if they can do it now. Practice the skill again. Oh, nope. They're going to need some more instruction and modeling on that. Now, we said, you know, so it's it's very fluid. Um it's not when they sometimes when you hear progress monitoring you think oh now the kids's going back and taking another test. No it's more of what does that
scripted practice look like and then as the kid produces success cool we can move them out of that or they're not successful or I need a little bit more direct instruction and modeling on that. And as well plus the progress monitoring measures are intended to be about a
minute long. Oh okay. So it's very very quick. Okay. And maybe that's why all these little prek kids have their computers. So they're getting used to doing this um in preparation of hitting second
first grade, right? And it'll be interesting to see if it makes a big difference in looking at your scores next year. You're looking at progress. Yes, absolutely. Because the intent is that we're able to provide more targeted intervention because we have the data
sets we need in front of us to give those groups of students or individual students the best opportunity to remediate those skills in the quickest way possible. Oh, heck, yeah. So, you might be heading this way, Dan, but um I'm just curious, you know,
who uses the data, when do they use it, how frequently, because, you know, the backdrop here is you y'all are evaluating. You're leading us right into the rest of our presentation of all these tests against the cost of the burden on the
students and the teacher missing instructional time. and where what do you share with parents? Yep. You're y you're we're going to talk all about that. Um so we're going to start with our recommendations for next year for elementary assessments. So starting with
elementary, this is still a work in progress. So we are looking into this. I wouldn't call this a recommendation quite yet. Um, it's interesting when I started to get into conversations because I wanted feedback from elementary principles, uh, from our elementary leadership team, from our
math leadership team. Um, because I thought at first, you know, I would, you say you're going to eliminate NWA reading and there would be, um, in the winter, right? Everybody would kind of most people would celebrate and go, hey, less testing, that'd be great. However, I think we have a lot of pro a lot of
our processes are kind of tied to that and this is what we've done for several years we've used NWA. So, I'm going to continue to look at this with teachers. I think we might actually survey all. I hear some voices. Some want it, some don't. Everybody wants to get rid of MSTEP. That's not an option, right? We
have to do that's one we have to do that everyone wants. We might lose state funding on that one. That would be a red flag and it wouldn't be here much longer. Um, so he wants to try it a legislator. I'll talk to him. Yeah, that might be interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So,
the two that we're going to continue to look into, and I think I'll come back to board curriculum as far as final approval with this, probably in one of our July meetings, there's two of them there, is looking at specifically for elementary, just our NWA reading um for the winter. And why we're looking at
that is that we we've already mentioned that we're doing Ames web now with all students and we feel like that when we have our data meetings we're going to have another slide here where we talk about what do we do with the data that that is s that's significant enough to help us create those intervention groups
and again we're trying to as we add testing we're trying to take some away. Another idea we had um was to move all of our fifth grade instead of doing fifth grade fall, winter, spring is to take our fifth grade and do that during
the winter. Fifth grade right now takes four MSTEP tests. So we've talked about this I think in board curriculum or board before social studies, science, language arts, math and that is a taxing time in the spring and then we add three NWAS to it also. So that's
seven seven tests total. So, one of our ideas is that can we take that that spring and so they're only tested the losses. We have to do it twice. Uh it can be fall winter, it can be fall spring and move that in into the into
one thing that we haven't touched yet. If you notice that I haven't talked about winter math NWA just talking to the the math leadership team. This is the first year that we've had all of our elementaryaries doing um math data meetings and they want to kind of
continue that momentum. They think eventually that Delta math might be enough for the winter data meeting but since they just started they kind of want to continue that momentum into next year. So in some you're finding right now the
NWA ELA and the AS web are complimentary and then NWA math and Delta math are complimentary but if the teachers assess that there's too much overlap it be easier to it will eliminate one or the other. It would be
and that's it's it's tough because the the spring in particular when I talk about moving the fifth grade as far as what do we use it for, right? That's the what do we use because they're going to come back in sixth grade and do a fall. We're not going to eliminate any fall testing. So the spring does and we also
have to look at our evaluation rubric because some of this is also tied to that, you know, that that fall to to spring testing. So that's what we we're always constantly weighing and we want to get feedback from teachers and elementary principles as what's best for the whole system including students what
we the data that we use for intervention and then again how do we inform instruction and what time of the year is it is doing all that testing that's the stickler with MSTEP right you're doing all that testing in the spring everybody goes away it doesn't inform instruction
um until the following year or like I said kind that big picture idea but you don't have any flexibility on them stuff unfortunately. So with I mean moving fifth grade to the winter is that is that because is the idea well they're moving on to middle school and and
that's just to try to relieve some testing uh burnout because they have four MSEPS that they have to take that we don't have. One thing that Jesse and I are looking into is a little wiggle room because we set the window for NWA and and Jesse can explain this a
little more, but when you get down to kind of the brass tax, you have to actually put the number of days of instruction you have between your testing windows, which then filters into I believe the algorithm for the percentile and the norming. Yep. So, as far as moving that window, it we'd like
to ideally maybe move our fifth grade into the later or earlier spring, maybe move it to March. Do a fall, do a March, and then that's it for fifth grade. Uh that way you do have some similar data. But the number one reason with moving that fifth grade out of spring is just
test burnout. So, fifth graders have more MSTEPs than the other third and fourth grade just have ELA and math. Okay. They add social studies and science for fifth grade. Yeah. Okay. But seventh grade has a lot of NWA. It does. And Jesse's going to touch upon the
secondary plan in middle school and how they're going to adjust also. Okay. Because I just asked some kids, three kids, and they said I said, "How do you feel?" And they said, "We feel like they do way too much testing." So yeah.
So just remind us and also I think it's important for the public record. What are parents' rights to opt a kid out of standardized testing? So there is not necessarily and sometimes we get that parent communication about opting out at any
point. I mean K5 wise secondary is a little different. Um a teacher parent calls me up they don't want their student to test. I encourage it right. I I talk to them about everything we've talked about here. The data is important. We use like every data point we use, but at the end of the day, if
they K5, they decide not to test, they don't test. As a district, we need a percentage of MSTEP for students to test in order that's connected to 95%. 95% otherwise we are our financially 5% of our state aid is. Why isn't MSTEP up on
there? Oh, is it in the spring behind? Oh, it should be up there. Yeah. Okay. But it it would be under spring. It would be. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's a it's a slippery slope, you know, honestly that way that we don't have control over. So we strongly encourage everybody but it's
a conversation, right? When we when we have the parent call, it's like I don't want to take MSTEP and I go okay and that's it. I mean, we do go into and I do mention that there are graduations requirements that are connected to standardized testing as they get into secondary uh building that stand up
understanding what they're being tested and again making sure that the parent understands what we're using the data for. Yeah. So, just looking at this slide, MSTEP falls under fall and spring, right? But not winter. MSTEP is just spring. Oh, just spring. Okay. And
what grades? Three, four, five. Okay. So if a parent, you know, and I mean we've all heard stories of kids who have anxiety about testing, they would be if if you're looking to reduce that burden on them, it would be the NWA, the built
to math or the Ames web that you steer them towards to help that kid manage the anxiety. specific. Yeah. If that was really the issue, I think we would actually help them figure out how to get them to complete the test and overcome the anxiety. There there's a lot of
research that when you have that and you and you don't do it at all, it actually makes it worse. Um so question is figuring out how can we get an environment in which you know what's the root cause of that anxiety and how can we maybe address that and support that
um and work towards that as opposed to just avoidance and test anxiety I wouldn't lump in necessarily as web and delta math with the other one because that as web and delta math is a very quick assessment while MSTEP students I
mean can hanker down for a while and that takes and especially if we start talking about tier three, you know, our most vulnerable students in special education. That is that can take a long time as far as completing those tests, like days.
Oh, does it cost us anything to take the tests? It doesn't cost us anything to do the state assessments that are required. Um, NWA we pay for, but then we I we write a grant every year and that is covered
because it's on the approved list. Ames Web does cost us money to to administer as a district. Again, we write a grant. I've read at least this last year, our grant was approved to pay for that. So, we try as much as we can. There's a lot of different funding out there that we
go after that's not general fund dollars for that. There is some cost sometimes at secondaries to rent some tables and chairs and types of things, but those are very minimal costs for that. Was $7 a student for the whole suite. And this year we were able to pay for all of that
out of a grant fund. So that's good. Do you all know if like what our participation rate is for NWA versus MSTEP? It's it's very similar. They're both above 95%. Above 95%. Yeah. We really
haven't been below 95%. That I can remember. I shouldn't maybe, you know, jinx us, but um we really on a state assessment, you really don't want to be you really want to try hard to work. there are makeup days. Um we work with families if we need to make arrangements or or figure out what that root cause
could be. But that is really important that we hit state compliance just because then we are in a situation where now we have to direct energy personnel into sort of meeting what happens when you don't hit state compliance and what are the impacts of that
which we would like to avoid. So Dan, you mentioned that you're looking at getting input from all the all teachers by July and coming back with their with the recommendation. Okay. Yeah. The more the more I kind of got into it and got the initial feedback
from elementary principles and leadership teams, I just thought it was worth looking a little more into to see what the vast majority um thought about not having that assessment. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?
So, middle school is is a little bit cleaner here. Um, I have been working with uh actually Ryan Ranger and Kristen Steven, the two leads at our middle schools came to me pretty early on and said there's a lot of uh desire from our staff to eliminate the amount of testing
at middle school. And so I said, "Awesome." And so I've been working with their leadership team and this has gone through both the leadership teams, the building ARs and those sort of things um at the middle school. But so their first proposal um is to eliminate the science
of the NWA. So right now currently at um at our middle school, our students in grades six and seven and eight actually take three NWA tests three times a year. That would be nine tests a year. um those tests run one but usually two
school days um class periods. So they and the reason why science is it's not strongly align aligned to the um national science standards the NGSS standards that we're using um we aren't really using the data for anything. Um our science department doesn't find it
informative or valuable to them. Um so they were like can we please not do this anymore? And actually science is not one of the assessments that's reimbursed through our grant funding either. So, so that's science. Um, the other there's just a legacy there. Like there's a
little bit of a legacy and I think too when we adopted NWA, we first adopted ELA and math pretty early because we we like the national norming. We liked the information it was giving us. Um, and then they pushed out science. It was like a later product and we thought, well, we like ELA and and math. Why not
try science? And we've tried it for a few years, man. Dan, I don't know how long. I mean, five years maybe we've done science. We haven't done it the whole time. Um, and we just haven't found use on it. We just find that scores don't really correlate to much. We've moved away from it from elementary also a while back and now we are looking
I've met with Britney and I have been meeting with the science team this year and we're going to do some common assessments like quick 10 questions um to be able to kind of align how our science is. It just gives us a better idea moving into the MSTEP where we're
at. So that's the first change that um they they made to me. The second recommendation they made is that they want to get rid of that winter NWA for all of their students. Um and so their thinking is um some of our students at
the middle school take exams depending on what courses they're in. Um they also change over semester's there. Um and so they were wondering if their if their second NWA could be right before spring break. I put it in that spring. I could have probably put it in that window or
or sorry in the winter in the winter window uh list there but sort of that idea of let's do the fall NWA with uh ELA and math and then let's come back and see where kids at are about February March semester's rolled over. We've got some academic uh data on the kids with
grades. Um and it gets them clear for the spring in which those students take the MSTEP um so that they're not on top of each other. Right now they're all in the midst of doing NWA and MSTEP. NSTEP is we can't move it, right? The window
is set by the state for us. Um so that would allow our sixth and seventh grade would take the fall ELA and math and NWA sort of a mid- winter February March NWA and then they just sixth and seventh grade take MSTEP
in the in the spring and they do ELA math. So it kind of gives us a nice benchmark on that. Our eighth grade um they've actually their recommendation is to remove NWA all together from our eighth graders. And with our eighth graders do a fall PSAT. It's the PSAT
89. It's what our 9th graders, our 10th graders, and our 11th graders take at the high schools. It's one morning in October um that students take that. We get the results back pretty quick actually. They come back through. It's all a digital test um probably about
four weeks from college board. We get a breakdown of where students are at. We also get sample questions in each of the score bands. So, we're able to use those instructionally and set goals. And then they would take that same assessment in the spring. That assessment u PSAT 8
assesses uh ELA and math. That sort of leads them up to the series of the PSAT 9, the PSAT 10, and then ultimately the SAT is juniors. Our eighth graders really just want to use some of the systems our high schools have to prepare them for that. The eighth grade is the
only one that then has the additional MSTEP for science and social studies. So MSTEP for uh our our sixth and seventh is ELA math. For our eighth graders, they the PSAT is the required for ELA
math. And then they have MSTEP for science and MSTEP for social studies. Our eighth graders do four days like our fifth graders of testing every spring, but they do the eighth graders also they do take the ELA and math as well. They take the ELA and math as the PSAT, not
as the MSTEP. Okay? So, the state says, "We want you to take a a state assessment in all four areas, but instead of taking the MSTEP for ELA and math, they take the PSAT." That's what the state assessment is for those kids. But there's not a state assessment on
the PSAT suite for science and social studies. So they take those separate tests through the MSTEP platform. And we used to take the MSTEP, not for ELA. Well, when they when they changed to the PSAT,
yes. Yeah. A couple years ago, they pushed the PSAT. It's similar. So as an 11th grader, which is the next slide, but there's no change there. They take the SAT, which hits you ELA math, and then they take MSTEP, science and social studies, right? It's those it's the fifth grade year,
the eighth grade year, and the 11th grade year that they take a state assessment in all four of those core areas. So, I wanted to make sure I understood regarding PSAT 8 in October, that's what you want to move to or that
is that's what we want to move to. So, that would be new. That PSAT8 in October would be new. Right now, what our eighth graders did is they took the NWA in the fall. Um, and then in the spring they took the N they're taking the NWA again and they're taking the PSAT 8. So, what
they're recommending is no NWA in the spring for the eighth graders and no they're actually recommending no NWA period for eighth grade. Move them off of that when they get to be eighth graders. So, you guys are using this slide to show changes. So it looks like for fall NWA 6 and seven only there's
green should be green to show that change right and then PSAT8 October I can do that. Yeah. Okay. And then going forward because I know PSAT8 did happen this year in April. That would be
scratched going forward or would that be the second time? That would be the second time. Okay. Right. So right now like our ninth and our 10th and our 11th graders just take those state assessments two times a year. Our eighth graders would model that exact same model. They would take it in the fall and they would take it in the spring.
The spring is the required one. We are doing it in the fall to benchmark our kids. It's the recommended one. It is really nice because what we're able to do with our teachers is we do over the summer we can give them the data. We organize it by your students that you had in class. how many students were
below their benchmarks and grew and what does that growth look like? How many were above and grew and what does that look like? And we actually start the year in August with them kind of reflecting on their students from the last year. How did they do and what types of instructional um information does that tell them? Um they love it.
They actually love seeing that kind of a a fall and a spring on the same exact assessment on the same like they can really see that growth with kids. So thank you going into the next grade. So you're looking at they are they are looking in reverse because we get those
scores in June, right? Our kids all took it, but they'll get our our kids will all get their SAT PSAT scores probably tomorrow or Thursday. They usually get them right around May 1st, but we as a school don't get them until June because it's an it's a state
accountability thing. We right now we're screening our window for should these students be attached to us us for accountability, but kids actually get their scores back this week. So Did you want to talk at all about WEDA or
not really? There's no changes there. We're required to give WEDA screeners um to all of our students who um enter in the fall and then the major WEDA assessment is a winter window which is actually nice because it stays off of the state assessment window in the spring. So,
do you feel that you get much information that's really usable from MSTEP given all the other testing? Oh, I don't that's a tricky question, Beth. I I am a numbers gale and so um I
I don't mind a little bit of a broad stroke every year as to how do kids perform. I think it helps us say are the things we're doing along the way making an impact and making a difference. Um I don't necessarily I'm not married to the
MSTEP and I I wish I can see the scores right now. I've been kind of like collecting them, but I can't show them to anyone. I can't do anything with them. We can't talk to teachers about them. So, so I just wonder if you could save enough money at the state level and
actually bring it back into the schools as discretionary money to use to help augment some of the areas where kids are struggling. We had a state superintendent who strongly believed in bringing NWA and making that our state
assessment. Unfortunately, he passed away during this term. cancer and it kind of died with him. And so there is some there is some legislation that's been introduced this session to relook at a balanced assessment system such as
NWA, but we'll see where it goes. Is it in the House or is it in the Senate? I believe it's in the Do the Do the advocacy organizations MESB, MASA, MEA have t have they taken positions on this? Um I think I think
that they agree with it. I think MDE has come out against it. Um and you know so it's political. It's it's also territorial and selfpreserving. And and and you know there is some there's some argument there. I mean to
to give the other side is you know it's a state aligned test to our state standards and and deb is a national product you know so there there is some variance there um but you know I think
we could get down to a core set of standards that could be identified I think there's a way to do it if there's the will but right now there hasn't been the will and it's nice that NWA PSA are are nationally normed. We have that national. I know we've talked about in
our last study session, right? About having it nationally normed and not just comparing to state and it's our MSEP is not there's no way I don't believe there's any way to take our MSEP data and compare nationally. There are some funky calculation things that they do
done cross Harvard just did one not that long ago but it is a very complicated you know that psychometricians run that you know professionally PhDs that do that. you have to have enough data historically on all those assessments to to make those predictions. So like there's a little bit of like anyways um
but I will say this. So if if we're okay and supportive with this we will have eliminated three days of science um testing from the calendar we've eliminated in the for our eighth graders instead of having two days in the fall they'll have one. So there's another day we've eliminated and then we've
eliminated um two more days in the winter. So, we've really gone we've eliminated 6 days or more if you're um a student with accommodations who takes time and a half or double time on assessment of testing for we're getting back a whole week's worth of instruction
and absences going off. I mean, how many how forward do you go with tier one instruction in a class if six kids haven't taken it? So you make up far more than that. I think to disruption in the middle school just because they
lived it the last couple years. It's disrupting. Well then how do you explain all this to the parents? This is how your child did on this test but this is how they did on this test and then on this test they did this but that was done in the winter and this was done in the spring and this is done in the fall.
Now do you understand exactly how your child is doing in school? Yeah. and he want to come back to parent teacher night the next time we have them. Yeah, it's tough. Um, no change recommended for high schoolers. Um, we feel pretty solid
about what we have. I know that spring looks like a long list. Uh, all state required. It really is. Our our 9th and 10th graders have two days. They do a fall test, they do a spring test. Our 11th graders are the ones who have a little bit more. They do that one day in the fall and then in the spring they
have one day for the SAT and then it typically is a half a day for them to do their MSTEP which is their science and social studies and then it's a half a day for them to do their work keys. I will tell you we have worked really hard uh both Joe Esper and myself at the at
the MASSP to try to get work keys moved. Um very lots of great principal support around getting work keys eliminated. almost got through the Senate one year, but no work keys. Um, it is assessment designed to test
whether a student is career um ready um to enter the workforce. They actually it's a great assessment for some of our our students who go to CTC and CTC does administer it a multiple times to show growth on those. Um it just is an assessment that we use widely. um any of
our kids who are um going to two and fouryear institutes they don't do anything with it nor they do they do anything with the MSTEP at science and social studies but and is it work keys is it looking at do you have skills or
do you have interests or does it look at both nope it's skills and it's more of what you would consider traditional reading writing and math skills and it's a difference in ACT product and we transition into an SAT statement. So
that's another interesting Yes. thing. Yes. Yes. Yes. So the last slide we have too is the most important that Josie you were asking. So like we got to use the data for something, right? It's got to be meaningful to our kids, meaningful to our teachers, meaningful to us making
resource allocation decisions, professional develop decisions, all of those. So we listed a few here. Um Dan and Britney, I don't know if you guys want to talk a little bit. Yeah. school level is first and foremost is that that fall screening as well as NWA's placement and interventions and how that
goes hand inand missionbased budget uh tier 2 support. So that's our our our number one and we have a formalized um data meetings that we do fall winter uh some schools do spring a little more optional where our coach um
administration and the grade level will sit down look at the data not only tier 2 but also their tier one data because sometimes looking at that tier one data can help the entire grade level look at what they need to address or something that possibly was missed in the previous year especally especially with our move
over to CQLA because we're seeing now where those maybe some holes were and they're consistent um struggles in learning that they had with reading and how we can we can fill those not only again with intervention but we really emphasize this year the idea of using it
as as tier one also um again always informing instruction um and then individual student growth also No, I was just going to say that informing instruction just to add a little bit
more to what Dan spoke of in tier one um with our tier one data reviews. Our grade level teams, our instructional coach and our building leaders really utilize their data review uh times that generally occur after the benchmark window is closed um to really de delve
into kind of the causal factors contributing to the results of the data. And then they develop theories of action um of hey we're going to focus our time and energy on leveraging and focusing in and doing our due diligence on X Y and Z instructional strategy. And then instructional coaches really play an
integral role in monitoring that throughout the course of that benchmark window making some adjustments and refinements before then that NWA gets readministered um in the winter and then in in the spring to kind of close it out.
Can you very um clearly define tier one, tier two, tier three? Yeah. So when we talk about tier, they're really systems and supports, right? So we tend to avoid calling students, you know, their tier one students or their tier 2 students. It's about the adult moves and the support
systems that are provided. Um and so tier one is all students. So what are the supports instructional programming assessments that all of um our students within tier one receive and then needs go into tier two and then more needs.
Yes. Yes. And so really we want to generally target tier one is usually um like we strive for you know 80%. So if we just focus our time and energy on our tier one supports and creating systems around that, we want to see 80% at least
at minimum responding positively to those supports we put in place. Tier 2 tends to be around 10 to 15 and then tier three supports tend to be around 5 to 10. Um and that research is pretty consistent in terms of what we really want to see in terms of those systems
and structures that target those tiers. when you're in if you see tier three get too large, what that really tells you is you have a tier one problem. Right. What you're doing for all students is is not comprehensive enough um and they're not responding. Right. Right. And generally
speaking, tier three is the students that are participating in tier three are they have an IEP. I just had a comment about we also monitor student individual growth, but do we also I'm looking at the buildings
improvement plans at 2425. The buildings also um monitor building growth. Correct. Yes. So there would be a number four potentially that I think ties into district level and what we're trying to accomplish as a district. Like I'm
looking at easterns right now like they had a goal of 90% uh above 60% NWA reading and then in June 90% 90% you know so anyways I just think it's you know I I just came across this document this these building plans and it's pretty it's pretty I think cool
that the they're establishing targets and all this intervention wonderful things assessments to make sure that not only individual are hitting their targets but the buildings are as well and at the secondary I'll add on that we monitor courses Right? So students who for example are in algebra 1, are they making the growth
that we would expect them to? If not, gosh, is there a curricular issue? Do we need some more professional development? What kind of support do we need? We also monitor teachers too, right? There are certain teachers in our building or in our district who are more successful with getting growth out of students in certain um ranges. And so then we look
at like what are they doing and what types of tools are they using and how can we work together and work smarter. And we look at that too. or it might be like, hey, this person's really struggling. What additional resources might they need for us to support them and support their kids too? So, we look at those layers, too. District level
also monitor curriculum and programming. I mean, with our interventions that we use, we continue to use an intervention and it doesn't work. We can move to another intervention or switch. What we're trying to do is move more to a a like intervention at every elementary school. Everyone has the same
experience. But with curriculum especially, we're using CQLA based on I mean if our rating data is knocking out of the park, why would we switch our curriculum, would that not fall under the budgeting and allocations, the looking at curriculum
and programming? Um I always think that under the district level when I think of budgeting allocations, some of that comes into the at risk funding. the idea that all students that fall under the 60th percentile are labeled at risk and
therefore are budgeted along with that. Yeah. And I think like at the middle schools, we've really identified that there's not additional tier 2 support for reading and math for our sixth grade students, right? And so Kristen and Ryan and I said it's it's got to be a must. We have to have it in place. So, we took
it off of our at risk district funding to build in some time in the day where we didn't um we didn't track these kids forever. We have a fluid program we're going to start next year for sixth graders. So, they need a little additional support above and beyond
their um current schedule for that. We did that before we then made allocations for some of that because we thought that that was important for us to have as a district level for all of our sixth graders next year. So if kids are feeling for whatever
reason, then they begin to automatically be considered tier 2. Y we're building it in a model that where kids are able to I Britney said this beautifully. We don't want this support. We don't want it to label them. We don't want this to be a death sentence of now I'm stuck in
this group. Um sometimes everybody needs a little bit of help at different times, at different places, and in different ways. And that's okay. We all kind of need that, right? So, how do we provide that and then get the kid on their way? And and every building, whether it's elementary, sometimes we'll call it
tasks, teachers addressing student concerns, or MTSS, multi-tered support systems, have those groups that continually monitor these students who are on in this tier 2 support. So, we don't place them in tier 2 in the fall and then in the spring, we see how
you're doing. It's a regular basis. We meet monthly as a task team in elementary. um to see how are they responding to intervention, what other supports do they need? And this not only is we've talked specifically here about, you know, the academic side of it, but social work is the same idea where we
also have as far as social work, there's tier one, two, and three support systems also where the whole class is getting social emotional learning. Tier two might be a a more one-on-one without an IEP, but then there's specific social workers supplied by our Northad services
that help with students that have social work goals in their IEP. So, it's another thing that we look at alongside academics. Before we hop into here, I just if we go back, I just wanted to make a comment about on the district level and and you know, I shared this with some of you earlier, but I I hope
that um we can bring some of this conversation uh to our board meeting on the 12th and to just I think bring a little bit of teaching and learning um to our strategic plan um specifically around assessments. I I sometime I'm new but I sometimes feel like teaching and
learning doesn't get a lot of play uh during our I'm just looking at our agenda for the 12th and so if there's an opportunity to just share a little bit about these assessments specifically around the goals at the building level the goals of the district level you know how we allocate dollars affects not just
u strategic district goals but also building goals um so I you know I just I I guess I'd like to have a little bit of um you know there's important discussions happening here and I feel like it would do a service for a lot of us to have them at the full board
meeting as well. Building grade and subject level growth. I heard you say under school level and at the district level advantage and cur. Yeah. The tricky and I know how Dr. Van Wagner feels but as far as the tricky thing and something that we don't really
include in our reporting is the idea of grade level and building. building in my mind is a little tricky as far as looking at we look at building growth but we actually want to see grade level growth as far as when we look at district when we look at like strategic planning or data I mean I think it's
obviously it's a bonus to celebrate building growth but in theory if we're doing things right as a district right those grade levels you know should be growing at at at an adequate pace for all of them and if bu if we're starting to celebrate buildings and at some point
in there you you can kind of branch into some unhealthy competition and we're promoting building promoting building. That's what we do like to look at. When we when we did our study session on data, we didn't actually talk much about any particular building. We're really focused on a grade level. Yeah. I don't want to talk about buildings either, but
I do want to ask like are we providing the support that the buildings need to accomplish some of their goals around achievement and growth, you know, and I guess I I would love to like hear from some of these principles like at the end of June 2025, did we accomplish some of these goals we set out to do or or not?
And how do we adjust, you know, from a board level, from an allocation and, you know, accountability standpoint? So, if there's a place for it on the 12th, it'd be great. Um, you know, I I didn't make that request earlier, but um, I feel like I think this is important conversations. So, this year for
secondary principles, we did our we did our mission based budgeting meeting together and we really started it by we thought about what are the barriers that get in the way with students growing and achieving at the level they should and I made them like we all thought about it and then we listed it and then we thought every time we're making decisions and allocating resources, are
we making them to try to eliminate these barriers for our kids, right? and as a group. Um, and it was I thought it was it was a long meeting, but I thought it was really well done because we worked more as a team of building leaders to think about, wait, nope, we said tier two at middle school is really important. So then we have to make sure
we have those at risk dollars there, right? And even the high school principles were like, okay, we got to give a little bit because we got a net risk cut and now we got to take something off of ours to make sure that's there. But we understand the importance of that and these are kids that are going to come to us and we're hoping, right? And so for all of us to
be in the room and making those commitments together, it I thought was really helpful for us. And I think like tier two in the middle school is important, right? And that's I guess from my seat, that's what I'd like to hear as well, right? Early literacy, the focus on early literacy is important, you know? So as we talk about goals like
last night, I feel like I just hope there's more around teaching and learning in this compass 2.0. Um, and I think if we just have another quick discussion to just provide some guidance on some of those goals, I think it would be in our best interest. So, I was
thinking about that. So, I do wonder, you know, I I thought the same thing last night and I do wonder if it's more proper to have that conversation in the first hour of our next strategic planning like Jesse and Dan lead that and go through that conversation like of their thoughts of recommendations that
were given to the board, all of that. So, the board has that right then and fresh and then go from there. um you know just it's yeah I guess it depends on how packed the 12th visit the 12th meeting is but right now there's not a lot on discussion and I think just like we gave a lot of time I think to
our infrastructure facilities I'd like to give equal time to teaching and learning um and I'd also like to do it in public you know I I I I'd like the public to attend and I'd like to have these discussions in public there was there was nobody in the from the public maybe one person last night I mean to
hear our discussion last night and it's an important discussion And I felt actually because we were Nick's point was we were looking at the data that had come in as opposed to saying this is what we want the data to say and where's the support for it. Um and I I agree
with them otherwise what's the point of doing the surveys or the the uh focus groups to follow follow the data right and I think this is some data I mean we're talking about it right now using the data. So, if we're going to follow the
data, um, perception surveys are wonderful, right? A point of data. This is another point of data. And I think I just want to just talk a little bit more about teaching and learning. That's all. Whether whether it's a May, I'll just say this about this the study
um sessions on our strategic plan. Those are open to the public. They're not televised. They're not recorded, but that's a limitation of the facilities. We're believe the North Ed board meetings are video. Uh well, I found something online that says otherwise,
but yes. But anyways, there's a pilot YouTuber out there. Maybe I'm just saying uh I I I'd like to do it um here on the 16th of June if we can't have a quick discussion providing guidance around goals on the 12th. And I'm just
one person, but that's my recommendation. Well, one thing I will just say, um, I think when, you know, Tammy Brunan sent out a query whether we could meet on the June 16th instead of the 23rd if we could make it 5 to 8 instead of 6
to 8. That was a plan. Yeah. Okay. I thought it was five. Oh, she did. No. Okay, we'll fix that. No, the thought was we talked about it last night about, you know, otherwise it maximizes the probability. Nick actually mentioned it last night. So that just that was an error. So we'll get that straight. All
right. Sounds good. Um yeah, I mean I agree with Ty. If the agenda uh for our next full board meeting is light and we could afford the time to delve into some of this, great. You know, we could always add it. I mean, you guys are going to have executive
committee meeting in two days. You can you can consider that. if it's already a packed meeting. I just I need to give staff like a timing and what they all have and like you know just kind of quick you know from that standpoint. Um where you know we could even do it you
know in the June meeting. I just would like the board like I sat there last night and thought okay yeah this is a good set of data but I could hear from the board. We'd like to see at least you know an explanation of their recommendations kind of where that came from you know from that standpoint for
goals for that. And I and I thought like that first hour would be good for them to go through that and then continue on, you know, because I felt like last night I think we used the data then all of a sudden became a little bit, okay, what do people think outside of that, you
know, and it was like, okay, those are presumptions, but what's backing that up? And so I think they've taken some time to try and get their thoughts of backing that up, but I think it'd be the board good for the board to hear those and go, "Okay, talk about that." and maybe the board says, "Yeah, there are
two, three, four there that we'd like to put up on the board to be considered, you know, strongly." I mean, Jesse and I are prepared to kind of I feel like we need to close the loop a little bit on a study session we did about, you know, the idea of closing the achievement gap and having specific
metrics that tied to some of our strategic plan. I mean, we've talked about that quite a bit. So, we're there. So, anytime you need us to share as far as what that looks like, like Dr. Rand Wagner suggested we could we could do that. Yeah. Because I I was thinking the
material that you sent out Yeah. that there's some discussion areas in there, you know. Um I Yeah. Yeah. And and honestly putting it out there in the public domain sooner sooner than later and getting, you know, giving the public
if North has I will ask like this is the first I've ever seen that they've had anything, you know, televised. So if they can do it, not a big deal. I do I think it's I think it's a very very important discussion. Very important. Okay, great. Well, thank you everybody.
Um and I just had one sorry, one quick thing about state accountability coming from the government accountability office as I have. Does our Michigan Department of Education have any kind of audit or evaluation function like an inspector general and auditor general
where they could ever assess the effectiveness of MSTEP? No. Versus a national only only the only capability there within state government is from the auditor general. Um and they look at certain things but generally not never going to look at this. It's it's generally much more financial, right?
And then all of our state a you know the audit is all financial and all of our comprehensive like our our state and federal programs is all financial there are there are no there's no internal evaluation correct and there are no curriculum police there are no you know
and and it's a shame the only thing there used to be at one point is there used to be um a lot of districts were north central accreditation and they would come in and there would be a team at least come in and evaluate for three days and would look and kind of and give recommendations with that, but that was
removed probably about 10 years ago. Okay. All right. Thank you. Celebrate. All right. Yes. Our f our favorite. Okay. Uh this is the first one from spring break. So, we had some of
our uh West students travel to Japan during spring break. Pretty cool. It was a great trip. I heard uh great things from from that. So, you missed last week at Rotary, but there was a Did you know we have a sister city in No, I was there with the Travers. I Is that where these guys went? No, it's not. And I didn't
even know we had Sister City over there. All I could think to myself, yes, I I saw that. What's the city? I don't I'm not sure, but I'm not sure, but they like really have stuff from Traverse City all over. Okay. Yeah. No, they were not in the same spot. I did double check that. Um, but pretty cool trip for our
for our students. How many were uh I don't know the number off hand. It was not a large group. There were only two adviserss that went so I would say probably in the low teens. It was Amy Cole. Amy Cole went and um I don't
remember off the top of my head who went with her but she's done international trips before. She's phenomenal. Phenomenal. Yeah. Well, thanks to those teacher shepherds, too, for their willingness to put themselves out there like that.
Central grade school had a great book giveaway. So, lots of books that were donated to their library. Uh had kids come in, take books, take them home, and keep them. Uh shout out to Mrs. Shrock, the librarian, and then her son Oliver also helped.
The same smile. Um and then this is our business class over at Central High School. They sell um those goodie baskets. We've we've I know the board has supported that before. Um and they were interviewed on the local news about their business. They it's a how to start a business. They develop the product. They do all
the marketing and all that stuff and they go out and sell it. And so they were interviewed about that experience. Some instructional rounds uh over at Willow Hill. So Willow Hill did uh internal rounds with with their own staff looking at um a different problem of practice around um explicit
instruction. I found it interesting. I think I mentioned this last night even during our study session, the idea of professional development and how collaboration included in professional development. I think staff will will find it more valuable. Be interesting to look three years from now to see if our
that question specifically around meaningful PD if we have an impact on it based on our our new PLC and instructional round process. And then I know we've shown some photos of this, but our new innovation center. Today we actually had a group of
educators from Manawa um down near Kazoo school up in town visiting. They really wanted to hear about u they were over at West visiting the innovation center, seeing some of the classes over there. They started the morning though at Central to see the TAI program and how we did some integration um in our in our
core areas there. So that's a picture of our west students there in the center. got her. Traverse Heights vocabulary parade. I'm not sure if that's uh Mr. Kad in the bird outfit. Looks a little tall, so I'm not sure who they had go in
there. It's missing. It's missing the hair. Might be Mr. Keep. I'm gonna go with Dave Kenny. Dave Kenny probably get a new old bird out there, but vocabulary parade very popular. We've done these. I remember the the kids used to go through the hallways at Westwoods. Also,
another fun day at our secondaries. I'm sorry, I got nothing. Oh, here we go. Um, this is our AP Gov students. I know TAC Ready does a day similar over on the west side of town. This is Paige Paul at Central High School. She organizes a mock congress. It's really cool. The
kids get to debate different bills that they feel passionate about either side of the bills. The students all act as either House members or Senate members. the older students um sit on that panel up there. There's a governor. Um it's all student run. The day is super cool. If you guys have never seen it, let me
know. We do it once a year in AP Gov, but we can get you guys on the docket to visit. Um just a really cool day. The kids get dressed up. They get pretty passionate about the bills that they are presenting on too. So, I would love that. Yeah, I especially since my son won't be in that class next year. We'll
put it down on our calendar. We'll let you guys know. Cherry null our first school to participate. They've um started the DARE program again. Uh couple of our other schools in North participated and Cherry Null was our our first to participate.
I'm going to read this off here. Uh DARE stands for drug abuse resistant education. Deputy McKenzie. She works with our schools on the east side. I worked with her quite a bit at East Middle. uh taught the students about risk and consequences, stress, communication styles, bullying, alcohol,
tobacco, resistance strategies, vapings, their decision makings and help network. Um several other sheriff and uh law enforcement attended and then uh students during the presentation kind of shared what they learned um in small groups. So kind of a real positive
experience. Every fifth grader participated over at Cherry Null. So, we're going to look to maybe expand this out to other elementary schools. Is this the first elementary school then? It's for the first go around at one point or another. Well, but it's actually a
completely redesigned program. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Completely redesigned program. And so, um, Sheriff Mike Shay gave me a call and said that he had a deputy that was just trained in it that they had hired um and asked if um in East Bay Township if we had a building
and I said, "Cherry knows right there." And so he asked if we could do a pilot and so this was our first one pilot. That's great. We're going to follow up. I had a chance to talk to him and once school's over here, we'll I think get together and talk about if there's an ability to expand. Well, Josie and I
this morning were in the English project class review at Central. Yes. And of the four students that I had in my group, two of them were dealing with drugs. Yeah. So yeah,
um this was at our middle school. They did a career day. This was right before spring break. Um they hosted a career day where they brought in uh different uh local uh professionals to highlight what their careers are and give some they had students cycle through different things. Um and one of the most
popular ones, you can see that photo was the Coast Guard landed a helicopter there at West Middle School. So it's pretty cool for the kids to see. new uh therapy dog here. Chaplain will be spending some time at Corteade. Handler is Jessica Owen and also will be
at Silver Lake. And then this is a really cool uh award that Carrie Levante, West Senior High teacher, um won from the US uh Department of State. It's recognizing the relationship that she has formed with her sister school in Germany. So,
um we send kids there or they take a trip over there every other year. And then the students from the other school come with us and stay with um our families here on the opposite years uh for a couple weeks. And so she received this a nice letter in the mail from the US Department of State just recognizing
her commitment. She's done this for quite a few years um in having this partnership with the schools and I I mean a lot of kids that she's been able to expose to that culture and not only through trips there but also hosting the kids who come here. So really kudos to her for that above and beyond um
commitment. And we've noticed here in the hallways our K12 art department hosted the open reception here at Glen Lumis on April 10th uh showcating the incredible incredible artistic talents of our K12 students. Refreshments were donated by
Oriana Mimik and Mimik Harvet Agency and Tom's Food Market. Special thanks to all the art teachers setting up the show. Uh art show is open to the public through the 25th. So that is closed. Um we're we're in the process now of moving some
of that artwork back to the buildings. And this one was interesting. And so one of the databases that we subscribe to allows our students to access uh different uh researched articles. Um and then they kind of pull data and find out how often our kids actually accessing
that those databases. Gale is the database that both Dave Miner and Lissa Vandery really want our students to have exposure to. Lots of different peer-reviewed articles, uh highle research. It costs money for us to have this um subscription and access for our
kids. um and they pulled the data and they sent us uh they sent Joe and and Ben an email telling us that we are the second most used um public school in Michigan in the database. So, it really shows that our kids are reading relevant research articles um and their knowledge
of uh media literacy. And I know Genevieve and Lissa work really hard um with all of our ELA courses at both of our high schools to expose kids to this. And so, I thought it was pretty cool for you guys to know that they have this level of access and that they're really using it quite frequently. So, I know
Gail has been around forever, but is this new relatively new to TCAPS? No, we have used it's called the Gail reference media um source and that representative just reached out to us and said that we were ranked number two behind the international academy in Bloomfield um
which was ranked number one in the state as to access points um and this source helps our kids with the digital uh literacy media college readiness research skills um and they she thought it was pretty cool. She reached out and sent it to us and so I was like oh I
should know about this too. Oh, yeah. And like Beth said, we just went to the Central High School's um senior ELA classes, projects, and you know, they have to do a lot of
research to prepare a paper and then a one pager like a flyer. So, I mean, I the the sources were really good, incredible. So I wonder if if you know that also Lissa and Jennif have a big role in like ensuring that our kids have
access to to really good research peer-reviewed all that stuff like you can't I mean Google gives you a lot right but it doesn't give you access to those scholarly articles and stuff so or occasionally one will slip in but you have to recognize it for what it is and
and the value of it yes okay any other items all right then Our next board curriculum committee meeting will be Tuesday, May 27th. That's the day after Memorial Day on at 8:30 a.m. here at the
administration at Guan Lumis building. And with that, we are adjourned. Part: 2
Welcome the audience. 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 has set a time this time for public comment. Kelly, it looks like
we do not have any public comments. Okay, great. Well, then we will move on to procedural items. First up are our draft committee meeting minutes from April 1st. Um, are there any changes to the draft meeting minutes? I just had
one question and that is it's going to be on page the last page and it's where it says um the chairman suggested the board keep this information in mind for strategic plan work and I was thinking that actually all of us were thinking
that as well so the committee versus board something so that it's the committee chair but it's the board in the the committee in support of the chair something along that line.
So that it just says Yeah, we're all kind of thinking that that was important. Yeah. I think probably the notes just reflected who said it versus But you're saying like everybody supports that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Okay. Anything else? No. Okay. All right. So with that that amendment um we can ask that the minutes be revised as suggested and we can move on
sort of to the TCAST district course catalog updates but since there are none I think we can move on to and actually I wanted to ask procedurally do we even need to add that to the consent calendar
uh the consent an agenda because it's a standing agenda item, but when there are no updates, I don't even know. The only reason we do it is a little bit just always a reminder because if we ever mess up, then it we could get in pupil
accounting trouble. Okay. So, the the district lost a million dollars before I got here in an issue with not having updated course catalog. Yeah. And so, since I've been here, we've just done it that way. The board always affirms everybody asks the question and it's always there from that as a matter of
record as as opposed to looking like it's an oversight. It is because and every time we do it, we don't just approve that actual class. We actually reapprove the entire course catalog and that from a pupil accounting standpoint. I never have to worry that because you have to prove that the board approved the course catalog whenever there's a
change. So okay, that's why. So you don't have to, but that's my we'll move the TCAPS district course catalog 2024 to 2025 to the consent agenda with no changes. Right. Okay. Um, next up is the
date change proposal for the August 26th board commit curriculum committee meeting. And I'm going to defer to Miss H. Hotton and M and Mr. Tisworth on that. Yeah, we were just thinking as it landed also this year that uh usually uh board um curriculum lands the week that
teachers are back and that Tuesday in particular this year is going to be um staff meetings and buildings and Jesse and I like to be out at those buildings if possible. It's just a big day first day teachers are back on that Tuesday. So backing it up a week would be would
be nice for us. Could we even move it forward to the 2nd of September? That's cutting it close to the full board meeting. Our issue is that we
don't have items for the packet in time. Yeah. In time for the board to review before the full board meeting. You could switch it to a different day right there if you wanted. I mean, there's lots of options, but ahead does squeeze us. Not impossible, but it does
squeeze us. Like even the 20th or the I mean the week of the 18th. I don't know what you got, but like Monday the 18th would be fine. Just that Tuesday cabinet all of us. Dr. Van Wagner or or we could go Monday. Monday the 25th. Monday 25th.
So the teachers are back for their professional development right on starting Tuesday. Yes. Yeah. And then the 25th in the evening we have a study session, right? Yeah, could do it before.
I'm fine with anything. How about how about the calendar? I mean, well, not necessarily. Our new proposed date for the study session. That was the is the that was a strategic plan one that we had as a
third. So, we really have to talk about that one. The board may choose to keep that, but Okay. I just wouldn't want to say guarantee. But that that doesn't curriculum timing doesn't interfere with the study session
and vice versa. So, okay. Um, what would be preferable for you all knowing you have to prepare for professional development week? Would you like to have it the week of the 18th or Monday the 25th? That Monday is good with me. The 25th would
How about you? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So, we'll just move it back a day then to Monday the 25th. And do we want to make it 8:30 a.m. 8:15? I think we talked last time about
changing our That's something you got to discuss committee meetings going forward. Yeah. To 8:30 a.m. cuz we were started at 8:30 and then we moved to 8:15, right? Because Holly's schedule. Okay. So, we'll do Monday. It sounds
like Monday, August 25th at 8:30 a.m. While we're on that note, do we want to move at least as of right now to 8:30 for moving forward? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was I couldn't
remember if we talked about that a month ago. We did not. So, um, but yeah, I think that would probably work better. I know in the winter it it's it's pretty dodgy getting here. Knowing that you'll have a new member may have to revisit, but as of right now, we'll plan on next
month being at 8:30 and and then continue unless something changes. Yeah. Is that okay with uh everybody else in the administration, too? Okay. Time to grab a cup of coffee. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Then we'll move on to the field trip request for the
German exchange program. Sure. I am actually going to highlight this later on at the end, but um this is an exchange program we've been having going on with our German teacher Carrie Levante who's over at West Senior High. So, this is a field trip request for next summer. So, uh she did Carrie
travels extensively, has a lot of connections over in Germany and has taken students um for quite a few years over there and it's been a pretty cool experience for us. So, good. Yeah, I'm very supportive of the program. I think she runs it every two
years, every other year. Um, and for for students who've completed German three, I believe that fairly advanced level. Um, the only thing that caught my eye was it looks like they're asking for permission for up to 15 students, but
then in the cost estimate it had only 13. So she had like the co total cost estimate divided by 13 and then it came out to nearly 4,000 but if obviously you bump that up to 15 if you divide by 15 it's going to be slightly lower and
right now the cost is 4,300 estimated. So I was curious about you know that difference. Does anybody know why? I think she was just sort of being a lot of our adviserss would rather tell families this is the ceiling
of what the trip will cost. If we get more kids then the cost will go down. Um I believe that's what she was thinking with that. Okay. And and the other thing is do we have a a scholarship fund for
kids whose families might not be able to raise that kind of amount? Is it pretty steep? We don't. TCAPS does not um that doesn't mean we don't have connections with other area organizations that might look to scholarship a student. Uh we also work with families to do payment
plans on that and we do have a lot of our adviserss who do international trips that are this costly. We'll work on fundraising opportunities too like help them organize some type of a fundraising. Um the nice thing is when part of the reason why they plan these over a year in advance is to help
families sort of put like spread that cost out and help kids you know who might be working towards part of that as well. But we do not TCAPS does not own a scholarship. Well, you know this is something we are talking about. We are talking about you know the the Washington DC trip. you
know, there's kids that get to go and don't and there's a real equity issue with that. And um you know, it as as I've talked with all of you about trying to look at that philanthropic arm of our organization that like is this something
like for some of these, maybe not all, but at least some like the Washington DC trip is one that a lot of schools, you know, are able to fund and do for every kid. I think, you know, I I think as we continue to look at our resources and
the inequities that we have as a district compared to others that we just, you know, like like we like, you know, with athletics, for instance, we we have a large pay, you know, pay to participate that our area districts don't. Yeah. You know, and like like across the board, there's those kind of
things. And so I think the SSN does a good job picking up where they can, but I think that really starting to maybe identify some of these and some goals and a way for us to have a scholarship fund or something like that. But how do we fund that? Like it is something in
the future for us I think to talk about. Yeah. I mean with LEAP we have the full price and then the discounted rate and then you know for those who qualify for reduced right lunch and then we had the even I think an even further reduced rate for free people even people who
qualify for free but SSM's covering that you know so that's less for other things you know and and like I said and so I think it's it's just having a very intentional conversation intentional structure those kind of things for these
kind of things moving forward that I think collectively as a cabinet we're we're discussing and think that there's some inequities there that we we need to try and look at some structure and find a way. And I I do wonder like with Rotary Charities being so involved in international exchange programs if they
might help. They don't do a lot unfortunately. They kind of really are very structured in their funding and like seating and and you know like systems change. Not really. they don't really give that way unfortunately. Um
but there are others there foundation and like I said there may be phil you know people in the philanthropic world but they don't know you know I think that that's conversations I've had with you know continuing to have with all of you is is if they don't know they don't give and so I think we've got some work
to do in really identifying some of these pillars and I think this is one of them definitely the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation I know they're a great partner to TCAP I think it's a good conversation for but does just to that point does the community foundation
give directly to TCAPS? It depends on what it is. You know we have we have a few things but not a lot like and I think that's worth exploring. I think there's opportunities and I think there's there's a shift in in culture of of supporting directly to schools versus supporting organizations that support
our kids. So, I you know, I've talked about this with you a long time and I'm excited uh especially if it helps to support those kids further from opportunity. I'm I think we're ready for it and I think we have a powerful story to tell. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Well, I
think um probably goes without saying we're all in support of this program moving forward to the consent calendar, but you have to go through finance committee as well. So, all right then. Um, moving on toformational items, we've got the board
curriculum learning series and focusing on student assessments this month. Everyone's favorite topic, student assessment. I wonder I'll text her quick. Um, no, we thought we we'd sort of break a little bit of this down for you guys
before we show you. We do have a proposal for what we're recommending for our student assessments um for this next school year. a little bit of a change, but I thought we'd start with what does uh the Michigan Department of Education require for us to do. Um list is really
long here, but keep in mind that not every kid does all of these on this list, right? Um so like the PSAT, SAT is just that's a grade specific one there. um our my access one that is specifically for students who are not on
the diploma track, they're on a certification track that aligns with um their goals and their IEPs there. Arita is for our our EL students that is a requirement that we have to give that. So these are all required assessments. Um that top one is that literacy and
math assessment um that we uh we have a list that we're allowed to choose different programs that we can do that that has to be to monitor the learning um through our students. You guys are familiar with MSTEP and PSAT. Any questions about this
slide? I don't think these are any surprises for you guys. Okay, great. And then Dian's going to talk a little bit about Okay. So what does best practice recommend? Right. I like to start there too. So yeah. So four things
we look at um the idea of a balance system. So the idea of the formative summitive assessments um and the interim assessments. You know that summitive assessment is what we looked like uh with MSTEP when we talk about NWA or AS web. Those are more the formative and
interim assessments that can inform instruction. Well, that summit of assessment we look at at the district level um create our our uh strategic plan goals around um help in inform long-term curriculum purchase. Um that's
a lot of of what we see there. Um also, we always want to have some kind of literacy focus, right? That's our a lot of our um assessments in elementary are around literacy. um and really dig down to, you know, those five components of li literacy and
and evaluating each one on a regular basis. And then last but certainly not least is to limit over testing. And it's kind of why we're here today is the idea to look at that big picture of testing and our kids are being tested a lot. We
continue to add and we're looking for opportunities to now start to take away a little without detracting from that data that we need. um like I said to inform instruction and to grow our students. Yeah. And keep in mind too when a student is taking an assessment they are practicing the skills that
should be corresponding to their grade level too, right? It is good for us to engage our students in deliberate academic practice and an assessment is a good way to see you know what is a student able to independently know and able to do um for not only the teacher
but also for the student themselves and to strengthen their skills. One problem I have though is most of the testing is is multiple choice, you know, so you can't always see how they process the information that they have. Uh so I
think that that is really one of the flaws that we've gone to in testing and I understand why it's a lot easier. You're dealing with discrete things that can easily be uh identified as being right or wrong. So, I I understand that,
but I think that that's a bit of a problem. And then the other thing that occurred to me was if you don't read well, how do you do well on the math test, you know, and so one thing is a
little bit soft? Automatically, you're you're going to stumble twice when you get the other thing. Yeah. So, first response is both the MSTEP and the PSAT do all have open-ended questions. So, it's not all 100% multiple choice. Multiple choice is a component of it, but they do have some open-ended on both
of those assessments. Um, and then for the second part, any of our students who do have a learning disability in reading, a lot of times they'll do use text to speech for the math portion. So, it is read to them for exactly what you're trying to get at. We want to know how their math skills are, not I
couldn't even read the question. How do I assess where my math skills are at? In addition to that, there are she also talks special ed about other special populations like our EL students. So now they're taking their MSTEP. MSTEP is added over the last couple years. They call them a stack. The accommodation is
called stack testing which they have the ability to learn in their their current languages is for mathematics, right? Because we don't want to assess reading if they can't read. That's what we're So be in Spanish. Yeah. The math portion would be. So then we're actually testing their mathematic ability, not how to
read. how to read English and a lot of the you know we use when I used to take the the standardized tests you know the old meeps unlike now these tests are adaptive so even though they're multiple choice which is an obviously best case scenario an NWA and I think this has
been explained before that when you get a question wrong or right the test actually adapts there's no two students in the room taking the same test their questions that they get are based on how many right or wrong they get and continue to challenge them or continue to go down um till you hit where they at
exactly where they're at in in many different categories. Yeah, there's a lot of uh tests are staggered that way. But then I also heard and and correct me, I mean I simply haven't taken a third grade test in a number of years. Um but they said that they'll read to
them what in second grade, but they won't necessarily read to them for the third grade test. Is is there a a plateau in there? There is. So, in NWA, we actually have the there's a there's a K2 test and then a 25 test and then a 6A
test for NWA. Um, in TCAPS, we decided to start uh them reading the own test starting in second grade and everybody doing the same thing. This is something that we've gone back and forth on um with the with the idea that we want the
same of the data coming through on the same kids so that we can actually compare apples to apples. If you have some buildings decide, well, we want our second graders to hear it. And we have some buildings say, well, we want some of our kids to read it. But in our board meetings or we're looking at data for
curriculum or we're trying to support missionbased budget uh with reading intervention, the scores don't differentiate who's reading it and who's not. So, we decided TCAPS at 25 they have to read the test. And that does give us a little more accuracy on where they are with their reading skills more
than their listening skills. 25 25 they read the test K1 it's read and there'll be some kids I'm sure they just hit the wall on that they struggle and so that's you know that that's a tough one
as far as kids who struggle with reading trying to force through a test right and figure out where they land but it's still data even and it's data we use in an IEP so if they are in the second percentile Obviously, they struggled mightily to read the test, but we still
have that data that we need right in a PLA and an IEP to provide services. If we don't have that and that test is read to them and they come out in the NWA and reading on the 35th percentile, they might not qualify for the services they need. And that's why we focus on
literacy, early literacy skills with younger students. Yeah. And it applies, we all know that applies across the four core, right? Without that, you you don't have that baseline to, you know, to be successful in mathematics, to explore reading and history, etc. Yeah, there's a lot of upstream thinking with that,
right? Teaching kids how to read early and us monitoring that and making sure they gain those skills is going to pay dividends down the road. So, yeah, I just um also concerned about kids that basically fail a little bit
too early and and that is a whole different issue. But you're also concerned about that because what is it? Hattie says that one of the greatest predictors of success is a confidence that you can do
it. So that one's a hard. Thank you for that background. Yeah. And and going to ask Miss K just to expand a little bit on this slide here. Yeah. So Dan mentioned a little bit with regards to when we look kind of about broad research that need for that balance
assessment system. So what the Michigan Department of Education did was take that research and essentially provide guidance for districts on how to build or ensure that we have components that kind of um go across those four main buckets of a balanced assessment system.
And it's really under the guise of the need and recognition that there isn't one assessment that's going to be able to provide a full picture of student growth and achievement and that need to have those multiple data points over the course of of a year and beyond to ensure that we really have the most accurate
picture we can um of the skills and understandings that students glean over the course of their educational experience. And so what MDE did was essentially provide guidance in ensuring that districts have identified assessments that fall into these four buckets of a diagnostic assessment,
formative assessment, interim benchmark, and then summitative. And you'll see kind of going from left to right, they really categorize it more so into leading and lagging indicators. And really that leading indicator is those assessments are assessments for learning. So that data is going to be
utilized to actually make instructional adjustments. and intentional planning with regards to instruction where the further we go to the right we're looking more at those lagging indicators which is really those assessments of learning. So how are students able to apply and transfer those skills and strategies
that have been explicitly taught over the course of the year on more of those summitive assessments through PSAT SAT MSTEP and then for some of our students my access. Could you just speak a little bit more about the Ames web plus y um
and how what unique um you know testing does it offer compared to NWA and so on. Yeah. So Ames web plus is um plays quite an integral role I think um in terms of those early literacy skills we're talking about um
just previously. Um, so NWA is not going to measure whether or not a student is able to actually um uh accurately identify without listening accurate letter sounds, accurate letter naming, oral reading fluency, all of those precursor
foundational skills that are necessary to actually make meaning when they're reading, which is what we usually see when we're looking at NWA scores. Um, and so it's that additional layer that says what are do our kids have that solid foundation of those foundational
skills for accessibility to actually be able to access the text to then essentially kind of shift their their uh their cognitive bandwidth and to actually understanding what they're reading. Um so we utilize um at the
elementary level in particular those skills to actually form more skills-based groups of if we notice a lagging skill in a student's um uh some of those precursor foundational skills, we're actually able to better align and target intervention to remediate those
skills necessary so that we are developing those fluent readers. So yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say it's a similar concept to delta math, right? Well, we'll deal well we have NWA that gives us a large score and to you can go down to a band.
Teachers need to go down even further than that, right? To look at the actual skill that the that the student needs support at so we can have the precise intervention. So, Delta Maths is the same thing is that they get it down to like five different actual um standards.
A standard of let's say two digit two-digit edition, right? So, we know that we're going to bring that student in for two weeks, work with that two-digit edition, see that they're proficient in it, and then move on to to another standard. So, it's that kind of that that laser focus that really helps.
We we're filling holes, right? As far as where they're at. If there's a whole lot of holes, and they might need more support that's tier three. But that's what that's the essence of intervention, right? is we're looking for where things that they missed in their education so we can fill them so that they're able to build larger concepts on top of those
those standards. Two questions. One, does that mean that they have fewer quizzes uh in their their classroom because they're tested so much? you know, and secondly, it almost seems like you'd
have a fluid grade, you know, so that you have all the second graders that are tested using the same test and the kids that need a focus, you could have a couple in Miss Jones class, five in Miss Brown's class, 16 in Miss Little's
class, and you combine all those kids together for a time to do that particular math class. Right. That That's correct. Britney could probably talk to it as she actually lived it at Blair is a targeted intervention time. So yeah, so a lot of
our district or a lot of our elementary buildings um have set aside um common grade level differentiated blocks and so essentially for anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes a day all third graders have an opportunity to get what they need in terms of either remediating or extending
their skills. Um and so the data sets particularly with Delta Math and AMSwell Plus is it allows us to have um more similar skills and needs because especially on NWA you might have four kids that are at the same score but they all have varying needs that are
contributing to the results of that score. And so as Dan spoke with Delta Math and I think it's similar to AMSA plus is those data sets allow us to specifically and more and better pinpoint those skills so that we can form um more aligned groupings to your
point of I can pull two kids from one third grade class and three kids from another that have the similar need and I can better align an intervention and provide it during that sacred 30 to 45 minute block of time. And then they
would get another testing basically to see how they and then that block would fill differently. Yes. Y depending on the testing. So how frequently would that So AMS plus is administered three times a year similar to NWA. So fall,
winter, and spring. It's also normed like NWA and it's nationally normed. So it's in comparison to their peers nationally. Um, and so what's also nice with AMSA Plus is that it's not only a benchmarking platform or a screening platform, it also has embedded progress
monitoring. So you can set individually specific goals for a student based on what their baseline score is. Um, and so that's nice to be able to track progress over time of how our kids actually able to apply and transfer the skills that
they're learning in that intervention period. Um, and so usually for the progress monitoring data that's reviewed once formally in between those benchmark periods. So we have as much fluidity as we possibly can and we avoid kind of
this um quote unquote like life sentence so to speak. We want to be able to exit kids from intervention as as quickly as we possibly can um just to kind of remediate those skills um to fill those gaps. And then how what grades does that
uh cover? And then how long have we been doing this? Kindergarten through fifth grade um for um AMSA plus. And I believe Delta Math can be administered kindergarten through 5th, but it's most primarily utilized first through 5th because there aren't kindergarten
aligned lessons to the results of that data. Please correct me if I'm wrong. No, that's correct. Kindergarten's correct because they're just in kindergarten. So, as far as what they don't know, they don't know type thing. Um, in ASW Webb, as far as K5, this is the first year everybody has done it.
We've done um we've worked with special ed education students with Ames Webb um with and Ames Webb does have a math component um that they use Ames Webb for for special education students. This year is the first year we've done everybody K5 on Ames Webb um to more
properly see where where interventions can be placed. And and when she says progress monitoring, keep in mind that doesn't mean that kid is sitting down for a what you think of as a traditional test, a lot of times what that looks like is that they're doing the intervention and um it's got really
scripted and and intentional practice. And as students are successful, it like will move that kid on. And you see, okay, we got the Dan's example, two-digit regrouping, addition, right? Second grade standard. Oh, the kids done it correct. The kids's done it correct. Oh, they've had enough times in which
they've they've done it correctly. They've demonstrated this skill. Cool. We're ready to move that kid on. It's not quite as don't think of it as like I a kid sits independently and and does a test. It's more what does that intentional practice look like? Oh, I've made a mistake. Let's give them another chance and see if they can do it now.
Practice the skill yet. Oh, nope. They're going to need some more instruction and modeling on that. Now, we said, you know, so it's it's very fluid. Um it's not when they sometimes when you hear progress monitoring you think oh now the kid's going back and taking another test. No it's more of what does that scripted practice look
like and then as the kid produces success cool we can move them out of that or they're not successful or I need a little bit more direct instruction and modeling on that. And as well plus the progress monitoring measures are intended to be about a minute long. Oh
okay. So it's very very quick. Okay. And maybe that's why all these little prek kids have their computers so they're getting used to doing this um in preparation of hitting second first grade, right? And it'll be
interesting to see if it makes a big difference in looking at your scores next year. You're looking at progress. Yes, absolutely. Because the intent is that we're able to provide more targeted intervention because we have the data sets we need in front of us to give those groups of students or individual
students the best opportunity to remediate those skills in the quickest way possible. Oh, heck. Yeah. So, you might be heading this way, Dan, but um I'm just curious, you know, who uses the data? When do they use it?
How frequently? Because you know the backdrop here is you all are evaluating. You're leading us right into the rest of our of all these tests against the cost of the burden on the students and the teacher missing instructional time. And
then where do you share with parents? Yep. You're we're going to talk all about that. Um so we're going to start with our recommendations for next year for elementary assessments. So starting with elementary, this is still a work in progress. So we are looking into this. I
wouldn't call this a recommendation quite yet. Um it's interesting when I started to get into conversations because I wanted feedback from elementary principles, uh from our elementary leadership team, from our math leadership team. Um because I thought at first, you know, I would you
say you're going to eliminate NWA reading and there would be um in the winter, right? Everybody would kind of most people would celebrate and go hey less testing that'd be great. However, I think we have a lot of pro a lot of our processes are kind of tied to that and
this is what we've done for I mean several years we've used NWA. So I'm going to continue to look at this with teachers. I think I might actually survey all I hear some voices. Some want it, some don't. Everybody wants to get rid of MSTEP. That's not an option. We have to do that's one we have to do that
everyone wants. We might lose state funding on that one. Yeah, that would be a red flag and they wouldn't be here much longer. Um, so he wants to try it a legislator. I'll talk to him. Yeah, that might be interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So, the two that we're going to continue to
look into and I think I'll come back to board curriculum as far as final approval with this probably in one of our July meetings. There's two of them there is looking at specifically for elementary just our NWA reading um for the winter. And why we're looking at
that is that we we've already mentioned that we're doing as web now with all students and we feel like that when we have our data meetings we're going to have another slide here where we talk about what do we do with the data that that is s that's significant enough to help us create those intervention groups
and again we're trying to as we add testing we're trying to take some away. Another idea we had um was to move all of our fifth grade instead of doing fifth grade fall, winter, spring is to take our fifth grade and do that during
the winter. Fifth grade right now takes four MSTEP tests. So we've talked about this I think in board curriculum or board before social studies, science, language arts, math and that is a taxing time in the spring and then we add three NWAs to it also. So that's
seven seven tests total. So, one of our ideas is that can we take that that spring and so they're only tested the losses we have to do it twice. Uh it can be fall winter, it can be fall spring and move that in into the into the
winter. One thing that we haven't touched yet if you notice that I haven't talked about winter math NWA just talking to the the math leadership team. This is the first year that we've had all of our elementaryaries doing um math data meetings and they want to kind of
continue that momentum. They think eventually that delta math might be enough for the winter data meeting but since they just started they kind of want to continue that momentum into next year. So in some you're finding right now that
NWEA ELA and the AS web are complimentary and then NWA math and Delta math are complimentary but if the teachers assess that there's too much overlap it be easier to it will eliminate one or the other. It would be
and that's it's it's tough because the the spring in particular when I talk about moving the fifth grade as far as what do we use it for, right? That's the what do we use because they're going to come back in sixth grade and do a fall. We're not going to eliminate any fall testing. So the spring does and we also
have to look at our evaluation rubric because some of this is also tied to that, you know, that that fall to to spring testing. So that's what we we're always constantly weighing and we want to get feedback from teachers and elementary principles as what's best for the whole system including students what
we the data that we use for intervention and then again how do we inform instruction what time of the year is it is doing all that testing that's the stickler with MSTEP right you're doing all that testing in the spring everybody goes away it doesn't inform instruction
um until the following year or like I said kind that big picture idea but you don't have any flexibility on them stuff unfortunately. So with I mean moving fifth grade to the winter is that is that because is the idea well they're
moving on to middle school and and that's just to try to relieve some testing uh burnout because they have four MSTEPs that they have to take that we don't have. One thing that Jesse and I are looking into is a little wiggle room because we set the window for
NWA and and Jesse can explain this a little more, but when you get down to kind of the brass tax, you have to actually put the number of days of instruction you have between your testing windows, which then filters into I believe the algorithm for the percentile and the norming. Yep. So, as
far as moving that window, it we'd like to ideally maybe move our fifth grade into the later or earlier spring. Maybe move it to March. Do a fall, do a March, and then that's it for fifth grade. Uh that way you do have some similar data. But the number one reason with moving
that fifth grade out of spring is just test burnout. So, fifth graders have more MSTEPs than the other. Third and fourth grade just have ELA and math. Okay. They add social studies and science fifth. Okay. But seventh grade
has a lot of NWA. It does. And Jesse's going to touch upon the secondary plan in middle school and how they're going to adjust also. Okay. Because I just asked some kids, three kids, and they said I said, "How do you feel?" And they said, "We feel like they do way too much
testing." So yeah. So just remind us and also I think it's important for public record. What are parents' rights to opt a kid out of standardized testing? So there is not necessarily
and sometimes we get that parent communication about opting out at any point. I mean K5wise secondary is a little different. Um a teacher parent calls me up they don't want their student to test. I encourage it right. I I talk to them about everything we've talked about
here. The data is important. We use like every data point we use, but at the end of the day, if they K5 and they decide not to test, they don't test. As a district, we need a percentage of MSTEP for students to test in order that's connected to 95%. 95% otherwise we are
our financially 5% of our state aid is. Why isn't MSTEP up on there? Oh, is it in the spring behind? Oh, it should be up there. Okay. But it it would be under spring. It would be. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's a it's a slippery slope, you know, honestly that
way that we don't have control over. So we strongly encourage everybody it's a conversation, right? When we when we have the parent call, it's like I don't want to take MSTEP and I go okay and that's it. I mean we do go into it and I do mention that there are graduations requirements that are connected to
standardized testing as you get into secondary. uh building that stand up, understanding what they're being tested and again making sure that the parent understands what we're using the data for. Yeah. So just looking at this slide, MSTEP falls under fall and
spring, right? But not winter. MSE is just spring. Oh, just spring. Okay. And what grades? Three, four, five. Okay. So if a parent, you know, and I mean we've all heard stories of kids who have anxiety about testing, they would be if
if you're looking to reduce that burden on them, it would be the NWA, the built to math or the Ames web that you steer them towards to help that kid manage the anxiety. in specific. Yeah, if that was really the issue, I think we would
actually help them figure out how to get them to complete the test and overcome the anxiety. There there's a lot of research that when you have that and you and you don't do it at all, it actually makes it worse. Um so figuring out how can we get an environment in which you
know what's the root cause of that anxiety and how can we maybe address that and support that um and work towards that as opposed to just avoidance in test anxiety I wouldn't lump in necessarily as web and delta math with the other ones because that as
web and delta math is a very quick assessment while MSTEP students I mean can hanker down for a while and that takes and especially if we start talking about tier three, you know, our most vulnerable students in special education. That is that can take a long
time as far as completing those tests, like days. Oh, does it cost us anything to take the tests? It doesn't cost us anything to do the state assessments that are required. Um, NWA we pay for, but then we I we write a
grant every year and that that is covered because it's on the approved list. Ames Webb does cost us money to to administer as a district. Again, we write a grant. I've read at least this last year, our grant was approved to pay for that. So, we try as much as we can.
There's a lot of different funding out there that we go after that's not general fund dollars for that. There is some cost sometimes at secondaries to rent some tables and chairs and types of things, but those are very minimal costs for that. Was $7 a student for the whole
suite. And this year we were able to pay for all of that out of a grant fund. So that's good. Yeah. Do you all know if like what our participation rate is for NWA versus MSTEP? I'd say it's very
similar. They're both above 95%. Above 95%. Yeah. We really haven't been below 95%. That I can remember. I shouldn't maybe, you know, jinx us, but um we really on a state assessment, you really don't want to be you really want to try hard to work. there are makeup days. Um
we work with families if we need to make arrangements or or figure out what that root cause could be. But that is really important that we hit state compliance just because then we are in a situation where now we have to direct energy personnel into sort of meeting what happens when you don't hit state
compliance and what are the impacts of that which we would like to avoid. So Dan, you mentioned that you're looking at getting input from all the all teachers by July and coming back with their with the recommendation.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The more the more I kind of got into it and got the initial feedback from elementary principles and leadership teams, I just thought it was worth looking a little more into to see what the vast majority um thought about not having that assessment.
Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? So, middle school is is a little bit cleaner here. Um, I have been working with uh actually Ryan Ranger and Kristen Steman and the two leads at our middle schools came to me pretty early on and
said there's a lot of uh desire from our staff to eliminate the amount of testing at middle school. And so I said awesome. And so I've been working with their leadership team and this has gone through both the leadership teams, the building ARs and those sort of things um at the middle school. But so their first
proposal um is to eliminate the science of the NWA. So right now currently at um at our middle school, our students in grades six and seven and eight actually take three NWA tests three times a year.
That would be nine tests a year. um those tests run one but usually two school days class periods. So they and the reason why science is it's not strongly align aligned to the um national science standards the NGSS standards that we're using um we aren't
really using the data for anything. Um our science department doesn't find it informative or valuable to them. Um so they were like can we please not do this anymore? And actually science is not one of the assessments that's reimbursed through our grant funding either. So, so
that's science. Um, the other there just a legacy there. Like there's a little bit of a legacy and I think too when we adopted NWA, we first adopted ELA and math pretty early because we we like the national norming. We liked the information it was giving us. Um, and then they pushed out science. It was
like a later product and we thought, well, we like ELA and and math. Why not try science? And we've tried it for a few years, man. Dan, I don't know how long. I mean, five years maybe we've done science. We haven't done it the whole time. Um, and we just haven't found use on it. We just find the scores
don't really correlate to much. We've moved away from it from elementary also a while back and now we are looking I've met with Britney and I have been meeting with the science team this year and we're going to do some common assessments like quick 10 questions
um to be able to kind of align uh how our science is. It just gives us a better idea moving into the MSTEP where we're at. So that's the first change that um they they made to me. The second recommendation they made is that they
want to get rid of that winter NWA for all of their students. Um and so their thinking is um some of our students at the middle school take exams depending on what courses they're in. Um they also change over semesters there. Um and so they were wondering if their if their
second NWA could be right before spring break. I put it in that spring. I could have probably put it in that window or or sorry in the winter in the winter window uh list there. But sort of that idea of let's do the fall NWA with uh ELA and math and then let's come back
and see where kids at are about February March semester's rolled over. We've got some academic uh data on the kids with grades. Um and it gets them clear for the spring in which those students take the MSTEP um so that they're not on top
of each other. Right now they're all in the midst of doing NWA and MSTEP. NSTEP is we can't move it, right? The window is set by the state for us. Um so that would allow our sixth and seventh grade would take the fall ELA and math and NWA
sort of a mid- winter February March NWA and then they just sixth and seventh grade take MSTEP in the in the spring and they do ELA math. So it kind of gives us a nice benchmark on that. Our eighth grade um
they've actually their recommendation is to remove NWA all together from our eighth graders. And with our eighth graders do a fall PSAT, the PSAT 89. It's what our 9th graders, our 10th graders, and our 11th graders take at
the high schools. It's one morning in October um that students take that. We get the results back pretty quick actually. They come back through it's all a digital test um probably about four weeks from college board. We get a breakdown of where students are at. We
also get sample questions in each of the score bands. So we're able to use those instructionally and set goals and then they would take that same assessment in the spring. That assessment um PSAT 8 assesses uh ELA and math. That sort of leads them up to the series of the PSAT
9, the PSAT 10, and then ultimately the SAT is juniors. Our eighth graders really just want to use some of the systems our high schools have to prepare them for that. The eighth grade is the only one that then has the additional MSTEP for science and social studies. So
MSTEP for uh our our sixth and seventh is ELA math. For our eighth graders, they the PSAT is the required for ELA math and then they have MSTEP for science and MSTEP for social studies. Our eighth graders do four days like our
fifth graders of testing every spring, but they do the eighth graders also they do take the ELA and math as well. They take the ELA and math as the PSAT, not as the MSTEP. Okay? So, the state says we want you to take a a state assessment
in all four areas, but instead of taking the MSTEP for ELA and math, they take the PSAT. That's what the state assessment is for those kids. But there's not a state assessment on the PSAT suite for science and social studies. So they take those separate
tests through the MSTEP platform. And we used to take the MSTEP. Not for ELA. Well, when they when they changed to the PSAT Yes. Yeah. A couple years ago, they pushed the PSAT. It's similar. So as an 11th grader, which is the next slide,
but there's no change there. They take the SAT, which hits you ELA, math, and then they take MSTEP science and social studies, right? It's those it's the fifth grade year, the eighth grade year, and the 11th grade year that they take a state assessment in all four of those core
areas. So, I wanted to make sure I understood regarding PSAT 8 in October, that's what you want to move to or that is that's what we want to move to. So, that would be new. That PSAT8 in October
would be new. Right now, what our eighth graders did is they took the NWA in the fall. Um, and then in the spring, they took the N they're taking the NWA again and they're taking the PSAT 8. So, what they're recommending is no NWA in the spring for the eighth graders and no, they're actually recommending no NWA
period for eighth grade. Move them off of that when they get to be eighth graders. You guys are using this slide to show changes. So it looks like for fall NWA 6 and seven only is green should be green to show that change,
right? And then PSAT8 October I can do that. Yeah. Okay. And then going forward because I know PSAT8 did happen this year in April. That would be scratched going forward or would that be the second time? That would be the
second time. Okay. Right. So right now like our ninth and our 10th and our 11th graders just take those state assessments two times a year. Our eighth graders would model that exact same model. They would take it in the fall and they would take it in the spring. The spring is the required one. We are
doing it in the fall to benchmark our kids. It's the recommended one. It is really nice because what we're able to do with our teachers is we do over the summer we can give them the data. We organize it by your students that you had in class. how many students were below their benchmarks and grew and what
does that growth look like? How many were above and grew and what does that look like? And we actually start the year in August with them kind of reflecting on their students from the last year. How did they do and what types of instructional um information does that tell them? Um they love it. They actually love seeing that kind of a
a fall and a spring on the same exact assessment on the same like they can really see that growth with kids. So thank you. going into the next grade. So, you're looking at what they are. They are looking in reverse because we get those scores in June, right? Our
kids all took it, but they'll get our our kids will all get their SAT PSAT scores probably tomorrow or Thursday. They usually get them right around May 1st, but we as a school don't get them until June because it's an it's a state accountability thing. We right now we're
screening our window for should these students be attached to us us for accountability but kids actually get their scores back this week. So did you want to talk at all about WEDA or not really there's no changes there. We
are required to give WEDA screeners um to all of our students who um enter in the fall and then our the major WEDA assessment is a winter window which is actually nice because it stays off of the state assessment window in the spring. Do you feel that you get much
information that's really usable from MSEP given all the other testing? Oh, I don't that's a tricky question, Beth. I I am a numbers gale and so um I I don't mind a little bit of a broad
stroke every year as to how do kids perform. I think it helps us say are the things we're doing along the way making an impact and making a difference. Um, I don't necessarily I'm not married to the MSTEP and I I wish I can see the scores
right now. I've been kind of like collecting them, but I can't show them to anyone. I can't do anything with them. We can't talk to teachers about them. So, that makes So, I just wonder if you could save enough money at the state level and actually bring it back
into the schools as discretionary money to use to help augment some of the areas where kids are struggling. We had a state superintendent who strongly believed in bringing NWA and making that our state assessment. Unfortunately, he
passed away during this term of cancer and it kind of died with him. And so there is some there is some legislation that's been introduced this session to relook at a balanced assessment system such as NWA, but we'll see where it
goes. Is it in the House or is it in the Senate? I believe it's in the House. Do the do the advocacy organizations MESB, MASA, MEA have t have they taken positions on this? Um I think I think
that they agree with it. I think MDE has come out against it. Um and you know so it's political. It's it's also territorial and selfpreserving. And and and you know there is some there's some argument there. I mean to
to give the other side is you know it's a state aligned test to our state standards and and deb is a national product you know so there there is some variance there um but you know I think
we could get down to a core set of standards that could be identified I think there's a way to do it if there's the will but right now there hasn't been the will and it's nice that NWA PSAT here are nationally normed. We have that national I know we've talked about in our last
study session right about having it nationally normed and not just comparing to state and it's our MSEP is not there's no way I don't believe there's any way to take our MEP data and compare nationally there are some funky calculation things that they do they've done cross Harvard just did one not that
long ago but it is a very complicated you know that psychometricians run that you know professionally PhDs that do that you have to have enough data historically on all those assessments ments to to make those predictions. So like there's a little bit of like anyways um but I will say this. So if if
we're okay and supportive with this we will have eliminated three days of science um testing from the calendar we've eliminated in the for eighth graders instead of having two days in the fall they'll have one. So there's another day we've eliminated and then we've eliminated um two more days in the
winter. So, we've really gone we've eliminated six days or more if you're um a student with accommodations who takes time and a half or double time on assessment of testing for we're getting back a whole week's worth of instruction and
absences and I mean how many how forward do you go with tier one instruction in a class if six kids haven't taken it? So you make up far more than that. I think to disruption in the middle school just because they lived it the last couple years is disrupting. Well then how do
you explain all this to the parents? This is how your child did on this test but this is how they did on this test and then on this test they did this but that was done in the winter and this was done in the spring and this is done in the fall. Now do you understand exactly how your child is doing in school? Yes.
And do you want to come back to parent teacher night the next time we have them? Yeah, it's tough. Um, no change recommended for high schoolers. Um, we feel pretty solid about what we have. I know that spring looks like a long list. Um, all state
required. It really is. Our our 9th and 10th graders have two days. They do a fall test, they do a spring test. Our 11th graders are the ones who have a little bit more. They do that one day in the fall. And then in the spring they have one day for the SAT. And then it typically is a half a day for them to do
their MSTEP, which is their science and social studies. And then it's a half a day for them to do their work keys. I will tell you we have worked really hard uh both Joe Esper and myself at the at the MASSP to try to get work keys moved. Um very lots of great principal support
around getting work keys eliminated. Almost got through the Senate one year. But what's work keys? Um it is assessment designed to test whether a student is career um ready um to enter the workforce. They actually
it's a great assessment for some of our our students who go to CTC and CTC does administer it a multiple times to show growth on those. Um it just is an assessment that we use widely. um any of our kids who are um going to two and fouryear institutes they don't do
anything with it nor they do they do anything with the MSTEP at science and social studies but and is it work keys is it looking at do you have skills or do you have interests or does it look at both Nope skills and it's more of what you would consider
traditional reading writing and math skills and it's a difference in ACT product and we transition to an SAT statement. So that's another interesting Yes. thing. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
So the last slide we have too is the most important that Josie were asking. So like we got to use the data for something, right? It's got to be meaningful to our kids, meaningful to our teachers, meaningful to us making resource allocation decisions, professional develop decisions, all of those. So we listed a few here. Um Dan
and Britney, I don't know if you guys want to talk a little bit. Yeah, school level is first and foremost is that that fall screening as well as NWA's placement and interventions and how that goes hand inand missionbased budget uh tier 2 support. So that's our our our
number one and we have a formalized um data meetings that we do fall winter uh some schools do spring a little more optional where our coach um administration and the grade level will sit down look at the data not only tier
2 but also their tier one data because sometimes looking at that tier one data can help the entire grade level look at what they need to address or something that possibly was missed in a previous year especially especially with our move over to CLA because we we're seeing now
where those maybe some holes were and they're consistent um struggles in learning that they had with reading and how we can we can fill those not only again with intervention but we really emphasize this year the idea of using it as as tier one also
um again always informing instruction um and then individual student growth also No, I was just going to say that informing instruction just to add a little bit more to what Dan spoke of in tier one um
with our tier one data reviews. Our grade level teams, our instructional coach and our building leaders really utilize their data review uh times that generally occur after the benchmark window is closed um to really de delve into kind of the causal factors
contributing to the results of the data. And then they develop theories of action um of hey we're going to focus our time and energy on leveraging and focusing in and doing our due diligence on X Y and Z instructional strategy. And then instructional coaches really play an integral role in monitoring that
throughout the course of that benchmark window making some adjustments and refinements before then that NWA gets readministered um in the winter and then in in the spring to kind of close it out. Can you very um clearly define tier one,
tier two, tier three? Yeah. So when we talk about tier, they're really systems and supports, right? So we tend to avoid calling students, you know, their tier one students or their tier 2 students. It's about the adult moves and the support systems that are provided. Um and so
tier one is all students. So what are the supports instructional programming assessments that all of um our students within tier one receive and then needs go into tier two and then more needs. Yes. Yes. And so really we want to
generally target tier one is usually um like we strive for you know 80%. So if we just focus our time and energy on our tier one supports and creating systems around that, we want to see 80% at least at minimum responding positively to
those supports we put in place. Tier 2 tends to be around 10 to 15 and then tier three supports tend to be around 5 to 10. Um and that research is pretty consistent in terms of what we really want to see in terms of those systems and structures that target those tiers.
when you're in if you see tier three get too large, what that really tells you is you have a tier one problem. Right. What you're doing for all students is is not comprehensive enough um and they're not responding. Right. Right. And generally speaking, tier three is students that
are participating in tier three are they have an IEP. I just had a comment about we also monitor student individual growth, but do we also I'm looking at the buildings improvement plans at 2425. The buildings
also um monitor building growth. Correct. Yes. So there would be a number four potentially that I think ties into district level and what we're trying to accomplish as a district. Like I'm looking at easterns right now like they had a goal of 90%
uh above 60% NWA reading and then in June 90% 90% you know so anyways I just think it's you know I I just came across this document this these building plans and it's pretty it's pretty I think cool that the they're establishing targets and all this intervention wonderful
things assessments to make sure that not only individual are hitting their targets but the buildings are as well and at the secondary I'll add on that we monitor courses Right? So students who for example are in algebra 1, are they making the growth that we would expect them to? If not, gosh, is there a
curricular issue? Do we need some more professional development? What kind of support do we need? We also monitor teachers too, right? There are certain teachers in our building or in our district who are more successful with getting growth out of students in certain um ranges. And so then we look at like what are they doing and what
types of tools are they using and how can we work together and work smarter. And we look at that too. or it might be like hey this person's really struggling what additional resources might they need for us to support them and support their kids too. So we look at those layers too. District level also monitor
curriculum and programming. I mean with our interventions that we use we continue to use an intervention and it doesn't work. We can move to another intervention or switch. What we're trying to do is move more to a a like intervention at every elementary school so everyone has the
same experience. But with curriculum especially, I mean, we're using CPLA based on I mean, if our rating data is knocking out of the park, why would we switch our curriculum, would that not fall under the budgeting and allocations, the looking at curriculum
and programming? Um, I always think that under the district level, when I think of budgeting allocations, some of that comes into the at risk funding. the idea that all students that fall under the 60th percentile are labeled at risk and
therefore are budgeted along with that. Yeah. And I think like at the middle schools, we've really identified that there's not additional tier 2 support for reading and math for our sixth grade students, right? And so Kristen and Ryan and I said it's it's got to be a must. We have to have it in place. So, we took
it off of our at risk district funding to build in some time in the day where we didn't um we didn't track these kids forever. We have a fluid program we're going to start next year for sixth graders. So, they need a little additional support above and beyond
their um current schedule for that. We did that before we then made allocations for some of that because we thought that that was important for us to have as a district level for all of our sixth graders next year. So if kids are feeling for whatever
reason, then they begin to automatically be considered tier 2. Yep. We're building it in a model that where kids are able to I Britney said this beautifully. We don't want this support. We don't want it to label them. We don't want this to be a death sentence of now
I'm stuck in this group. Um sometimes everybody needs a little bit of help at different times, at different places, and in different ways. And that's okay. We all kind of need that, right? So, how do we provide that and then get the kid on their way? And and every building, whether it's elementary, sometimes we'll
call it tasks, teachers addressing student concerns or MTSS, multi-tered support systems, have those groups that continually monitor these students who are on in this tier 2 support. So, we don't place them in tier 2 in the fall and then in the spring, we see how
you're doing. It's a regular basis. We meet monthly as a task team in elementary. um to see how are they responding to intervention, what other supports do they need? And this not only is we've talked specifically here about, you know, the academic side of it, but social work is the same idea where we
also have as far as social work, there's tier one, two, and three support systems also where the whole class is getting social emotional learning. Tier two might be a more one-on-one without an IEP, but then there's specific social workers supplied by our North services
that help with students that have social work goals in their IEP. So, it's just another thing that we look at alongside academics. Before we hop into here, I just if we go back, I just wanted to make a comment about on the district level and and you know, I shared this with some of you earlier, but I I hope
that um we can bring some of this conversation uh to our board meeting on the 12th and to just I think bring a little bit of teaching and learning um to our strategic plan um specifically around assessments. I I sometime I'm new but I sometimes feel like teaching and
learning doesn't get a lot of play uh during our I'm just looking at our agenda for the 12th and so if there's an opportunity to just share a little bit about these assessments specifically around the goals at the building level the goals of the district level you know how we allocate dollars affects not just
u strategic district goals but also building goals um so I you know I just I I guess I'd like to have a little bit of um you know there's important discussions happening here and I feel like it would do a service for a lot of us to have them at the full board
meeting as well. Building grade and subject level growth. I heard you say under school level and at the district level Vanage and Kirk. Yeah. The tricky and I don't know how Dr. Van Wagner feels but as far as the tricky thing and something that we don't
really include in our reporting is the idea of grade level and building. building in my mind is a little tricky as far as looking at we look at building growth but we actually want to see grade level growth as far as when we look at district when we look at like strategic
planning or data I mean I think it's obviously that's a bonus to celebrate building growth but in theory if we're doing things right as a district right those grade levels you know should be growing at at an adequate pace for all of them and if bu if we're starting to
celebrate buildings and at some point in there you you can kind of branch into some unhealthy competition and we're promoting building promoting building that's what we do like to look at when we when we did our study session on data we didn't actually talk much about any particular building we're really focused
on grade level yeah I don't want to talk about buildings either but I do want to ask like are we providing the support that the buildings need to accomplish some of their goals around achievement and growth you know and I guess I I would love to like hear from some of these principles like at the end of June 2025
Did we accomplish some of these goals we set out to do or or not? And how do we adjust, you know, from a board level from an allocation and, you know, accountability standpoint? So, if there's a place for it on the 12th, it'd be great. Um, you know, I did make that request earlier, but um I feel like I
think these are important conversations. So this year for secondary principles, we did our we did our mission based budgeting meeting together. And we really started it by we thought about what are the barriers that get in the way with students growing and achieving at the level they should. And I made them like we all thought about it and then we listed it and then we thought
every time we're making decisions and allocating resources, are we making them to try to eliminate these barriers for our kids, right? and as a group. Um, and it was I thought it was it was a long meeting, but I thought it was really well done because we worked more as a team of building leaders to think about, wait, nope, we said tier two at middle
school was really important. So then we have to make sure we have those at risk dollars there, right? And even the high school principles were like, okay, we got to give a little bit because we got at risk cut and now we got to take something off of ours to make sure that's there. But we understand the importance of that and these are kids that are going to come to us and we're
hoping, right? And so for all of us to be in the room and making those commitments together, it I thought was really helpful for us. And I think like tier two in a middle school is important, right? And that's I guess from my seat, that's what I'd like to hear as well, right? Early literacy, the focus on early literacy is important, you know? So as we talk about goals like
last night, I feel like I just hope there's more around teaching and learning in this compass 2.0. Um, and I think if we just have another quick discussion to just provide some guidance on some of those goals, I think it would be in our best interest. So, I was thinking about that. So, I do wonder,
you know, I I thought the same thing last night and I do wonder if it's more proper to have that conversation in the first hour of our next strategic planning like have Jesse and Dan lead that and go through that conversation like of their thoughts of recommendations that were given to the board, all of that. So, the board has
that right then and fresh and then go from there. um you know just it's yeah I guess it depends on how packed the 12th visit the 12th meeting is but right now there's not a lot on discussion and I think just like we gave a lot of time I think to our infrastructure facilities I'd like
to give equal time to teaching and learning um and I'd also like to do it in public you know I I I I'd like the public to attend and I'd like to have these discussions in public there was there was nobody in the from the public maybe one person last night I mean to hear our discussion last night and it's
an important discussion And I felt actually because we were Nick's point was we were looking at the data that had come in as opposed to saying this is what we want the data to say and where's the support for it. Um and I I agree with them otherwise what's the point of
doing the surveys or the the uh focus groups to follow follow the data right and I think this is some data I mean we're talking about it right now using the data. So, if we're going to follow the data, um, perceptions surveys are wonderful, right? A point of data. This
is another point of data. And I think I just want to just talk a little bit more about teaching and learning. That's all. Whether whether it's in May or you're saying, I'll just say this about this the study um sessions on our strategic
plan. Those are open to the public. They're not televised. They're not recorded, but that's a limitation of the facilities we're believe the North Ed board meetings are video. They're not. Uh well, I found something online that says otherwise, but yes, but anyways,
there's a pilot YouTuber out there, maybe. I'm just saying uh I I I'd like to do it um here on the 16th of June if we can't have a quick discussion providing guidance around goals on the 12th. And I'm just one person, but that's my recommendation. Well, one
thing I will just say, um, I think when, you know, Tammy Brun sent out a query whether we could meet on the June 16th instead of the 23rd if we could make it 5 to 8 instead of 6 to 8. That was the plan. Yeah. Okay. I
thought it was 5 p.m. Oh, she did. No. Okay, we'll fix that. No, the thought was we talked about it last night about, you know, otherwise it maximizes the probability. Nick actually mentioned it last night. So that just that was an error. So we'll get that straight. All right. Sounds good. Um yeah, I mean I
agree with Ty. If the agenda uh for our next full board meeting is light and we could afford the time to delve into some of this, great. You know, we could always add it. I mean, you guys are going to have executive committee meeting in two days. You can
you can consider that. if it's already a packed meeting. I just I need to get with staff like a timing and what they all have and like you know just kind of quick you know from that standpoint um where you know we could even do it you know in the June meeting I just would
like the board like I sat there last night and thought okay yeah this is a good set of data but I could hear from the board we'd like to see at least you know an explanation of their recommendations kind of where that came from you know from that standpoint for
goals for that and I and I thought like that first hour would be good for them to go through that and then continue on, you know, because I felt like last night I think we used the data then all of a sudden became a little bit okay, what do people think outside of that, you know,
and it was like, okay, those are presumptions, but what's backing that up? And so I think they've taken some time to try and get their thoughts backing that up, but I think it'd be the board good for the board to hear those and go, "Okay, talk about that." and maybe the board says, "Yeah, there are
two, three, four there that we'd like to put up on the board to be considered, you know, strongly." I mean, Jesse and I are prepared to kind of I feel like we need to close the loop a little bit on a study session we did about, you know, the idea of closing the achievement gap and having specific
metrics that tied to some of our strategic plan. I mean, we've talked about that quite a bit. So, we're there. So, anytime you need us to share as far as what that looks like, like Dr. Wagner suggested we could we could do that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I I was thinking the
material that you sent out Yeah. that there's some discussion areas in there, you know, um Yeah. Yeah. And and obviously putting it out there in the public domain sooner sooner than later and getting, you know, giving the public
if North has I will ask like this is the first I've ever seen that they've had anything, you know, televised. So if they can do it, not a big deal. You know, I do I think it's I think it's a very very important discussion. Very important. Okay, great. Well, thank you
everybody. Um, and I just had one sorry, one quick thing about state accountability coming from the government accountability office as I have. Does our Michigan Department of Education have any kind of audit or evaluation function like an inspector general and auditor general where they
could ever assess the effectiveness of MSTEP? No, versus a national only only the only capability they're within state government is from the auditor general and they look at certain things but generally not you're never going to look at this. It's it's generally much more
financial, right? And then all of our state a you know the audit is all financial and all of our comprehensive like our our state and federal programs is all financial. There are there are no there's no internal valuation. Correct. And there are no curriculum please.
there are no, you know, and and it's a shame. The only thing there used to be at one point is there used to be um a lot of districts were north central accreditation and they would come in and there would be a team at least come in and evaluate for three days and would look and kind of and give
recommendations with that but that was removed probably about 10 years ago. Okay. All right. Thank you. Celebrate our Yes. Our f our favorite. Okay. Uh this is the first one from
spring break. So we had some of our uh west students travel to Japan during spring break. Pretty cool. It was a great trip. I heard uh great things from from that. So you missed last week at Rotary, but there was a Did you know we have a sister city in No, I was there
with the Travers. I Is that where these guys went? No, it's not. And I didn't even know we had a sister city over there. All I could think to myself, yes, I I saw that. What's the city? I don't I'm not sure. But I'm not sure, but they like really have Traverse City all over. Yeah. No, they were not in the same
spot. I did double check that. Um, but pretty cool trip for our for our students. Uh, I don't know the number offhand. It was not a large group. There were only two adviserss that went, so I would say probably in the low teens. It was Amy Cole. Amy Cole went and um I don't
remember off the top of my head who went with her, but she's done international trips before. She's phenomenal. Phenomenal. Yeah. Well, thanks to those teacher shepherds, too, for their willingness to put themselves out there like that.
Central grade school did a great book giveaway. So, lots of books that were donated to their library. Uh had kids come in, take books, take them home, and keep them. Uh shout out to Mrs. Shock the librarian and then her son Oliver also helped
with the same smile. Um and then this is our business class over at Central High School. They sell um those goodie baskets. We've we've I know the board has supported that before. Um and they were interviewed on the local news about their business. They it's a how to start a business. They develop the product. They do all
the marketing and all that stuff. And they go out and sell it. And so they were interviewed about that experience. some instructional rounds uh over at Willow Hill. So, Willow Hill did uh internal rounds with with their own staff looking at um a different problem of practice around um explicit
instruction. I found it interesting. I think I mentioned this last night even during our study session, the idea of professional development and how collaboration included in professional development. I think staff will find it more valuable. be interesting to look three years from now to see if our that
question specifically around meaningful PD if we have an impact on it based on our our new PLC and instructional round process and then I know we've shown some photos of this but our new innovation center today we actually had a group of
educators from Mana um down near Kazoo school up in town visiting they really wanted to hear about u they were over at west visiting the innovation center seeing some of the classes over there they started the morning though central to see the TAI program and how we did some integration um in our in our core
areas there. So that's a picture of our west students there in the center got her Traverse Heights vocabulary parade. I'm not sure if that's uh Mr. Kaden the bird outfit looks a little tall so I'm not sure who they had go in
there. It's missing. It's missing here. Might be Mr. Keep. I'm going to go with Dave Kenny. Dave Kenny probably getting an old bird outfit. But vocabulary parade very popular. We've done these. I remember the the kids used to go through the hallways at Westwoods also.
Another fun day at our secondaries. I'm sorry. I got nothing. Oh, here we go. Um, this is our AP Gov students. I know TAC Ready does a day similar over on the west side of town. This is Paige Paul at Central High School. She organizes a mock congress. It's really cool. The
kids get to debate different bills that they feel passionate about either side of the bills. The students all act as either house members or senate members. The older students um sit on that panel up there. There's a governor. Um and it's all student run. The day is super cool. If you guys have never seen it,
let me know. We do it once a year in APV, but we can get you guys on the docket to visit. Um just a really cool day. The kids get dressed up. They get pretty passionate about the bills that they are presenting on too. So, I would love that. Yeah, I like that. Especially since my son won't be in that class next
year. We'll put it down on our calendar. Jerry Null, our first school to participate. They've um started the DARE program again. Uh a couple of our other schools in North Ed participated and Cherry Null was our our first to participate. I'm going to read this off
here. Uh DARE stands for drug abuse resistant education. Deputy McKenzie. She works with our schools on the east side. I worked with her quite a bit at East Middle. Uh taught the students about risk and consequences, stress, communication styles, bullying, alcohol, tobacco, resistance strategies, vapings,
their decisionmakings, and help network. Um several other sheriff and uh law enforcement attended and then uh students during the presentation kind of shared what they learned um in small groups. So kind of a real positive experience. every fifth grader uh
participated over at Cherry Null. So, we're going to look to maybe expand this out to other elementary schools. Is this the first elementary school then? It's for the first go around at one point or another. Well, but it's actually a completely redesigned program. Yeah.
Okay. Yep. Completely redesigned program. Um, Sheriff Mike Shay gave me a call and said that he had a deputy that was just trained in it that they had hired and asked if um in East Bay Township if we had a building and I said Jerry nulls
right there and so he asked if we could do a pilot and so this was our first one pilot. That's good. We're going to follow up. I had a chance to talk to him and once school's over here we'll I think get together and talk about if there's an ability to expand. Well,
Josie and I this morning were in the English project class review at Central. Yes. And of the four students that I had in my group, two of them were dealing with drugs. Yeah.
So, yeah. Um this was at our middle schools. They did a career day. This was right before spring break. Um they hosted a career day where they brought in uh different uh local uh professionals to highlight what their careers are and give some they had students cycle through
different things. Um and one of the most popular ones you can see that photo was the Coast Guard landed a helicopter there at West Middle School. So it's pretty cool for the kids to see. New uh therapy dog here. Chaplain will be spending some time at Corteade. Handler is Jessica Owen and also will be
at Silver Lake. And then this is a really cool uh award that Carrie Leante, West Senior High teacher um won from the US uh Department of State. It's recognizing the relationship that she has formed with her sister school in Germany. So um we
send kids there or they take a trip over there every other year and then the students from the other school come with us and stay with um our families here on the opposite years uh for a couple weeks. And so she received this a nice letter in the mail from the US Department of State just recognizing her
commitment. She's done this for quite a few years um in having this partnership with the schools and I I mean a lot of kids that she's been able to expose to that culture and not only through trips there but also hosting the kids who come here. So really kudos to her for that
above and beyond um commitment. And we've noticed here in the hallways our K12 art department hosted the open reception here at Glen Lumis on April 10th uh showcating the incredible incredible artistic talents of our K12 students. Refreshments were donated by
Oriana Mimik and Mimik Harvet Agency and Tom's Food Market. Special thanks to all the art teachers setting up the show. Uh art show is open to the public through the 25th. So that is closed. Um we're we're in the process now of moving some
of that artwork back to the buildings. And this one was interesting. So one of the databases that we subscribe to allows our students to access uh different uh research articles. Um and then they kind of pull data and find out how often are kids actually accessing
that those databases. Gail is the database that both Genevie Miner and Lissa Vandery really want our students to have exposure to. lots of different peer-reviewed articles, uh, high level research. It costs money for us to have this, um, subscription and access for
our kids. Um, and they pulled the data and they sent us, uh, they sent Joe and and Ben an email telling us that we are the second most used, um, public school in Michigan in the database. So, it really shows that our kids are reading relevant research articles um, and their
knowledge of uh, media literacy. And I know Genevieve and Lissa work really hard um with all of our ELA courses at both of our high schools to expose kids to this. And so I thought it was pretty cool for you guys to know that they have this level of access and that they're really using it quite frequently. So I
know Gail has been around forever, but is this new relatively new to TCAPS? No, we have used it's called the Gail reference media um source and that representative just reached out to us and said that we were ranked number two behind the international academy in Bloomfield um which was ranked number
one in the state as to access points um and this source helps our kids with the digital uh literacy media college readiness research skills um and they she thought it was pretty cool she reached out and sent it to us and so I was like oh you guys should know about this too. So yeah, and like Beth said,
we just went to the Central High School's um senior ELA classes, projects, and you know, they have to do a lot of research to prepare a paper and then a
one pager like a flyer. So I mean I the the sources were really good, incredible. So I wonder if if you know that also and Jenna have a big role in like ensuring that our kids have access to to really good research peer-reviewed all that stuff like you can't I mean
Google gives you a lot right but it doesn't give you access to those scholarly articles and stuff so or occasionally one will slip in but you have to recognize it for what it is and and the value of it yes. Okay. Any other
items? All right. Then our next board curriculum committee meeting will be Tuesday, May 27th. That's the day after Memorial Day on at 8:30 a.m. here at the administration at Gwen Lumis building.
And with that, we are adjourned.