A little levity. Okay. Just a little. Yeah. Just just a hair. Okay. We'll call the meeting to order. It is 06:01PM on Thursday, September 18. We can get roll call, miss Medina. Missus Kutcher? Here. Mister Dock? Here. Mister Fisher? Here. Missus Walsh? Here. Missus West? Here. K. If we can all stand for the budget, please. Right here. So You wanna come this way? I have questions. To the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all. The consent agenda, is there a motion to approve, or is there any discussion? Missus Sorry. The snow's not good. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Doc? Aye. Mister Fisher? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Mister Hoffman, have we received and or acted on all correspondence, sir? Yes, sir. You have received it all. Good evening. I have a couple, kudos to give and then a quick announcement. The pride of Mesa Ridge marching band won every category at the Colorado State Fair.
They took first place in the four a marching band, best color guard, best drum majors, and first place in the sweepstakes. So shout out to the Mesa Ridge marching band. The Yfield Gladiator Band took first place in two a at a showcase in Inglewood. They also received best in class, best in music, best effect, and best percussion, and they took second place overall. So shout out to the gladiator band. And a quick, reminder and announcement. The district is hosting a community conversation coming up on Tuesday, September 30 at 06:00.
That will be at SA Wilson Gym, which is located at 930 Alita Drive. And we you can also join us online. We'll have a pop up on the website, on that day for people to join if they can't join us in person. This conversation will be led by our superintendent, mister Erin Hoffman, and we'll be discussing the critical needs of the district, and the bond and mill levy override in the November election. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. Board of Education reports. Do we want to do a quick version? Dave, do you want to I'll start off. I think
every Thursday, the week before the board meeting at 8AM over with mister Gage in his office. I don't think I see him tonight. But, anyway, always good conversation with what's going on. There's a lot of prep going on with regard to the upcoming, Bond and Mill vote. I mean, everything that they can get ready to roll our operation folks, our facilities, and everybody that's, that they're, anticipating contracts with. And that's probably the gist of it. It's that is, of course, the best grant is bond contingent, so we know that we keep that in mind. But we're looking positively toward the future.
Thank you, sir. And your next meeting is 8AM on October 9. Yep. That's probably about right. The the the week before the board. Yeah. Perfect. 8AM on that Thursday. Miss Walsh. Hey. Security Public Library. So first, we wanna say that their fall festival is November 1 and sign up is September 15 through the twenty second if you would like to reserve a table for that. So, please sign up for that. Also, our semi annual book sale will be October and this year they're gonna do a
little bit different. So if you get a bag of books, fill as many books as you can in a bag, it's $5 for a bag. If you and a box of books would be $10. So that's an easier way so they can get rid of all the books this time. And our next meeting will be October 9 at 06:30. Thank you, ma'am. Miss West. Okay. So, the Tanisha. They were they received the reading logs from from all the schools when they, take the, all their books off the shelves or for whatever reason, they take books off the shelves. They put it all into one big spreadsheet so that the reconsideration committee that was
then reestablished with, had, has the opportunity to look at that for about a month. Also, mister Gish came and talked about, the needs of the district and all of that as well. So, it was I wasn't there again, but those are the things they went over. Our next meeting is October 1, 6PM. SA Wilson again. Thank you, ma'am. Mhmm. Miss Kucher. I attended the park and rec, meeting, and it's always wonderful to spend time with those people. Also, everybody that's here today, thank you. And everybody that's on the stream, thank you so much for being here as well.
So we have hired a new manager. His name is Joseph Isaac Brandon, and he has We've resurfaced our tennis courts, and two of them will be converted to pickleball courts. So that's pretty exciting for our pickleballers. I'm not sure there's a winter pick pickleball league that's outside, but I guess if you wanted one, we could certainly ask. Last but not least, winter program program pro what can I speak to? Easy for you to say. Programming. It's not even an alliteration here.
Winter programming starts October 1. Our next meeting will be October 9. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Moving along, public comment. So any resident or employee of Whitefield School District three is welcome to address the Board of Education at this time on items pertaining to education and or the operation of the district. Any person wishing to address the board is requested to come to the microphone and, on being recognized, give their name and comment. Public comments shall be directed to the board, not members of the audience. Comments directed to members of the audience shall be considered out of order.
Board members will not respond to individual at another time. Total time allowed for the public comment is limited to thirty minutes. It's requested that each person limit their comments to no more than five minutes. It's a professional meeting in which district business is conducted. Or policy KFA, public conduct on school property, prohibits profanity or verbally abusive language behavior in and outside the boardroom and on all district properties, a model for the students served in the Whitefield School District three. So we had two folks sign up, Avery McCrant. Morant. Morant. Okay. Thank you,
sir. My name is Avery Morant, an eighth eighth grade student at Watson Junior High School, and I come before you tonight as a student who is tired of living with fear. Every day when I walk into my school, I carry not only a backpack full of books, but also a weight that no student should have to bear. The thought that my school could be next. Gun violence is not a headline, nor something distant. It has already touched our community here at Mesa Ridge High School. The failures in leadership that school have shown us just how vulnerable we really are. When safety breaks down,
trust breaks down. And when trust breaks down, clear. Enough is enough. We refuse to sit quietly while classmates, teachers, and friends are taken from us by bullets. We refuse to accept thoughts and prayers as the only response to a crisis that demands action. Gun violence is now the number one cause of death of kids and teens in America. That is completely unacceptable. Yet too often, school boards and districts treat it as an unfortunate inevit inevit sorry. Inevitability instead of a problem to solve. We are asked to do lockdown drills as if that is the best we can
do. We are told to be quiet and compliant instead of invited to the conversations about how to keep ourselves safe. Tonight, I am asking you to make three commitments and promises. Number one, acknowledge the leadership failures at Mesa Ridge High School that made students feel unsafe and unheard. As perfectly described by a Mesa Ridge High School student, admin treated today referring Elevate student voices. Give us a seat at the table when decisions about our safety are made because no one understands the reality of this crisis more than we do. Number three,
take bold action against gun violence. By advocating for stronger policies and security, better prevention and resources that protect students before it's too late, we restore trust between the students and the district. And when trust builds up, learning becomes better than ever. We don't want to walk out of classrooms anymore. We want to walk into them and feel safe. We want to graduate with memories of teachers, games, and friends, not memorials for lives that were cut short. Because here's the thing, the truth is simple. A diploma means nothing if we don't make it home alive.
Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate. And we will, I actually Hi. I'm Dolly Handel. As you know, I I As a former member of two state boards and the NEA Resolutions Committee, I'm well versed in Robert's Rules of Order. I would like to remind the board that they are supposed to be using Robert's Rules to guide them during their luncheon meetings as well as their Thursday evening meetings. If you are going to change the agenda, that must be motioned and then voted on. If anybody wants to add or subtract an item,
that also must be motioned and voted on. I believe the statement that was read at the meeting on Tuesday should be ruled as out of order and struck from the record. No motion was made to allow it, and it was not officially voted on. The board could also have chosen to go into executive session to discuss the statement's contents. We are supposed to be working together to pass a mill and a bond in this community that will our students and our staff. So let's focus on that.
Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. So we will move on to the administrative reports. Doctor. Houchens? I know this is the moment you guys have been waiting for all year. It is. Mhmm. Alright. So this is our annual, public discussion and look at how our students performed on state assessments in the 2025. So just as a reminder, we assess students in grades, three through 11. Three through eight is on CMASS,
and then nine through 11 are the college board suite of assessments, PSAT, SAT. And then we do science in grades five, eight, and 11. Once in elementary, once in junior high, and once in high school. And so, the state has chosen to do that in grades five, eight, and 11. So this past spring, for CMASS, we had just over 4,000 students take the ELA portion. About five more took the math portion. And then for science, we had just under 2,000 students complete those tests. I do wanna point out that Whitefield School District three has some of the highest
participation rates in the state. You might be saying, Megan, how do we have different numbers of students taking ELA and math? Well, that is because there is the option for parents to opt their students out. And so there could have been some students who started with math, and then their parents exercised their rights and opted their students out of that second test. But overall phone calls from CDE asking me how we do it, And I always point to the work that our teachers and our administrators and our support staff and our board do in our community and in our buildings,
helping people to understand the importance of these assessments so that we know where our students are at in terms of their learning and what our impact is on that learning so that we can make the changes necessary to ensure our students are prepared as they leave our schools and go out into the community as adults. So we'll start first with CMASS. Those are your numbers for CMASS. Now there is a lot of information on these slides, and so I believe, Tammy, that the slides are part of the agenda.
Is that correct? Right. So they will be part of public record. The as a board, you guys also have access to them. So you can go back and look at them in greater detail. I will say that we have had conversations, at our board luncheons around some of this data as it was available to me and as I was able to discuss it. And so I'm gonna move, pretty quickly. Nation of all of our students in grades three through eight at the district level, so there's a comparison there for our achievement. The graph on the left as I look at it is our us versus ourselves.
So how did we do last year compared to this year? Although, I do wanna point out that there are different cohorts of kids. So when I'm looking at the third graders for 2025, they are not the same as the third graders for 2024. However, if I look at the 2025, the blue bar for fourth grade, those students were third graders, which is the black bar in the third grade for 2024. So you can start to see some cohort data that way, but Colorado also measures growth.
So we're gonna talk about achievement first, and then we'll go ahead and talk about growth and I'll explain what that is. So when you're looking at these numbers, these are not averages. These are the percent of students that scored meets or that our achievement as we're looking, 25 versus, 24 In most places in third grade or we were even, and we had a slight decrease, in some areas with the exception of fifth grade that saw a little bit sharper decline or they saw a significant increase in fifth grade. The graph on the right is us versus the state for 2025.
I do have a comparison where you can see the state's previous years when we get into the schools by grade level, but this is us versus the state. The green columns are the state and the blue columns are wide field, and so you can see that, there's some work for us to do, in our levels of achievement, but we're not far off from where the state is and in some places we have exceeded. So this is math achievement, again the graph on the left hand side You can see how we changed from one year to the next and then our
math achievement for grades three through eight is on the right hand side for us versus the state and I'll talk about math and the work that we're doing to support math because we know that's an area for us that we are continuing to lag behind the state and so we continue to, provide supports for students and teachers in order to increase that learning. As I said, science is only tested every three years, once in fifth grade, once in eighth grade, and once in, fifth, eighth, and eleventh grade and so you can see that our achievement in science is higher
for '25 than it was in '24 across all three grade levels, and we are getting near the state average for fifth and eleventh grade but we're significantly below the not average, the state percent for eighth grade. Now we'll talk about growth. In the state of Colorado, they've developed a growth model where they look at how students grow compared to their academically similar peers. So let's say I start out in third grade and I score meets,
then my academically similar peers are all of the other students in Colorado that scored meets. And so when the state looks at what my growth is from moving from, third to fourth grade, you have to have two years of match data, they're looking at how did I grow percentile wise compared to other peers in my group. It's very similar to, like, when your kids were young and you would take them and they would say your child's in the fiftieth percentile for weight and they're in the sixtieth percentile for height, meaning they are taller than 60% of the students or not students,
children that are in that age group, and they weigh more than 50% of the students that are in that age group. It's the same kind of thing. So these are median growth percentiles for each of those grade levels, And our growth this year is our shining area in our state assessment scores. We saw significant increases in our growth. I'll have a summary for it at the end. But that really is then a measure of how far we are moving kids compared to how far kids are being moved around the state.
And the state's median growth percentile for CMAS is always 50%. So I didn't necessarily put the state's bars in here because they're 50% all the time. So anything that's above 50% means that our students are growing at a faster rate than their academically similar peers across the state. So, for ELA, our growth is either right at where it was the previous year or it's increasing. And for math, we have areas where we've increased our growth over last year and some areas where
we've seen a little bit of a slide. The next couple of slides have a lot of information in them. It is a comparison for you to be able to see and go through looking at how our schools did and this is where our state comparison is in. So I told you if you wanted to go in and look to see how the state compared 24 to 25, that's that first column on both of those. One side is math achievement and one side is performance frameworks for each school and those are fed by our achievement and our growth and so we know that we have some schools that are,
we have high levels of achievement in those schools and so when we look at what we're doing with our solution tree work and our collaboration to answer those four questions, we wanna be able to scale and bring what those schools are doing well to increase achievement across all of our schools. And so that's at that heart of that collaboration work that we're doing with Solution Tree. So I'll just I'll move through these pretty quick because there's a lot of information in there and, in most cases, we are seeing increases as compared to last year as we go through each of
these. This is fourth grade and then fourth grade math achievements. We've got fifth grade achievement for ELA and growth for ELA and you can see if you're looking at our growth, our growth is in most places, not in all places, but in most places improved over last year. This is math achievement. Fifth grade happens to be a particularly strong grade level for us across the district. We have pockets of very strong fifth grade teams that are supporting students. Our science achievement for just fifth grade,
you can see from last year to this year, in most places our science achievement was up. I will say thanks to the DoDEA grant, we were able to purchase the amplify science curriculum and so Nat is continuing to work with our teachers on that curriculum so that we can implement it with fidelity and I think the more we get into that that and the better we get at that implementation, the higher we will see our science scores come up. It is a curriculum that is focused on the next generation science standards and looking
at that inquiry method of problem solving in science. This is grade six achievement for ELA and then growth and you can see that, our achievement when I look at it is not significantly different from last year to this year in most places, and then our growth has improved in most places for sixth grade ELA. Sixth grade math is an area where we're, there's a lot of concern for us and we put a we're putting a lot of work in to support our sixth grade teachers in that transition from fifth grade
math to sixth grade math and the jump that happens in, terms of the complexity of the standards in math that students are learning and so our math content specialists are working with our sixth grade teachers. I am particularly excited for, Watson. They had fifteen point three percent of their students last year achieving meets or exceeds and they pushed that up to 27.5 with some very intentional collaborative efforts through the support of a math content specialist and then the work that the teachers did in classrooms to be able to provide those
interventions for students, to build those foundational skills. So and you can see on the other side their growth, illustrates that. Seventh grade ELA, and seventh grade growth, and you can see the comparisons from last year to this year. And then our math comparisons, we all are very keenly interested in what's going on in our seventh grade team at Sproul. They are rock stars. Not that the rest of our teachers are not rock stars but they have they have figured it out. They have figured out what they need to do to be able to move kids
and so they are part of our teams that are working to scale that practice across the district and they're very, teachers are very willing to learn from them and they're very willing to to work with teachers to help them, understand what they're doing in order to increase student achievement and student learning in math. So eighth grade, ELA achievement and growth, and we saw growth that was pretty close in the areas that dropped. I don't know that it would be statistically significant, and then and our achievement pretty close to what we saw last year. And then our math achievement in eighth grade
is also usually typically very strong for us in terms of growth, and so we did see a little bit of a fall off in some of our areas, but in talking with our math teachers, they know exactly what happened and they're working to, make changes to that. For eighth grade science, if you remember, that was the one that was overall for the district, significant more significantly below the state's percent of meets or exceeds, but when you look at what we did last year compared to this year, we are improving in our achievement. We just haven't met the same level as the state but it is coming up.
And then this is our achievement for eleventh grade. I have to say that I am particularly excited about our eleventh grade scores and the improvement we're seeing because this is a test that is really hard for teachers and students to get excited about. There's hard to see value in it, especially when AP exams start pretty quickly after this eleventh grade science CMASS and just so you know, across the state, we have probably a 50% participation rate in science CMASS at the eleventh grade level
and I think we're at 94 in terms of our participation. So our kids are coming and and taking the test and putting forth their best effort, but also knowing that we kinda want them to save what they need for their AP science exams. So for us to be able to continue improving science is is pretty good. I am required to share with you our disaggregated data. So I'm going to give you a disclaimer here. I take this information disaggregated directly from what the state gives me that is publicly
available. The reason I do that is because if my n value in any one of these subgroups is too low, then I technically shouldn't be sharing that information out. So when you look at these, you'll go, Megan, what are those bars supposed to equal? You would think a 100. They should. You would look and say, do we really have groups of students where we have none that our scoring meets or exceeds? That's not true. It just might mean the overall number of that group is small to begin with and when you spread it out over the different levels that kids can score,
I have too few students that are scoring in those other categories for me to be able to publicly report it. And you would see the same thing if you went to CDE's website and dug for this information. But I'm putting it all here for you so you don't have to do that. You can just go into our agenda if you're watching and you're really interested or the board if you guys have it. Anybody else that wants it, I'm happy to share it with you. But we need to look at, we look at our differences in gender and then we also look at differences in ethnicity, we'll look at differences in students who are identified as gifted and talented,
students who have an individualized education plan, as well as students who are English language learners. And so on this slide you can see our disaggregated data and this is for all of our grades three through eight combined. So we're looking at how these different groups performed across grades three through eight. If I did disaggregated data for each one of our assessed areas for each grade level, we'd be here a long time. But if you're very interested in that,
I can show you how to access that on the state or I can give you information about that because I do have it. So as we look across, our different groups, some of our groups have pretty low percentages. So when you pretty low numbers. They're a low percentage of our overall population. So when you look at the, graphs that are put out there skewed a little bit because you are probably only talking about 16 total students in order for us to, publicly display this and so if you have from one year to the next one
or two students that change, it throws your percentages off. Here are students who have an IEP or who are identified as gifted and talented grades three through eight on ELA. And then our English language learners, we look at students who are identified as not English proficient, those who are identified as limited English proficient, and those who are identified as full English proficient. Also within our SPF, we track how, what percent of our students are on track to learning English within the specified five year time frame that the state has established for us so that is part of
our SPF as well. That national scores, you would see a higher percentage of male students scoring meets or exceeds in math. Typically, you see a higher percentage of female students scoring meets or exceed in evidence based reading, writing, or ELA and we're getting we're close we're getting closer so in math. So kudos to all the work that we're doing in our STEM work to be able to build those scores for our students. And then in math, looking at our achievement, so we do have gifted and talented students who scored below meets.
So again, that's one of those graphs that not it's not a full 100%. So it looks like all of our students who are identified GT are scoring meets or exceeds but that's not true. They're also not all gifted in math. Some of them are gifted in reading, some are gifted in writing, some are gifted in leadership, some are gifted in general intellect, so they are gifted in a variety of areas. Alright, any questions about CMASS? Alright, college board assessments, we had six ninety two, freshmen complete the PSAT across our four high schools.
Six zero four, sophomores took the PSAT ten and six twenty three students took the SAT. Again, we have pretty high participation rates across the state for our students taking these assessments and our buildings do a phenomenal job of making sure all of our students get assessed. I forgot to tell you that this year, the state got wise to us and they were like, we see you. You are not using this extended window because you don't have enough connectivity. You're just using it to try to get all of your kids tested. And I was like, oh, it's not a bad thing, but it's not why the state gives the extended window.
So they took it away this year, and we had to test all of our high school students in two weeks. And our high school, assessment teams did an amazing job to get all of that done because they got all of our kids tested and communicating, with parents. We had four weeks for CMAS, but we had two for the college board assessments. So again, I have a comparison to us versus the state. This time it's on the left hand side. The state still green, y field is still blue. That is still the percent of students that scored meets or exceeds on,
each of those three assessments and then the growth. And you'll notice there's no growth for the PSAT eight nine. That's because the state has determined that CMAS eight ELA is measuring different constructs than PSAT eight nine evidence based reading and writing and they can't get a growth score. I would argue they shouldn't be able to get a math score either but you're gonna see that they do. So there's math is math, but they are assessed differently. On CMASS they do, write essays and they do have short constructed responses that they,
have have included in the eighth grade version of CMAST and it is all multiple choice for the evidence based reading and writing, so it is measured differently. But you can see with our growth, again, the state, it's a little different for PSAT and SAT, the median growth percentiles sometimes 49, sometimes 50. So if you're looking at that, our growth on the SAT 10 for evidence based reading and writing does exceed states as a district. So here is our math achievement and much like what we saw in CMASS,
we know that math is an area that we are working on and supporting and continuing to provide training for teachers so that they can increase student learning. But if you look over at our growth, our growth for the PSAT eight nine and the SAT 10 has improved over last year, so our efforts are making a difference in what was going on with our student achievement. And in SAT, we maintained, which for me is a win. Yes. I want it to go up, but to maintain means that we at least kept the momentum that we had going.
So here is a breakdown for, the evidence based reading and writing, which would be ELA for each of the tests for each of our schools, the state comparison on the left, and then our schools in each of those areas, and then also our math achievements in those areas. And so, we did come up in some of our achievement areas, from last year to this year in our individual schools, And then this is the breakdown of our achievement versus the state by school for
the percent of students scoring meets or exceed, on the PSAT eight nine. And so you can see that, we are, pretty close to where we were last year. I will say for the Haven, they also have a small number, a small count of students and that number fluctuates greatly from one year to the next. Their SPF is done off of a two or three year report in order for us to get enough of a matched end value And so you will see fluctuation significant fluctuations because it only takes one or two kids difference.
So you'll see that for the haven, and you'll also see some places in here where I just don't have data for the haven because I just don't have enough students. So this is our math achievement. And then also on the right hand side, our math growth. And I just wanna point again that even looking at our two individual, schools, I don't I don't have enough data to be able to publicly report growth for discovery or the Haven. But, for Mesa Ridge and Whitefield, they are improved over last year. So, again, our work is making a difference, and we are starting to see that in our growth scores. And I think soon we'll start to see that in our achievement scores as well.
This is our evidence based reading and writing across our schools and, the growth, there. And going from the fiftieth percentile to the forty ninth percentile, I don't I don't know how statistically significant that is. It looks like it's a lowering, but I I don't know that statistically, there's a big difference there, but increased growth at Whitefield. And then our math achievement for the PSAT 10, and again, I just wanna point out that that growth has improved over last year again. And when we look at that SAT,
look at our comparison last year to this year, we saw some increases and some that were pretty close to the same as they were last year, and then a little bit of a decrease in some of our growth areas. Math achievement, again, is is low for the SAT. We know we have work, and that's where our focus is to be able to bring those up. But if we go and look at our growth, we are moving kids. So we are not increasing to where we are pushing more kids yet into that meets or exceeds, but we are moving them up in terms of their scale score.
And then these are the breakdowns for all of for these, the state, gives them to us separated out and I can put them in one graph. So, for gender, we did we were able to break it out across, grade level for evidence based reading and writing. For our different ethnicity groups, we get better n values when we put those all together. We do have students who are, of Asian, ethnicity who did score meets and exceeds. I just don't have enough that I can put out there. And then you can see for students who have an IEP,
we do have students who score an IEP who have an IEP who are scoring at meets. I don't think I have any that are scoring exceeds but I do have some that are scoring meets, but not a large number and we do have students who are identified as gifted and talented who are scoring, below meets. So graphs are a little misleading in that sense. And then this is our math achievement broken down by ethnicity and by gender and then also, looking at IEP. I would say I don't think I have any students who have been identified with
an IEP in eleventh grade who are scoring at meets on the SAT. So that is an area as we look at our district unified improvement plan, looking at our graduation rates in a variety of other areas for our students with disabilities that we, continue to make a focus to be able to provide the coaching and support there. Alright. So whole bunch of information. I just wanna look and I wanna explain our SPFs. So every year, the state accredits school districts and they accredit us with a specific rating. And that rating is based off a combination of our achievement and our growth scores
and at this high school level, it's our achievement, our growth, and our post secondary workforce readiness. So it's looking at our matriculation to college, our matriculation into the military, our dropout rates and our graduation rates and they look at our graduation rates and they select the best rate. And for us right now, our seven year rate gives us our highest graduation rate. So what I would do wanna point out is for the well, since COVID, we have been accredited with improvement, and this year, because of our growth and because of the work our students and teachers have done,
we have moved into what the state now calls accredited. They used to call it accredited with performance but it is now just accredited. We have always been accredited. We're just accredited at different levels, and so we are now, for districts, at the second highest level, the highest level being accredited with distinction, so we earned 58% of the points available in order to get that accredited rating. In order to get to distinction, I believe we have to score we have to earn 77% of the points. So we've we'll get there.
We've got work to do, but we will get there. And then these are the districts, that are close to us and their district performance framework from 2024 with their percent of points earned versus their rating, this year. You can just see a little snippet of some of our neighbors around us. So we have some big celebrations this year, so get those pom poms ready. We had 12 schools that, increased the percent they earned on their SPF overall rating.
Well and we only, I think, have 16 site we have 18 sites, but I think only 16 of them are represented in testing because the mill and preschool are not part of testing. Nine schools increased by 5% or more on their SPF which is huge and we had three schools improve their overall rating so they were able to move into either improvement, JMCA moved from priority improvement year two into improvement year two. And so if they maintain improvement or higher for this year's testing,
they will come off the clock for watch. So that's an awesome Mhmm. JMCA does not have enough numbers for me to publicly publicly post their data. So that's why they were not in any of the graphs, but they are moving in the right direction. So wanna make sure we mention that for them. We assess in 18 areas when you look at, what we assess in grades three through 11. And in 13 of those areas, our percent of students scoring meets or exceeds, so our achievement was higher this year than it was last year.
Are we beating the state? No. I'll be very honest, but we are moving and we are improving. And in 18 of 17 areas, because we don't do growth from eighth to ninth grade for evidence based reading and writing, so in eight of those areas, we did have a median growth percentile higher than the state. So the work that our teachers and our kids and our administrators are putting in and our parents in supporting our kids is working. We are moving in the directions that we need to move.
Right. Yes. Take the pom pom. Jessica, how am I doing on time? Dang it. Okay. So our focus as we move forward is to continue to really develop a common understanding across all of our grade levels in what proficiency means for our identified essential standards. Also bringing on we have math and ELA essential standards in grades pre k through 11, and we're working on that for science and social studies starting tomorrow on our professional development day. We are working to build effective collaboration using the PLC model and answering those four
questions, and we continue to provide explicit training to help our math teachers understand how to help kids build those problem solving and conceptual understanding skills that we know they need in order to be able to increase their achievement on our state assessments. And so our next steps, we've already started. We trained all of our staff in over the summer and at the start of the year in how to unit plan to answer our four questions in every single unit that we put forth by first identifying those essential standards and then working from
there to build out common understanding. We're looking this year as part of our collective commitments to build effective systems of support. So you remember when I talked to you about question three is what are we going to do when kids don't get it and what are we going to do when they do get it, which is question four. We have to build those systems of support in place to be able to respond immediately when students are not getting the learning that we're putting forth rather than waiting until they get to the end of unit assessment. And so we are building those systems in place,
and we are continuing to provide on coaching ongoing coaching and support for especially for our math teachers at the secondary level. So there are additional slides in here that you will see that I talked with you about at the luncheon on Tuesday that show where Whitefield District three is at in comparison to our neighbors in the Colorado Springs and surrounding area. So those are still there if Colorado Springs and surrounding area, so those are still there. If you've had time to look at them and you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. I did bring them. And then if the public wants to go into the agenda and look, they can see where we rank without having to go to CDE's website.
But overall, I think it is a good news and a good forecast for Yeah. The city. Do you guys have any questions? Nope. No worries. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you, baby. Thanks. Great. I don't know how miss Howell is gonna follow, but Not quite as exciting. But I do have some policy items for you. Alright. So referring to item five a, the board has received policy revision recommendations for the following policies. AC, nondiscrimination equal opportunity due to reviewing with other policies in a CASB update. ACE-one nondiscrimination equal opportunity notice also reviewed with other policies in a CASB update.
ACE-two non discrimination equal opportunity complaint form CASB update. ACR2 harassment and discrimination investigation procedures for employees, applicants for employment, and members of the public reviewed with other policies in a CASB update. ADD R safe schools report, it had been over ten years since that last review and there was a CASB update. BEC executive session, over ten years since the last review and it was a CASB update. GBEE E acceptable use agreement for the internet, that is also reviewed with other policies in a CASB update.
GBGA staff health, reviewed with other policies in a CASB update. GBK grievances, reviewed with other policies in alignment with practice. GBK R, employee grievance procedure, also reviewed with other policies and alignment with practice. GCE, professional staff recruiting and hiring, reviewed with other policies CASB update. GDBA RB, upgrade within one draft description reviewed with other policies and alignment of practice GDE and GDF, non licensed staff recruiting and hiring, also a CASB update reviewed with other policies
JLCD, administering medications to students, reviewed with other policies and a CASB update. In item five b, the board has received a recommendation to delete the following policy. AC r, that is due to this policy being reviewed with other policies and the other policies cover this information. In item five c, the board has received a recommendation for new policies and they are as follows. ACR-one Harassment and Discrimination Investigation Procedures for Students. ACR-three Sexual Harassment Investigation Procedures in Title nine.
KLG R, relations with federal immigration officers and officials. That, those three proposed policies are required by CASB. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I have item five d for you tonight. You have in your board packet the BOCES contract for individual student services. It is our yearly time to renew that contract where we, contract with the BOCES for their school of excellence, separate school placements for students who have special education needs that, they're specialized to service for us.
So you have thirty days to review the contract and then I'll be back next month to ensure that you approve it. Please ask me any questions if you have them, perhaps at the next Board luncheon or in between there. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to future meetings. The Board of Education scheduled the following meetings. Our luncheon meeting is scheduled for October 14. Our normal Board of Education meeting is scheduled for October 16. Those meetings are their standard time, so noon for the luncheon and 6PM for the evening meeting.
They are all here. 1820 Main Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80911. Is there a motion to adjourn? I'll make a motion to go ahead. You I'll make a motion to adjourn, mister Fisher. Miss West. Second. Miss Walsh. Second. Miss Medina. Missus Kutcher. Aye. Mister Doc. Aye.