Good evening, everyone. It is now 502. I'm not calling the meeting of the, this is
the operation of finance committee. I need a real call vote. Mr. Joe, please.
Bill Johnson.
Here.
Dan Schuf.
Here.
And Tom Hinkins.
Here.
All members are present.
Thank you.
I need approval of the agenda.
Move.
Second.
All those in favor, second.
Can we say hi?
All those in favor?
Second.
All those, porIRs.
We have no public comment.
I need no public comment.
Thank you.
Muslim financials, Mr. Elwood,inging.
Thank you Mr. Hinkins.
So just one second while I'm bringing up the, yep.
So the monthly reports were attached in with four decks and
let me see.
The biggest highlights are interest revenue for the month of
May.
And personal property tax or personal property.
And payments that are received from the state are the two biggest,
and then I'm sorry, not the two biggest to revenues of note.
And then also there were some title one claims and Medicaid cost
settlements that happened in May.
Expenses for the month of May are pretty consistent with expenses
from previous year.
The only significant difference,
I think is that S or dollars or S or expenditures last year versus none.
No S or expenditures for this fiscal year.
And then there are more purchase services this year than there were last year
because we have contracted staffing has increased for 2526.
Is that like from the year before?
Yes.
So, yeah.
So there was a lot more usage of contracted services for 2526 than it was for 2425.
I think the only other backup to the bank statements here.
So the only other thing of note is that May is a very small month in June.
A lot of activity happens in June.
So if you look at where we're at percentage wise for revenues and expenditures,
it doesn't seem like we're 11 months through the year because in June,
there is a lot of activity that happens in June that gets recorded back.
So we received revenues from property taxes in August.
Those get coded back to the fiscal year and end up in June.
There's a lot of expenditures closing out the year that happened in July that get
coded back to June, such as the open enrollment payments and the charter
school payments.
Those all get coded to June.
So May seems like it's very small and that a lot of activity hasn't happened yet this
year because a lot of our big expenditures all happen in June.
Did anybody have any questions about the state?
Yes.
We don't actually make a physical payment.
So what happens is that the state takes part of our equalization and out to pay those
open enrollment schools.
So it's more like an equalization payment adjustment.
I heard both sides of that.
They gave us money.
They had to pay it back out.
You know, I heard what you just told me.
Yeah.
It's done like a journal entry on the current system.
I just have a question.
Let's talk a little bit.
Let's go to all of that funds.
And we have a high yielding.
We have two accounts for open.
Correct.
My question is why don't we have all of it in the high yielding account.
So the accounts were set up long before I started in the district.
So I inherited these accounts and this is the way the funds were set up.
So we could move those funds from first mid into associated bank.
However, without knowing our financial situation as we get closer here.
And I don't want to put the funds in associate bank and then pull them back out.
If that is going to cause some issues with those investments there.
So I haven't done that.
The interest rate that we are getting at first mid is not terrible.
It's at 3.18 right now, but it was.
So I was just asking on that.
I understand.
So another question that how liquid is the funds in associate.
I think I have to give them at least 30 days notice.
Well, that's right.
Yeah.
So probably the other thing that I have been doing is moving some funds into.
Investments with PMA because PMA tends to have a little bit higher interest rate right now.
They're at 3.6, but our investments there are probably closer to 3.8 3.9.
So we've been doing some back and forth, but you are correct.
The investment at associated bank is a lot more aggressive.
Because if you look at last year when we were at this time,
compared to this year at this time, there's almost a $400,000 increase in.
I'm sorry, $300,000 increase in interest.
I will need to look into it and move back to you.
I'm not sure if I have to.
I probably need to talk to my team and see what we need to do and.
Yeah, be possible for the next board meeting or the next one.
Nope, I can wait till next for meeting.
I don't think I have to get bored approval to move the funds around.
I want to talk to.
Yeah, I need to talk to associated bank to see what their thoughts are on it because that account was opened.
And nothing has been put into that account or added to that account since I've been here for three years.
And I'm not sure what the activity was like before that.
Thank you.
But I will find a way to back to you.
Thank you.
That's fine.
Yes.
Sorry.
70.
I'm wrong.
So, in the year end, stuff that has to happen.
Would you like to have it all closed?
Again, the end of the fiscal year.
So, are auditors already started working on closing out your end?
So ideally, I would like to have everything done by the end of July.
However, I have to be honest with you.
I haven't hired my other person in the accounting office.
So a lot of the accounting work.
And we had our payroll person recently retired and we had some movements around.
We have a new person by the end of August.
Yeah.
And then a lot of your.
People.
Yep.
So preliminary audit started mid June and it'll run through the end of August until they finish up.
Getting all their items gone through.
And then they will produce an audit report and that is due by, I believe, the beginning of December.
And then we typically have an audit report to the board after that was completed.
I think we did ours.
I want to say it wasn't February of this year.
Yep.
The presentation.
The presentation is.
Hello.
How many more questions.
Yeah.
No, that's fine.
So Stephanie, the DPI estimates have come out.
For the school days.
I did look at that.
The estimate that the state released was very, very close to what we have estimated for our.
For 20, six, 27.
I think it was within $500,000.
So when you're talking.
Sixty some million dollars, 500,000 is pretty close for an estimate.
But remembering that the estimate of the state aid is that just that an estimate.
Because all of the other districts in the whole entire state have to finish their audits.
Before we can get final numbers for equalization aid for 26, 27.
So.
The budget.
So.
You know, we all enjoyed working on the last few minutes.
When they estimate 60.5 million in general days, you know, they say it'll be.
Two million more than last year.
You would already have that number in your budget.
Correct.
And that number is not.
It's balanced by property tax.
So the, if the equalization aid goes up, property taxes go down.
If equalization aid goes down, property taxes go up.
Because we can't raise more dollars than the revenue limit.
And I'm at no.
What we hear with the bill rate.
And what's going to happen next year.
Yes.
We're projecting to be a little bit less than what we were for 2526.
That statement still holds true for what you know right now.
Correct.
Yes.
All right.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Okay.
Are you anybody else?
So.
Carol.
Do I.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
That's okay.
If you wouldn't move to the full board.
Okay.
I'm looking for more.
This financials to the board.
Next week.
I need more.
Second.
Although the finish.
Hi.
In post portion.
Carry.
Thank you.
Next is.
Discussion.
Action items.
The.
Property liability.
Workers cap.
And other.
This is an insurance.
Readables.
Excuse me.
Thank you.
So our renewals were very good this year.
Mostly in part to our workers comp.
Renewal.
So if you'll notice on here, our workers comp renewal is.
A little over $60,000 less than it was a previous year.
And the reason for that being is that the workers comp.
Claimants.
That had been holding on there that had been causing the rates to be so high have fallen off.
So our rate has gone down significantly.
So overall, our renewal is pretty good for our insurances.
We are actually down.
Quite a bit from the previous year for our insurance renewal.
Thank you.
What.
My question is, as our.
Employees go down.
Shouldn't those come down?
I also.
The workers come.
Yes.
Yeah, that's part of that as well.
Yes.
But the other pieces.
Property piece is.
Up only slightly because.
We did reduce the property because we sold McNeil.
And then the rest of the insurances are based on either counts of employees or counts of students.
So.
And.
Yeah, a lot of the.
A lot of the numbers are.
They came in very, very fair bubble.
Considering.
Could you explain to me.
And.
You know,
Why do we deal with that?
Drop it.
I don't understand that.
Because we are no longer ensuring the property.
Yep.
So even though our property insurance is up slightly because rates have gone up.
Overall, the rates are pretty favorable.
Sorry.
I asked.
Option.
Change.
Exciter.
Why did that drop it?
I don't understand that.
Because we are no longer ensuring the property.
Yep.
So even though our property insurance is up slightly because rates have gone up.
Exciter.
With.
How about insurance with that?
Yes.
So after he had preliminarily given me the numbers, they had an option from cowbell to do the cyber insurance, which was actually better insurance and it's a lower price.
So we're actually going with the cowbell.
I'm sorry, I mentioned the cowbell insurance and stuff.
It is lower and it's better coverage.
Thank you.
All right.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Things.
In our discussions.
About buildings and cattle.
I told I understood why we had to put the focusing right in particular.
The college.
People are building.
But it looks like we're going to have at least one building that would be not have permanently staffed people.
So are you going to be able to make sure we can kind of cover it next year?
Yeah, so we might be able to do some adjustments with some staff that don't necessarily need to have a permanent place to live.
So, or to work, like, for example, we could have one of our tech people be there temporarily as a home sales.
But we can talk about that and make sure that we're not leaving the building completely unoccupied.
We also still have security in that building.
So, yes, we're still security in that building and we still have facilities.
Checking the buildings every day to make sure that there's not, you know, break ins or floods or damage.
Yes.
That's usually typically what you're in.
Sure.
Completely left.
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
Carol.
You keep it locked.
I'd like to know whether it was a flood home.
Yep.
McNeil was not left open.
Yes, it was.
He could open the back door.
No.
Are you in the meal when you saw it?
A lot.
Oh, I had a chain.
I'm going to move the chain.
You could reach in and.
I'm not way in the back.
Were you exploring?
I was a little bit bored and you're taking stuff over there.
Recently.
No.
Oh.
Okay.
No.
Good.
Yes.
Could you follow up with us on that?
Insurance guidelines for shuttered and or vacated buildings.
Yes.
I think we need to be very conscious of.
So you've got to let us keep our utility costs as low as you can.
Absolutely.
So I mean, we have a contest is right.
And it's the heating and cooling zone.
And well, I've been in that building.
I hear what you're saying.
It sounds good.
But.
Anyways.
At least provide to this committee what insurance actually says you have. Okay. Yep. Thank you very much
Okay, so we need this move to the board. Oh wait, I'm sorry
I do have a question then right so the workers compensation
We got dropped fires and then they ended because back up because nobody else would pick us up right like the I
Don't know how that all works. So we were
Picked up by the state. Yes for a while, but then we went back and you see is our carrier
And that was that happened like
For the new year that they
Is
Is it possible to see the workman come claims by building
We can be questioned. Yes, we can prevent a report. Yes, it'll out. Oh, go ahead. Well, so we can provide that
From
We cannot get anyone to provide us with a detailed reporting and so it'll be
Not as reliable as source of information. It would not be complete
And so but we can't provide from December to your end if you like
It was about
And so once you reach that
As opposed to
In that report would it be an item a certified name we would not provide names
It would be building
And whether it was just if it was medical only and it involved lost wages
So
Thank you, I appreciate we should
Thank you
So we move that to the
Wait, did you cuz I interrupted you? Yeah, I didn't know to get to the Michelle did we
Remove for it to the boy
No
I
Didn't hear which person moved
Thank you very much. We got some four
Michelle will go back to skyward. Thank you
Thank you, so attached in the board backs was a number of
Software vendors of the either the business office uses or technology uses and all of these vendors are vendors that we've been using for many years
and
They are things that we need to
Cue to our operations. So the first one is skyward and I asked corp
So skyward is our financial and our student information system and I asked corp is our hosted
More databases hosted
And then the next one is
Their Microsoft subscription renewal so office products
Word excel
PowerPoint, etc
The next one is the wistnet and star internet provider
The next one is extreme networks
This is part of our cloud based networking solutions also
Ditto, which is the screen mirroring and yes, it's working
CDWG which is our goal and that's part of our Google workspace renewal, which is our global calendars our emails and
Google sheets and
Presentations and then the front line is
the employee and that evaluation management system and the absence management system
Any questions on any of those
I don't know
Unless you know an outside vendor starts a zoom meeting
Yes
I know in the description it's nothing tangible
I guess I abstract on a lot of these systems
Once you get into them, are they doing work with other systems?
I'm talking to you to marry to a system like we've gone in the past that you have to use the system because we just married into it
So that's just snap-strike. Yeah
So skyward and I asked corp and do work with other systems and I believe the front line and skyward are kind of
Talk to each other for loops and things, right?
Yep, okay, so we do look at different options of
Coropating softwares, but I'm gonna be honest with you to look at a different type of software to do what we're currently doing is cost
it's very expensive to
to look at it to change softwares, but
Skyward in my opinion works very well for what we use it for and I believe on the student side. They're happy with them
Yeah
Now as far as like
Microsoft products and then those have been around for
20 years and I think everybody uses Excel for something. I mean I use it every day for
Doing spreadsheets and calculations and things
This is also
student based software as well that the students are using these pieces of software
internet we
I don't think we can
function without having the internet and WISkNet is our probably our cheapest option
If we were going to go with something else like the more expensive list that is typically what governments and schools use
Colleges use WISNet for services
Just to be naive
IT doesn't just doesn't involve IT stuff
Talk involved
Well, it does in that IT manages all of these pieces of software. Yes, except for skywards because skyward is managed by
Skyward in the IC Corp or IS Corp
Is that the other TC network?
No, IS Corp is our hosting for our software for skyward. We actually hosted offsite. We don't have a host of them in
site because that would involve buying servers and
And then you run into the risk of not being able to have your data if something happens
So it's it's better to have a host of offsite
Thank you
So
So after the presentation to request purchase of Chromebooks that happened
It was almost three months ago
IT and I went back and we did an RFP. We sent out the RFPs. We got back all the responses
I think from like 10 different companies
What through the RFPs, IT spent a lot of time picking through them because
Some of the companies didn't always present exactly what we had asked for in the RFP
I believe that we got down to two companies that actually presented what we had asked for in the RFP
As far as service goes and the actual devices
when they
in the
Request we actually split out of the purchase of the carts
Separately from a separate vendor from the Chromebooks because they were actually cheaper from a different vendor
So we split it apart and we wrote the RFP telling the companies that we may possibly do that because
It was beneficial for us to split it
And we also told them that we may not purchase all of them. However, after talking with
Leah about title $1 and 19 in my office. I was working on the carryover
I believe that purchasing these Chromebooks out of the title $1 that we have remaining from
2526 is our
bus option for
Using up title $1 that we if we don't use them
We will lose those dollars and also we are in need of buying Chromebooks for the district
Yeah, it's just gonna go up
Our technology prices do continually go up now
I'll wait and then
To me this is a much bigger
Issue that's going to happen where there's been talk
I think policy will get involved
I'm going from
FaceTime to text
and
I think deserves a whole different
More deliberation and the board
needs to set
A strategy before we move forward or fix it anything
So if I may
I just want to I just want to chime in because all of our educational materials
are computer-based and in order to switch from
completely computer-based to
textbooks
workbooks
And even testing is done on the computers at this point
That is going to be a huge lift for any district and it'll be very costly
It'll be more costly
So the plan is the reason why they're buying the carts is so that they can have the technology on carts and they're not sending these
Chromebooks home with kids
So that they can take those carts and move them out of the classroom and they can be doing other things and not continuously on
But that you're right that has to be a bigger discussion with teaching and learning department
About how the strategy on what we're going before we invest dollars
I mean now we're getting on board with not setting these home with the students because you're not coming back
But that course left the barn a long time ago. I know we have over a thousand
Chromebooks
somewhere in the district
unaccounted for or accounted for or
or
so
I think we need
We need to get a handle on this and the board has set a direction
On which way we're going to go with this. I understand what you're saying. We need them. But before we start
buying things
For the future
Plus the board needs to get their act together and figure out
In a constructive way what the future looks like for the school district
I agree with what you're saying
With the caveat that
We have just hired a new superintendent Dr. Gordon who's on the video with us
And I think we're going to have an intro that be super intended to be put later today
um, so totally with you on I'm totally open to
a pillar of
Of the district being a back to basics
On this exact same page of you and other member of the board
Or we have to have the superintendent and her staff
Our board and we have to do that and then
Or we can endorse such a thing
But by only
You know, it's a semantics, right?
And only with you
I'm probably there when you're ready for that
And that's fine, but this is in front of this committee right now
Yeah, so I'm I want to get re-involved with everything we do
So I'm saying I want to postpone what we're talking about
Are you ready to work?
Hey, this is Leah. Can you hear me?
Hello
Yes, we can hear you Leah. Hi. Hi. So I just want to clarify. I totally understand where everybody's coming from with these
So
Frustration with Chromebooks in all regards has been brought to our attention. So
As as a building principal as a TLE member and now a superintendent
Definitely, we need to reevaluate how Chromebooks are used in the district
Technology prices are increasing and
So we do need to keep that in mind. Also our Chromebooks are
Some of them are not in great shape anymore and you know, like Stephanie said, we're looking at using some title funds to replace them
I can tell you that
The TLE committee has been working towards
not having
grades
K3 have Chromebooks in their hands all day every day
so that we can share our Chromebooks with
the other grade levels as well. So
Currently
As we finished the 2526 school year, it was everyone had was one-to-one, right? And so
Um, looking ahead our our computers aren't probably going to make it for a whole lot longer
So we have um been working with uh, Brett Berg and the TLE department brandy
Grady about how we can mitigate that so
Looking at making just like class sets or grade level sets
So our students in grades K3 who need the most support with learning to read and learning their math
Are getting that direct instruction rather than relying on that technology
Um, Stephanie is correct in saying that our our curriculum that we use does support
high use of
dependence on technology. So
um, the technology that
Um, the kids use is you know, like the tier interventions for math. So they're going to be using
A different math program this year, but they've been using in the past
It was dream box and imagine math and so now we'll be using something else and that is dependent on using that Chromebook for 30 minutes a day
Um literacy is the same so they use a program that supports their tiered intervention if they need that
Um, and that would be students, you know all the way through k8 and so
Depending on what a student needs might depend on how much
Work a student needs with their Chromebook
As students get into the later grade levels, they do need their Chromebooks more to align with their curriculum
Um because some of their their reading and work is done on the computer
So it it should be a progression for what kids need whereas before it was just everyone's one to one
And I do believe that there was some
Um, you know, let's just go on your computer when you're done with your work or whatever
So that can't happen with that has to change our kids need to be in front of
Academics all day every day and so that is what's going to be rolled out with the expectation this year just to clarify
Yeah, thanks
I was just gonna say point out too that like, you know, we need the Chromebooks like even just to do the open literacy
uh work that we're doing with like the Hendrix family foundation donation, um, but
Generally speaking, I hundred percent agree that we need to have a large scale
Um board vision for how to do these things going forward. Um, I appreciate though. What i'm hearing from his own. Um, dr
Gordon here as well
Thank you
So
Really
Really got less than five thousand students. Why do we have eight thousand Chromebooks a lot of
So if you look on the screen, there are quite a few that are we just kept them even though they were damaged
Raising them for parts. Yeah, and most if not all of these are going to be out of warranty
very soon
And that increases the we're going to have to use our in-house staff to
To do the repairs on them as well
And so i'm hearing
one for the quality committee or saying we're running agreement that
cautious
We want to see the overall vision and we wanted to use the advice of this overall
I think all three of us are being unhappy
Um, but as I read the actual documents that were that's in front of us today
Right now you're suggesting that
We would buy
$720
You went the extra effort to get the cards at a different price
32 parts total for 19,000 right and then we have
$465,000 the title
Yes, it's title title one dollars. Yes, so we would send
$1,000 back to Washington if we don't send it
No, I don't I don't know. I have a question about that
because
Usually when we lose money and we don't get it back the next year. Is that true with that?
Don't believe that that's true with that
I think this because it's what it is is it's carry over and you have so many months to use it
um
Okay
In the allocations for 2627
We are the 2627 allocations already been allocated and it's based on student counts
In those buildings. No
Yeah, no, I do not have the allocations yet. No, we can I mean we can take a rough guess at what that would be
It shouldn't be too much different than what it was last year
Um, but we'd tech usually don't get those till later
But the allocations are based on student counts correct
Yes, that is correct third Friday. Yeah
And this data was
Back on told her because I put this together when it was this or april. I'm sorry one
And that's for yes
I understand all our conversation
And I understand using
Federal funds and grant funds to do this, but we still we as a door
We have admin
And what we're doing not just find us and then we forget about it and let me say
I know in open literacy that these expo
for at least 60 students
I just think we have to find some answers and some
Speaking plan on what we're going to do with you
My future
I know I know I just um
That's just my thought
I can we can forward us the board really
But that's where I'm coming from and I think it's good to be sure for their
Pasternation, we're not going to approve
I don't disagree with you at all
So it's to be left
They're already working
But we don't have anything to replace it but yeah, and so until we
We need to continue it sounds like the problems are falling apart
So
We would just why that would do nothing if we did not have the company
So I think it's a really good start that we're working on
And I'm assuming for game
So
Thanks so much. I'm having just like a tiny hard time hearing
So I apologize if I'm about to be repetitive
But mr. Hinkins I agree with you and I'm just wondering if the committee chairs or if um board president johnson
I don't know if there's a time
That's already scheduled and in this month where we can kind of have those larger scale discussions
So that we can create that sort of those the strategic
Whether it's a strategic planning or strategic goal setting not in a big over, you know
Small lowercase s strategic plan not like a big whole thing, but you know, I hear what you're saying
Um mr. Hinkins and and I agree with you. I really think it would be of great value
Like we obviously we want some things now there's timing and everything that we're hearing and it's important
But then it's like we need to carve out that space for ourselves to like say okay
So now going forward. Here's the vision. Here's the strategy
So I just appreciate that and I think that would be great if there's not something already scheduled for us to maybe do that
Thank you. So here
Kind of
Curriculum and curios
deeper
It's very expensive
I mean it is
That's something that
We are going to do that
We need money on the public
We need a public place to say
Only this is part of a regular request. So I see that discussion being part of the referendum
What do we want our district to be?
Dr. Gordon so raise that you know, we are taking this
And right now
You will wait from as much
You know springtime as possible
But
You can move approval of the expense with the proviso that the district administration works the board to develop a plan
That needs those particular needs, but then you can move this because you need
You need the item so exactly that gets it what's that's exactly where I was going to go to
That's a great mindset. Why?
Do I need to go more than
And I appreciate the tla's working on this
Because I agree with what you can say
I'll move approval
To the full board or make some of those
I will say yay
As long as the caveat that we we as a board
Want to take this
I can figure
with that administration's strategic plan for our future with us
Okay, so
Okay
I will well, I'm not sure
So the original motion
The motion
I just want to understood
Are you requesting
Go ahead are you requesting a motion for approval of this with the proviso that
Then
Absolutely to go into the full board
Is there a motion from another community committee member?
I'm going to go
Or
All those are very sad
I just want to clarify
That that the caveat is that there is to be a plan to review
Find the board and administer
Yep, the overall
Technology and curriculum are being used
Okay, thank you
Personnel recommendations
Stop doing stuff
You were closing your stuff and I was making my screen bounce
It's okay
I was growling more at the technology than you
I
I'm good
Are there any questions from the committee I'll exhibit a
Then
So there's
A bunch of important information in our documents here
I don't know if Dr. Gordon wants to
Kind of highlight anything in here to talk about
They're
Thank you
I am here, but I'm having a very hard time hearing what um dan asked for or what was asked before that
one exhibit a so
Just
So
Dan Shuf is asking if there is anything that you would like to offer for information
on
The exhibit a because there is so much information on it. Okay. Let me pull that up
Just
Did you hear that? No, I I can only hear bits and pieces. There's a lot of rustling around
Okay, would you like for me to respond? It's about if there's anything contained and exhibit a
That warrants any additional information for the committee to be aware of
And he was specifically referring to the assistant superintendent the principals the deans
That kind of thing and the plan
Okay
Yeah, so I mean we moved
um
Miss mccallister to robinson
Since she
I'm sorry
I have a question
Can we talk about persons here? Oh, no
Yes, you can't talk about people and where you're moving to what you cannot talk about
Is the
Of their work your personal
Personal
You can't talk about
These general questions on right moving
Mrs mccallister to robinson right is an open
conversation. I just want to make sure we're good
Yep, so we we have moved a couple of the principles
um
Miss mccallister being one and miss dr. Schrader being another one. So dr. Schrader is going to fill
the mayoral position
Because she was principal at fla. She wanted to remain of principal. So she is um
Going to go into the mayoral principal
Um dr. Stengel will be taking the interim assistant superintendent position at colac. So he'll be working with
the tle department and me
Um, let's see
Us about principles and about that position. Is there anything else you need clarification on?
um, so
What's the plan for, um,
prison and then
And then second question is this is maryll have a dean and emerald we ended up with our
It
So the position for um, frusan will be is posted
And then is somebody else trying to trying to talk about the dean
Hello
He he asked about the um, maryll
dean and whether there is one or whether there's going to be one and wondered where the board ended up with that
Well, they decide the board decided to have a dean
Um, whether or not somebody applies and is hired for that is the the question at hand
I
Do
Yeah, that that position will be posted there
You know that has like legally has to be posted. So, um
I think i'm not sure if it was posted yet. Didi maybe can answer that I have not looked to see if it was posted yet today
um
I
I was wondering about the secretary. Yeah, it is posted and that okay. Thank you. Didi. I appreciate that
and then, um, the secretary from bla is going to, um
Beloit memorial for high school athletics
So there is an open secretary position at maryll. So we're still looking to um
fill that position as well
a couple of our deans had been
um have been um put back in their positions so
Todd and
Hackett and
Gaston's deans will be back in place for the 27 26 27 school year
And so the other dean positions are are open on weekend for interviews and applicants
Okay, hold up leah because he needed clarification on one of the things that you said
Okay, sorry
What was the athletic thing you said?
the secretary from bla
Is moving to the high school as the athletic secretary
So maryll's secretary
Is posted it's still posted and so we're seeking applicants for that
position, I believe
What i'm sorry
Yes, if the athletic secretary resigned
Yes, the athletic secretary was she i don't was she on this one or last
Bottom at the bottom. Yep. Yes. Yes. She resigned. Yep
Yep, way at the bottom. She's like the
Fifth one from the bottom
Okay, so i'm just gonna say that's hopefully that current you can hear this. This is really clunky
This is like
Um, you all know that I actually would like administration to lead
But you have to lead us you have to tell us what's going on
I'll just leave it at that read through documents and and try to read between the lines
I would just appreciate being told what's going on in the disparate
So that's what we could work towards. Thank you
Carol did you have something?
I'm a full concern about maryll's school
as there are
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8
resignations
Is there anybody left there is
Um, I think the biggest problem with maryll is there's been so much talk about closing maryll
And so people start looking because everyone wants to make sure they have a job
And this is the prime time for educators to go looking for another job
So I think sometimes we're our own worst enemies while we're in the process of making decisions
When we decide we're not going to close maryll. Well people jump ship because the uncertainty is too great for them to bear
however, we do have
Dr. Schroeder Schroeder who is on board and
actively looking at the openings and recruiting to ensure staffing for the upcoming school year
So
Anybody else
What does ltc do to license me a limited-term contract?
So they don't get this standard professional educator contract that has to go through
um
The non-videal process with the limited-term contracts because they only have a one-year with stipulations license
Their position their role automatically their job ends at the end of the school year
And it's automatically accepted by the board that they resign and then we have the option of rehiring them
Unfortunately, we don't have abundant pools of highly qualified educators to choose from
And so oftentimes we're left with hiring individuals who are in the process
Either because they're going through an alternative pathway to becoming an educator
Um, or it's their first year and they have not gotten their license yet
And so we don't get them a regular contract until they get their license through their institution
Are we doing it plans to help some of these people or encourage
Yeah, a lot of people a lot of more free hires so they were must have been hired under a limited-term contract
Correct and so they're required to get at least six credits
Uh in order to be eligible to get another limited term
Not limited one got another
One year with stipulations license to continue
Teaching and then that's until they finished their program. So there are they are progressing in their program
Otherwise, they're not eligible to receive another one year with steps if they're not making progress
It's a dpi
limitation
Jordan I am concerned about dual language still being filled with
emergency license
Teachers that was one of our big things was we didn't want that
And then I keep watching to see the other openings for dual language to be filled and they are not
And the hecket school still has a way to
Make it instead of having four Spanish speaking teachers only two and so
Fully licensed teachers too
I I really still think that we need to I strongly suggest that we go back and we look at that so that we have fully licensed teachers
teaching children in
The lowest grades that all the research shows that those are our most important years
And so I'm very frustrated that this is where we still are
So Todd is the other elementary school
They have individuals that have been teaching
DLI in the past just because they're limited terms does not mean that they've been with us for years and to have a different
Instructional
setup in one school versus the other to me
That's a lack of consistency, but I
I
Perhaps however, that is not what we have at Todd
And so we will have the two elementary schools with two different systems in one district
Instead of having fully licensed teachers. I don't understand
Well, you're gonna have English award winning teachers
were there and
and we moved them out and
Do a language immersion in and of itself assumes that the kids to be immersed into a language
Not in an all English speaking teacher in an all Spanish speaking teach that was the program we adopted
Was all English all Spanish for part of the day. It is the program we adopted when we adopted the program
That 50 percent was in English 50 percent was in Spanish
And for most of the most of the years that we've done the program
You had a teacher teach in English because there were there were dedicated
There were dedicated subjects taught in English and dedicated subjects taught in Spanish
And so a person who has taught reading in English for 26 years
That's who I want teaching my child how to read in English and yes, I want someone who has been teaching
Spanish to be the one that's teaching my child how to read in Spanish. Yes
this
In order to make it the same on both of it. They're not even children. It's not the same demographics
um
It doesn't make sense. All right. Thank you. I just want to share this back to what I understand where your concerns are
Do I
But I want to understand
No, you're made your point that we're here to
Move it to the AI to the full board
And that's what we're looking for. I love the discussion, but when I can change everything here
The board has already acted on VLI
And he's voted that only fully licensed teachers would be filling dual language positions come
That was what the board decided right
Then we may as well collapse the ELI program because we don't have that either school
That's what I'm trying to say. We don't we can't go. We can't I don't think that's just this way
Anyways
I just want to bring us back to what we're I
I'm not trying to
Shade anything. I just think I want to get respect to our job that we're doing right here right now
And that's to approve this exhibit a to the full board
I'm looking for a motion
Okay, second. Oh, let's say I I
Motion
I wasn't caring. Thank you
Next meeting date will be
August
The fourth I believe
I think it's the fourth it's in the thing the fourth
I can take a five minute break week where we start the next meeting
Thank you. Oh, the recording is still going just so you know
You could I don't care
Other people do
So the HR the manager
The resources operations executive director of pen resources
This person
And I think that it also was
But some of the duties within the assistant superintendent goes to be someone else's duties and so like
Thank you
And for me, you know, it's important to know like what we're showing doing what job was doing
Just like
Implementation of act 20 the literacy initiatives. I think that was for showing for as well. So they will receive which shouts. Okay. All right. Okay
That's
Is that
So
Yeah
Okay
You may want to
There are changes
Right
Me
Right
I
but you haven't spent any money or anything since my I gave three hundred
oh okay yes and then so you need to do the other part okay and then on the we
should probably throw out the one that talks about where you have your money
okay and just do it as an amendment and then just refill it out and then just
put that you're at and I got separate help
you for some time
all right thanks yeah
I think that that's being a part of what happens in the numbers.
We can change this.
It's focusing on the big things and the things that are important.
It seems like it should be a process that just works.
And we don't walk down until some of the pandemic has changed.
And that's just a moment.
How much work?
I wonder what I do.
And that's just a moment.
I don't know.
Oh, another one from the Sierra home.
Oh.
Eric, you need water?
Yes, I can.
Okay, we're going to get started then.
I'm going to call this meeting to order.
July 7th.
May we have a whole call please.
Megan Miller.
Present.
Tom Hankins has left the building.
He'll be back.
Okay.
Apparently he'll be back.
And Joe Andrew.
I'm present.
All right.
So what time is gone?
Can we just for like fast, like.
I'll make the motion and maybe in seconds all of them.
As long as everybody's in favor of the agenda, I.
Megan.
Sorry about that. I.
Approval of the minutes.
So moved.
All right. Any public comment?
No, there are no public comments.
Okay, so.
We have.
Eric and Missy presenting for us tonight.
Some of the things that were in the original presentation have been pulled for a special meeting that is happening.
To be determined. So if something that you were interested in asking questions about is no longer part of it.
That is the reason why and we will get all of that information at a soon to be determined.
And with that being said.
Can you still hear Megan?
I can.
I don't know.
It's sitting closer to Rachelle so that we can hear.
Sorry, it's just I can hear it's just very distant. So I apologize for missing it earlier, but I've got my head next to my speaker.
Top's here now.
Sorry.
You're not the both of that too.
We're here tonight to present.
We annually bring this information forward.
So we're just following with that same cadence of bringing the work we've done forward to the committee.
So over the last several years, we've leveraged a number of state and federal accountability reports.
We've also intentionally engaged stakeholders to better understand what our systems are working well and where we need to improve.
Rather than treating each report as a separate initiative, we've intentionally looked across all of them to identify common themes because different reports measure different things put together.
They tell a much more complete story about our district.
Those kind of themes now guide how we prioritize our improvement efforts and where we focus on resources.
So the purpose of tonight's presentation is not to review every report in detail, but instead we want to demonstrate how we use multiple sources of information to drive continuous improvement and ultimately improve outcomes for students.
So this next slide.
What do you guys prefer questions as we go?
This first question might be better right now.
So can you explain to some of the new board members what this is?
What the SSA that I mean, that's the next slide.
The litney of all of these, you know, all of this because it is confusing for people that earn in education and the new board members.
I think it works really well.
That's an exciting slide.
Okay.
So this is just like, as you mentioned, these are the different reports.
So SSA is a federal identification that districts that are title receiving districts end up participating in.
It's through the Every Student Succeeds Act.
And what that does is it gives individual schools an identification on the specific student subgroups and whether or not they're meeting the US Department of Ed standards in terms of where those students should be.
And that's the combination of academics, growth and proficiency, as well as if it's a high school graduation rates, attendance rates, and then multi are multi lingual learners, their access scores, which measures their English fluency.
Which is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
So it's another piece of federal legislation that can give a district a federal identification.
That identification is an issue to individual schools, but it's issued to districts in total.
The Racial Disproportionality Report comes out of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act as well.
That's taking a look at racial discrepancies in two different areas, one being whether or not a district is referring students of a particular race, more so than other students for particular.
The other is discipline practices. So the US Department of Advocates of Pulse on school districts discipline data and we get federal or can get a federal identification for discipline practices that may appear like we are applying harsher discipline practices to specific
subgroups for students with IEPs.
And that is specifically looking at exclusionary discipline so discipline that results in out of school suspensions up through expulsion.
The other two dashboards here, I'll talk more in detail when we get there. They're not actual reports, but within the IDEA LEA determination report, there's a section that requires us in special education.
To monitor our early learners. So those are our three year olds through five year olds who are not enrolled in five K.
And so we've done some work around those indicators. And then the graduation rate improvement work is specifically looking at indicators one and two of the IDEA LEA determination.
And that is graduation rates and dropout rates for students with disabilities.
So, like Missy mentioned, our district has multiple state and federal accountability identification. So state, remember, accountability metrics are the school report card.
What's unique about all of these metrics, whether it's the school report card, the ESSA site based identifications, or even IDEA, they're all using the same data sets.
So when we talk about academic achievement, we're talking about proficiency rates as measured by the forward.
The DLM, which is the dynamic learning maps or the alternate assessment that students with the most significant cognitive disabilities are able to take.
So if their IP, you know, states that that's their best way to measure academic performance, as well as ACT when you get to the high school.
Any questions, I guess, about that kind of overview. Otherwise, the next parts are at each of those sections in a little more detail.
Big picture, thanks. Yeah, this is helpful.
So our population, we're talking about generally in this whole report we're giving today everyone or just all district, all students in the district are in this population that we're reporting on today.
So when it comes to the SL reports, yes, because those can be any subgroup of students in a school building, the IDEA is students with disabilities.
Yep.
Yes, there's no federal reporting around 504s.
It's another plan that a student can qualify for if they have a medical diagnosis, but are not in need of special ed, they just need some prescribed accommodations.
It's covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Sorry, Carol, it's not education based law either.
And I'm sorry, you post graduation, where IDEA backs this minutes, you want to ask it.
So first set of data that we're going to take a look at is the SL reports.
So like I mentioned, every student succeeds act.
The federal government through that piece of legislation tracks how well subgroups of students are performing in Title 1 schools.
So a school or district that receives title funding then has to be subject to the accountability metrics is outlined in that.
It has three tiers of identification. So from the top is the most severe to the least severe.
So if an entire building is underperforming, a building can be identified as in need of comprehensive support and improvement.
And you can have that in lowest performance, meaning all students in that school are not performing academically where they're supposed to be.
It's not one or two particular subgroups so they no longer tease out individual subgroups.
It can also be issued if you have overall low graduation rate.
So if you're building, they may students in the building may be achieving or having adequate performance academically, but it's not resulting in their high school in graduation.
There's either high numbers of dropouts for kids are not graduating and graduation is always measured in either a four or seven year cohort.
Yes.
The next level is a TSI additional targeted support and improvement.
And that is for particular subgroups of students. So a building can be issued in a TSI identification and it could be for students who are Hispanic or Latinx only.
Or it could be for students that are black or it could be for students with disabilities.
It's particular subgroups. And then the least severe is the TSI or targeted support and improvement.
When it comes to this, the way that that's measured. So TSI is a student group that scores in the bottom 10% relative to all student groups statewide and the bottom 10% relative to other racial and ethnic groups or service provision groups.
So the groups that can be identified in this reports are all federal race codes. So those are all racial subgroups.
And then what I saw calls service provision groups are your students with disabilities, your low socioeconomic status and your students that are multi language learners.
So it can be any of those groups of students.
CSI is bottom 5% overall performance among all title one receiving schools.
So the other kind of nuance with this report is the metrics are measuring against other title receiving schools since not all schools get issued as a report.
Kind of we're receiving schools throughout the country or throughout the state of Wisconsin.
Uh, statewide.
Because.
Please stay statewide. My, I believe, and I can look on this to get you for certain, but I believe it's because the way it works is the US Department of ad.
They approved the plan so Wisconsin submitted their SL plan to the Department of Ed.
The US Department of Ed approved that plan.
And the way that they then report back to the US Department of Ed is through their monitoring of schools. So they set the, um, the metrics for identifying the schools as outlined.
I'm.
I'm almost 100% certain on that.
But I can definitely look into that and circle back around. So.
That's not being special education specific.
Typically the monitoring of SSA is come, it comes from the district level.
But since we were facilitating our idea work about four years ago, DPI was like, we've been trying to get ahold of somebody about your SSA.
And they just reached out to me because I had a connection and so I just took it on so full transparency four years ago. I didn't know all the nuances of SSA either.
So.
So this chart then this is just our district SSA identifications over time.
And so you can see that actually as our schools have progressed from.
2020.
Which is our 2022 sorry, which is the first year that I started.
Kind of keeping tabs on this and working to support our buildings after.
Connecting with people at DPI.
We have tracked so bullet learning academy has always had a CSI identification.
So because they're subgroups we can't they can't tease outright it's all lower performance.
They have that identification with that comes a consultant from the department of Ed.
And so we've been meeting with the DPI consultant.
And bullet learning academy over the course of time.
They create their plan they submit their plan to the department of public instruction the department of public instruction approves or doesn't approve a plan.
And then that DPI consultant is essentially like an accountability partner to ensure that we are moving forward with their school improvement plan the way that they've developed it.
And we've had multiple sites that have had TSI identifications over time.
Initially we had one school that had an a TSI identification and that was frozen.
And the frozen has that a TSI identification for students that are identified as two or more races and at the time it was issued for students with disabilities.
They should be able to exit out. So we've done some very strategic work with freeze in the last three years.
I've met with their leadership team done some really prescribed continues improvement work with them.
And we just met with their team at the end of this year to go through the continuous improvement rubric that the state has.
And their systems are able to be put at fully in place. And so based upon that and the other exit criteria that DPI has set.
There's there's no reason right now that they should not receive recognition of exiting that.
When the new identifications get released next school year and those always are released in April in the spring.
Hackett did join a TSI identification.
They got that identification last school year for their Hispanic Latin X population.
But a couple of things to kind of note. So as we go over time, we are seeing more and more of our schools receiving the SSA identification, particularly the TSI identification.
So this last year of all of our sites, only two of our buildings don't have identifications. That would be Aldrich Middle School and Gaston Elementary School.
All of the others have at least a TSI identification. TSI identifications can come and go each year.
It's based upon the data that's being collected. If a school gets an ATSI identification, they're stuck with it for at least three years.
Because the state basically says that true continuous improvement work, you're not going to see growth in sooner than three years.
And so they make you stick with it for three years. When you get to that ATSI, we have to submit the plans to the state.
The state approves those plans. ATSI doesn't come with a consultant though.
So we support our buildings at the district level that have ATSI identifications. We just submit those plans to DPI for approval from them.
One note though to celebrate, and I did put it in the red boxes since my department is the one that sports students with disabilities.
Because of the continuous improvement work we've been doing through IDEA, which we'll get to in the next few slides, you can see that our students with disabilities subgroup has actually fallen off.
Quite a few of the identifications over time, unlike some of the other racial subgroups that have ended up being added on to some buildings.
So any questions about ESSA? I think this would be another good time to pause.
We're concerned about ATSI. What do they have to do?
They have to create a school improvement plan that specifically addresses those student subgroups for targeted work.
But there's no reporting to the state, and there's no monitoring at the state level. It's all local.
So we met with every single principal, Eric and I did. Again, this is not a special thing. We met with them to go over their identifications.
Prior to our work day where they created their sit plans with intentional focus on their subgroup so that they were aware of their identifications that came out and helped them think through action plans to address those.
So we have essentially technical assistance. Staff that have been assigned to the district.
And so through they work through CSA 2, because that's just how DPIA does it, they push funnel things through the local CSAs.
So Liz Panto is a technical assistance personnel from CSA 2. She meets with us regularly.
And that is so specifically to work through the fact that we have so many asset identifications as we build a district improvement plan.
She's there to support. So she's met with us. And it's not just Missy and I so teaching and learning is involved in it.
We've met so Rachelle and Jeff and Dr. Gordon has been a part of it. And so that's the work that we need to do as a district.
And historically the building continuous improvement plans, there's not been an encouragement to align with the district's continuous improvement plan.
So we worked on ours with Liz, our technical assistance person, like Eric said, and then presented the district's improvement plan to all building principles.
And it was a directive to align your building improvement plan to the district. So there's intentional working done with the district bubble.
It seems like this is a leadership site. Like when you look and see who's not identified under TSI, we've got principles that have been in the district for a long time.
And then when I started to think, we have a lot of new principles. And is that is that a factor? Do you think that there could be some? So the data is lagged, though. So I'm trying to think like Mr Whitney, let's say not necessarily a new principal because he wasn't AP in our district, but he was new to leading
packet. But Hackett's identification is from data that would have come to fruition under the previous principal and associate principal that were in that building at that time.
So.
And I know you can't release it, but I'm assuming you've looked at the new data that's coming out to see what it's looking like in terms of frozen.
This is this is because it gets released in April.
Yes.
And Hackett's a particular concern.
All of those.
And that's our deal.
And Robinson also has to stand a good team and also a deal high school.
Or was it.
So that's very concerning.
Yeah.
So I'm going to go into that a little bit more.
Because that was something that we obviously celebrated internally with our department, but when conducting staff focus groups, you know, understandably, there's plenty of staff expressing concerns that students with disabilities are falling further behind.
That was their feedback to us and their concern.
And so we wanted to, we said, what does our growth data look like?
So let's take a look at it. And what we found when we looked at growth, not just proficiency, we found a more encouraging picture like Eric shared.
We found that students with disabilities are making economic growth that raise comfortable to.
And in many cases, exceeding their peers with without disabilities.
And so like it says on the slide, in eight of our 10 school students with disabilities demonstrated growth equal to or greater than students without disabilities and at least one content area.
In several schools, students with disabilities actually outperformed their peers in both reading and mathematics growth.
That doesn't mean that we're satisfied with those results, but of course we're going to celebrate that.
It means that while proficiency remains an area of focus, our instructional practices are helping students make meaningful progress.
So I'm not going to read every single data point on this slide, but there are several examples we're highlighting here.
For example, Robinson, students with disabilities demonstrated nearly double the English growth of their peers in nearly five times the math growth.
Taking a look at Hackett, they showed stronger growth for students with disabilities and will English and that.
And then when we're at high school, students with disabilities exceeded the growth of their peers in both content areas as well.
So for us, and I have a comment that's encouraging, those indicators are encouraging tests that our students are learning and growing.
Even while we, while many years are way out below grade level.
Can I ask about that?
Yeah.
Is that from the report cards?
Yes.
So it's not really labeled.
Why are we saying comparison higher lower slightly lower?
Why isn't there the actual number there to show what the comparisons really are.
And Robinson nearly double 1.6 means they're really not growing.
Because in order to have an academic years of growth, you need to have a three did less than half of what they should be doing.
But yes, it might be higher than the regular end, but the regular, that means the regular, nobody's growing over there.
So that just means that building is in crisis. I wouldn't call that good news for Robinson or anybody else for that matter.
Our kids are just barely, if at all, making academic growth.
And, you know, again, if it's not three, which there are some trees, but we need to be doing three or better to be really talking about the fact that we're making any kind of academic growth.
And I do wonder about whether this is really a good way to compare and just because of the.
Dyrations that this state goes through to create these papers and the growth figures for special ed students are comparing growth to other special ed students.
And the growth rate for non special ed students are comparing growth to non special ed students.
So I'm not sure that those comparisons are an appropriate way of doing a look at that data.
I'm not sure it's an appropriate way to like that data.
But when I look at that, they see the fact that it doesn't look like most of our special ed students, except for Aldridge and Frusim.
And the high school, but depends on what you're looking at, is when I looked at the high school, 39% of the high schools, especially high schools,
to take the assessments. So I don't know how they're getting that number.
When I looked at it, Meryl didn't have a number at all because it was less than 20.
Cool work there. Gas is not on the list.
So, and, you know, again, higher, lower, slightly lower.
I don't know what that means.
We can get out of our nation, put the numbers in there so people can actually see if they can do it at all.
And it should be labeled what it is that we're looking at because I thought I think I know what that is.
So that's why I went look at it.
But it's our kids aren't making that.
We're not doing similar in growth.
It's just, it's just not really great.
And there's a couple of places that are in crisis problems and being lonely because nobody's growing problems or hasn't done it.
And I'm just concerned about that, I think.
So this is the 2425.
So that Carol, the comparison group is all students.
Is that correct?
Well, it's the comparison to students without disabilities.
So students with disabilities compared to students without disabilities in the building.
Okay, so.
And it's only remember elementary.
We're only talking third, fourth and fifth grade students because they're the only ones that take forward.
Okay, so the Robinson.
It is 2.2 per the students with disabilities.
0.9 per students without disabilities for English language arts.
And for mathematics.
It's students with disabilities.
1.6 students without disabilities.
0.3.
Correct.
Oh, Robinson.
I have them.
Oh, okay.
I have them.
Sure.
But again, nobody's growing.
They're.
At Robinson.
At Aldridge-Fruzen and the high school, it looks like our students with disabilities are making average growth.
So what they're capable of and what their support system is and that's in place for them seems to be working for that.
We definitely need to focus on our elementary platforms.
And we don't disagree.
Again, the reason why we thought it was important to show this is because there is a narrative out there that our students with disabilities
are.
Off that our students without disabilities and that simply not the case.
So.
I keep hearing.
Megan.
Go ahead.
Okay.
Thanks, everybody.
So, okay, just a couple things.
I'm not sure if we're looking at.
Like if we're looking at the report card when we're saying there's not growth, because like I just pulled up the Robinson elementary report card from 2425.
And so the way the report card goes right there, there's like the achievement score.
There's also a growth score.
There's also a target group outcomes and there's also an on track to graduation, right? And so like those four areas academically outside of like what, you know, the attendance pieces.
I'm sorry, I have to start.
Their dad is leaving.
Anyway, sorry.
So like those outcomes.
In addition to like a penance data and things like that, those are the things that the, you know, determine our overall report card score.
So I'm confused about why we're saying there's no growth and I'm not saying that it's like spectacular, but there is a growth score and that I'm looking at.
You know, as part of that overall score for Robinson, which certainly is there's lots of room to improve, right, which is, you know, the whole this whole thing is couched under continuous improvement.
Right. So 100%.
What I'm seeing in this presentation, though, is we're looking at like metrics of growth, which is different from metrics of achievement, but those metrics of growth are predicting future achievement.
So what that tells us, and I think I just heard Joanne, it's still a little bit hard for me to hear, but I think I just heard Joanne say this too.
We're not evaluating necessarily just the students in a one year snapshot of time.
We're evaluating our processes and our systems because like we don't want to keep doing something if it is broken.
But if we do want to keep doing something, even if we're not there yet, that is producing growth, right, because like think I know nobody likes to hear this, but things do take time.
You know, human people aren't machines, like it's complex. It takes some time.
So all that just to say, I actually really appreciated this slide.
In fact, it was the one that I found myself coming back to over and over again, because it's actually very, it's hard inclusive data that can show us average growth.
Like this is how not just the school district of Beloit. This is just like how school districts evaluate and measure systems.
So like if something is working really, really well at, you know, let's say Aldrich, and it's not working well somewhere else, that gives us the information that we need to discern.
Okay, well, this is staffing issue. Is this such a materials issue?
Like what are the differences so that we can continue to grow?
So I want to just to say thank you to, you know, Eric and Missy for putting this together. And I am so encouraged to see this growth.
And I just want to be really clear because you guys in the presentation itself are talking about, you know, competing narratives.
I am not saying I am so excited to see that we're not performing well overall, because achievement is different from growth.
I am excited though, that we do have systems that are producing growth and that are working and that we should continue to invest in.
It kind of goes back to Tom's comment earlier about we got to be strategic about our decision making.
So this is going to help us be strategic about what to continue to support and to sustain.
So I just want to be really clear because of that narrative piece.
We have to make sure that we're discerning between achievement and growth, because not only are there two completely different things, they're also weighed differently.
And I think our algorithm is higher for the school to play like ways higher for growth.
And it does overall for achievement anyway, because as we know, all of the report cards are algorithms that are different for each school and it's very difficult to compare one to the other.
But that's all I had to say on that. I don't know if that helps or is a value to anybody, but.
There's a lot of good stuff here.
So I just want to add, we don't have Gatsun because, and I'm sorry I didn't know this, but Gatsun had less than 20 because their numbers are so long.
So they don't have a score for students with disabilities.
Well, it was the same for Merrill.
I don't know where you guys are.
I don't know where I was going to score.
So kind of like what Eric said.
This slide is just capturing one of the important takeaways that we walked away with after looking at the data is that the perception and data don't always tell us the same story.
And our staff perceptions were real.
They're reflecting on the challenges that educators experience every day, working with students who have significant needs.
But like we said, when looking at the objective growth data, we found that students with disabilities are in fact making.
Academic progress, but that doesn't mean that our continuous improvement work is finished.
It means our challenge isn't simply helping students grow.
It's helping them accelerate the growth while maintaining the positive gains that were received.
So we're going to move into then the IDEA, LEA determination.
So this is again the federal identification that's issued under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
And so this looks at two primary areas that's broken up into multiple indicators.
So there's a compliance component to this.
That is things like our district is timely in our initial evaluations for special education that we are timely with our preschool transitions that we need to do that.
We are appropriately completing the post-secondary transition plans for students at our ages 14 to 21 and that we have timely and accurate reporting when it comes to DPI.
So we need to pull their data a couple times a year that they pull it.
So Beloit has always, at least since I've been here, been able to say that our compliance is 100%.
We've never missed the mark in any of our compliance indicators.
But like we know, the results have been and continue to be less than desirable.
So the results components really are looking at those graduation rates.
So again, our students with disabilities graduating in their four or seven year cohorts.
Dropout rates like our students with disabilities not dropping out from school, which is what we hope.
Math and ELA assessment participation.
So that's just the mere act of actually taking the standardized assessments at the state issues.
And then math and ELA proficiency and then Ed environments.
And so Ed environments is a really important one for us.
And that is the percent of time that students with IEPs are actually being educated with their non-disabled same age peers.
And so in order to meet the mark on that, we have to have 80% of our students with IEPs being educated with their non-disabled peers,
at least 80% of their day or more.
So that's determined by DPI, right?
So we calculate environmental codes.
So there's a series of codes, like if a student who's five years old through age 21, if they're with their same age,
non-disabled peers for at least 80%, they get assigned an A.
That's their environmental code.
If they're 79% to 40 or 49, maybe they're a B.
And if they are below 49%, meaning they're primarily self-contained, they're a C.
There's also homebound, right?
So there's D and F. There's a couple other letters.
So you're getting zinged because you're giving them what their individual needs require.
If they're a child who can only stay in the classroom for 50% of the time or even 25% of the time,
then we get dinged by DPI because they're not in there at least 80% of the time.
Yes, essentially.
However, however, like the push is not that a student needs to be with their non-disabled peers because we get some sort of a score.
And we need to be providing the supports and services that are truly needed for the students that are in their homeschool environments
because we're legally obligated to provide them an education in their homeschool and not shift them off to another school because we created a program.
And that's where these identifications, like this one came from, that measurement piece, because at one point in time,
it wasn't based always on student needs. Students with disabilities were put together with groups,
what other students with disabilities, and they were educated in an environment because somebody thought that that was what was best.
Right.
So I'm speaking as a mom and as an educator and as a board member right now.
And yes, right there, the long time ago, the pendulum was way over here.
I'm seeing from my perspective that our pendulum has won this way.
Something like you said, okay, so we're not creating programs and shipping kids to other schools within the district.
Do we have early childhood kindergarten in every building now, or is that in just certain buildings?
So we do in the sense that we have 4k in all of our buildings and that's early childhood.
Okay.
Three year old programming, no, they're kind of a nuance because they're not public school age, but we legally have to provide them some services.
But five year old kindergarten.
When my son came to the district, he could only go to either covers or Robinson in order to have early childhood kindergarten.
No, that's not.
No, you don't have that.
Just like when I first came to the district, we had like Todd was the only elementary school that had a self-contained program for students with emotional behavioral disabilities.
Now the we support the buildings to program students in their homes because we don't have one building camp house, especially now with with all of the grade level, you know, 4k through grade five in our elementary buildings.
We can't have just one site that gets all the kids that may need some additional support.
Just the 21%.
It's of those. So they assign us if we didn't meet their metric zero.
Yeah, and actually I'll missy put up the next slide. If we partially met the metric, we get a one with the exception of yellow and math proficiency, you can get decimal points now.
That was changed.
And if we're meeting the expectation, we get a 2. So the percent is all it's the numbers added up, right?
Divided by the number of indicators that are in that category.
So having the items program and transitions program, all of those like special programs where children are.
The majority of the day is that.
Is that part of why we're at 21% and then of course those same children are not going to have them participate in the.
No, but they do in DLM and that gets factored in for proficiency rate because that's the alternate.
So that's included for the proficiency pieces. So and actually to answer your question directly, no.
So if you look up here.
Indicator 5a is the ad environments for our kindergarten through age 21 and we actually have, we actually are at a 2.
For that. So we're meeting the state's expectations are 3 year olds to 5 year olds were at a 1.
We anticipate always being low in this area because we don't have universal 3 year old programs. So all of our 3 year old services are considered self contained.
Yeah, yeah.
So even if we want to.
It could be right. Yeah, right now we don't. So, so even if a student, if it were appropriate for a 3 year old to.
You know, just get some, let's say speech and language services in a 3 year old.
Like daycare setting, you know, because we don't offer that.
They're coming in for what is considered pull out minutes. So, yeah.
This is sort of an actual report.
Yes.
So the report is in the secure file exchange.
Second issue gets issued. So the special ed report idea report is not a report that ever gets publicly released because of the sensitive identifiable information that's included in the report.
But what is on one of the main, the very first page is all of our indicators and the score. So the rate value they give us the percentile that they give us and then the point that is assigned.
And so I just took that to do growth over time and put it into my own spreadsheet.
So Eric, does this mean that we have a problem with students dropping out?
Yes.
Students that are identified as having a higher dropout rate.
Yeah.
And, and they don't, they don't graduate either within 4 or 7 years.
Which is great.
That's like graduation. That's what they call graduation is great.
So a 12th grade student graduating with their 12th grade class.
What about our children that can go until 21.
Does that come against us?
So yes, like the very next year, but then not again because of that cohort. That's why they do 4 and 7 year cycles for that.
Yeah.
The difference between grade and dropout.
Yeah.
So grade.
Exeter is graduation. So graduating on time.
Like if you're a senior and your senior class is graduating, you know, class of 2026, you're a student with an IP.
You graduated with your class of 2026.
Dropout Exeter is you left our, our system.
And that is, that can be at like any point.
So they could have left us and we've, we've had conversations like this, this community in this district.
We have a very transient population here.
And there are times where families leave, but we don't get a notification that another public entity picked them up.
We get dinged as a district for that.
Yeah.
So if we ever indicate that they have left and we,
it's unknown where they are going next.
That's considered as 99 at the dropout.
Yeah.
Well, you have some good stuff too.
All this stuff on the bottom, we get our points for all of that.
Yeah.
And we've been making some, like you can see, uh, yellow proficiency, you know, as a yellow.
So we're started that again is with that growth, right?
It's not where we want it by any means, but we're starting to kind of move in that same.
In the environment.
Yeah.
So this chart then is just trying to put a visual to our environments and that growth component.
So as you can see, like as we've increased inclusive opportunities for students in our district, our growth did not suffer.
In fact, it started to, or it has started to lead.
That it's just to try to show that there's not really a trade off right between the two.
Um, we've seen for students with disabilities, Todd, it was a good example.
This last year that with like maps scores and some of our internal assessment, you know, tools that we're using.
The more opportunities that some of their students with disabilities got to hearing that instruction for the first time by a highly qualified staff member.
Um, they've actually started like.
They're, they're achieving versus, you know, being not exposed to that.
Instruction in real time.
What do you, what does this mean at the bottom?
About self contained pressure is often noticed.
Oh, yeah.
So, um,
the high school tends more than others.
Uh, grades to oftentimes have, um,
staff that feel that students with disabilities, they, they question.
I don't want to say feel because I'm not them and I don't want to speak for them, but we often get questions around whether it's appropriate for them to be in those higher level.
Credit bearing classes versus a modified class.
Um, and so because of the credit weight that goes with it, we just tend to get questions more frequently at that level.
And that's at least in my experience, that's pretty typical.
My previous district was similar to that as well.
Well, I agree with students.
Um, like, okay, full inclusion of child is in a regular math class, but they absolutely need lots of accommodations.
How do we show that?
Um, in, in our.
Um, reporting the parents, like.
Do they just have a little grades on the report card?
Sometimes.
Um, it depends if they, if their needs are great enough, the team could have come together and stated that they were going to have some form of like a modified grade for that class.
But that's, that has to be an IP team decision that comes up with that.
Otherwise, the student is subject to standard grading.
Procedures then, and this, the grade they get is the grade they get with the accommodations that are being provided in those environments.
You couldn't make the opposite.
The more inclusion is affecting the regular.
Because I don't know that that's fair to say that because students with disabilities are in a classroom.
It's fair to say that, that, that, you know, the least particular environment is it is.
What did you do here?
Moving.
It's not.
It's, it's, uh, where it's now a trade off.
But we have inclusion increased growth didn't suffer.
But we've had, when we had self contained environments like the environment at Todd, those student, they literally got zero learning.
It was just managing behaviors, putting out fires all day long.
Those scores for those students were a bismal.
Those environments where it's one school out of six that everyone is sending their kids to don't exist.
And we're starting to see our students growth come forward.
So I feel like I can make that argument.
Now we're talking about creating an alternative school for this to be.
I'm.
It's like, you know, we've got all these different trade offs, but it's like.
And I'll turn this.
Our, our struggling is what I'm hearing.
Trying to balance all the discussion that kids and the regular kids.
And, and make that work.
And you're saying inclusion is working, which is fine.
But when we look at our regular results, that's not looking so good either.
So, you know, there are trade offs here and we got to figure out what's going on.
Because we need all of our students to be achieving at a higher level.
And I guess we need to be really looking at that.
And like, go back to that.
First one is like, why is it that, you know, this particular groups are, are struggling lightly.
Like, you know, right?
Okay.
Sure.
And what was it?
The schools, eight school.
You know, so we have a lot of different things that we need to be looking at, but I don't think we can discuss the fact that.
Teachers are concerned about some of these special ed games in the classrooms.
I mean, they're pretty high.
And the word is, we also do a lot with peer educators.
And a lot of peer educators are out there.
And I'm not sure I know how all that works either in terms of.
How that, how they work in the classroom, you know, how, how are they being supportive of not just the special ed kids,
but the classroom, the entire classroom.
They can't.
When they're a special ed para, they can't be supportive of the entire classroom because they're assigned for a particular student or students that are in that environment.
I don't think the alternative school is, I mean, if we were going to have a school within a school setting for elementary education,
it was only students with special ed identification and we're putting them in the building in that room.
That would be an equity self contained classroom again.
I think what the goal of the alternative school is to take children who have behaviors that are making it hard for them to learn and for the other children in their classes to learn.
Putting them somewhere else for a time that not permanently so that they can improve and then eventually go back to their, their home school, which would be very different than an equity self contained classroom too.
So I think we're, we're very much at the very beginning stages of that.
That's why.
Is that right?
Is Dr. Gordon still there?
Yep, I'm here. That is correct, Joanne. That is very correct. So it's the purpose.
Yeah, the purpose would be not.
It's not special ed oriented. It's any, anybody, right? And so it would be under the same premise that all rich operates that kids with a high need, the behavioral situations, you know, instead of, you know, possibly going to a hearing or whatever.
The direction they may be headed will go into that environment and then, you know, get modifications that they may need throughout the day, but the end goal is to always come back to the, the regular school setting.
Thank you.
We have students that are identified as you read.
What happens?
I have 18 creates programming that needs to be identified in the plan.
I think that the evaluation is really done.
I think it's because we have, as opposed to what we used to have.
Oh, that information is all covered for you.
Is that, you know, when we stop making the program, would we stop identify?
Absolutely not.
That's by law, right?
I guess there's an idea that it would say we have to.
And we didn't stop the programming for them. We just stopped at one building at the elementary level.
And supported buildings and having self contained. I mean, I was spent tons of time at Hackett this year. We had students that were in self contained environments and Hackett same thing with Todd.
It occurs. It just occurs in their home school versus sending them to one site.
I will say.
When Todd had that program, it was very hard to staff. And for many years.
It was also another emergency license teacher in that classroom for much of it. And so their goal was just to keep them safe.
That was unfortunate.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
So the next one, then, is the discipline and equity or the racial dispro report.
So this comes out of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Again, this is.
Annular reviewing whether students with disabilities from specific racial and ethnic groups experience either higher rates of special identification.
More restrictive educational placements or higher rates of suspension and expulsion.
And the goal is to ensure equitable treatment and access for all students.
So we do not have significant disproportionality identified for our district in any of those areas.
So we're not disproportionately identifying a particular race group for special education.
We're not disproportionately identifying a particular race group in a specific disability category,
or are we disproportionately putting one racial or ethnic group in a certain placement or environment.
We do, though, have some discrepancy that's been identified with our discipline.
And so this has, this is not new. We've had this for a couple of years that we just continue to.
Students with disabilities tend to have higher levels of out-of-school removals.
And the concern is most pronounced among our black students with disabilities and students that are identified as multi-racial.
So with those, so once they exceed 10 days, then they go to a manifestation and then obviously there's something that needs to be added to their supports, right?
You must.
Yes.
And so I know this is a good data, but I would rather see this than have schools where we pretend there isn't.
These things happening so that we don't have to go to manifestation.
And so my hope is that once we get to this point that the team is able to kind of more supports that help that child because they obviously don't have a date when they get to that.
So are they needed new students also?
I don't say so.
Not necessarily.
So we have students with disabilities experiencing a lot more behavior issues.
Not what it's saying is that students with disabilities experience out-of-school removals exceeding 10 days higher than the state threshold.
So compared to other students with disabilities.
We can I can look into that.
I don't have it off the top of my head.
Yeah.
Stay level and students with disabilities.
So these next few that is just some of the work that we had that some teams in buildings have been working on in regards to specific indicators.
So the first these first two slides are work that below Memorial High School and Floyd Learning Academy have engaged in around their graduation rate improvement.
And so what that is is obviously working to address indicators one and two, which is dropout rates and timely graduation again.
And the transition improvement grant, which is a discretionary grant out of the Department of Public Instruction.
Has worked with a team at the Memorial and the LA and that team consists of site administrators, special education, teachers, program manager and general ed teacher, as well as a counselor.
Well, counselor and the social worker that was at BLA was part of the list, but they had a student services staff member also as part of their team.
And what they did is they looked at all of the students in their buildings that have IEPs and they filtered out by students that have chronic apps and issues.
If they had one or more DRF and their grades and then case overall case manager, like feedback and input, and they created cohorts of students.
Floyd Memorial had 31 students. And what they did is they worked through a plan with the transition improvement grant to identify some targeted interventions for those students to help them engage and connect more with school.
So the transition improvement grant just put together the kind of highlights from that. And so the snapshot shows of those 31 students, 57% of them improved their attendance rates.
55% of them had a decrease in disciplinary referral, 78% of them decreased their suspensions and 78% earned for more credits in the 2526 school year.
So Floyd Memorial is really proud of the work that they started to do and they're looking forward to being able to continue this with the support of the transition improvement grant next year.
So we're going to the last sentence of Floyd Memorial and the chart will reflect for 70% of the 31 students who demonstrated improvement in these areas.
How many students were involved in this?
31.
Yep.
There's seven.
Okay.
The top line on there says in total 31 students.
31.
Yep.
That's that one.
That's a targeted group.
Yeah.
When you chose these students, you said, all right, these are the kids.
We're going to do this intervention with.
Yep.
Because of their chronic absenteeism.
Yeah.
Because they were identified by.
Again, I guess my question came from who demonstrated improvement.
What about the ones who did show improvement?
It's the first sentence.
It's the percentage that demonstrate.
Yeah.
The wording through.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
Are we expanding the cohort?
So the intent is for the memorial to the intent.
It was also for Blaine and Kenny, but they are going to look into.
I don't know what that looks like right now with the LA being at.
The high school.
If that'll stay separate or that'll just become one cohort.
We haven't figured that part out yet.
Yeah.
I mean, that's.
That's huge stuff right there.
Life changing.
Yes.
And it's the, the staff are really proud.
And they're the ones that, I mean, they're the ones that did it.
They engaged in professional learning throughout the course of the year.
They engaged in some coaching meetings with the staff from the transition improvement grant.
And they're the ones that.
Did the delivered the intervention and they tracked the data and.
So.
Yeah.
So that's like 20, 20 plus students.
That decreased disciplinary referrals, decreased suspension.
17 kids improve their attendance.
That's huge for those kids.
And so then this slide is the LAs.
So BLA had seven students in their cohort.
And they, you know, improved attendance.
Not what they were hoping for by any means.
But they were again, proud of their decrease in disciplinary referral, decrease in their suspensions and the 86% of those seven students earning for or more credits.
So.
It's curious.
Is there a.
Did they give you the non any group of tenants by.
You know, 20% or 10% or.
Decreases from their.
In terms of.
So attendance, I will have to go back in and look at what the metric was in terms of the disciplinary referrals and suspensions that is based off of where they were at at the end of last year.
So that was their baseline and then if they ended or they had less than so that could have meant just one viewer.
So, yep.
Yeah.
I would encourage you guys to continue to kind of.
We know what that means by decreasing attendance that it's more than are decreasing physical referrals.
And it's like three or four or, or some number.
One like that.
And then these last couple here is work that are early childhood teams have done with the support of the early learning technical assistance team, which is another discretionary grant group.
And so again, this was really focused on our three year olds to five year olds who aren't in five year old kindergarten.
We, that team has thought about some changes and and tweaks they can make to the three year old programs, but that was not their primary focus.
Because there's what we have is what we have right now with those like I mentioned before.
And so their focus was really around the four K and providing more targeted deeper supports in four K.
And so they did some work around their child outcomes.
So that's indicator seven, they're measuring essentially their readiness in terms of the outcome metrics for the students.
They did work around the preschool environments.
And so members of that team, if they had, if they had students that were 100% being pulled out for services, they made it a goal for themselves to try to provide at least a portion of services in so they can start to collect data around.
Does that work for the student does that not work for the student.
It also increased the amount of time that the special ed teachers were present in four K environments instead of just coming and picking up students and pulling them out.
And so and our switch to our three year old instead of having multiple sites having multiple sections at one site so that they can collaborate and they have, they feel like they can be a part of a team because right now they're single tens in their buildings.
And so this slide then shows some of the data that the early learning technical assistance team kind of collected as they worked with the early childhood staff members and so they did two different assessments.
And they have a benchmarks quality assessment that's on the left hand side so that's talking about world and system capacity.
So when they started the work in February 2024 in those areas, you can see zero of those components were in place.
And by the time we ended this last year, the team was able to get up to two, like two in place for attitudes and beliefs, administrative leadership, high quality universal practices.
They were able to get three of them in place for service delivery and then one, they were able to get in place for family partnerships.
And then our inclusion rate so indicator six a you can see the data 20, 21, 22 or at 6.7% and we've, you know, gone up to the 36.7% as the highest rate in the period of review that that team has done.
And that was reflected on the earlier slides where we looked at the idea data.
That's, that's three year olds.
And it's primarily three year olds and four year olds. We have very few five year olds that aren't in our five K program.
It was all done with teaching staff.
So we worked on that, that was presented to the board two years ago as part of the continuous improvement work.
Same time that the teaching and learning team presented.
It used to be on the website, maybe with the transition to the website.
And the PLC structures would be PLC is for the four K special ed teachers or the four K teachers plus special.
Four K teachers plus special ed and related service. So we had a lot of speech and language in particular.
Spent a lot of time with the four K teachers as well.
So just in terms of like supporting students with disabilities that are three to five year olds where they should be receiving their services.
Okay. How do you, how are you measuring that?
That's through the metric tool that the LTAI uses.
Okay.
The benchmarks of quality.
And we have, what does that mean to the place?
No, there's, those are the categories that the benchmarks of quality assesses. And then there are like sub categories under each of those.
So I'd have to go and pull the benchmarks of quality and send you that interview.
I'm wondering about family partnerships.
So is there everything else was.
Hi, bro.
You know, is there a reason why family partner was just a struggle?
It is.
And we hear that across the board even sometimes like our, when we did our separate tree with our schools this year.
They all talk about how like engaging family is, is one of the most challenging things that they experience.
Yeah.
So like we mentioned at the beginning, then this, all of this data has led us to working towards building our district improvement plan with the support of our technical assistance team that's assigned to us from the state.
And so like I mentioned, we have those accountability partners through CC2 and the Department of Public Instruction.
It was initiated out of the need to address those federal identifications.
So when we engaged in the work early on about five years ago, it was specific to special education.
And it has since grown to be much more than just special education with the ESSA components as well.
And so the team has worked.
And when I say the team, I mean, teaching and learning and people services with that support from CC2.
So we've been working with our team.
We took the board goals that.
That you guys had sat for the district this last year.
Because just like we were expecting buildings to align to our work so that there's a through line.
We needed to make sure that what we were working on, not only was working to address, obviously, what we're seeing in those reports, but also is aligned to the goals that you guys set.
And so we had your strategic priorities, your board priorities listed in there.
And we've then come up with a math of literacy in the school climate goal.
And the next steps of that is working with the team to really tease out what that looks like.
And that's going all the way down to like talking about professional learning and making sure that it's targeted and ensuring that everything is connected back to.
To those goals, like the initiative inventory, looking at are the resources we're using working.
We have too many.
Any other questions or comments.
Very far.
Thank you.
Yes, Megan.
Hey, yeah, no, I just really appreciate I spent a lot of time going through this, this presentation.
It's.
I think this is such a good comprehensive overview and I really appreciated just a few minutes ago.
I think Eric, you were talking about like the separate treating things like that.
I think like sharing the thinking and like the logic is the comprehensive systems work that's going on and like bringing us into it on a high levels of board is really important because I really think that that's the kind of.
It's like thinking structure and use of data that should really inform how the board, you know, strategically moves forward sort of in partnership with with administration. So I think this was like a really interesting, really great discussion.
I just appreciate all the time that you guys put into preparing it and explaining this to us this evening.
Thank you, Eric and missing and appreciate our hard work.
So then there's that wasn't just for discussion, right? You actually need to be taken on that.
So, um, then our next meeting is going to be.
August 4th.
26th.
534 immediately following the business operations.
And each are committing whichever is later.
You have a motion for adjournment.
So before you before you.
Yes.
Our committee was discussing informally.
We're doing, we're setting that time for five 30 just in case we got done early and we like you all being here.
Yes.
We sometimes feel like that was pressure on us too.
Oh, just so we're all.
I want to just.
Not at all.
No.
The older reason why we did that was because the first time you got done so early and we had to wait and so I am fine.
We're all planning on being part of your meeting anyway.
And so there's no need for it.
You guys don't need to hurry at all.
I'm sorry.
No, no.
We don't want to make sure we're just all on the same page because not everyone was better.
I call it retreat.
Yeah.
Not everyone was there.
Yeah.
So we're all on the same page.
No rush.
Maybe a one hour hour and a half more typical.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
We'll be here as long as we need to be here.
We're good at that.
I know.
Because of this.
Oh, yeah.
All right.
Any other questions, comments, thank you again.
Anyone?
Yeah.
All right.
We have a lotion for a German.
Oh, moved.
And a second.
Time to go in the second then.
You did something.
Absolutely.
All in favor?
Bye.
There you go.
Thank you so much, everyone.
I was here.
Yes.
Have a great night.
Yeah.
Bye.