##VIDEO ID:mQDQsGOo-bo## all right I'm G to call the meeting to order start with rooll director Assad Lucas here director bastelli here director Goldstein here director Marsh holon here director Potter here all right uh I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda as stated so moved second director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Marsh holen I director Potter I okay rise if you were able for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay uh superintendent update we have a a fill in tonight number two number two for sure uh certainly missing our superintendent tonight he is out um at the league of innovative schools conference out in uh Fresno California we are the only Colorado School District who is a member of That League and uh it is uh a real benefit to us as a district to be a part of that uh it's always a great opportunity to see what other District districts across the country are doing um where they have some Traction in some important ways and Chris always brings those back for us to think about so we look forward to him returning I have a a celebration and two points of recognition that I'm really excited to share this evening uh the first uh involves our own chief of Human Resources uh officer Mila Shepard Mila a few weeks ago uh was named the 2024 recipient of the Caspa Sandra shrieve award Caspa is the Colorado Association of school uh Personnel administrators HR staff it's a subset of the case organization here in Colorado and the Sandra shrie award is the award they give to the most outstanding HR staff member in the state of Colorado and it's just a huge uh and very welld deserved recognition for Mila she's not here tonight I hope perhaps she's watching at home um but we we have been so fortunate through the years to have Mila leading the way uh in our HR department there's a quote in the press release that came from our own Joe fani that I think captures Mila perfectly and Joe States Mila is the consumate professional she brings people together with different ideas and perspectives actively listens and as a results builds a positive culture uh that is Mila in a nutshell she's very deserving of this award and I'm I'm very happy to recognize her tonight well done Mila uh I also want to acknowledge that next week is classified employees Appreciation Week in our district and I will tell you as one who started his career in this District as a classified employee as a student custodian base member groundskeeper uh I have the utmost respect for the work that our classified employees do uh they're very clear on their connection to the mission of our work of educating students and whether it's um clearing snow out in the middle of winter safely transporting our students making sure our uh schools are safe secure clean uh being a friendly face uh when visitors come to our schools or this building uh we're very fortunate to have an outstanding uh Team of classified employees they many of them are 247 365 employees in our system and uh really provide I think great customer service and care uh to our students parents and uh staff so um as we head into appreciation week next week we certainly call them to mind but our appreciation and thanks for all the work they do uh in really making sure that we make good on our commitment for students is something we express all year long and then finally October is also National principal appreciation month and I will tell you uh with each year that goes by uh for me in this role it becomes more and more obvious to me outside of the gentleman who usually sits in this seat that the work of a principal is the most essential critical important in our system um our schools are hubs and heartbeats for the uh neighborhoods in which they reside and therefore our principales and assistant principles by extension are Community Executives Mayors connectors celebrators problem solvers sense makers you name it uh and it's not just 9 months out of the year they serve that role all year long um they are task and embrace fully the responsibility of caring for students caring for staff caring for parents uh and community members sometimes those folks have Divergent views on the right way to do things they listen they host they make tough decisions many of the times in a day they make a 100 decisions 99 of them are great one doesn't quite go the right way and that's the one that keeps them up all night and they come back the next day roll up their sleeves and do it all over again um it's been quite a while since I've been in that seat but as the time goes on I continue to just Marvel and sincerely appreciate the work that they do quietly humbly uh they are servant leaders they are key players um and even though the weight is great uh their grit and effort is even greater and we have a tremendous group and um again though October is a month we celebrate it uh we do best by acknowledging the the weight the uh significance the importance and the magnitude of that work every day and I'm just um really pleased and humble by the work of our principles well said Thank you B okay Board of Education comments recognition Awards and vision director Potter you want to start uh yes thank you good evening everybody um to Echo a little bit of what Bose said last week we met with a group of principles and it's always amazing to me the amount of passion and dedication that perseverance that they show every time um every time I'm in a school and I or out of a school and I run into one of the principles like B said they are they are the everything of the community and it shows and our community just adores them I think when you get a new principal in a school or there's a change in leadership there there's always a little bit of like stress because they they just attach themselves so closely with their principles and they miss them they love them um and they they realize what kind of an impact they make on their immediate community so um wonderful time to celebrate all of our principles in October um like I said I can't I subbed for a a hot second and can't do that for even half a day let alone be a principal all the time um every day so thank you for all the work that you guys do and um taking a moment to recognize our classifi staff as well um I a while ago I rode a bus and one of the little kids he was getting off and getting ready to go home and he was just so sad and the the driver asked what was wrong and he goes well I have a 4-day weekend which means I don't get to see you for four whole days and you're the best part of going to school and I thought that was just such an embodiment of the impact that all of our staff has on our students and how um grateful I am that we have such a strong Community here in Adams 12 outside of that um I got to see the community come together in a little bit larger form with the Legacy marching band um Invitational we had schools all the way from New Mexico that came it was fun to be there to present the final Awards um I presented them with the mayor of Thorton and North Glenn and um to see just the creativity that goes into their performances to see Legacy be such wonderful hosts and pull together such an amazing event they had it down to a science have gone a couple years now and it just gets better and better so definitely mark your calendars for next year go check it out because it's a fun fun event um it's an all day Saturday thing it starts off this year it started off really hot and got really cold um but it's definitely worth worth the uh layers needed to participate so um with that I um also spent some time in the community listening to some of the feedback um just about how the school year is going how people feel and I think there's a lot of positivity a lot of people are really excited to see some of the programs and Athletics and carnivals and fundraisers coming back um we've heard I've heard a lot of positive feedback around how it doesn't feel like covid anymore um they're having real school years they're getting involved in their schools they're participating they're car pooling they're doing all the fun things they the cold and flu season hasn't been too bad yet knock on wood um but just a lot of positivity so thank you to everybody in Adams 12 for making that possible because it just it is so wonderful when our parents our kids our community members are just so excited to have school in session so thank you thank you director Marsh holen um thank you uh good evening everyone I do want to just take a second I am the daughter of a Middle School principal and a classified Elementary employee so I saw the stress thank goodness they were not in my schools because that would have been way worse but um I can Echo um and our principal sitting here know that that that is all true and um it's not a stopping job so um thank you to those that serve those roles um we started at Broomfield days and want to give a shout out to Horizon High School who won the marching band award for the parade um and then I was able to go to the great education luncheon and uh give a shout out to the five star foundation for um being recognized for their partnership with the district that was a great luncheon to get to go to um we had a table out at wellby days and it was fun to get to talk to some families I I talked to a gentleman um whose son had just graduated from Thorton high school and he said his son was going to be very sad that he doesn't get to be a part of the new school it gets built but he was excited that that may be a possibility um Adams 12 sponsored uh the butterfly ball which is a benefit for the Butterfly Pavilion which was a really fun night and we got to hold tarantulas some of us um and then last night um the five star Foundation hosted cheers to the Future event and again it was a really good I think read of of the district and the partnership and and how we want to make that stronger so that's all I have thank you director belli I had a busy last couple of weeks too I went to the pirate festival and I talk to lots of kiddos and families and community members there and so I have to do something I promised the kids I would do which is uh name the teacher shoutouts they had for teachers they really loved and they wanted me to say how much they love them in these meetings and so I'm going to um list them off at stukie Elementary Mr pel Miss Miss Cunningham and Miss Torres um North Glenn High School was Miss Rost Hillcrest was Miss reer Silver Hills Middle School was Miss Cunningham Mr sukup I believe uh M Peak and then Thornton High School Miss Dominguez so it was really lovely to hear they would get so excited when they were talking about that teacher that really um has a positive impact on them um like Courtney and Alexis I just want to thank the principals here and the principal everywhere in Adams 12 for their dedication to our to our kids and to our community principles have such a a vital role in creating the culture of the schools and creating that sense of belonging and I'm just so grateful um for you for everything you do I did attend the Early Childhood Partnership of Adams County breakfast last Wednesday September 24th um the the let's call them eack at shorter they work with Community Partners and key stakeholders to improve Equitable access to afford and highquality comprehensive Child and Family Services and support this group helps provide care and navigation for families they provide family education they help with early childhood education professional development they provide business advice to early childhood education providers and they've had a really great uh year but at the same time they're facing a lot of the same challenges that like we're facing with the fiscal cliff as we we call it with the removal of covid-19 funds so um um if you're looking to support their work you can just uh look up early childhood Partnerships of Adams County online and um consider making a donation if you'd like I also visited Holstrom K8 um Holstrom is our only gifted and talented Public School in the district they've been ranked number seven among Colorado elementary schools and number one in Adams County um for both uh Elementary and Middle School according to US News and World Report they're ranked number six in the state for their middle school they offer Middle School talent development sessions where parents and staff offer uh unique educational opportunities on a variety of different topics one of the greatest challenges the school faces is that it is quickly outgrowing its current space um touring the school I noticed that they have been very careful to utilize every last inch of space as creatively as they can but in the future there likely will be a re revisit to that building size I think um it was a great visit I appreciate seeing the kids work in the classrooms they're very dedicated and eager to to learn and very professional I'd visited previously and we were talking with the principal and the hilarious story is that the seventh grade boy walked up to us and he goes excuse me I'm trying to work on my presentation and you're being loud so our group had to move along I'm not going to complain about somebody who wants to do their work okay um and then finally I attended the Legacy band Festival it was a lot of fun I attended with Lee Peters back there um we gave the 4:00 Awards the preliminary Awards I believe and we I also uh presented Awards with Devon chaff um and it was an honor to recognize the hard work of our kids who take part in the marching band throughout our region um the funny part is when we would give the awards the drum Majors would do a sort of a fancy Precision salute and watching the way Devin sha reacted to that at first was pretty hilarious we weren't expecting it and so we were sort of just like what what's happening but it was a lot of fun and I really appreciate being uh you know invited I felt very honored so that's it thank you director ofad Lucas good evening and thanks for being here um looking forward to hearing from you guys soon um so we had our first it's also been really busy a couple of weeks uh for me kicked it off with our first IBS meeting of the Season uh and we got a lot accomplished that first meeting so it was um a great start and what we get to look forward to the rest of the year I had a five-star Foundation board meeting I'm the liaison uh between the District board and their board and the meeting happened to be at the same time IBS was so I got to attend the beginning of the September meeting and share um just an update about the district before having to leave for IBS and then as Alexis shared they had their strategic plan uh planning kickoff or launch event yesterday and it was very very very well attended um great support great Community Partners business partners that were there um we got to hear from f uh Foundation leadership from Bo from DTA leadership so we very much appreciate the partnership with the foundation and all they do to help support which also was highlighted at the great Ed uh Colorado luncheon uh that Chris was able to share and speak at regarding the resource closets and the support that the foundation has given to The District in providing just basic needs for our kids in order and their families in order for them to be able to show up and learn because they're not stressing about clothing or food as much as they would be if we did not have um these resource Clauses available to them uh which also the foundation has partnered and um secured donations from Chevron that was also there and presented that they've been able to provide a lot um through their donations helped source resource closets so it was a really great event and very much again appreciate the five star Foundation I got to visit a few schools these last couple weeks North Glenn Middle being the first um since the last board meeting and uh yeah just got to hear about the great things that are happening their goals um what they hope to accomplish this next coming up year and it's Sarah Stone's first Year's principal there so she shared um yeah all the things her transition into that role which has gone very smoothly so very excited for north glidle um visited stooky Elementary where I got to hang out Main in the kindergarten classes and it was so cute these kids and you know and they have such a high number of newcomer students and um they they really love ST Math I mean that's just happened what they were working on when I was in there but you know showing me and teaching me how to do math and um so cute and I shared so when I was a school-based therapist I would go in to different grades levels and do just like hour lessons and after leaving a kindergarten classroom after doing just a one-h hour lesson I realized that kindergarten teachers are unicorns um because after one hour I was exhausted so but it was so fun like it was just fun getting to hang out with them and then also uh visited Riverdale and again got to go into different classrooms watch kids learn no one told us we were being disruptive so it's good but uh and just got to hear about the specific needs uh unique to Riverdale and how they have such a great team working together and then the last school visit I did was Thorton high school and uh again just had a great conversation with Charlie shared the uip and what goals they have and it's always funny I I never share with my kids if I'm going to be happen to go into any of their into their schools but my oldest I think can sniff me out because she comes flying into the office and said I knew you were here I have no I have no idea how she knew I was there but um so but it's always fun going into schools as in this role and getting to see um from that lens when I was just there maybe the day before in a parents role and through that lens so um yeah attended the Butterfly Pavilion ball and as other as Alexa shared uh always a wonderful event what I think I've really learned by attending this event yearly is not just the Butterfly Pavilion and what they have to offer at the location but all the um all the uh conservation efforts and research that they do worldwide and just how amazing work they're doing and such unique thing like I mean the the beef fence is it yeah is that what it was in yeah yeah the be fence to keep elephants out from Villages and um Tanzania and I mean just other things it's just so cool to hear about it and um let's see what else our principal meeting and I saved this for last because this is probably one of my favorite meetings of the year uh getting to hear from principles because of the conversations we end up having and they're not always easy conversations but they're so informative and it's so helpful for us to hear from you guys who have your feet on the ground doing the day-to-day um and just the uniqueness of each building as well and so just send my gratitude and my extreme appreciation to you all and to all of our principles throughout our system I mean you guys do such amazing work and you don't only just impact your buildings you impact your immediate communities you impact overall Adams 12 community so thank you all so much for all you do and then last but not least is attended the federal height city council meeting last night as they were going to vote on a resolution to support uh the bond and Mill and uh they unanimously supported it so very exciting that we have such strong support from our uh municipalities and Leadership so um we will be attending a couple more City Council meetings in the next coming weeks and hopefully we'll receive their support as well so that is all I have for tonight thanks everyone you've been busy do you have uh find my friends on your phone do you and Kelly because maybe that's how she she knew you were there oh we do like well I mean I track her but apparently she can track me and I don't know how to disable that um I did a lot of disable same things that several other of our board members mentioned I had negotiations um on the 20th I went to the festar leadership academy um that's a a representative group of community members that meet once a month and they learn about the district and so it was the first meeting so I I've been going to the first meeting the last couple of years as in this role and I stuck around because they had a guest speaker mart martin corkus from Caro State University and he talked about tackling Wicked problems through deliberative engagement and um very fascinating to listen to because um we do live in a world where there's a lot of wicked problems but not necessarily Wicked people and um just learning how to communicate we've kind of lost our way in a lot of ways um the 20th and 21st I had a casby board meeting and so I represent our region on the casby board of directors and we spent a lot of time we've been working on our um policies and cleaning them up and um we talked a little bit about our diversity equity and engagement um policies our legislative um resolution Council and our federal relations Network um just kind of cleaning those things up so that um modernizing it because I just haven't been looked at for a well and the casby board of directors um they voted to oppose Amendment 80 um and the conversation was very um was very robust and um from both sides of the aisle because there are people on both sides of the political Spectrum or all over the political Spectrum on that board and and pretty much the sentiment was we want we don't want public dollars going to private schools um I got to go to the great aded Lon also I got to um see um our five-star Foundation honored and listen to Chris talk and then that night I went to the Broomfield city council and I had two things to do that night the first one was to um speak on behalf of five d& and I spoke with and Chris also spoke and um I didn't realize I was gonna get I got more than three minutes I got as much as I needed but I didn't need much more but I was part of the agenda and the council voted unanimously to support 5D and 5e so that's another Community um to check off and then I did my role as the um Broomfield urban renewal Authority I'm one of two non city council members on it um somebody from the fire district um and then I represent the school districts that are in Broomfield um even though I don't live in Broomfield but that's okay it's okay to do that um unfortunately what we were voting on that night was what to do with the First Bank Center and it will it I mean the burough had already voted to um close it get rid of it and so now we decided on how to get it taken apart um because we have to be environmentally conscious about that so that's what I did there then I went to Rocky Mountain Elementary on the 25th and saw Kate over there and uh walked around the school and saw the great things that are going on there um those folks are working really hard um got a close look at Squire's park because the city of Westminster is doing something to it um and then we had the principal meeting that night and I just want to shout out to all the principles um many of you I've worked with over the years I mean it's been really a pleasure working with all of you and I I do know how hard you work too um it's it is a 247 job and uh even if you're not actively engaged with what's going on in your school it's still up here and you're still thinking about it all the time so thank you principles um I Vol I'm volunteering with Junior Achievement again and there's four classes and it's on entrepreneu entrepreneurialship and networking and I'm at Mountain Range High School so I've already done two classes and I have the honor of being in the class with the 2020 teach Colorado teacher of the year Hillary Wimer in her class and I've really been having a lot of fun in there um talking about Brandon and networking and we're going to do interview skills and resumés and um yeah I I can contribute to the conversation and her kids are great and she's great and I've really been enjoying that so I've done that twice got to be at wellby days and I was when I was at wellby days at our booth Santiago from a new America school doesn't live very far from WBY or from uh rotell Park where the festival was being held and so he was there for a big chunk of time hanging out in our booth with us as a representative and we had a lot of fun um talking and this kid well young man came over and um he started talking to us and he was all about you know public schools and he actually graduated from new America school I think like in 20 2009 or something like way back he had graduated and um he shared with us what he was doing with his life and he was successful and um you know he's construction and and it was just neat and you could tell and he was um he Myra the the exact director had been a counselor when he was there and he said yeah where is Myra still there and San goes oh yeah she's the principal now and anyway um I hope that they connect so that was say you should come to school and talk to the kids about you know where you've gone in your life um then we did the butterfly ball I I held Goldie um not Rosie Amir held Rosie I held Goldie um it's not that bad it really is kind of cool holding a tarantula um they're pretty big the ones that they have at the butterfly ball um some of you might know I brought one home from Peru accidentally um it was a small one though I left it at my sisters okay um 929 I went to Cotton Creek um and I got to sit in a classroom with um a learning specialist Laura Schultz and she's doing this pilot curriculum called take flight and it's um very much the science of literacy um you know I used to do this in my special ed classes in middle school where you talk about you you are conscious of the sounds that you make the with your mouth and and and what the shape of your lips are and your tongue and all this kind of stuff there really is a science that and um then also um the kids practice writing in cursive because there is um science that says that writing incursive actually does help with your fluency and I was just a member of the class it was a fifth grade couple of fifth graders and the fifth graders and I and we did this program that Laura had the um privilege of uh piloting so that was cool um let's see one other thing I went to the five I went to the five star fun Foundation event last night today I went to Outdoor Ed um I drove up to um YMCA this morning um with stem launch is there and I had run into Felicia Evans at the butterfly ball and we were talking she said she was going like I want to go because I haven't been in like 15 years because when I was a sixth grade I was a middle school teacher I got to go everywh I think Marty even got to go with me once or twice and I really had I really enjoyed it um so um the last time I went I was seven months pregnant with my soon to be 15-year-old and I went I was part of a class we went and we learned about um some of the Paley what do they call it the ancient people that lived there they were pre um Native American like preut and there's evidence in raky Mountain National Park of their existence these Nomads that lived there and they found um spearheads and and we we we through Spears using um one of those I don't know it's called but it was kind of like what they use in Peru also and we got to play with that and we got to um talk about where were some of the things in the environment that provided shelter from the elements and what Nomads were like and how they traveled around and um I also got to see the Aspen that's kind of was a treat so that's my last couple weeks sorry I've been busy okay public comment uh no one has signed up to address the board during tonight's meeting okay um Dak F and LR Pac so we'll start with the daak I was unable to attend the Dak meeting but what I do know they discussed is um there is some revisions to be made to the bylaws for the district accountability committee to bring them in line with what is uh specified in state law so and that's all I know thank you one other important item that uh the Dak bylaws address is uh expanding the pool from which they can select parent members of policy Council and the proposal is to change um the election group from just the DC to Other Board committees faac LR Pac and uh as soon as they have a a quorum at one of their meetings with a 2third vote of all members uh that'll probably be finalized thank you back um okay so the F met and um still new new people so I know um Phil was on to give a um kind of overview of what he presents which is Chris's contract there was no new updates on Chris's contract but kind of walking through um those pieces and then we got to hear from John one of the Auditors um on again not just the auditing but the overview of that um and the timeline and their reporting tonight I believe so um and the table review so those were the big hits okay um LR Pac met we had our first meeting of the year so we had new members so we did a little um get to know you kinds of activities and then we heard from Bo and um Molly on blueprint so pretty much what we did okay on to monitoring reports external oh y I'm going to interrupt here we um have discovered that members of our fact committee haven't arrived yet we had some confusion over the start time of this meeting so I'm going to propose that we uh skip over the monitoring report for now and uh have our principles and EDS and Mr B present next okay good idea okay School unified Improvement plans all right I'm gonna invite you guys up to the front find your spot um I do need to read the motion I will entertain a motion to approve the unified Improvement plans for Adams 12 schools and priority Improvement and turnaround as presented so move second all right it's all yours Mr B good evening uh Deputy superintendent fulbert and board members I have a number of principles and executive directors with us and I want to thank them for being here tonight and spending their time with us to explain and their plans that they've put together um as you know as part of the unified improvement process the accountability process um we need to submit uips to the state and uips for priority Improvement or turnaround schools must be review reviewed and approved by the board and so that's what we're here today you have been provided with the plan itself an executive summary of the plan that covers the high level summary of it and also the action plan for the vast majority of the plans it's a M tool that looked like an Excel spreadsheet or in one case it was more of a Word document plan so you have all of those documents um the next thing in terms of the process today will be proceed by school level we'll start at the elementary level then go to the Middle School level than the high school level or in a multi-level School in uh Adria's case at festar online the school executive director for the level or directors for the levels will provide just a brief overall um review of the level and the trends there and then we'll go school by school each principal will give a brief summary of those documents they've provided you hitting the high points in a few minutes and then we'll open it for questions you have for that principle when we're done with that principle we'll move to the next principal until we get to the middle school level and then the high school level will be our process today so uh I'd like at this time to invite our elementary executive directors just to provide a brief summary overview of what's the work that's going on at the element level that they'd like to mention and then we'll begin with Coronado Hills uh for them to present a brief overview of their uip good evening Teresa Gilbreth executive director of Elementary and K8 and tonight I'm here representing our elementary principles um this year at the elementary level we are focused on the implementation of Benchmark writing um and working with our instructional coaches and our principles and the district's major Improvement strategies connected to intentional planning to make sure that we are uh providing rigorous instruction in all content areas as you know uh we're in year three of the implementation of Benchmark reading and year two of administrating our d8 um assessments we're also diving into lesson internalization planning intentionally with the knowledge of individuals in mind um and tonight you're going to hear from two of my schools um that are getting just a little bit higher level of support so we're going to start with Coronado Hills hi good evening my name is Kathy kahill I'm the principal at Coronado Hills Elementary um we have really two major high points in our major Improvement strategy um one is a positive School culture and this comes out of really the why is around our Panorama data and we had um a vast change in our staff and our climate um and culture data um so really we're focused on a couple areas there we're focused on staff climate and culture a positive culture so staff are um taking a survey every month to progress monitor where they are at with trust with leadership and the work and the sense of belonging they have within our school along with that we also have 23 new staff members this year which is important to note as we look at the work ahead um a second part of our positive School culture is around student um and their sense of belonging has been um pretty stagnant on 72 % so we're working on improving that and progress monitoring on a quarterly basis with the tool that CDE has helped us to create and then probably one of the biggest changes and shifts we made is around procedures and routines and implementing a new culture rubric and implementing things from our learning from our relay and CDE Network um on training and really getting tight on such things as threshold our lunch routines our hallway routines and really creating that predictable environment where students know what to expect um to create that sense of belonging our second major Improvement strategy is around a vision for instruction and it's really focused on tier one in all content areas what we found going through some of our data is some of our learning as a district we've done years ago around formative practices only two out of 30 staff members received so we really need to kind of fill that Gap and restart fresh and it was a great opportunity this year with 23 new staff members to really start again with learning intention success criteria and academic monitoring are our two major Focus areas and then we have worked alongside of our Transformation Network team to create a new observation feedback tool that really allows us to see Trends by grade level teachers veteran teachers new teachers to determine the need for professional learning um and really that's just creating Clarity and cohesion for um access for rigorous instruction for all of our students those are the high points um do we want to ask for questions with each princip if you would like to address the questions related to the Coronado hills's uip at this time we'll take one school at a time okay anybody have any questions I just wanted to ask for a clarification on the IB status so is is cornado Hills still pursuing that no it has not been an IB status school since before I was there okay I couldn't tell you how I've been there four years and I believe even several years before that okay all right thank you Miss K I'm Sarah Olsen I'm the principal of MC Elementary um we focused a lot on math last year and we grew in math however we dipped in literacy um which is why we're here and um we also grew in Access and so we did have a lot of highlights but unfortunately um dipped in ela uh we are major Improvement strategies are we're learning to empower students to take responsibility for their learning um by carrying the cognitive load uh by participating in engaging in productive struggle uh where students actually will know their data um and be able to speak to their data K through five um we're in addition we are learning to um to use various types of data to increase student and Staff Agency um in addition to students knowing their data they're also goal setting and actually tomorrow night they will be doing um I think it's our third year of student loved conferences where students will be the doing the talking versus the teacher and showing parents um all of their data including Maps Dibbles um and then writing samples math samples uh so they'll be leading that teachers will monitor a lesson collect data analyze data than adjust teaching based off of that data so we've been meeting every weekly um doing ddis where uh teachers have been doing intentional monitoring so they'll give a lesson they'll walk around they'll take the data and then we'll analyze that data and then continue teaching from that and then also um again learning to engage students in ongoing goal setting Cycles so they can um own their learning we have a a flex time built into our week where students specifically look at their work and set goals for next week uh we feel strongly that have students are the ones who are um if they know their data and they're setting their goals and they are the ones attempting to their goals those are the things that we can control and um they'll start to you know continue to raise their goals and and hopefully reach them and and grow based off of that any questions thank you okay Sarah my name is Grace Taylor and I'm the principal of norstar before I start I just want to give a shout out to our assessment team um Dave and um Kim Terry and Albert because we could not do our uips without all the amazing data that they provide it was working on it one weekend and I emailed Albert thinking okay I'll hear from him on Wednesday and I heard that day on the weekend uh so we have a lot of support that helps us with the uips um my data obviously was not good as you could see in the executive summary and in the unified Improvement plan and you just have to face the fact that is not at all what you wanted it to be um Northstar has been in performance in priority Improvement in Improvement last year and now we've hit the bottom with priority Improvement so it's kind of a zigzag situation and I think as a staff when we look at the data what is probably most sticks out to all of us is our fifth grade cohort and um the level of drop for fifth grade was significant and I know it was very hard for our coaches to see that because they work so hard with the teachers um in fifth grade and what we found is we had two new fifth grade teachers one who um is not did not return and the year before we also had a new fifth grade teacher who didn't return and the year before so it's like year after year trying to build up a grade level that is very important for your Cass scores and I can say in all the years I've been at Northstar so 13 years I've hired one teacher in fifth grade who's a veteran and so lots of new people and so we as a community said okay this is just our reality I remember Bo saying this before Co actually Love the One You're With because we're not getting a lot of new people into intermediate grades in um title schools and so okay who we have we work with and so that's why we picked a major Improvement strategy of collaboration and really prioritizing collaborating with each other and getting CH coaches in there every day we're in there every day working with our teachers to increase their skills and so that is something we do targeted um on every other week we have extended plan where they work on their planning for writing which is our new curriculum and then every Friday we do data driven instruction so that teachers are looking at student data every week and thinking about okay how can I change my instruction to better meet the needs of my students we also look at Dibbles data as a district we all look at our Dibbles data for Progress monitoring um I think that's probably the scariest thing is our reading data for this year um I don't know if you saw it but for one class in fifth grade 65% of our students are reading well below Benchmark in Reading so huge concern so it's it's the brutal facts it's the reality and so what can we do support our teachers who are new to the profession um to help them um learn how to teach literacy so I talked about that in the uip and it takes time but also we have the kids in front of us that we don't want to pass on to Marty in thoron middle school without being prepared so we're doing everything we can looking at the data um getting support from our um uh District people in the literacy Department thinking about how we can support our teachers so they have a better understanding of the science of reading and providing instruction to our students so our our big focus is for um providing support for our teachers um for literacy our math scores were not great but we can't focus everywhere so that's where we're focusing is within literacy and then really critical because it's one thing to have the teacher side but how are the students feeling what is their sense of belonging and since Co it's really been noticeable that the attachment to school has taken a while to come back and I um wrote about it in our uip that our fifth graders from last year were in first grade during Co and then our fifth graders this year were in kindergarten and I remember those kids with their mask on and you know playing on you know outside or inside and so it it's had an impact on them and you can see it in our Panorama data that the sense of belonging is not as strong as we would like um I just today got from my cell um our latest Panorama survey data 56% of our students did not feel feel like the other students showed respect to them that has an impact of how you feel in school if if the student next to you don't feel like they respect you so we're working on that um with ourselves and we do that we have a check-in checkout system for kids who are at high risk we also have lunch bunches with our cells and they focus on particular skills depending on which group they're working with and then we use second step and we also have community meeting to build that sense of we are a school we are a community uh so together building a community with our students and staff and then also doing everything we can to increase the capacity of our teachers to meet the needs of our students and we're working really hard to have better scores so that our fifth graders going to Thorton middle will be in a better place Marty promise you question thank you any questions no okay okay thank you Grace good evening my name is Kate Bogle I'm the principal at Rocky Mountain I can I Feel The Vibes because my school's been through all the things you guys have just described and so I I just want to say this we're not here because it's absent of hard work it's what we do every day so I just want to acknowledge that and I know you guys know that um very similar to m i we dro by point2 down into Pi which was really hard um because we have the systems we have the structures and my school has the culture in place to do this great work and I think the data point that my school has really tried to figure out how to unpack is that our students are making tremendous growth on access they're at the 60th growth percentile and then when you looked at it didn't transfer to those students in cmass literacy and cmass math actually and had it we would have been just fine and so we have spent a tremendous amount of time trying to figure out why why isn't it transferring when they took that assessment so this year my school we are focused on um feedback and academic monitoring um we have partnered with CDE for the last several years that partnership still stays the course um my CD partner comes now will'll just come on our own and meet with my assistant principal and I because I just value the input that she has and their TurnKey professional learnings that they've been offering to us and so we've gotten very good with we have great structures in place for planning we are really good at backward planning making sure we understand how students are going to be assessed first um planning strategic um learning intentions and success criteria so when we looked into those formative assessment practices we felt that feedback and academic monitoring were that next right step to focus on and so in our planning yes we were doing that through DDI protocols but we weren't doing it strategically daily and so now as part of our planning here's our learning intention here's success criteria what is your feedback loop what students are you going to go check in on right now to see if they're opening up their notebook they've started their writing and what are we giving them feedback on so they're getting it in the moment and even if I'm giving it to Shannon everybody at her table is hearing the feedback too so we find that to be a high leverage strategy and I think one of the things we believe happened is this idea of getting our students into a productive struggle and not overs scaffolding for students that are also learning a second language and so we are really working to be able to scaffold up is what we call it so giving them all of the access that we can give them to grade level instruction and then give giving them tools to be successful but then knowing when to take that scaffold away to see if they have owned that learning and so those are two of the big things that we're focused on within our planning because those structures are in place I would say the other piece is the implementation of Benchmark writing we had not been intentional when you think about triangulating your data for readers and making sure that what they're learning as a reader they can transfer because if they know their phics and pH mic awareness skills they can transfer that to writing and so we are working really hard in our um DDI protocols this year not only to look at their content and writing and what we're teaching in writing but to make sure that those skills that we're teaching on small group reading are transferring to what they're able to produce in writing um so we're focused on that and then obviously those same the feedback and academic monitoring are just High leverage strategies that also integrating into math because that is an area that we're still working on and then as far as academic and social belonging um we've chosen strong classroom cultures from the relay Network um there's five techniques that we've been training our staff on they're now getting specific feedback on those strategies but it's really being very clear what to do directions very simple be seen watching um least invasive intervention so if those students are off task we have really calming easy strategies to try to get students back on task um and just giving precise praise when they're doing the right thing um and that is a relay uh training that we were able to I think we purchased actually because it was that good and we're able to turn K and then the other high leverage um training from relay network is the participation ratio so both of these strategies really are integrated to increase student engagement and ownership of the learning and so we really feel like these are the highest leverage strategies that will get the performance on access to transfer to Cass so thank you thank you any questions okay thanks okay okay Shannon good evening I'm Shannon West I'm the principal at Thorton Elementary and I've already shared with you in the previous months about our successes um with the pilot program and the opportunities it's provided us with bringing teachers back early and really having that strong start and that's an opportunity that we take um that we are really trying to embrace because we know that the struggles that are my colleagues are facing in their title wi schools is something that we can start to address through this pilot program it's one of many things that need to be happening in Title One schools but I appreciate that opportunity and a lot of our work um as a result of this pilot opportunity um so our teacher leaders continue to lean into um into that work and uh creating learning Partnerships with teachers throughout our school in which they identify Focus areas um that they want to work together in and then they observe each other they take opportunities um teacher leaders observing the teachers and teachers observing teacher leaders and then they have debrief conversations in which they are problem solving and um building capacity among each other so that's been a fantastic opportunity we have teacher leaders in our building that are consistently getting 60 and 70% um of growth on these um achievement on these tests and we need to continue to leverage them to share what they're doing and why they're being so effective in the classroom um so our ma one of our major Improvement strategies this year is uh focusing on literacy instruction and that starts in the planning um so that really having a deep understanding of what that assessment what is that final um learning outcomes that students need to be able to um perform on and um working backwards and planning um rigorous relevant uh lessons related to that uh our teachers weekly plan literacy instruction as well as weekly looking at literacy data so looking at data or student work and then identifying Trends identifying what's going well what's not going well what needs to be reted taught either in small group or in whole group and there's lots of evidence of targeted small group instruction happening in the classrooms related to that student work which is awesome um as we go throughout the week and plan and every other content our teachers collaborate every day and plan a different content area they're also thinking about where can they integrate that literacy where are the opportunities to read where are the connections to the writing we need more at bats at writing so we're learning about this how can we incorporate that how can we align it to the W instruction that we did in earlier in the day um our second goal that's critical to Student Success is that students feel connected academically and socially um our students need to believe that they can accomplish really hard task and they need to be able to set goals that that they believe that they can achieve um and teachers are addressing this throughout the day in many ways it starts with our our morning meeting and students making that personal connection talking about what they are going to achieve that day doing task and building confidence right from the beginning of the day um today I was in a fourth grade classro and they were setting their goals for the month of October so and then they were putting them in their student portfolios they were setting goals for math based on what their math uh unit coming up was they were setting goals in reading and writing so really having giving students that opportunity to own their learning and reflect on their learning um not all of our grade levels are there but it was awesome to see our fourth graders there also um we're as a school continuing to set goals in um what we call like challenges for one example was doing um a math challenge I threw out the old you know who can get to 15% on ST Math First or know the first week of school well lo and behold you know knocking on my door last week I've got multiple kids at 100% 100% already in St Math so I was like oh wow okay we need to you know I need to up the celebration because that's pretty incredible you know five or six weeks into school to have already completed and then checking in with their teacher and being like are they doing anything else besides stmath are you sure they're participating in in The Benchmark and the literacy and they confirmed they were but these guys you know students accept the challenge when you set goals for them and they want to rise to those challenges so that was awesome to see and seeing other kids really persevering and digging into those challenges as well um uh it's just important that we create those systems throughout our school for students to be owning their learning um again we have some people that are there and some grade levels that we're going to be supporting and working with them throughout the year we're incredibly optimistic about our potential we look forward to bringing in our learning Partners in the district we look forward to joining the you know pairing up with some transformation work um because we have room to improve absolutely but um you know we are super confident in that we're going to improve our results for next year thank you Shannon any questions okay okay moving on to the middle level um my colleague Scott Simon and I our district goals and our middle level goals are very similar um focused on academic planning and making sure that we have rigorous grade level instruction happening and that we're planning for rigorous grade level instruction and also that we are um focused on both academic and social belonging so much of our work in our one-on-one meetings with principles and also our Middle School ilt is aligned to that and then the second part of our work is all of our Middle School principles are using a PM tool and that is no different for thoron Middle um You probably saw in our district data that our middle school scores took a little bit of an uptick um thoron middle does Remain the anomaly as such um we've been very strategic and how we're supporting Thorton middle through this process of improvement um much like Thorton Elementary thoron Middle is participating in the pilot Student Success Compensation Program which we're very thankful for um they also had the opportunity to bring Educators back early for some very intentional professional learning and the opportunity to do some planning to make sure that they were well organized and structured for the start of the school year this also is important because we know how how critical it is to hire and retain Educators that educator is who our students spend the vast majority of their time with and so that's really critical um also you heard Shannon talk a little bit about the power of the teacher leader and how they can really be leveraged in moving the work of the school forward and so our learning Services team has leaned in to really think about what that partnership can be between learning services and our teacher leaders and how we can really be strategic in the support that we provide our Title One schools and while we only have two schools participating in this work right now we really want to think about what that has um you know in the future for us so that's really been my role in um leaning in as the Ed to support both of these two schools finally I'll say um with thoron middle this is their second year of using the PM tool and I think their school is clearer than ever in the work that's at hand and they just had their first PM meeting and not only for them as a building leadership team but also for their teacher leaders and their coaches um just really narrowing in and keeping the work small bite-sized and also having a really strategic partnership with um CDE and how they might move the work forward in their building good evening Marty McCarthy Thor Middle School um I think our PM tool best outlines our plan for the year um the major Improvement strategies uh are really about teacher development and um improving the level of instruction that is happening in classrooms both how we teach teachers to do that and then how we monitor that it's happening and give them feedback um so far this year we have 25 teachers um on our staff who received weekly observation feedback Cycles which is a large number um and we're seeing progress already we tiered teachers in um s of levels of need and at the beginning of the year um we cheered 35 sorry 30 teachers at the highest level of need and now it's at 25 teachers so we've seen some rapid growth and I expect that to fluctuate over the course of the year uh many of these teachers are earlier in their career and um as you may know there's lots of ups and downs in that those first years um we also are really focusing on instructional planning uh our teachers because the pilot are able to meet three days a week to do data analysis and lesson planning and then also intervention planning um we monitor those using a monitoring tool to see how well each team is going through that process and we're that was the focus of our first first CDE meeting this year was to see how our work in planning is translating in the classrooms and uh through that meeting and uh the observations of our team we've already made some adjustments about where we need to go to next and then I would also um highlight our partnership with CDE as a key component to our moving forward and moving up um I meet with uh uh Stephanie Knox who's our support person from CDE at least monthly that's the regular scheduled meeting but we touch base more often than that and then we're also utilizing staff from CDE to analyze our practices um today and yesterday we had a staff member from CDE come and observe our PLC meetings to give us feedback and to adjust uh make adjustments we're doing so we're debriefing tomorrow around that and we will um you know take that feedback and and make adjustments for where it's needed but um that's been a really I think productive partnership so so far this year and even more so this year than last year um and then I would say um one of the one of the few bright spots in our data um from last year was uh not in the academic data but in the I think school culture data um our Panorama data uh was much improved around student culture and sense of belonging and then also I think very significantly we able to reduce the number of suspensions by 15% um from the previous year which um I'll never be happy with whatever our number of suspensions are but that's a significant decrease and to do that while still maintaining an increasing staff uh culture is a really large accomplishment because often you sacrifice staff culture when you reduce suspensions so that's a item that we're proud of any questions thank you Marty good evening my name is Lee Peters I'm the executive director of high schools and alternative programs and in this case our online school um before I talk about festar Online Academy I would be remiss if I didn't take just a moment to share a couple of thoughts and I think I speak for my executive director colleagues when I say I have deep admiration for this group of principles who works who who work in these schools and it can be really challenging to reach a performance status um it is incredibly difficult to learn that you remain in or have fallen into priority Improvement and turnaround status and I watch this group of leaders firsthand and I hear about how they return to work and continue to lean in with their staff and their students and their families um to address those challenges and overcome those challenges so um for what it's worth and I think the board knows this but I felt important to share that about um the way I feel and the respect that I have for this group of principles so um with that I will move on to festar Online Academy which is our online program if you don't know and as a reminder we started this school in the 2021-22 school year primarily because of the impacts of covid and we knew prior to co that we needed an online option because we felt we could serve some of our families better than some of the other onl online programs that we knew um families and students were going to Across the state um and when that happened we charged Miss Morrison with um starting up a school um I told her we'd have a decision in February and I didn't tell her till late April that we were going to do it and so she needed to have a school ready by August and she did that in August of 21 with her and her staff so kudos to her and the team there a couple of things that are unique about our online program is we are currently a fourth through 12th grade grade school our elementary program is based on student interest so we have had other grades as part of our online program and it's just strictly based on um student and family interest and at this time the the interest is at the fourth and fifth grade level a couple things to know about uh festar online is when we started we were a program so we were not initially a school and did not get an SP SPF so we've only gotten State accreditation this is now our second year as we finished up um in May of 2024 where Adrian and her team have seen an SPF so um we're on the early stages of this program but now that we're four years in we're very excited about the things that are happening there and I will let Miss Morrison talk more specifically about that thank you Lee good evening thank you for having us um couple of things I wanted to start with are just some points of Pride we did move into a new building in the fall because we have a hybrid element to our program with um in-person options for skill building academic support and also Social Development and that's huge um a point of Pride that you won't see in our SPF is on our Panorama survey um for teacher and student relationships and school climate we're in the 80th to 99th percentile when compared nationally and just knowing that my teachers have been able to really know our students by name strength and need even though a lot of them are across that computer screen and they don't get to see face to face um much like many of these principles talked about we have amazing Educators who are working so diligently and I definitely know we have the right people at our school to do this important work one of our goals last year so in um our previous SPF we didn't get a rating at all it said insufficient data so we really took that challenge on to say great we need to get more students to participate in Cass PSAT and sat so in the spring of 2023 our test participation rate ranged from 33 to 40% last year in 2024 we doubled that so we range from 67% to 80% so that was really really exceptional and also really showed that we're building that Community with our families and they're willing to come into our building um and do these assessments with us we also saw points of growth um similarly our access growth went from 35% I think to 61% so we're seeing that growth but we're not quite yet seeing it translate and so that's a lot of our work for this current school year um our you can see our priority Performance challenges excuse me there around math literacy and grad rate we're really going to lean into that space of educate educator collaboration and coaching we started the districtwide formative practices work a little bit late because we didn't exist as a school yet when it started so we're still really leaning into that work we also are partnering with relay around their online teaching methods program which they have and they'll do webinars and things like that with our teachers throughout the year so we're excited for that piece um and then we're also really leaning into some of those coaching Les and some guided planning days for our Educators we feel like now that we have a clearer picture of our student gaps using those days to really plan intentionally to accelerate their learning in those areas um is going to make a difference for them um our second major Improvement strategy is around engagement and attendance we are finally I'm feeling like we're just starting to kind of tip the scales in that area last week we hit 97% attendance for elementary and 92% for Middle the highest ever since we opened and so we're feeling like we're really getting to that point of partnering with families to say just cuz your child's at home right now doesn't mean they're not a full-time student and so working on that piece as well we also are doing quite a bit of parent Outreach different things like that like Parent Academy nights where we're teaching them about social media and screen time and different things and so we're seeing increased parent participation in those as well then our third major Improvement strategy around Equitable School environment and supports um we've always focused on welcoming environment we know that a lot of our students are with us because they did not have great experiences or were not able to find success in a more traditional environment so we have to rebuild their engagement and rebuild their trust so we focus quite a bit on that we have a team of Educators who are leaning into the equity and traum informed education work pretty intently to think about how we make sure our systems and structures create those Equitable experiences for students trying a brand new thing with math Credit Recovery we're going to try a math catch-up week over fall break in a couple of weeks to see if we can get can get some of these math one students in and kind of get them caught up now so that they can find success for the rest of the year um and then doing some work around post-secondary planning and mental health Partnerships we know quite a few of our students are working through anxiety or depression and so finding new ways to lean into that space so that they can successfully be part of our school and and continue to be part of our community so those are some of our areas that we are leaning into this year thank you Adria any questions you guys are working really hard I know some of you are just this close to the next level but you know think think of this as a you guys have done amazing work in your plans too and I I certainly have faith that you're going to grow and you know and I know that the kids that that you have coming to you doesn't matter who they are we've got to educate them and sometimes it's a little harder than some other schools so thank you for being in that school that you have chosen to be in and thank you to your staff too because it's not easy can we also just make observations yeah or comments I mean there might be a question in here somewhere we'll see um so I'm thinking in terms of particularly with uh principal M morson um I'm so grateful that we have an online school online education is not for everyone however it is very important for an important um cross-section of our students it's vital for them and you mentioned that they have had a lot of them have had negative previous experiences and so this is sort of a Dave baina thing but it's also sort of a you know anyone who wants to chime in here I have concerns about Cass scores coming from Cass for that reason because we're getting kids who come in and they have baggage for lack of a better term they're like the independence Academy principal who said we have kids who come in and they've been disregulated throughout Elementary School and so they have a lot of catch-up work to do and I'm just wondering if that is having a playing a big role in uh the the sort of performance results that you have because your kids have so much further that they need to go sometimes right does that make sense Dave is looking at me sure I'll let Dave answer from a data perspective I would say from an observational perspective a lot of it has to do with gaps so a lot of our students because they were working through let's say anxiety mental health concern physical health concern have an educational history that has a lot of gaps right I was here for 6 weeks I was gone for eight weeks I was here for 3 weeks I was back um we also see quite a bit of kind of Mobility at my school so um we're at 506 students right now 240 of them are new to us this year so almost half and so trying to know you know trying to create those spaces where we get them we get them acclimated we pull them into the community is going to be an ongoing Challenge and that's typical of an online program we're also seeing that we're starting to draw students from neighboring districts because we have a hybrid online program and parents still want that in inperson opportunity and we are so grateful to have those students choose Adams 12 and also they're at a different place sometimes because of kind of the curriculum or or what they've experienced in those other places so it it just kind of is one of those facts that we know as a staff that we're going to have to be more intentional about um one other thing I didn't mention is we're working a lot on onboarding our students so what does that look like so that we can help them get acclimated and help them feel like they're part of our community more quickly when they when they come to us so Dave I'm not sure if there's another data piece there that you want to jump in on well what I'd say in terms of you know interruptions often times what you'll see is and again we're talking about the state accountability system which is very narrow and it's focused right uh especially at elementary middle it's really achievement in a couple content areas three content areas and growth in two along with access growth which carries less weight um and when you're looking at these gaps in terms of achievement that can very easily manifest itself in terms of lower achievement um once you get a student stabilized you can see significant growth um one thing about the system is if a student is new after October 1st they're not factored into the accountability system so there is some built into that and what that's true of Adria's school but it's also true of many of the other schools we have here where there's High mobility of kids moving across to district line so forth so um it's a common issue that we have to run into um it has more of an effect on achievement than it theoretically does on growth given that there has to be a certain period that they're there for that growth to be included in the accountability system that still makes it more challenging but that's the way the system is set up at this point and it's an unfortunate reality that these schools it's a challenge they have to deal with that some other schools do not have to deal with is in terms of that mobility and I think the important part is it's something that we as the board need to be aware of when I mean we can't just take results at face value we need to really understand the um the those backend social contexts that are driving some of what we see and that was another question I was going to have for some of our other schools where um if if you have a a high free and reduced lunch population that population tends to move frequently so the issue there is consistency and access to a particular educational space um and so that's another factor that I don't know how we can call it out or make it more apparent but I think it's something that we do need to weigh when we're looking at you know schools and performance because it has a humongous impact so I think I think an answer to that though Paul is that the state doesn't let us do that exactly what I was going to say that's exactly I like I don't think it's a district thing it's a state issue exactly but we can but we can tell you how much we appreciate you exactly and how hard you work understand that's the important part right well and I was just going to also address um I think many I've either have had children at your schools or have been in your schools um and the population of students that you are working with is they're amazing and they're wonderful and they have other challenges that are happening in their life that are completely unrelated to education and but it carries over into school and it carries over into testing um you know a story I often share is I was doing a school visit at Doran Elementary as a parents when my now sixth grader was in third grade and um I go into her classroom which she really disliked but um one of the students who I've known since kindergarten was in there and had his head on the desk and was not engaged um and you know the teacher really wasn't pushing it and I come to find out later through another family that that students dad was being arrested and you know cops were at his house until 2 3:00 a.m. and so not only is he exhausted but the trauma of experiencing that and that's not an isolated incident at any of your schools and um and so it's of course she's not going to push him because his social emotional well-being was was more critical at that time and meeting those needs than maybe that math lesson at that time and so you guys are having to navigate that and work with that and your teachers are having to work with that with these expectations um you know I've complained for years as many of here know that unfortunately our state assessments are not normed for populations of the students that in your school and yet you still have to you still have to meet those numbers and um and so it's always going to be an appeal swim stream you know and um and yet you guys are just doing such a fabulous job with it and I think what was it Kate you said that it's not reflective these tests are not reflective of leadership and I know Lee spoke to that and it's not I think it's facing those challenges and facing the what needs to be done knowing that you could do the exact same thing you could do even more so than what a school that is Meeting those test scores and still not come out to that level because of the unique challenges at your school and so I I can never express how much I appreciate you all and um the respect I have and admiration I have for you all and being like always said choosing to be in your schools year after year after year knowing the challenges and knowing um what you have to face with this and yet doing it and showing up for the kids every day so thank you I guess we'll call the vote okay director Assad Lucas hi director belli I director Goldstein I director Marsh holen I director Potter I thank you principles and exec directors and uh thank you for what you do once again and we wish you the best and we will see great things thank you guys thank you thank you so much again for being here all right I'm going to go back to the um monitoring report since the fact is here yep totally get that I was going to suggest that I read your mind all right so the external monitoring report operation operating limitations policy 2.4 Financial conditions and activities 2.5 asset protection 2.6 employment compensation and benefits and District policy 4130 staff ethics conflicts of interest nepotism and the financial audit and audit committee I'm going to entertain a motion to acknowledge the board received an external monitoring report from the finance and audit committee as of October 2nd 2024 for the period July 1st 2023 through June 30th 2024 for the purpose of monitoring superintendent performance concerning board policies 2.4 Financial condition and activities 2.5 asset protection 2.6 employment compensation and benefits and District policy 413 staff ethics conflicts of interest nepotism and finds the facts findings and conclusions are reasonable and supported by data that is relevant Justified and complete so moved second thank you and we have members of the finance audit committee here along with Miss laner okay good evening board first I want to apologize for our confusion with the time and thank you for your patience with that really quickly I want to introduce our fa members that are here and then I'll turn it over to them so we have Kelly Bergstrom who has been serving on the fa for six years um so really grateful for her service Michael Calo has been with the fact this is his second year returning and then our new um fa member molini Mohan Kumar did I get that right I was stressed about that um she is a new fa member and I'm so grateful that she was able to join tonight to see how this presentation goes and and um get to experience the questions you may ask so I'm going to turn it over to Michael and Kelly uh good evening uh thanks uh Kelly and I are pleased to be here this evening representing the six members of the volunteer finance and audit committee as well as our two uh board members that join us for our meetings uh and to share the findings with you tonight of our year-long process evaluating all of the policies that you just went through so uh Kell Kelly's going to share some specifics a few takeaways from the support uh before doing so just wanted to take a minute and thank Gina Aaron oberg karolina for their many hours of time uh committed to working with the fact uh the diligence foresight preparation of our monthly meetings makes this a pretty easy process for the volunteers so I just want to thank him for that and additionally uh through the process over the course of the year uh personally I was and I know the other fact members as well are impressed with the preparation the expertise the professionalism and most of all the patience of the many members of the district management that met with us and politely answered all of our many questions so uh really thank everybody for the input and contributions because uh what we are presenting here tonight would not be possible without all those efforts so with that I'll turn it over to Kelly and she'll take you through a couple of the uh specific Lins good evening thank you for having us there's just a few sections that we wanted to call out as part of our review um first and foremost the 2.52 or Maintenance and Facilities operation while the maintenance team is maintaining a 99% uptime we are seeing a high level of deferred maintenance this is a known issue it has been called out before and the staff is working to address that but of course additional funding like blueprint would only help additionally in the 2.54 a the transportation department we' previously noted that they were having um sign some issues with Staffing levels they over the course of the last year they have put in several programs that has addressed that and those programs do seem to be working so kudos to the transportation team for that and then last but not least on the purchasing in 2.54 there were a few minor exceptions that the facility or the fact did call out to the accounting staff those were researched and and looked at a little bit deeper and they found uh no issues or um conflicts of interest with that but we did find a few that we did want to call out so other than that you everything else is reported in our findings we didn't have anything major and it was a pleasure to serve on this committee any other questions uh last thing I just want to say uh you know i' I'm an old guy now I'm like 30 years in Finance and Accounting and I will tell you that uh the adherence to the policies of an organization and the controls in place are very much about the tone at the top and I think that Gina Ain and others have clearly you know set a strong tone and conveyed a culture of compliance and you can see that come through in our meetings that there's a strong diligence towards that so I appreciate uh their efforts on that front uh I just want to say thank you both and other member and all I mean all the members that give your time for the fact and um I served on it briefly and then as a board liaison in the beginning too and just the questions that are asked and um with just purpos and um yeah it it you guys do great work and it's really impactful to our work as a board and so thank you and we hope that this will continue with another passing and have much more work to be done but no we really much appreciate your time and effort on on the fact so thank you so much thank you being one of the Lea on s to fact I have to say you guys are a really enjoyable group you make school finance and numbers fun um even when it is early in the morning um but it really is you know just like Amir had said it's so impactful um and supports what we are doing and without you guys I think we would be having a lot more headaches so thank you again for your commitment your time um the leadership you guys are are you guys are all great thank you thanks yeah thank you um because you're volunteering for this and it I appre anytime community members get involved with our schools I really appreciate it so thank you all right thanks thank you all right call vote director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Marsh holen I director Potter I okay um back to Dave B and the district unified Improvement plan presentation and mean King okay now you're stuck with me instead of all these lovely people who are up here before U but actually Megan Kane our chief academic officer will be joining us joining me as well as we present the the information related to The District unified Improvement plan so to start out U just some context for this year um we've maintained a fully accredited rating for the six consecutive year that's analogous to a performance rating for a school um I'm sure you notice those of you that have seen uips in the past that we've transitioned to this new streamlined uip template what I can tell you is our district uip this year was 13 Pages last year it was 37 pages and so I think the online template has really provided a little bit more concise easyto read format for you to really get the high points and it's releas um reduced quite a bit of redundancy and a lot of the bloat in the the previous uip so I think this was a welcome Edition I think the principles did a wonderful job of of working through their uips and and giving you something really to chew into in terms of what they're focusing on and hopefully as you read the district uip you could see this was more concise and focused as well um the other thing in terms of a shift for this year in the uip process traditionally you would write a two-year plan so in other words we'd be writing what are we doing in 2425 what are we doing in 2526 and as a district we made a decision that we're really going to focus on 2425 not knowing sometimes how much we're going to have to Pivot when we get to 2526 or change priorities depending upon how things happen this won't allow us to exercise banial flexibility in other words if we stayed accredited next year if we put two years worth of targets we could come to you asking for banal flexibility but I think we believe that creating a uip every year and tailoring it to what we really need to be doing and not worrying about banal flexibility and having a focused one-year plan is the way to go so as you were looking at our uip you saw things for the 2425 school year in terms of action steps so wanted to just make you aware of that shift in our thinking and and trying to be as On Target and focused with our plan as we can be at this point I'm going to turn it over to me can show she can take you through the next slides starting with our theory of action all right so um one of the things that is different um this year in Adams 12 and how we have approached our unified Improvement plan and just our anchor for how we're doing our work across the system which you heard many similarities across all of our schools that were here tonight and had an opportunity to um speak with you is that we've created our theory of action in um before we sat and really looked at what do we want our two major Improvement strategies to be and uh this happened amongst a group of um our learning Services coordinators principles executive directors um and is all rooted in our data and what our the story that our data has been telling us um over the course of the last year so our theory of action is in our commitment to educational Equity where every student received what they need to develop to their full potential by reducing the historical predictability of who succeeds and who fails we are implementing the follow following theory of action so we really that commitment about knowing students by name strength and need both inside and outside um of our classrooms and as you all noted in listening um to the panel tonight it is critical to the success of our students within um our buildings really understanding and actively addressing barriers that students present whether it's anxiety as a barrier uh things that have happened at their home at night or the just getting the appropriate scaffold to learning in place um for the students and really thinking about those barriers that have really been faced by our um historically marginalized students including but not limited to racism poverty language difference and abilities um when Educators know grade level course standards aligned to the GVC um and how students demonstrate Mastery of those standards so again you heard ter terminology tonight like academic monitoring intentional planning aligned to the standard intentional planning aligned to how do we remove barriers um and how do we help students own their learning and then give them that just right gradual release when they're ready for us to take away um those scaffolds when Educators commit to utilizing instructional methods and practices that elicit evidence of student learning and promote student ownership of learning um and collaboratively and individually plan lessons and learning experiences that combine their knowledge of student grade level course and standards and effective instructional methods and when we get this Trifecta just right in this Lane um this is when the magic happens for our students in the classroom and if we do all of these things then students will regularly engage in learning Partnerships that are not only relevant meaningful and empowering but they're also simultaneously culturally affirming inclusive and Equitable and our data will show Improvement in student growth achievement and post-secondary Workforce Readiness and so as a result of that theory of action we as a team then have developed our um vision for teaching and learning um this is not new we're just deepening our understanding um for how we go about this business and um our theory is deeply seated in the most current research about what makes a different um difference for students and so educational equity for all students every student receives what they need to developed to their full academic and social potential by reducing predictability of who succeeds and who fails which is the primary conversation that we had um this e this evening and you can see how feedback loops and progress monitoring aligned to just in time learning um for educators is really the glue that holds that together and then in the inside of that Circle are all the structures that we utilize to make sure that that happens on a consistent basis one thing that I'll note that our folks didn't talk about tonight is that we have have we are in such a deep District partnership with um CDE and the Transformation Network we're at over $800,000 in Grant monies that have been awarded to Adams 12 through this partnership and the things that they work on with us side by side live in each of these um components from inclusion first strategies to data informed decision making to intentional planning um and so we are very grateful and thankful for that part partnership um and have really benefited as a result and so we've landed on our two um major Improvement strategies in Adams 12 five star schools we intentionally plan both individually and collaboratively teaching is not a a career that can be done in isolation um to implement instruction for each student to ensure rigorous access um and also relevant access uh to grade level learning and then engaging our students in learning Partnerships that Foster a sense of academic and social belonging they have to live simultaneously alongside each other to create the best learning environment for our students and so just a high level summary of our action steps um we have alignment of all of our learning services staff on strong planning and instruction um to grade level standards to engage students academically and socially uh alignment of all school-based capacity Builders to support that planning and instruction in our schools continued partnership with our CDE Transformation Network implementation and learning aligned to the new uh Benchmark advanc writing resource to supplement Benchmark Advanced reading resource we're in the process of um starting our adoption of a new elementary math resource um we've already had a core team taking a look at that we've wooded it down to two resource that they're examining right now and we're replicating the same process that we went through when we adopted the Benchmark um resource so it's proven to be very effective um for us and so we're working through that and then our progress monitoring school and District staff will collaborate to monitor implementation of the major Improvement strategies through the following this is that high quality instructional planning monitoring scale um that we we we know that we have to be clear with our schools what are we looking for why are we looking for it and how are we going to know when it's there and again we have to give that side by-side support in small steps over time um to make sure that they're aware of that uh student focused academic team success criteria as we do our academic team visits across the system we will be all using the same criteria to determine how close or how far we are um from that success criteria CL oration with the deck to observe our Academic Teams and professional learning um to give them an opportunity to see how we're leveraging and utilizing these tools and then what's the teaching and the support that goes along with that feedback um through that process so I'll pause oh sorry Dave no go ahead and finish I'm sorry I'll pause there to see that's kind of some high level information I know you guys have had an opportunity to preview um some of this but if there's any questions that you have for us um that we can answer for you I just wondered I know at the principal meeting last week they had really expressed the math piece um and the implementation faster do we have any idea um if that can be done or is that yep so if we if we can stay true to our our plan that we had done um when we did The Benchmark implementation we'd like to get a resource chosen um January February March somewhere in that area and then start to give some preliminary learning um to building leaders and staff before they exit um for the school year and then we would move into uh year one of implementation in August of 2025 so my question is with the writing aspect of Benchmark that was the pilot for so it's being ruled out to all elementary schools now that use Benchmark this year right yes okay yes okay so then we might see some that is our hope and it's actually more than a hope um we've done some really intentional work um around that and the level of support so like when we referenced that capacity Builders are getting the support and the training so that then as educators are learning about the new tool and the new resource then we deploy those capacity Builders to be working side by side with teams of teachers um to help do that lift in a really intentional effective way so that our implementation is solid um for how to not only teach writing within the literacy block effectively but then where does writing live across the curriculum because writing is reflective of thinking right and so how do we pull that through through social study science and math over the course of a day the other thing I'd add is we heard it referenced from the principles here that just focusing on reading you don't have that lens of are they transferring that what they're learning in their reading to their writing it's kind of a window into their reading their writing serves that role for so for us to really understand and access that so having that aligned with the reading resources is going to be incredibly powerful for our Educators to see so about the math curriculum that you're going down that road it's my understanding that um everyday math is no longer approved and why is that and what happened I I don't have detailed answers for you today about that um but when there was a shift in the common core standards for mathematics um initially Everyday Math fit alongside that but now we have um the the way in which Everyday Math uh proposes instruction is not from the inquiry base um it is much more from the here's this standard here's the process we're going to follow to learn this standard here's um and much more about students having a plethora of options in how they solve um mathematic problems and then choosing the one that works the best for them versus having students unearth um the the their understanding of the math standards through the ways in which we're teaching them um so you may have heard of some things uh over the course of the last couple of years about thinking classrooms in math classrooms you may have had an opportunity to see them where students will work more deeply with one or two problems that are specifically aligned to the standard where they're applying their knowledge mathematical knowledge to that and then they're working together to construct meaning from that and then the teacher is then stamping um on the backside here's here's the ways in which the student solve this here's how this met the standard Etc that's a very simple way to explain it but the everyday math curriculum is just not simply buil in that manner any longer one detail i' I'd add to that Megan's right in the analysis of Everyday Math the state has taken a very analogous path that they did with reading where they are bringing content experts curriculum vets together to analyze the latest as they did with reading materials aligned to the science of reading there's emerging evidence as Megan talked about the importance of inquiry in thinking classrooms in mathematics as that team has worked together and reviewed a variety of curricula Everyday Math has not made the cut so as the state starts to compile these approved lists of curriculum first in reading and now they're doing it in mathematics that's when you hear everyday math is not on the list it comes out of that work you obviously note as a board as you look through our data comparatively math looks better than reading I think that does speak to the importance of consistency over time time everyday math has been in our system for quite some time our Educators develop some uh confidence some familiarity uh some knowledge of that use that's really important so as we think about still being in the early stages of Benchmark and we go down a new road with math we have to know that even though I think we're getting a better product there is an implementation uh path and and comfort with our teachers that is going to it take some time and you heard several of our title principles tonight talk about how often they have new Educators in their building it's why we thought as a district it was really important to pursue uh the Student Success compensation work uh to start to not just uh admire that problem but start to actually do something that might improve that reality so that our least uh experienced are not always in front of our most needy students uh but it also speaks to the importance of having really good curriculum resources available for our newest practitioners but that time peace and familiarity can't be lost in uh its importance of its impact for our teachers okay I have a mom question and maybe this is getting ahead of myself a little bit um but does this mean so like when my children ask me for help with homework if I don't understand I ask my mom and we both look at each other like we learned how to do math very differently than whatever is going on here does this mean we'll finally be able to help them with math homework again or does this mean we're going to have to relearn it for like a third time answer having options is helpful yeah options options is helpful you can can you um I think that um I don't know I think might be the best answer to that question because while we um are unearthing what these new resources have to offer to us the other thing we know is that we are preparing children for the world they're inheriting not the world that we inherited and so with that said that is going to require a learning curve on the part of all the adults to be able to support the students um but I will say the things that we have been able to do successfully in the past anytime things like that have transpired is schools have been really thoughtful about that family partner engagement where they offer learning sessions for families to come in about what's the best way to support your child um as they have questions about mathematics Etc literacy whatever it is so we will have to be very thoughtful about that because it will be an adjustment um for our families as they work to support their students and the bad news um Miss Potter is that uh I have now three graduates and quite honestly they like surpassed my math skill by like literally their like second year of high school so um you might want to brush up and study up I don't know if your skills are better than mine were but they start to get really really brilliant very quickly they definitely surpressed me a long time ago um you know I think the reason this comes up is just because I feel like every time I turn around I was at a sporting event the other day and there was a grandma that was like honey I can't help you and just the stress that that little girl displayed because she needs to get her homework done she doesn't have the help she doesn't know what to do they're frantically trying to search on YouTube for solutions to learn the way that she learned it because it's not the way Grandma learned it and just trying to figure out how to bridge that Gap a little bit so that um we are still teaching to like you said the age that they're in but we are providing resources above and beyond come in I mean I myself have three children and I do not have time to come in to relearn math um so I still wonder sometimes why I learned chemistry and I've been waiting for a time to use it as an adult or calculus but besides the point um I think there are definitely there's a need there to help bridge that Gap so that we can make make sure that the kids are getting supported at home um so they can even if it's not the the current way of learning to do math they can still have some sort of support yeah I think that's a really excellent point and I think it's something that we're going to have to pay attention to um and likes um Benchmark Advance just because it's our most current adoption things like access to Benchmark Universe um some of the tools that come along with these newer resources are much more robust and helpful for families than what our our more outdated resources offer to us so we'll certainly take take that back to our committee and and support dialogue around that thank you you're welcome the only thing I want to contribute and this is actually me bringing things back on track instead of throwing things off kilter um is I love in the theory of action the focus on educational equity and I love that it is a called out as an area to study and understand how historically marginalized populations what we can do to help them uh acquire academic skills more effectively so I just wanted to say that part of it I love I adore it's great thank you well thank you we'll vote on it next time okay thank you so much thank you okay back to Old business the resolution in appreciation of taxpayer investment in Adams 12 F star schools um so um the resolution last time um Courtney submitted a an amendment so I'm G to ask for some Roberts rules clarification so Phil do I ask for a motion to adopt the original resolution and then is there a motion to amend it or not basically when something gets tabled from the last meeting we pick up where we left off and I'm trying to remember where we left off so I think we had an original motion and we were in discussion and during that discussion uh Courtney made a suggestion and we were kicking it around and then decided to table so we could continue our discussion or there could be a motion to amend what's currently the motion which would be a motion to amend the original resolution with Courtney's suggestion okay so there is a motion then in existence to um adopt the resolution now is there anybody wants to make a amendment to that resolution is this where I'd make my Amendment motion motion to make an amendment yeah if we want to get real technical with Roberts we might need to know who made the original motion in second and I don't know if we have that information available because a pending motion is on the table and then there's been a discussion about possibly amending it but there's not a motion to amend yet if this board would agree that it doesn't really matter who made the original motion in second we could sort of start over Okay so if somebody wanted to make a motion to amend I think they could do that without objection do I have to read the whole Amendment you could say you'd like to amend the original um resolution as follows and then read that it's not that long is it I would like to make a motion to amend the original resolution to include um the district deeply acknowledges the financial sacrifices made by community members through their property taxes understanding that these contributions reflect a significant personal investment in the future of our students and that this generosity has been instrumental in ensuring that our schools remain safe modern and capable of providing high quality education for all in of in place of um original the original uh was it a number the second page number one I believe we don't have to read the information that's being deleted does everyone understand that motion is there a and then the president might ask if there's a second oh is there a second okay since there's not then the original motion is back up for discussion yes is there any more discussion on the original um resolution okay so then we vote on the original if if discussion is complete yes you may call for the question okay I'll call the question director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director dor Goldstein hi director Marsh holen hi director Potter no okay the resolution has passed all right next on the agenda is proposed resolutions for casby's delegate assembly um me being the delegate assembly geek that I am uh is there anything anybody wants to give me advice or suggestions on of the uh resolutions that we will be debating as a casby body I think since you are the delegate geek um trting your okay um I did hear some rumors that there might be some resolutions from the floor um I hope you trust my judgment on where I go with any of them I think they'll be I think they're legit though I don't think there's anything really crazy I mean but uh yeah what's been shared what we've heard I I I don't have any concerns and you know especially like the ones that we're presenting yeah yeah I mean since half the resolutions are ours yeah um yeah I looked through them and nothing stood out to to me as well I had to remember because it was a few days ago okay well on to questions for ownership linkage me with CCA which will be on Tuesday there's four questions as always these are just things to get the conversation going and a lot of times it just goes is there anything you would like to comment about or maybe [Music] change again I I think I mean I always think these are good fallbacks but just like with the principal meeting I always appreciate the openness and what you how things just are discussed very organically so so I have no nothing to add okay that will be at five o'clock on Tuesday at the csca office which is on rosan drive across from westv elementary okay I will on the minutes I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the regular board meeting of September mber 18th 2024 the work study session of September 18th 2024 and the special board meeting of September 25th 2024 as presented so moved second any discussion okay vote director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Marsh holen I director Potter I okay onto the consent agenda Personnel items I will entertain a motion to approve the personal actions as listed resignations and terminations transfers and reassignments employment and leaves of absence so move second any discussion director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Marsh holen I director Potter I okay uh future agenda items as I said Tuesday we have our csca meeting our regular board meeting on the 23rd is a regular board meeting but it will not be here because of um this place is pretty popular so we will be at Horizon High School um do we know what space at Horizon High School the library okay and there'll be people there to help us find it if you don't know and um we will um have a update on safety on school drills it will be executive uh and then um you see a list of the um possible agenda items and I think one other thing that we're going to be putting on there is looking at we have to um kind of visit the boundaries of our director districts is that going to be on 23rd to from from email back and forth between staff I believe that's going to be in mid November mid November okay but that will be on the um agenda and is there anything anybody else wants to mention I will I mean I emailed you and Chris and stff but I will not be here at the next four because when I told my sister to plan my father's birthday cruise to not plan it for the first or third week of any month so she followed through with that and so and I completely forgot about fall break so um I will I will be somewhere in the Caribbean so not to put a wrinkle in things but I'm not sure if I will be in town and I will let you know as soon as possible um mine is a work trip which they will not confirm as many times as I've asked well we only need three for a quorum so the other three of us better be there or we just can't vote done anything right you can't do anything other than adjourn if you don't have a quorum okay and I tentatively may not be back in time either well okay you guys I know I can be there um just let us know you know keep us in the loop um if that happens that happens I mean well we'll figure it out it'll be okay all right then I guess I'm going to call this meeting adjourned