[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[6:27] And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice grow.
[6:40] The board met in closed session and no action was taken. Dr. Hunt, we have any agenda adjustments this evening? No adjustments. Thank you. Miss Verius, can you please call roll?
[6:53] For Trustee Michael Melioni. President. For Trustee Max Roman. For Trustee Susie Strubel. Here. Vice President Richie Mediger. Here.
[7:02] President Lindsey Thomason?
[7:04] Here.
[7:05] I will note that our two student
[7:08] board members are not with us this evening because they are ill.
[7:15] Okay, first up.
[7:17] Dr. Marx looks like you're ready.
[7:20] All right, good evening.
[7:22] So I'm going to start.
[7:24] Good evening.
[7:25] My name is Ali Kota, and I am the chair of the calendar committee.
[7:29] This committee includes representatives from our elementary, middle, and high schools as well as from CSEA.
[7:37] We are tasked once every two years with developing at least four viable versions of our calendars.
[7:44] In compliance with the contract, one of these calendars must mirror our current schedule plus at least three others.
[7:50] As you know, but the public may not, the school calendar must include 180 student days and 185 staff days.
[8:00] Additionally, according to the contract, options must help prevent the loss of average daily attendance,
[8:06] abide by federal holidays, and have two semesters of approximately equal instructional time at the secondary level.
[8:14] Additionally, for the last 10 years, the district has been committed to closing fall semester before winter break and overwhelming priority for all of our interest groups.
[8:24] The feeling has been that holding finals before winter break increases student retention of material for their culminating assignments, provides a homework-free December break to reduce stress, and allows for approximately two additional weeks of instructions before standardized tests such as cast and
[8:42] the high stakes AP exams, and it aligns with the majority of our surrounding districts.
[8:49] Given these parameters, building possible calendars is oddly both a straight forward
[8:54] and a complex undertaking at exactly the same time.
[8:58] We are very limited in our options, but also each decision to shift a day here and another
[9:04] there impacts the puzzle that is the rest of the calendar.
[9:07] As in years passed, the committee and district leadership collaborated to gather input from school staff and families by serving them in the spring and then reconvene this fall to complete our work.
[9:20] Additionally, we invited four administrators to join our conversation to get their input during the process.
[9:26] The greatest challenge that we faced was to find enough days in the fall to create balance semesters without having to start the school year the first week of August.
[9:36] Ultimately, the committee drafted and seriously weighed nine different versions of calendars
[9:41] that met the required parameters and balanced the express desires and priorities of our
[9:46] district's various interest groups.
[9:49] We advanced four of those calendars that we felt most closely aligned with the interests
[9:53] of all stakeholders.
[9:55] Negotiators for the district then advocated to replace two of the four versions we had recommended,
[10:00] APT agreed, and the packet went to APT membership for a vote.
[10:03] Members were instructed to vote for the calendar that they believed would best support student success.
[10:09] The contract dictates that if no one calendar had received over 80% of the vote,
[10:15] there would be a runoff between the top two.
[10:17] But in this case, the calendar based on our current model passed the required threshold,
[10:22] receiving more than two times as many votes as the next highest calendar.
[10:26] It's extremely rare to get a decisive outcome in the first round of voting.
[10:30] Typically, we must do a runoff in a second round, yet this time the first place contender received 80 out of 158 votes as compared to 35, 24, 19, and 19 for the other three respectively, a clear message about which calendar option the majority of PMOT teachers believe will serve our students.
[10:50] So today, we will present or somebody is presenting the winner of that vote.
[10:57] Now, I do understand that the calendar is slated to be discussed tonight at 11.01 p.m.
[11:03] While I will need to head home before then, I will rejoin the meeting online as soon as I am able so
[11:09] that I can listen to community comments and the Board's discussion and I will be happy to answer
[11:14] any questions if they arise at that time.
[11:18] It's been a few years since I joined calendar committee.
[11:21] I just joined them late in the process because there was a lot of concern.
[11:26] And I forgotten just how complicated the puzzle is.
[11:29] I went in thinking, oh great, I can fix this.
[11:33] And no, just shifting the calendar by even one day can topple all the rest of the dominoes.
[11:39] It's incredibly difficult to do.
[11:41] As you work with actual calendar, certain realities become clear.
[11:45] Each year has its own contours, as required holidays, fall on different days of the week,
[11:49] and in 2026, we have a leap year, and that puts different pressures on where you can stop
[11:54] and start each semester.
[11:56] If we don't have a full week off at Thanksgiving in February, many, many families take that time off anyway,
[12:01] and we suffer tremendous losses in ADA.
[12:04] High school finals require four days in the same week to keep them equitable and fair,
[12:09] and we need three evenings that week to hold graduation ceremonies for PMS, MHS, and PHS.
[12:15] And as much as I wish it were possible, it's just not possible to start school in the third week of August,
[12:21] and have high school students academically ready to take high stakes fall semester finals before winter break.
[12:28] The committee this year met more times and developed more calendars than ever before.
[12:33] The committee invited board members to join them to try working with all the moving parts and
[12:37] and see for yourselves how challenging the Puzzle really is, and that offers stands if you'd like to see it firsthand.
[12:43] For the first time ever, we took the committees chosen calendars to negotiations and spent the better part of two bargaining sessions examining every possible detail and option making further changes and compromises.
[12:55] And some of the calendars that teachers most strongly preferred were dropped altogether from consideration.
[13:01] We're aware that the calendar that ultimately won the vote does not deliver everything the school board was hoping for.
[13:07] But I hope you can understand that when teachers vote on the calendar,
[13:10] their absolute top priority is meeting the educational needs of students.
[13:15] Teachers don't want to come back any earlier in August than we have to.
[13:18] We want a long summer break just like everybody else.
[13:21] Most of us don't like starting school on a Monday.
[13:23] That is a brutal first week if we can reasonably avoid it.
[13:28] And frankly, it's much easier on teachers to have fall semester finals after winter break.
[13:33] When the semester ends before the break, grades are due just a few days after we're back, so we have to spend much of the holiday grading.
[13:41] But year after year, we've voted against our personal interests and for the calendars that serve our students the best.
[13:48] Traditionally, the strongest emphasis in the decision is the needs of high school students.
[13:52] Since they juggle the heaviest workload, face the most academic pressure, and semester grades to them can feel like life and death matters
[13:59] since they count decisively for college admissions, even for our seniors that fall semester grade can be incredibly important.
[14:06] Here are some of the reasons teachers have shared with me for choosing the winning calendar.
[14:11] AP classes need all the lead time they can get to have students ready for the national exams which occur in early May.
[14:18] Elementary special teachers actually prefer starting with a full week so they can maintain equal time with all students.
[14:25] Having a non-school day in October is essential.
[14:29] Not only do we not want to be the only district in the Bay Area that doesn't observe indigenous peoples day, we need the break urgently.
[14:36] The timing isn't random, it's the halfway point of the semester.
[14:39] Everyone, teachers and students is exhausted.
[14:42] Elementary teachers are preparing report cards for parent conferences.
[14:45] High school teachers are grading heaps of papers and projects for quarter grades and
[14:49] have as many as 40 letters of recommendation to write for students college applications.
[14:53] Letters that take more than an hour each to write.
[14:56] High school seniors are racing to write a slew of very high-
[15:00] aye, stakes, personal essays for college applications, with the November 1st deadline looming, and that
[15:05] is when most of our students have something to turn in. Other schools, both public and private,
[15:09] take this day off for those very reasons. Head Royce actually has a full senior week
[15:14] off that week, so seniors can finish their applications. And it's not just the seniors on the Friday
[15:19] before the October day off, I asked my freshmen and sophomores how they'd feel if we didn't have
[15:23] that day on the calendar next year. And to a student, they looked at me with expressions
[15:28] of horror that I can only imagine if they would give me if I had suggested enforced cannibalism or something.
[15:37] They said they were desperate for a chance to catch up on their work as well.
[15:41] All of those issues matter but the single most important issue that had a majority of teachers choosing the calendar they did is the need to balance semesters at secondary.
[15:50] In the past we've usually gone no further than an 88-92 split in terms of days per semester.
[15:56] For the past two years, we pushed that to a new limit, 87 to 93, and it's been right.
[16:02] Semester classes like Civics and Econ struggled to get through the required state standards,
[16:06] and have had to cut lessons on the election process even in election years.
[16:11] I've had to cut an essay out of each of my English classes, because with six fewer semester
[16:16] days, there just hasn't been time to get students prepared to write that one.
[16:21] As it is, teachers are cutting parts of units, and students have less opportunity
[16:25] to master the material before formal assessments that determine those critical fall semester
[16:30] grades.
[16:31] Pushing that even further to an 86.94 split, a full eight days in balance between
[16:36] semesters would just be too much.
[16:39] That's why if you just look at the results of the voting at high schools, the chosen
[16:42] calendar, which keeps the 87.93 split, it's kind of in the middle, it beat the second
[16:49] place calendar, which would have extended the imbalance by two additional days, by a vote
[16:53] of 34 to 6, that was an extremely decisive outcome.
[16:58] This was not a decision teachers arrived at casually.
[17:01] I hope at this point the board can recognize how much work and
[17:04] thought went into this process and this decision and move to approve these calendars.
[17:10] Thank you.
[17:19] Ms. Peterson, or anyone else from the CSEA?
[17:24] One online, Rosalina?
[17:25] No?
[17:26] Okay.
[17:27] And we'll go ahead and move to PEF.
[17:30] Heather, I see you, welcome.
[17:32] Thank you.
[17:36] First just a note, Lawn Signs have started going out.
[17:40] They are delivered by volunteers so it may be a week or two before you see your Lawn Signs so don't panic.
[17:47] We are also in the market for additional volunteers to help us deliver an extraordinary number of Lawn Signs this year.
[17:55] update on the giving campaign, we hit $3 million so far, which we're
[18:05] ahead of the game,
[18:06] but since we're going to $5 million, we really need to keep moving forward.
[18:11] So on November 5th, the Piedmont Education Foundation held a celebration to honor the people
[18:16] who have contributed to PEF success for the past 50 years.
[18:21] Recording in progress.
[18:23] Thank you.
[18:24] Here are some fun facts.
[18:26] 12 people signed the Article of Incorporation for PEF on June 30, 1975, including then Superintendent
[18:34] William H. Knight, C. Lee Emerson, who became the first President of the PEF Board at the
[18:40] first meeting of the Board of Directors on February 11, 1976 at his home, and Helen Brack,
[18:47] who served as the second President of PEF and who spoke at Wednesday's event.
[18:53] PEF's actual birthday is December 10th, 1975, when those articles of incorporation were endorsed and filed by the California Secretary of State.
[19:03] Piedmont Mayor, Betsy Smegel Anderson, read out a proclamation last week naming December 10th, 2025, as Piedmont Education Foundation Day.
[19:14] Some members of that very first board, including Helen Brack, were also a part of the very first
[19:20] school parcel tax steering committee.
[19:23] Cameron Wolf, Jr., who co-chaired our 50th anniversary along with the PEF Board Member
[19:28] Rich Thompson was one of the forces behind the passage, particularly the legal aspects of
[19:34] the passage of that very first parcel tax along with Ann Chandler, Steffi Morris,
[19:43] and
[19:43] Because we have digital versions of the forms 990, we know that from 2000 to 2025,
[19:50] PEF granted over $55 million to PUSD or over $66 million in today's dollars in context.
[19:58] That's a full years budget for PUSD.
[20:01] And if anyone has a pile of PEF forms 990 in their garages between 1976 and
[20:07] 1999, we would love to take them off your hands so we can add up those first 25 years.
[20:14] PEF's current board chair, Bridget Schneider, at the event, acknowledged Lee and Ruby.
[20:20] Aren't Hector Ward, Winner, and many other things, and it's the newest honorary member of the board of PEF.
[20:26] She started PEF's Endowment Fund in 1989 and has spent the last 36 years making sure that it kept growing.
[20:34] The Endowment funds 10% of the PEF grant each year.
[20:39] This year's grant was over 4 million, and like I said, we want to be able to grant $5 million next year, and as Bridget Schreiber reminded everyone, it is never too late to donate or to donate again as we embark on the next 50 years.
[20:54] Thank you all so much, so listen to my fun facts, and you can visit Piedmont Education, sorry, PiedmontEdFoundation.org for more information. Thank you.
[21:12] I am thrilled to hear that for each the $3 million mark, and I have a little bit about
[21:17] the 50th anniversary in my remarks momentarily as well.
[21:23] If there is anyone in the room who would like to speak to items not on tonight's agenda,
[21:29] we'll have that a moment for that, imminently.
[21:32] As a friendly reminder, this is time only for items not on tonight's agenda.
[21:37] Dr. Marks touched on the calendar, which we will discuss later this evening.
[21:40] Please hold it in comments regarding the calendar until it is time to discuss that agenda item.
[21:46] Ms. Various will be administering the comments this evening, and given we have had a number of
[21:50] comments in recent meetings, she will give an overview of the public comment process.
[21:57] Good evening everyone.
[21:58] I'd like to provide a brief overview of tonight's public comment period.
[22:02] If you wish to address the board, please make sure to fill out a speaker card which can be found in the corridor.
[22:08] And then you can submit them to me if you are participating via Zoom in which to make a public comment please raise your virtual hand when it is your time to speak.
[22:18] The board president will allow for two minutes and 30 seconds per speaker while you are speaking you will be giving a 30 second warning.
[22:26] Please complete your comment promptly at the end of your sentence when your time has elapsed. Thank you.
[22:33] I also want to highlight that legally due to the Brown Act, the Board can not discuss
[22:36] items that are not agendized for this meeting. We recognize that it may be frustrating when
[22:41] you attend a meeting to comment on an item that is not on the agenda and the Board does
[22:44] not engage in discussion at more than a surface level. We assure you this is not because we don't
[22:48] want to share information or discuss items with you, but because we are browned out by the
[22:52] Brown Act, not too.
[22:56] I have three comment cards to or for agendized
[22:59] items, one from Ellison has two items on it geometry in the middle school world language.
[23:07] Allison, I will ask that you hold the middle school world language comment until that item is up.
[23:16] Is Allison here?
[23:17] Okay, so if you want to come speak on geometry now?
[23:28] Is that elementary?
[23:29] Yeah, elementary.
[23:31] Okay, sorry, okay got it, sorry.
[23:33] Okay, great, well then we will wait on both those items.
[23:39] Are there any other items, or anyone else who wants to speak on an item not on tonight's agenda?
[23:50] And I will close public comment on items not on tonight's agenda and move on to Dr.
[23:57] Huh?
[23:57] All right, great.
[23:58] Thank you.
[24:00] Just a note about calendars.
[24:01] Tonight is a first reading.
[24:03] There's no approval for tonight's agenda item.
[24:05] I know we'll be talking about it later.
[24:07] two years ago it was also a first reading and then in the December meeting an approval item so just as a
[24:14] point of clarification for you on that.
[24:17] I'd like to thank Amy Morehead for her performance along with our students for their very enthusiastic performance of cats.
[24:25] It was enthusiastic and joyful as always and so thank you to
[24:30] Amy Morehead and our students. I'd also like to thank our district team for the health benefits here.
[24:37] that we had last week, Kim Brandlett, Jackie Castile, Julie Kim, Ruth Aloha-Doyeon, our
[24:44] district team, really put together a great health benefits plan. Again, there are zero cost
[24:49] options for our employees and their families, which is just unprecedented in this time of health
[24:55] care crisis. So thank you to our team for that. I got my COVID and flu shot at the health benefits
[25:03] And then finally, this is our only meeting in November, so I just want to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving.
[25:09] I hope you all have a great wonderful week off and our next work meeting is in December.
[25:14] So here we are already into the holidays with that.
[25:16] I'll turn it over.
[25:17] Thank you.
[25:20] I was also able to attend the PEF 50th Anniversary Celebration last week, which was a wonderful deep dive into the founding and history of PEF, some of which Heather's touched on this evening.
[25:32] The group that founded P.E.F. was also instrumental in passing the first parcel tax in Piedmont.
[25:38] And it was funny, but very true when a friend leaned over to me and whispered at some point
[25:43] during the evening.
[25:44] This is the only room in the country where people will hardly cheer when you discuss the
[25:47] success of passing taxes.
[25:51] As a friendly reminder, as Heather mentioned, giving campaign is ongoing and P.E.F. is aiming
[25:57] planning for 100% support, so please consider giving if you haven't already.
[26:02] We also continue work on the Measure G Parcel Tax Renewal Campaign.
[26:05] We are building a committee and the survey is live.
[26:08] The survey is conducted by a third-party survey or the same one we have used for past parcel tax campaigns.
[26:14] They conduct the survey on a sample of Piedmont residents and we have no input into who is surveyed.
[26:19] So not all residents will receive the survey, but we've started hearing from people who have.
[26:23] So please, if you do get it, complete it.
[26:26] That's really important information for us as we put a tax on the ballot.
[26:31] Finally, I just want to highlight a conversation that we had yesterday.
[26:35] Anyone paying attention to local news is likely aware that Oakland Unified is facing yet another huge budget shortfall and drastic budget cuts.
[26:44] And I just wanted to highlight that Oakland receives more than twice as much as Piedmont from the state of California per student.
[26:50] A U.S.D. receives $27,343, and PMOt receives $13,577.
[26:58] We supplement these very limited state funds with community contributions via the giving campaign,
[27:04] parcel taxes and other donations.
[27:06] These community contributions total $9,031 per people.
[27:11] That's our total budget per people is approximately $22,600 each year.
[27:16] I highlight this because as we discuss both the giving campaign and parcel taxes,
[27:19] I want to reiterate how crucially these funding sources are.
[27:23] State funding is structured in a way that is supposed to be equitable, but results in districts like CIDMont, which are not basic aid, but are expected to raise significant funds locally having a huge gap between our expenses per people and the amount of the state allocates.
[27:38] You will note that even when combining state funding and community funding, we still believe less receive less per people than OUSD does.
[27:44] This is why it is critical for every family, both residents and ITTs, students from preschool through 12th grade and beyond to give to PEF and an amount that is meaningful to their family and for PMOB voters to support the parcel tax doing so is the only way we are able to continue offering the high quality education that our community expects and will hand it over.
[28:05] I,
[28:12] I'm going to keep my comments very, very brief because this is going to be a long
[28:17] meeting.
[28:17] We have many interesting topics to talk about.
[28:20] But I wanted to read something also that I've been thinking about a lot recently.
[28:30] Lindsay got me into reading the podcast that Azora Klein does.
[28:36] I read the article because that's just the way I like to consume information.
[28:39] I think that she listens to it, but there were a couple of things that I just wanted
[28:45] to read, which I think have really resonated, especially with how much community engagement
[28:52] we've had in the last couple of, well, since I guess I've been listening to board meetings.
[29:00] Okay, so here we go, sorry, because I took screenshots, so just give me one second.
[29:06] He quotes someone and says, politics involves genuine relationships with people who are genuinely other people,
[29:14] not tasks set for our redemption or objects for our philanthropy, and then the comments that he makes is, I love that.
[29:23] I think the path to a better politics, perhaps even a political majority, lives within it.
[29:28] The endless fantasy in politics is persuasion without representation.
[29:31] You elect us to represent you, and where we disagree, we will explain to you why you are wrong.
[29:36] The result of that politics tends to be neither persuasion nor representation.
[29:40] People know when you are not listening to them, and they know how to respond.
[29:43] They stop listening to you.
[29:45] They vote for people who they feel do listen to them.
[29:49] I'm not a pessimist on the possibility of persuasion, but I believe it is a rare,
[29:53] but I believe it is rare outside a context of mutual respect.
[29:57] And I'm going to skip over a little bit, which is more politics.
[30:00] But really, because I wanted to talk about people exchanging ideas and this is a funny and unique way to be able to exchange ideas, one person sitting in front of a speaker and the other also sitting in front of a speaker. The last, the last thing I wanted to read is changing the culture is harder than changing a policy moderating on this or that issue is more straightforward than finding ways to radiate respect and interest in people who disagree with you and people you've come to feel far away from. It's the building of genuine relationship
[30:29] in politics, not the taking of positions that's the hard part, but it's also beautiful.
[30:34] It's a privilege to do that work, not a concession.
[30:37] We are quicker to admit complexity and extend generosity when we see others as part of our
[30:44] community.
[30:45] Working to widen that circle of empathy, to widen our circle of belonging is both morally and
[30:49] politically good.
[30:51] That's all.
[30:56] Thank you for that huge fan of Ezra Klein too.
[30:59] That's a really good one, if anyone think that was last week's.
[31:01] I think so.
[31:02] It's a great one.
[31:02] I'll try to keep my comments short too, there's so much that's been happening, I wanted to give some updates.
[31:07] First, I want to make a call out, shout out to folks playing, kids playing sports to parents, to take to the coaches fund.
[31:15] That all those stipends go to, those funds go to stipends to pay all of our coaches.
[31:20] You see the email that comes out every week from Tyler.
[31:23] We are at I think 90% for girls, water polo, 92% for boys, water polo, very impressive, water polo folks, 91% for volleyball.
[31:31] All the other sports are quite a bit lower, so just encouragement to donate there as well.
[31:38] We had community college night last week, which was absolutely fantastic, thanks to the folks at the high school who put that on.
[31:45] Really super informative, I know Stephanie Manila Claire is going to be sending out the slides from that presentation as well.
[31:51] We heard from College of Marin and Diablo Valley College, absolutely fantastic.
[31:57] I encourage everybody to check out the newsletter and read some of that information.
[32:01] It was very exciting to hear, maybe even more grateful that we're living in California in the Bay Area where we are, which shuts amazing community colleges around us.
[32:11] Let's see, Michael and I went to Finini Mentors down at the middle school, you might talk, sorry you did too.
[32:16] I was just thinking, Michael, your chop liver, we, Michael and I were in the same class.
[32:21] I apologize for that down in the middle school, which is why I was thinking of that.
[32:23] So Michael may speak to that, but really appreciated that the high school students who spoke and kind of led the class in discussion
[32:30] and were great but man those those those seventh graders really were fantastic and we really had a good
[32:36] a very lively conversation afterwards and appreciated that.
[32:40] Lastly, I just wanted to shout out again as comes every year to Kim Taylor and to all the students
[32:45] who hosted and participated in the consent assembly two weeks ago. This was the 15th year that we had
[32:52] that consent assembly. I attended the one that they host every year just for the open public.
[32:56] really appreciate that they do that and just have to say, it's just remarkable and I think how my
[33:02] life might have been different and if so many of my friends had we had something like that in high
[33:05] school. So just a thanks to everybody who participated in that.
[33:11] I will also try to be brief since
[33:12] a long one. Rushi, I do feel like I have to mention and I'm surprised we never talked about this,
[33:16] that I actually worked on that transcription feature on Apple podcast so I'm glad you enjoyed so much.
[33:25] I went to the P.E.F. 50th anniversary party, it was great, it reminded me of a bunch of
[33:30] things when I was a kid. Heather, please keep those old directories forever because I went
[33:34] through and found myself in like a bunch of them and that was very fun.
[33:39] And if anyone gets an email from True North Research, that's our poll, so please open it and
[33:45] fill it out. And then I just want to echo Lindsay's words about donating to the Giving
[33:54] Campaign. It is the most important that we do that. It is what keeps Piedmont schools
[33:59] as good as they are and allows them to keep getting better.
[34:03] I want to remind everyone
[34:04] that participation is the goal at a number that makes sense for you and your family. It's
[34:09] not a pure number thing and it would be better to give something whatever you can than
[34:14] nothing. And that is it for me.
[34:18] Since we have a packed agenda, I'm going to keep, I'm going to pass on my report tonight.
[34:54] Yeah, we're going to we're going to bring up RL dollar which assistance superintendent of educational services and Stephanie Griffin director of technology we generally have given this
[35:06] this presentation every year with a focus on CASP assessment results.
[35:10] And this year we have brought in the presentation to include other metrics, including an achievement plan.
[35:17] And so the team, including our administrators, have been working hard and are here this evening to present.
[35:23] So I'll bring up your presentation.
[35:27] All right, thank you Dr. Hahn, good evening members of the board.
[35:31] As mentioned this evening's presentation will detail comprehensive results along with analysis of student academic achievement during the 2024-25 school year.
[35:43] Next slide, please.
[35:45] Last year, last year we designed an academic achievement plan on cast data.
[35:53] We did so collaboratively with site leaders.
[35:55] We focused on supporting our most struggling students in English language arts and mathematics.
[36:02] And in particular, we noticed an achievement gap among our students.
[36:06] Particularly, we wanted to support our African-American students.
[36:10] So last year, we took actions and strategies that were taken included some of the following.
[36:17] Tutoring at the site level, developing a team approach among counselors, teachers, and
[36:22] and other staff to provide multi-tiered systems of support and designing focal student lessons to connect with and engage students based on the assets that they're bringing to class.
[36:34] In developing the Academic Achievement Plan 2.0 version this year, we intentionally cast a wider net.
[36:41] That included some of the end of the year data of course, but it also included benchmark data throughout the year such as dibbles and literacy and bridges in math.
[36:50] The academic achievement plan 2.0 version can be found attached to the board item here this evening.
[36:56] And a detailed site-specific actions that will be taken by administrators aligned with their respective sipses.
[37:03] Next slide please.
[37:07] And so momentarily, I'm going to turn it over to Stephanie Griffin.
[37:10] Am I in the way?
[37:12] Director of Instructional Technology.
[37:16] Thank you, Jen.
[37:18] She's going to provide some high level achievements that deserve to be celebrated, especially at the secondary level.
[37:25] That will be the start, will provide highlights, will outline trends specific with student groups, will detail school patterns, and we're going to compare benchmark data.
[37:35] After Stephanie draws some conclusions, I'll share district next steps, particularly as it applies to elementary math, which is an area of need for us moving forward.
[37:44] All right, we're
[37:52] going to start with some high level achievements beyond CASP.
[37:59] The first I want to point out is AP outcomes and participation.
[38:02] So we have an LCAP goal around APs to increase the number of students who are taking AP exams,
[38:08] advanced placement, and also the passage rate.
[38:11] So last spring, we had almost 900 exams taken with a passage rate of 89%, which is higher
[38:18] than the year before.
[38:19] So this is far exceeding our LCAP goal, already in only the second year of our LCAP.
[38:24] So congrats to all those students.
[38:26] The other thing I want to kind of share out is a measurement we don't talk a lot about,
[38:30] and that is college and career readiness.
[38:33] So the California State Dashboard has a college and career readiness indicator.
[38:37] It's released with the California dashboard, which actually the new one will be released tomorrow.
[38:43] So log in to your web browsers tomorrow and check that out.
[38:46] But this is last year's College and Career Readiness Indicator with Piedmont unified one of the top schools in the state for preparing our students with their measure to be College and Career ready.
[38:59] Most of our students earn this qualification of prepared by completing their A through G and neither passing the CASP on ELA and Math or completing some AP exams.
[39:10] If you look at the school districts, these high-level school districts that are above us on this list, you'll see they also have a FUG plus participation, but they have a couple of other measures that they use to get even those higher results.
[39:27] One of those is some of these school districts have their students had the ability to take a college level class in high school.
[39:34] We've already been working towards that and currently this year, some of our high school students can take a college level course, community college level,
[39:43] cure course, while they attend, keep on higher millennium high school.
[39:47] So hopefully that is an area we can earn even more and higher preparedness levels on the CCI.
[39:55] The other measure that we might see some growth in, that we have an opportunity to expand in our college and
[40:01] this is a seal of biliteracy.
[40:03] I know that's one that's interested to many of the school board members.
[40:07] Some of these school districts up here have much higher levels of seal of biliteracy at the high school level.
[40:14] And one of the reasons is that seal of biliteracy when you look at how to earn it as a student,
[40:20] you have to demonstrate oral fluency using an objective measure.
[40:25] used to be that if you took the classes and you passed, we could earn the seal of
[40:31] I literacy, but in the last two or two years they've changed that you have to take an objective test.
[40:37] The only objective test that we have available to us is the APs that cost 100 plus per student to take.
[40:44] Some of these other school districts are using another measurement that the school district is providing in the school year that we can do much cheaper.
[40:52] So that is something our world language partners and department is really interested in looking at and we have on our radar for the LCAP2 to increase yellow by literacy, but it might have some implications here for our improvement too.
[41:04] The last one I kind of want to point out which is a newest sort of measure too is perfect scores on the CASP.
[41:11] This last year is the first year reported on this, but we have even more students making a perfect score in the CASP we did last year.
[41:18] So you have 33 students with a purpose score in ELA, 48 in math, and 11 in science.
[41:24] And I have to point out there are less in science because there's less students taking that test.
[41:29] And also, it's a harder test.
[41:31] It covers multiple years of science standards, not just one that you might get in the ELA in math.
[41:37] So more students than last year getting purpose scores.
[41:42] Eight students got a purpose score in both ELA and math.
[41:45] and knew this year, one student got the trifecta, a perfect score in math, English, and science.
[41:52] That's a fifth grade student from Havens, who's now at Pima Middle School.
[41:56] So congrats on that, and get a lottery ticket, right?
[42:00] Okay, so let's dig in a little bit more on this cast.
[42:05] This is a spring 2025 result.
[42:09] We have results over the last couple of years, and you can see we've been pretty consistent.
[42:13] So 85% of the students who took this test, so last year's 3rd to 8th graders and 11th graders.
[42:20] 85% of them meet or exceeded state standards in ELA, 82% in math, a small increase in the year before.
[42:28] It's 72% like I mentioned, harder test in science.
[42:32] When you look at how we did versus other unified school districts,
[42:36] districts, you can see third in state and most places in fourth and
[42:41] science from last year.
[42:45] I also want to point out that in this we're comparing year-rear results.
[42:50] It's not cohort, we're not following the kids.
[42:52] The kids who took the test in 2025, over half of them did not take that test in 2022.
[42:59] This is a different, a really different bunch of kids.
[43:02] but this high level and consistent level of performances speaks to that caliber of teaching and learning that's going on in our schools.
[43:12] So congrats to everybody on that.
[43:16] Some just outstanding achievements just around CASP.
[43:20] I want to point out that when you look at school level results,
[43:24] B-telemitter school, fifth highest school in the state for math.
[43:29] I mean, that is really high, thin levels of oxygen at that level.
[43:34] Here they are with some math and science schools across the state, some really high level performance.
[43:42] In fact, if you look at all of our schools, beaches in the top 1%, obviously for the state.
[43:48] But so is Wildwood, PMS and PHS are in the top 2% of all schools in our state.
[43:54] and Havens is on top 3% of all schools on our state for math.
[43:59] Well, when you look at just 11th grade, we'll see PHS students, when we just do it by grade, in the top 10 for the state.
[44:08] And then if you start pivoting to look at student group outcomes, we have very high performance from our students and disabilities when you compare this across the state.
[44:17] Number one, an ELA across the state compared with other school districts, students with disabilities.
[44:25] I'm going to go a little bit more into the student group data.
[44:31] I've also included on here the state of California average, so you can kind of see that for reference.
[44:37] So the state has a focus on equity by student group.
[44:41] This manifests in the California School Dashboard, which I mentioned earlier.
[44:45] When you look at that California School dashboard, you're looking at district, school, and student group data, not only status, how they did this past year, but that change over time like we're representing here.
[45:00] It's very important that the state realizes this, that when you look at just district or just school level result, it might be masking some of the experiences and educational outcomes of different student groups. So we always analyze student group data to look for opportunities to improve student outcomes. You can see on here, like I mentioned before, the students and disabilities declined a small percentage compared to last year in ELA and also rose a percentage.
[45:29] and math. This is probably the lowest outcome of our student groups but it's still number one across the state.
[45:36] We saw some growth in many of the student groups, the largest growth in our students with a black African-American identity.
[45:45] Now this growth may be indicating some of the work we did last year with our focus.
[45:52] Prioritizing the group that had the lowest outcomes in previous years had the largest academic gaps.
[45:58] That was the black African American students.
[46:01] So we prioritize interventions after school tutoring, test taking support.
[46:07] Making sure everyone had good test taking skills and
[46:09] other strategies to improve outcomes.
[46:12] And I think it made a difference.
[46:15] We also provide some professional development and evidence based instruction practices to support this focus last year too.
[46:21] And many of these structures are still in place.
[46:24] These students may already still be getting tutoring and the other sports they need.
[46:32] All right, after we've looked at this student group data, let's take a look at our school outcomes.
[46:38] So here I have some scroll outcomes including just a tri-school average.
[46:42] Just a reminder that at the elementary level, that's third through fifth graders who took this test.
[46:47] Last year, the fifth graders are now six graders.
[46:50] At our middle school, six, some of the eighth graders took this.
[46:54] and at our high school level, only one grade takes it,
[46:57] so that the 11th graders.
[46:59] So what we ended up having, especially in millennium,
[47:01] is a very volatile number.
[47:04] Last year, 14 students took this test.
[47:07] So you can imagine, from year to year,
[47:09] when you have that small of a number,
[47:11] one or two students can really shift the outcomes here.
[47:15] You'll see that at the secondary level,
[47:19] we had more kind of growth areas,
[47:22] especially in math, with Piedmont High, hello, 96% of the students at Piedmont High,
[47:28] meeting or seating state standards in the ELA, with a growth there, and 81%
[47:33] meet and exceeding state standards in math, really, really amazing results. At Piedmont
[47:40] Middle, we see a consistent 84% meet and exceed state standards, and a little
[47:46] growth on the mass side, there too.
[47:51] What we did see is more declines at the elementary
[47:55] level. And we've seen consistent differences between the schools at the elementary
[48:02] level too, and the board has notices in the past years also. We also have, in many of these
[48:09] schools, a decline over three years. So it's not just one thing changed, it seems to be
[48:15] a pattern or a trend, so we wanted to take a different, a deeper look at this.
[48:21] So at our leadership retreat with principals in August actually started in July this year,
[48:28] we began to engage in some system thinking protocols as we looked at these CAS results
[48:34] to understand what might be producing these outcomes.
[48:37] We looked at school data, we looked at gray level data, we looked at student group data
[48:42] over three years.
[48:43] We wanted to understand what contributed to the high outcomes and make sure we can replicate that across our schools and we're consistency and again our students are high performing.
[48:55] But we believe there is something to learn that there are ways we can improve these outcomes and consistencies across the schools.
[49:02] It's not like something is different in the water at one school than the other. We all get the same water from East Bay mud.
[49:07] So, we began to dig a little deeper, looking at our academic outcomes at our local level
[49:15] and our local assessments at the elementary level where we were seeing this pattern.
[49:22] The first one we looked at is dibbles.
[49:24] This is the measure we use for ELA, English English Arts.
[49:27] The dibbles stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills.
[49:32] We love our acronyms, but it's a series of very short fluency assessments that can be
[49:38] We use from kindergarten to eighth, we use it kindergarten to fifth now.
[49:42] And most of these little subtests are one-minute fluency matter measures that are administered one-on-one by the teacher and scored as the kids go along.
[49:55] We wanted to compare, and we're going to compare this with CASP, which is a very different beast.
[50:01] But we wanted to understand why are we getting these CASP outcums, we're going to look at our local measures.
[50:06] The CASP includes not only reading skills, writing skills, research skills, listening
[50:12] and speaking a lot of different things, and it's also a much larger test.
[50:18] It's not just a one time little see how we're doing a dipstick test.
[50:22] This takes two to four hours to give.
[50:25] It's adaptive, meaning it will adjust depending on how you answer.
[50:29] If you answer one thing correctly, it will get a little harder.
[50:33] If you answer something not correctly, it'll get a little easier.
[50:35] here. The dibbles is not adaptive that way. It's also given on a computer, so there
[50:43] are barriers to taking it with that. But it can also provide assessment, accessibility
[50:50] options that we don't really have on the dibbles at this point. Okay, so when we are looking
[50:57] at, I've just pulled up here two years of dibbles results for the schools. One would think
[51:03] that havens would have the strongest readers in the elementary school districts.
[51:10] But when we look at the CASP results, we don't see that same skill set reflected in the CASP.
[51:19] We do see like at B2 was one of the last year,
[51:23] 89% of students were at grade level for dibbles, 87% on the CASP, pretty close call.
[51:30] But when we look at havens, 96% of students per dibbles were at grade level,
[51:37] but only 76% were at grade level or better on the cast.
[51:42] Now, this was a little surprising, and so the team decided to dive deeper.
[51:47] This is K5, but of course the cast is 35 only.
[51:51] So we looked at this results by 35 to try to compare a little bit more oranges to oranges.
[51:57] Now, these are not oranges, they're really sorts of different measures, but there might
[52:03] be some correlation to them, and of course we're using this internally, so how do we
[52:07] use it to make sure we're meeting the state standards?
[52:12] Again, on this, if you were looking at just 3rd to 5th graders at Havens, you would think
[52:17] that 94% of them would be at grade level or better, but on the cast, it's just not showing
[52:23] up.
[52:24] At beach, 87% of the students, according to dibbles, were at grade level, and 87% were on
[52:32] Casp.
[52:34] And at Wildwood, the Wildwood teachers thought 84% of their third through fifth graders
[52:39] were reading at grade level, and 86 were on the Casp.
[52:45] This differential persisted at Havens.
[52:49] Now the dibbles is not necessarily aligned to our state standards, but its administration
[52:55] seems inconsistent across the sides.
[52:59] And then this analysis suggests that the level of rigor and the grading, the individual
[53:03] one on one grading, may not be the same at all three sides.
[53:11] So after that, we dug into math.
[53:14] And so, at the math level, I just want to tell you a little bit up about the bridges,
[53:19] math assessment.
[53:21] We do unit assessments, just like everyone does, a math unit assessment, but the benchmark
[53:26] assessments cover multiple chapters.
[53:30] In this case, I pulled bridges benchmark two as it's middle of the year to later in the year.
[53:36] It's not a unit test, but it's multiple unit.
[53:39] that it is paper-based.
[53:41] The students are asked to show their work,
[53:43] they're drawing, they're circling, they're shading,
[53:45] doing all of this sort of thing,
[53:48] and it's graded by our teachers according to a rubric.
[53:51] Now this assessment was implemented 10 years ago,
[53:55] and many of our teachers were trained on it 10 years ago.
[54:00] When we look at these results, we'll see, again,
[54:03] Beach has a lowest score and you would end up with,
[54:06] But lead us to believe that the beach students aren't as good a math as the other schools.
[54:15] And again, we know that beach is one of the top schools in the state for math.
[54:20] This is grades one through five.
[54:23] So we will be looking at this for three for five at the same.
[54:31] Here we are three through five.
[54:33] We see in this case, the third through fifth graders at beach, almost 98% of them were
[54:39] seen to be a grade level expectation based on this benchmark.
[54:43] The cast, they showed up 93%.
[54:45] So they were a little over on this measure for the cast.
[54:50] And at Haven's, almost 93% of them were at grade level
[54:54] expectations on the bridges, but only 80% of them
[54:57] were able to deliver on the cast.
[55:01] It does bring up question.
[55:02] Is bridges a good predictor?
[55:04] Maybe, maybe not.
[55:08] And so what brings up questions for us of what we can do.
[55:15] Some ahas, I do not believe that the grading of our internal benchmarks and assessments
[55:23] is the same between our three schools.
[55:29] And I also wonder about our internal benchmarks being the best predictors.
[55:34] These are some of questions for us to understand if our students are really at grade level and
[55:39] meeting our grade level expectations.
[55:43] When I get to the takeaways here, staff believe that the systemic differences in
[55:48] cast outcomes may be related to multiple years of differences in this assessment grading
[55:54] rigor and in the training preparation.
[55:57] Bridges, like I said, Bridges will implement it 10 years ago and dibbles, so relatively
[56:02] new assessment. We added it mid-year in 2022-23. We did, and I was at this training, we did a
[56:10] webinar on a December afternoon evening that went until, I don't know, four or five, and it was
[56:17] very long to learn how to give the divils. There's some questions about our preparation, and I'm using
[56:24] these internal measures and whether we're accurately and consistently applying them. Now, our
[56:31] Our intervention that goes on at our schools, intervention measures, they lean heavily on these internal measures.
[56:40] Which kids need intervention is really dependent on how the kids are doing on our internal measures, the dibbles and our bridges.
[56:49] So the differences in rigor application at these primary level, it may result in some students getting early interventions at some schools.
[57:01] building those skills and maybe not getting any other schools.
[57:05] I suggest that we look at the assessment practices and bridges and
[57:09] endibles to norm them, to calibrate them, to share student work across our schools.
[57:15] So we can make sure we're all using consistently high levels of rigor to assess for grade level.
[57:21] Now there may be other takeaways.
[57:23] I included the ones we thought were most fruitful.
[57:25] We've had a lot of questions from our principals.
[57:28] When we did these deep dives in the cask in the fall, we've had questions from the school
[57:35] board, driving our thinking, looking at IDTs or special ed, these sort of things.
[57:43] We spent a good deal of time, two years ago, looking at IDT results on cask.
[57:49] It was not, there was no differences two years ago in 2223, but looking at it now, there are
[57:57] There are some inconsistencies between IDTs and students, but
[58:02] at Havens, the IDTs were testing better in the LA than the resident students and the same at math.
[58:10] So I don't think it's explaining what's going on at say our elementary levels.
[58:16] Voss will take a look at a couple other directions.
[58:19] This is the one we felt was most fruitful to providing better outcomes for our students.
[58:25] So I'm going to hand it back over to Mr. Dolwich, who's going to talk about what we plan
[58:31] to do, where we think we can go with some of this.
[58:35] I'll get on the slide.
[58:36] Okay.
[58:36] You want to go to the next slide?
[58:38] Yeah.
[58:38] All right.
[58:38] Thank you.
[58:40] So as Stephanie mentioned, one of our next steps is to focus on professional development,
[58:46] including CCTs that allow colleagues from all three sites to norm and recalibrate
[58:50] with internal assessments.
[58:52] Previously, we prioritized literacy implementation and based on the developments with the data we think it's prudent to be able to prioritize math.
[59:02] Will utilize rubrics, will evaluate student work, Stephanie also mentioned the dibbles training.
[59:08] We expanded dibbles implementation to grades four and five, so really most of our staff is in need of a refresher.
[59:17] So we're looking to include training to norm on dibbles, implementation, review data patterns and trends to inform instructional next steps.
[59:26] Those are some of the tangible next steps, but certainly, if you go to the next slide, there's more to it.
[59:35] We're all wondering why there's a trend declining in the wrong direction for elementary math.
[59:40] So I'm going to speak to some of the more concrete plans that we intend to take and some of them are embedded in the attached achievement plan.
[59:50] But first, in closing, I just want to lift up the big picture that we continue in Piedmont to perform as one of the highest unified districts in the state.
[1:00:00] We should take pride in, we have incredible students and incredible staff. If we look just at the college and career indicator, Stephanie mentions, we're one of the strongest districts in the state. And then finally, just looking at certain student groups, students with disabilities, our 11th grade students, certain student groups are performing at the highest levels compared to peers. If we return to the elementary steps, just some things to note. So we mentioned the norm in recalibration.
[1:00:29] what's under our control with professional development? That's one. I know, for instance,
[1:00:35] havens is bringing math data to staff meetings. And so, Mr. Reed will speak about some of the
[1:00:41] creative next steps. Also, partnering with the elementary principles, looking at exploring
[1:00:48] an agnostic math assessment. Stephanie did a good job, but there isn't an apples-to-apples
[1:00:53] correlation between dibbles and casp or bridges and casp. And so, we're looking at something
[1:00:59] that's adaptive, that's more accurately correlated with CASP, and looking ultimately
[1:01:06] to identify something that could replace a benchmark.
[1:01:10] So that would be something like a star from Renaissance or fast bridge.
[1:01:15] It's a better predictor, and it gives teachers more comprehensive results to address gaps.
[1:01:22] One thing that we worked on this summer is developing a scope and sequence for literacy
[1:01:27] implementation.
[1:01:28] We've had conversations with math specialists, but as of yet, we're really looking to bridges to be able to provide tangible foundational documents, a scope, a scope and sequence, a pacing guide so that we can support and make sure the requisite number of instructional minutes are accounted for with math, and then like anything principles, I think I would contend one of their most important roles is as instructional leaders, so how to be visible, be in the classroom,
[1:01:57] support staff with what they need and ensure through observation feedback that we're having fluid conversations with teachers about the efficacy of the curriculum.
[1:02:07] And so those are some tangible next steps that we plan to take for elementary and you can find a few more ideas in the achievement plan.
[1:02:16] But that concludes our presentation and we're happy to answer any related questions to this content.
[1:02:22] So thank
[1:02:25] you both for the presentation and also for responding to our many, many questions
[1:02:31] in advance to the presentation.
[1:02:35] We all have significant concerns about the data, particularly the elementary data.
[1:02:41] And the Havens data is not only concerning but frustrating because I think there have been
[1:02:47] people who have been calling it out for a couple years now.
[1:02:51] And I think that there's equity issues when we look at our three campuses, and I also think that we are not setting our students up to reach their full potential when we look at that data.
[1:03:01] And when we dig further into the data and look at things like the spread data pavements, it is, beyond concerning, it is incredibly, incredibly frustrating.
[1:03:11] and I will say I am thrilled that we have a new leader in place who I think on literacy is incredibly knowledgeable and we have a new literacy curriculum which is promising and it looks like it sounds like we are working on a plan for math beginning to form a plan for math.
[1:03:35] So my first question is have we looked to determine if the differences in for our elementary
[1:03:42] students, if those persist up through middle or high school?
[1:03:45] So since we have so many of our students from kindergarten through 12th grade, do we know
[1:03:50] if we look at students who have lower test scores if they're making those up and particularly
[1:03:56] if they're coming from one school versus the others, beaches consistently at higher scores
[1:04:00] but that differential just continues to widen, so do we know if those scores are improving if they're making it up in the middle and high or not?
[1:04:10] One thing we provided to each of the schools when we get into the student level data is multiple years of cash results so that we can track over multiple years.
[1:04:20] It's especially also hard when you get to the 11th grade and you don't have the year before you have to go back three years to get a cash result.
[1:04:28] So we provide multiple years and then provide a way to kind of sort, you can see where the kids are going over time.
[1:04:35] The other thing that the level of a three or four or two or one does not share is how close they are to meeting perhaps state standard.
[1:04:47] So another measure that we include with our principles and on that spreadsheet is the distance from standard, which is a different number for different grades.
[1:04:56] but how far below or above that meeting the standard mark are students.
[1:05:02] And so we use that and I think the middle school is even identified kind of a,
[1:05:07] how do we take the kids that are on the bubble that are just above or just below and make sure those kids are solid to move forward.
[1:05:14] Understood, my question, maybe I didn't, it wasn't clear.
[1:05:16] Now you did, yeah.
[1:05:17] If we have like a, if we're looking at Haven students, are they ending in the same place as students from each?
[1:05:22] If I can take a Haven student from kindergarten all the way through, are we looking and seeing if those differences are being made up later?
[1:05:30] Or if they are behind for the rest of their time in Piedmont? Have we done that analysis?
[1:05:33] Yeah, and following them vertically through the middle school?
[1:05:35] Correct.
[1:05:36] Yeah. Through the middle and high school.
[1:05:37] Since we have data on students, we have so many students who go all the way through, we're able to track them from the beginning to the end.
[1:05:44] And do we know if these differences are persisting or not?
[1:05:47] I don't think we know off the top of our head, but we can certainly, I think.
[1:05:50] I think that would be really beneficial information for us to have, just to take a sample of students and look at, you know, if they are, if those differences persist or not.
[1:06:02] A longitudinal model. Precisely. You talked about it. Yeah. I think that would be great.
[1:06:06] And then second question is, have we looked at how academic and classroom minutes are used across sites and grades, so how each site and teacher using their classroom time to account for these test score differences?
[1:06:18] Yeah, so that's currently in process.
[1:06:21] So this is the first year that all elementary principles have received schedules from all
[1:06:26] the staff.
[1:06:27] And so we're looking at them at the minutes currently and we'll be making recommendation
[1:06:31] or guidelines for each grade level.
[1:06:34] And so yeah, that's in process.
[1:06:38] I'll hold the rest of my questions.
[1:06:41] Rishi.
[1:06:42] I am going to just say two things and then hold the rest of my questions until later.
[1:06:48] I really want to commend the district on the improvement that we saw for the focus area on African-American students for 24 to 25.
[1:06:56] It's really incredible that we saw up to an 18% improvement in math and a 6% improvement in the LA.
[1:07:01] And it's just to me a testament of what we can accomplish as a small district,
[1:07:07] how we can focus our attention in our resources and like really drive towards change.
[1:07:11] It's astonishing the result, and I know that it took a lot of people, and so I really
[1:07:19] want to express my thanks and my gratitude for that.
[1:07:27] The second thing that I will say is also a comment, I'm pretty distressed by the 19% reduction
[1:07:34] in ELA at Millennium, and also while I appreciate that beach is still ranked higher in the
[1:07:47] elementary schools, the fact that there was a 6% reduction in ELA in one year, I think
[1:07:54] it's a canaryanical mine, I think that's not good, and I'm really glad to see that there
[1:08:00] is a plan in the elementary schools, particularly the drop in the difference at Havens is like my
[1:08:11] colleagues will, I'm sure, ask many questions about this, but I just wanted to also point out
[1:08:16] that the 6% reduction in one year in the LA of Beach and a 6% reduction in math at Wildwood
[1:08:22] is, that's crazy.
[1:08:30] Let me say if there's a question or a comment, I get a question.
[1:08:33] So, stepping back kind of from all this and just the context for all of this.
[1:08:39] For public and any parents who are also logging in who might not understand how all these pieces work together.
[1:08:44] So, LCAP is our overall set of district goals, right?
[1:08:48] To me, that's kind of a reporting tool.
[1:08:49] We have goals and we have some actions lined up to that.
[1:08:53] SPSSA is our site plans.
[1:08:55] Those are what each site is going to do to achieve those LCAP goals, right?
[1:08:58] Right, right, that State mandated this academic achievement plan that is pulled out of the SPSA's and
[1:09:04] we are going to manage that separately as a separate kind of management tool.
[1:09:08] Is this something that we're going to hear about again and we can keep asking for updates on?
[1:09:13] We can certainly report back.
[1:09:16] To your point, you're right, every district has an LCAP, it's a three-year plan.
[1:09:21] And typically, SIPSA's are aligned with that, carrying out actions and
[1:09:26] services, the achievement plan is our responsiveness as an internal measure.
[1:09:32] So we could, as you'll see, there are four columns and the last one in terms of follow-up.
[1:09:38] We can certainly report back with measures.
[1:09:40] That's great.
[1:09:40] And it is pulling some of the items from our SIPSA, but also being responsive.
[1:09:45] The SIPSAs were written and approved last year.
[1:09:47] They didn't have the data that we have today.
[1:09:50] And so we can also be responsive right now and not have to wait another year.
[1:09:54] That's the difference, one of the differences between a reporting tool and a management tool that I've been trying to struggle to try to find in this district.
[1:10:01] And this is a super, super important management tool, so I'm very excited that we have it put together.
[1:10:05] Thank you very much, and we'll certainly be asking for more on this, I think, going forward.
[1:10:12] I guess another question that I would ask, as the district we're committed to ensuring all of our kids,
[1:10:19] And all means all can achieve to their, to their best ability and challenge themselves and push forward.
[1:10:26] And I'm interested in the fact that we don't break out our sped students.
[1:10:31] We have a lot of diversity in our sped students, and I'm very curious to find out.
[1:10:36] Those are, I recognize they are high scores compared to the California state, and
[1:10:40] I'm very proud of that, and that is fantastic.
[1:10:42] We have a good program, but thinking about our students and
[1:10:45] the different specific learning disabilities that they have and how that shows up in scores
[1:10:51] and differences over time I think is another important thing to dig into just as we're digging
[1:10:55] into demographic data and I was curious that that was something at all possible.
[1:11:00] I spent some time this earlier this month with Jean Fagan talking about that very question.
[1:11:07] Our students are categorized, we're recording their disabilities in a couple of different buckets.
[1:11:16] One of them is other health impairment.
[1:11:19] One is specific learning disability and other might be autism.
[1:11:23] There are a couple of these that continue on.
[1:11:26] One of our two biggest buckets is specific learning disability.
[1:11:30] This includes dyslexia, includes other processing orders too, and then other health impairment.
[1:11:35] So those two groups are some of our biggest number of students with disabilities fall in those two categories.
[1:11:42] So Jean and I spent a little bit of time looking at the outcomes for those two groups.
[1:11:48] And those two groups had pretty equivalent outcomes and
[1:11:51] number of students in those groups that did not meet state standards on cash were pretty similar.
[1:11:57] We didn't see students with specific learning disabilities at a higher rate proportionally.
[1:12:04] in not meeting standards on state tests like the CASP as we did on other health impairments.
[1:12:12] Now there's, once you get into even the specific disability within, this SLD,
[1:12:18] then you're getting really detailed and just having to look that up on the IEP,
[1:12:22] but we didn't see a huge outweigh in between those categories.
[1:12:28] Yeah, understood. I guess, you know, back to the question of looking at longitudinal data as well,
[1:12:32] I think it would be very interesting from a programmatic perspective, as we think about how we support our kids who have more milder moderate learning disabilities, how are they achieving over time?
[1:12:42] And I think this would be great if it's a coding issue or something like that, I can imagine it'd be great to maybe we could dig into that a little bit more at some point.
[1:12:50] Yeah, thanks, Stephanie.
[1:12:55] Yeah, I'm more later.
[1:12:56] Okay, so after all of us requesting all this data, I'm going to ask you the opposite question, which I'm sure is not a surprise.
[1:13:03] Given the sort of small sample size of our schools, we just, you know, don't have a ton of students, compared to other districts, is your sense, I guess this is more for Mr. Dolowicz, is your sense that our test scores are representative of the knowledge of our students, and that there is a discrepancy site to site in the way that the test scores, that the data shows, or that the discrepancy in actual knowledge is over-represented
[1:13:38] I'm just asking for your opinion, frankly, since there's an over-representation.
[1:13:44] If the deltas between the different school sites, particularly in elementary,
[1:13:51] are accurately represented by the test score discrepancies that we see, or if your
[1:13:56] feeling is that it's over-represented and actually they're closer in ability than the test
[1:14:01] scores would indicate.
[1:14:05] That's an interesting question, maybe I'll try to tackle it from a, you know, a different perspective.
[1:14:14] Do I think that it's accurate and reflective of how our students performing during, in that week at that time?
[1:14:24] Yes, do I think, I think it's revealing in the sense that specific sites,
[1:14:30] There are certainly areas for improvement, and I would identify climate and culture and
[1:14:36] MCSS processes as one of those.
[1:14:40] I think it, I wouldn't characterize it as over-represented based on the unevenness
[1:14:49] between the three schools, I would think that that is probably an app depiction.
[1:14:54] Okay. Let me ask you a, let me use my second question to ask you a hypothetical similar question.
[1:15:00] If we tested every school, let's just keep it to elementary for now. If we tested the three elementary schools every two weeks on the same, uh, with the same exact tests, I know that that's not possible. I'm not advocating that we do that. I'm just saying in this hypothetical. If we did stick these tests into every school every two weeks, do you think that the deltas between the schools would remain roughly similar or not? Like how bouncy do you think this day is?
[1:15:26] Yeah, that's a, I think there would be some fluctuation, but I think you, on the aggregate, you did see the same results.
[1:15:34] Okay, so you think it's directly accurate?
[1:15:36] Yeah.
[1:15:37] Okay, thank you.
[1:15:40] All right, well thank you, I mean, the first thing I want to do is applaud that the achievement plan number one was a success.
[1:15:48] You had goals and you met them.
[1:15:50] I'm looking at this achievement plan, and I guess a little background just on why elementary is concerning because it's,
[1:15:57] It sets the stage for what's to come as far as, you know, a good elementary preparation carries into middle and high.
[1:16:04] So elementary is a particular attention and it's not just math, you mentioned the math score is falling.
[1:16:11] But there's also in ELA some drops and more concerning a wider discrepancy between sites.
[1:16:17] So I guess my one thing, it's good to see this data, I'm also I think I need to review the leadership retreat data more.
[1:16:26] I think some of it was shared with us and I need to look at that but I think the thing
[1:16:31] I would urge is to really dig deeper into the data we have to tell the story from the
[1:16:36] data.
[1:16:37] So that's going to be kind of my, you know, request of how this goes forward, a little
[1:16:43] bit more diagnosing on some of that and then just one thing I wanted to question on what
[1:16:48] I heard about dibbles and I think I heard, you know, dibbles is measuring reading at grade
[1:16:55] But that's not really what it measures, so then the question is, is it in the administration of the test which I think is what I heard in the presentation versus just differences in what's being tested and what the purposes of the test are, and I'm glad you're going to be looking at another agnostic test.
[1:17:13] Yeah, so thoughts on that or?
[1:17:15] Yeah, thoughts are, you know, in the administration, but also in the evaluation, right, that's where we're bringing the student work, and we're able to calibrate with Beach, Wildwood, and Haven's teachers all at the same table.
[1:17:26] I think that's usually important.
[1:17:28] The other thing, just the first point that you raised, I'm not eternally optimistic, but in this case, I'm very optimistic that we can turn around elementary scores.
[1:17:37] Why? Because the trend across the state and across the country is just what you described.
[1:17:41] Typically, middle school and high school decline and elementary are the highest, right?
[1:17:47] And they tend to increase, and we're experiencing the opposite phenomenon here.
[1:17:54] We have Piedmont Middle and Piedmont High growing, which is atypical.
[1:17:59] And we have elementary with the last three years trending in the wrong direction.
[1:18:03] So I think they're very purposeful,
[1:18:07] actions that can be taken, including demystifying the test and climate and culture initiatives that prepare students to have a peak performance and understand what they're walking into and put their best, so they're very tangible things that we steps that we can take.
[1:18:29] And I think Mr. Reed will speak to some of those from experience and so I'm excited to turn this around this spring.
[1:18:36] Well, great.
[1:18:37] And then do I have one more because I just also mentioned that in terms of the agnostic
[1:18:43] assessment, I think it's good to have that the precision of a different instrument,
[1:18:48] but I would caution us not to over-test, not to do over-assessment.
[1:18:52] I'm sure, you know, you're aware of that, but-
[1:18:55] Yeah, 100 percent agree, and I think the vision would be that ultimately we replace
[1:19:01] bridges with the assessment, so it's in lieu of rather than it being an add-on.
[1:19:27] I have questions around the ELA and why we're using the dibbles to predict scoring on
[1:19:37] the cast.
[1:19:38] Forgive me if I'm wrong, but when I've seen the dibbles in action, it's very short.
[1:19:43] It doesn't necessarily focus on comprehension.
[1:19:45] It's more about how many words can you read correctly in a minute?
[1:19:49] And I would encourage the district to look at maybe other forms of assessment to see predictions of how they're going to score in the cast because I don't know that there's, I think we're seeing that there isn't necessarily a high correlation.
[1:20:06] Thank you. Could you grab a card and complete it? Thank you.
[1:20:09] Thank you. Anyone else in the room who would like to speak on this item?
[1:20:16] Any hands raised
[1:20:17] online? Thank you.
[1:20:22] Welcome, Laura. You're out.
[1:20:30] Laura, you're there.
[1:20:34] Sorry, my microphone
[1:20:35] was off. Can you hear me now? Yep. Okay. Hi. Thanks for this presentation. It's really interesting
[1:20:41] and encouraging in some ways and discouraging in others. Like the last speaker, I just wanted
[1:20:46] is talk about or speak to the doubles and that concerning discrepancy between the havens
[1:20:53] ELA scores and the double score like 15 point differential is really concerning and I say
[1:21:00] that as a parent who as a parent of a former haven student who has dyslexia and wasn't diagnosed
[1:21:05] with dyslexia until fourth grade and that was only when we saw an external private assessment
[1:21:11] because we've been told up until then that he was reading a grade level and the private
[1:21:17] neuropsych confirmed that he did have dyslexia and then we began a series of extensive interventions
[1:21:21] which have helped him tremendously both at Havens and outside of Havens. So I guess I'm just worried
[1:21:27] about these kids who the Dibbles test his missing at Havens and especially you know with dyslexia,
[1:21:36] the sooner the better for intervention. So I just want to make sure that like
[1:21:41] I know you guys are taking it seriously, but not to wait and to think about are there other assessment tools, or what can we be doing to catch those kids who are being misrepresented in terms of how they're squaring on the dibbles versus what they're actually showing on the LA and make sure that we're not they're not falling in the cracks and so that we can help them as soon as possible.
[1:22:01] Thanks. Thank you, Laura. I was enthusiastically nodding along with your comment, and I will share more later.
[1:22:11] Ms. Lina. Okay. Jen Kessler.
[1:22:16] You're up.
[1:22:23] Jen, are you there?
[1:22:31] Okay.
[1:22:32] Oh, it looks like she's here. Jen, did you lower your hand because you don't want to speak?
[1:22:38] speak.
[1:22:44] Okay, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Oh, okay, triple. Hi, folks.
[1:22:51] This is Jen Kassler. I teach for three that wildwood. So I have three things to say. I
[1:22:58] only have two in a bit minutes. The first thing is going from the improvement plan. I 100%
[1:23:11] agree in calibrating the way we look at assessments. That has been a long
[1:23:17] standing practice in, I will at least at Wildwood, I can speak to Wildwood. And it is
[1:23:23] something that we did district-wide about eight years ago pre-COVID we would
[1:23:28] gather and calibrate the data on our student work and I think it's a really
[1:23:33] valuable practice. As is lesson study, which is what I think you're referring to when
[1:23:38] you're talking about observation and feedback. And that is like peer observation and feedback and
[1:23:47] it's really, really valuable. I also agree with having some kind of an agnostic math assessment
[1:23:53] to kind of back up because I think it will be way, way, way more significant than comparing bridges
[1:24:04] So I just have a couple of things to point out.
[1:24:09] One of them is at least in 4-5.
[1:24:12] The dibbles is not, it is administered on the computer.
[1:24:17] So it's what the first speaker,
[1:24:23] a fluency measure.
[1:24:25] And then there's a sort of a comprehension measure.
[1:24:28] but it is all objective. There's no subjectivity. I think it's a little more nuanced in the
[1:24:36] earlier grades, but for 4-5, which is what you're comparing because we're comparing cascores,
[1:24:42] it is not subjective. It is objective data, numbers, like a number.
[1:24:48] You have 30 seconds left. Okay, so the second thing is I think two things we have to bear in mind
[1:24:56] And our ranking in the state has remained the same in math.
[1:25:02] So yes, all of these numbers are worth looking at, but bear in mind we're still the same
[1:25:07] rank compared across California.
[1:25:10] Second thing is percentages can be deceiving, for example, that 10% drop in a wildwood math
[1:25:20] scores.
[1:25:24] Just let me finish my sentence, I'm so sorry.
[1:25:26] We're talking about 11 kids, and I fully support all means all.
[1:25:31] We need to look at everybody, but also looking at percentages alone in such a small sample
[1:25:38] size.
[1:25:39] We need to be aware of how many kids that is.
[1:25:42] Okay, sorry.
[1:25:43] Too long.
[1:25:44] Thanks, Jen.
[1:25:45] Huh?
[1:25:47] Oh yeah, if you have additional comments, please feel free to email us.
[1:25:52] Thanks, Jen.
[1:25:54] I see a couple more hands raised.
[1:25:56] so I will let you promote them. Next up, we have Sarah, can you may I be with you already?
[1:26:02] Hi Sarah.
[1:26:05] Oh hi everyone. Thank you for sharing all this information. I'm a parent with two kids
[1:26:11] at Wildwood and one child at Havens and anecdotally I just wanted to touch on the question that came up
[1:26:17] about the culture of intervention between the schools and if that plays a role here, I'm not sure
[1:26:23] more, exactly how you all look at that objectively, but from an experience perspective, our two kids
[1:26:32] at Wildwood perform at least at Benchmark, one by the above Benchmark, and the interventionists
[1:26:38] are consistently jumping in before we even know how the kids are doing and either pushing
[1:26:44] them above grade level or making sure that they stay at Benchmark or above whereas our experience
[1:26:51] that Havins has been, that child has a clear diagnosis
[1:26:54] from neuropsych and a lot of reasons to need extra support.
[1:26:58] And we found that it's like a huge intimidating process
[1:27:02] to even ask for someone to look at providing that.
[1:27:07] So we found it to just from a parent perspective,
[1:27:10] be a very different threshold for intervention.
[1:27:18] That's all.
[1:27:19] Thank you, Sarah.
[1:27:20] really appreciate you sharing your experience.
[1:27:27] Yeah, SD.
[1:27:29] Yeah, SD, you're up.
[1:27:35] SD, are you there?
[1:27:36] I'm going to use that.
[1:27:37] Oh, yes.
[1:27:37] Hi.
[1:27:38] Yes, sorry.
[1:27:38] Something weird happened.
[1:27:40] Yes.
[1:27:40] Okay, so thank you.
[1:27:42] I really enjoyed this presentation.
[1:27:44] I feel like a few years ago, I was really
[1:27:50] wanting to see this kind of interest in using data
[1:27:53] to understand what is happening, and so I just was like so thrilled to see this kind
[1:28:00] of interest in really diving to the data and trying to use different data points to explain
[1:28:06] why there might be differences. So I just really applaud that and I'm excited to hear more
[1:28:11] analyses like this. You know, Sarah's calm just now. I was going to say to make it similar. I think
[1:28:16] there are differences when we talk about calibration for these assessments. There are differences
[1:28:20] maybe across the schools because at beach I similarly find that the reading interventionist
[1:28:26] is very proactive with even just small weaknesses on dibbles and so how you sort of like how you
[1:28:34] norm the performance across students makes a big difference and and I think that in our schools
[1:28:41] we should have like pretty aggressive you know intervention even when the scores are like
[1:28:48] just a little weak I think that makes a big difference and that was that I think it's really great
[1:28:55] that we're focusing on groups that are having bigger gaps because I can just imagine,
[1:29:01] you know, if I were in a family that had faced a lot of historical disadvantage and I couldn't
[1:29:07] maybe access tutors and maybe like there wasn't like a lot of higher education my family,
[1:29:12] it's just, you know, it's hard to succeed sometimes in, you know, in school environments and so when
[1:29:20] And we really put resources for helping those students.
[1:29:24] That means that we are really providing excellent education.
[1:29:28] And, you know, and the education is not being kind of supported by affluent families
[1:29:35] that are paying for extra services outside of school and so on.
[1:29:39] So I think like this focus on 30 seconds left to having lower scores is like a huge part
[1:29:46] of having a grade school system.
[1:29:47] So I really thank you for doing that.
[1:29:49] Thank you. Thank you, SD. Any other hands?
[1:29:56] Okay, then I'm going to go ahead and close public comments.
[1:30:00] On this item.
[1:30:03] Let's start with you, Michael. Do you have any other questions or comments? Well, yeah, let me see. Let me, I guess, I might want to dig a little deeper in what I was saying about the detail of the data that we find.
[1:30:20] So one example I can think of, I did some digging just looking at the state cast info and tracking cohorts, because I know one of the,
[1:30:30] But one of the explanations is the students aren't ready to take these tests, they're not prepared.
[1:30:34] But there were definitely some cohorts I found where they tested really well two years in a row,
[1:30:40] third and fourth grade, and then when they hit fifth grade, their scores dropped almost 20%.
[1:30:44] I think it was in one case.
[1:30:46] So these sorts of things, I think we have the data and by looking at it, we can pinpoint better
[1:30:52] what in addition to what we're thinking of doing, it needs to be done.
[1:30:56] And there was another one, let me just see in my notes,
[1:31:03] something related to special ad
[1:31:08] performance, and oh, I know what it was.
[1:31:11] So we've talked about intervention, and I would be really curious to see when we look
[1:31:16] at the scores that have dropped, are there any of them who went from fell from above meeting
[1:31:21] to below meeting, who actually hadn't been identified for intervention?
[1:31:24] And that's something I think, you know, we could, we could find in these kinds of analyses
[1:31:29] is what I'm, you know, recommending and urging.
[1:31:35] No further questions or comments?
[1:31:37] Okay.
[1:31:44] I appreciate that on English, we're starting to think about a kind of a basket of assessments,
[1:31:50] as one of the speakers pointed out as well.
[1:31:53] Each one of those tests does test different things.
[1:31:55] I'd like to better understand what the relationship with them should be,
[1:31:59] what we should be expecting for each of those.
[1:32:01] And I'm hoping that we could find something similar like this for math.
[1:32:05] There's nothing that I know that we have that's like a dibbles for math.
[1:32:08] That can identify kids with dyscalculio who have trouble with basic math fundamentals.
[1:32:13] If there's something out there on the market that's tested and true, it'd be great to get that into the district and tested.
[1:32:19] So kids, we find those kids or identify those kids earlier.
[1:32:25] We listed a lot of hypotheses here on slide 13.
[1:32:28] some of the key takeaways of what could be impacting the scores, I think they're all valid hypotheses and I'm curious how in this plan we're actually going to kind of test them in the sense of let's go fix those things, let's go norm better on our assessment practices and preparation but also how are we going to test that that actually has been accomplished and we are normed before we go much further on this, right?
[1:32:53] So, that kind of continuous learning loop, a little shorter loop on that would be really useful, I think.
[1:33:03] Also, we talked about actually as a board goal, if you guys remember at our workshop, about having a report on assessments.
[1:33:12] And I'm wondering if I'd like to dig into this more.
[1:33:16] I would really like to better understand, you know, starting from the questions we should be asking,
[1:33:20] of what does academic achievement look like in our students and across our different student populations like our kids with
[1:33:26] the last specific learning disabilities, from that understand what data we should be looking at, data that we have from
[1:33:33] assessments we use today, maybe assessments that we might want to consider, kind of taking that kind of comprehensive approach.
[1:33:39] I don't know if that would be a useful thing to consider, maybe as a special board workshop or something.
[1:33:45] I just think it would be who of us as a board to dig into this and understand this more
[1:33:50] and understand the action plan around this, because like I said earlier, this is a very
[1:33:54] key management tool. I think for us as a board to pay attention to. So I'd just suggest
[1:34:00] that if that's at all possibility, throw that in there.
[1:34:04] Thanks, easy.
[1:34:06] Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I also appreciate Susie one of the things he said
[1:34:10] about which hypotheses to test out and how to know which ones we're going to go after
[1:34:15] because for a while, one of the hypotheses that we had, I think it was two years ago,
[1:34:20] although it could be wrong, was around attendance and whether it was last year, well,
[1:34:26] definitely feels like it was a long time ago. Last year's hypothesis was around attendance.
[1:34:31] I think we made a sustained effort to try and improve attendance and still have these results.
[1:34:38] So I'm excited to see what the plan going forward is going to look like.
[1:34:46] Just a few things, I want to echo Susie.
[1:34:49] I think it would be really meaningful to understand which particular students within those categories who's having trouble on these tests.
[1:35:02] So I know what we require some manual disaggregation because of the way that those, you know, students
[1:35:10] are diagnosed, they're, you know, groups of students that have very different learning
[1:35:13] differences that are all dumped into a single bucket.
[1:35:16] But I remember a couple years ago we had the same conversation about disaggregating other
[1:35:21] demographic data, particularly, you know, black, Asian, Latino, et cetera, students and
[1:35:28] And like the manual nature of that, and we were able to get there after a few rounds.
[1:35:32] And I think that similarly doing something with this data would be beneficial to understand if,
[1:35:40] for example, our dyslexic students are having trouble with the reading portion of our students with the calculator struggling with the math, or if it's something completely different.
[1:35:49] But looking at those test scores, particularly when we disaggregate, which the public doesn't have some information.
[1:35:58] that the board does, by school, there are some extreme differences.
[1:36:02] So I think understanding and
[1:36:04] desegregating that data would be beneficial.
[1:36:07] I'm also curious.
[1:36:09] Laura's comment got me thinking about whether grades at tri-schools are different.
[1:36:14] And I know that would be harder to look into, but are the grades actually reflective of where students at?
[1:36:19] And I ask that less because I care about elementary students grades.
[1:36:23] I know they don't matter for a whole lot.
[1:36:25] Beyond signaling mechanism to families.
[1:36:28] where students might be struggling, and there's been a movement in elementary school,
[1:36:33] you know, towards fewer comments, so those numbers really carry a lot of weight.
[1:36:36] And I know that with my student who absolutely positively could not read in kindergarten.
[1:36:41] And when he had a bunch of threes, I had to raise some real questions.
[1:36:46] And so I think that as a signaling mechanism, report cards are super important.
[1:36:50] So I would be curious if we look at grades, if those correspond with these other metrics that we are considering.
[1:36:59] because it is one of the few ways that parents have to know if their student is struggling.
[1:37:05] And then I would just like to ask, I think that Rushi's point about, you know, beach scores declining, I think digging in and understanding why that's the case.
[1:37:14] If it's, you know, a handful of students who have declined significantly, if it's in across the board decline, like digging down.
[1:37:20] But then, you know, beyond that, I think given that beach has consistently had high scores,
[1:37:26] is really looking at their practices and modeling them.
[1:37:29] I think we're in a position where we have this one school
[1:37:34] who has been a shining example for years consistently
[1:37:37] and we don't have to look outside the district
[1:37:41] to figure out what it takes to dramatically increase our scores.
[1:37:47] And that's a really, really fortunate position to be in.
[1:37:50] And so I would encourage us to look at what's happening at beach
[1:37:54] and Mala at Tric School.
[1:38:00] And with that,
[1:38:02] Susie, I'm just kind of asking,
[1:38:04] what will be the follow-up from this?
[1:38:07] It's really a lot of questions.
[1:38:09] We have a lot of questions.
[1:38:10] A lot of follow-up.
[1:38:10] What do you think, or Dr. Haunard,
[1:38:12] or Lindsay, what do you think is appropriate or?
[1:38:15] Should, do you think of workshop,
[1:38:17] what I guess this is a good question for the board?
[1:38:19] Should we, I will not be president next year.
[1:38:23] I don't want to put you on the spot either.
[1:38:25] I recognize it's a timing thing, but I think there's a lot more here.
[1:38:28] Should we maybe we circle back on this?
[1:38:32] Yeah, I think if the very least it feels like we want to get more information from you
[1:38:36] probably want to discuss it before the year is up.
[1:38:41] Yeah, for sure.
[1:38:42] So should we maybe in the spring have an update, receive an update on this?
[1:38:48] Yeah, I was going to say it also sounds like there's plans in motion from the educators at
[1:38:52] the various sites as well.
[1:38:54] So I'd love to hear an update on how that's going, and then maybe we can, that's just a suggestion.
[1:39:00] But then maybe we can formulate a follow-up plan based on that.
[1:39:03] I think we all agree that we need some sort of follow-up.
[1:39:05] I think what, both on the plans and then, you know, I think it's going to be hard to get real data.
[1:39:11] I think Susie's correct that we had discussed possibly a board workshop on academic rigor.
[1:39:19] We talked about assessments.
[1:39:20] I think a lot of these are very similar conversations, and so a spring probably a workshop, but we can discuss that offline and perhaps you could send us any follow-up questions that you have based on tonight's presentation, and then we can synthesize that and circle back with recommendations for how to follow up if that's okay.
[1:39:40] That sounds great.
[1:39:41] All right.
[1:39:41] Thank you.
[1:39:42] That sounds great.
[1:39:44] Okay.
[1:39:45] Moving on.
[1:39:47] Oh, Michael.
[1:39:48] I'm sorry.
[1:39:49] This is one more brief thing I wanted to compare to the last year's achievement plan where
[1:39:53] we saw a reversal or a short-term change that we wanted to get ahead of.
[1:39:58] I think this time we're looking at a trend, so I really urge us to do more longitudinal
[1:40:02] time series, look back over several years, and see what those trends are, and understand
[1:40:08] those.
[1:40:08] So, and I'm sure we'll be discussing that further.
[1:40:12] Thank you.
[1:40:13] Thank you, Michael.
[1:40:16] So, moving on to the second presentation this evening.
[1:40:19] It is my pleasure to welcome Suzanne Reed for the Haven State of the School presentation.
[1:40:26] Right.
[1:40:26] We'll bring up Principal Reed.
[1:40:28] I'll bring up your presentation again.
[1:40:30] This is in our series of State of School presentations where each school,
[1:40:34] school, school's principal presents on academic achievement, on social and
[1:40:40] national learning, building culture, operational items, and with that I'll turn it over to Susanne Reed.
[1:40:57] All right, good evening.
[1:40:59] Lots of really amazing information shared.
[1:41:01] I hope to share some more amazing and insightful information about the state of Haven.
[1:41:06] School with you guys this evening, thank you for inviting me to do this.
[1:41:11] I've learned so much during this process, and I'm excited to continue this learning in pursuit of excellent academic and social emotional outcomes for Haven students.
[1:41:23] We will be going through kind of the following areas to focus on looking at student achievement, looking at student wellness, looking at culture and climate, and then really focusing on upcoming initiatives in support of student outcomes.
[1:41:42] So, I want to begin by saying how thrilled I am to be the principal of Havens Elementary School.
[1:41:51] It's been so much fun, because elementary school should be fun, to work with committed educators, committed community members,
[1:42:01] getting to know families, getting to know parents, getting to know the students in really deep ways.
[1:42:05] And really doing the hard play work that students do because learning is their work.
[1:42:17] Go ahead, you can move on to the next one.
[1:42:21] Everything that we do, I feel like is grounded in our graduate profile.
[1:42:27] Our kids are like planted like little seeds when they're in TK and kindergarten, and they grow up,
[1:42:32] they get to spend about six or seven years with us.
[1:42:34] This is the longest stretch of school they have until they are working on their PhDs
[1:42:39] in many, many years from now and so we get to spend a lot of time with them.
[1:42:43] And it's also a time for families to spend a lot of time in one space at Haven's Elementary School.
[1:42:48] And if you have more than one kid, it could be 10 years.
[1:42:51] It could be 12 years.
[1:42:52] So the relationships that we build now are essential.
[1:42:56] The time they spend learning now is essential for their growth into the graduates of Piedmont High School and Piedmont Unified School District.
[1:43:03] it. I also want to share that we are rooted in culture and climate. I firmly believe
[1:43:10] that everything starts with culture and climate. I love this quote, climate is how you
[1:43:16] feel. Culture is what you do.
[1:43:21] This year we have started by norming on our shared values.
[1:43:26] That includes making sure that we understand all the expectations around campus at Havens.
[1:43:32] We have three core values, we are caring, we are courageous, and we have integrity.
[1:43:37] Some of the norming that we've done is, how do we lunch together?
[1:43:41] What do we do together at lunch?
[1:43:42] What are the expectations for that time?
[1:43:45] What are our bathroom expectations?
[1:43:47] What are our expectations that we assess?
[1:43:49] And these are things that we are building and growing across the year.
[1:43:52] These become lessons in the classrooms that teachers teach explicitly, and that we re-teach so that every adult is speaking to students with the same voice, with the same language.
[1:44:02] Then we move on to celebrating our successes.
[1:44:05] Something we've implemented this year are Haven's Values Awards.
[1:44:08] They're these really great certificates.
[1:44:10] Put into the hands of every adult on campus to catch kids doing amazing things,
[1:44:15] either as an entire classroom or an individual can earn one for their classroom.
[1:44:20] And once they earn 10, they get a free recess with me.
[1:44:23] And so kids are collecting them, teachers are posting them on the walls and
[1:44:27] you're seeing them in the hallways as you walk by.
[1:44:29] right, listing our values and listing the specific reason why students earned that certificate
[1:44:35] as a class.
[1:44:37] We want to encourage leadership.
[1:44:39] We have our green team at school, which is some very industrious sports and fifth graders
[1:44:45] making sure our younger kids understand the importance of being green and composting and
[1:44:50] knowing the difference between compost and landfill.
[1:44:53] And they're supporting our younger students out at recess.
[1:44:56] us. We have a group of fifth grade girls.
[1:45:00] Members who wanted to be cheerleaders at our campus. And so they took it upon themselves to create a little cheerleading squad and they were able to come and participate and perform at our Halloween assembly. And they were very excited about this. We have grade level assemblies where grade levels take on the same with the assembly. And you can see pictured here are fourth graders using the mosaic social emotional social justice curriculum to lead the assembly about making
[1:45:29] making good choices and being good friends.
[1:45:32] And lastly, we want to spend a lot of time being in community with each other.
[1:45:36] We have our Hello Havens event.
[1:45:39] We have this year through the Havens Parents Club.
[1:45:44] A parent has volunteered to create an activity table for
[1:45:48] every week of the school year.
[1:45:51] So Tuesdays at lunch at Haven, students have a different activity that they can participate in.
[1:45:55] You can see here on the video that students were voting for fat bear week that was earlier in the year which bear would last, I think it's which bear would last the longest or not hibernate, it's a it's a big thing somewhere but the kids got really excited and then they made little bears.
[1:46:15] We also do something called principal read aloud, and I get to explain to students what a pun is, and I get to go into classrooms and read to students, which I really enjoy based on things across the year.
[1:46:32] In terms of achievement,
[1:46:38] we have a continuum of support for literacy, starting with our core program, fish tank.
[1:46:45] That is really one of our biggest focuses this year is the implementation of the fish tank curriculum.
[1:46:52] This is a knowledge-based curriculum.
[1:46:53] This is very different than what P1 Unified was previously using.
[1:47:00] And when things are new, they take time.
[1:47:03] And so our teachers have been taking time to implement the different units with fish tank.
[1:47:08] They grow vertically in terms of depth of knowledge and understanding about both nonfiction and
[1:47:13] topics, and students are doing a lot of reading at grade level, and if they're not able to
[1:47:21] access teachers are offering to read aloud, audiobooks, all different ways to make sure
[1:47:26] that students are getting that grade level content, which is really important.
[1:47:31] And then writing about their reading.
[1:47:34] Writing is the highest form of showing that you understand something, that you can manipulate
[1:47:39] that you can understand text and you can think deeply about it.
[1:47:44] And so the writing that students are doing about their reading about a specific text is crucial to their comprehension.
[1:47:50] Comprehension is an outcome of what you know and the fish tank is leading our students down that path.
[1:47:57] Part of our continuum of support for students is by using our dibbles measure for foundational literacy skills.
[1:48:04] If a student isn't making progress, we want to make sure that we get supports in place right away.
[1:48:10] And so with our two Reading Resource Interventionists, we're looking at data and
[1:48:14] then trying to decide how to best serve those kids.
[1:48:18] Looking at the Dibble's measures, not just the overall composite is Dibble's measure, but
[1:48:22] the different subtests to make sure that if a student has a weakness and
[1:48:27] phonological awareness, we're grouping those students together to work on that specific skill.
[1:48:32] One thing that is new that my reading resource teachers both came to me today to talk about was really trying to mind that gap of our older students.
[1:48:44] There was a lot of talk earlier about dibbles and casts but how their oranges to apples and I would agree their apples to oranges.
[1:48:52] But we want to figure out for those students who have those foundational skills what those barriers are to reading, right?
[1:49:02] What are those barriers to CASP?
[1:49:04] And so the reading resource teachers are looking at, thank you Stephanie.
[1:49:08] Thank you Stephanie for the data, the data of students who were working on who did not meet expectations on CASP for fourth and fifth grade because that's the data that we have.
[1:49:20] and trying to figure out what supports can be put in place so they can show what they know on those tests, because they have the foundational skills.
[1:49:28] Our double scores are saying that they do, but when it gets to this particular summative test, they're not showing us what they know, or there is,
[1:49:38] there's something unknown right there, and so we're trying to figure out what those things are.
[1:49:41] So I'm excited for this little pilot that the reading resource teachers are excited to do as well.
[1:49:46] In terms of math, we have new this year concept quest as to provide extension for math and then we have our bridges math program.
[1:49:56] And that's really two programs, you have the bridges, Common Core based program and then you also have the number corner which is to build fluency practice.
[1:50:06] My understanding was that they didn't feel like there was enough fluency practice in bridges and so they brought in the number corner.
[1:50:12] So, we're really navigating three programs in math and pictured here we have Miss Morton
[1:50:18] working with a small group, making sure they're getting what they need using the manipulatives.
[1:50:24] Now, the last piece of what I consider outstanding academics, because I've spent many,
[1:50:29] many years listening to young musicians. And it's always beautiful, but I want you to listen
[1:50:38] and Ms. Chonero-Velley's, and we're able to hear it.
[1:50:42] Ms. Chonero-Velley's fifth grade strings,
[1:50:46] because they're absolutely phenomenal,
[1:50:48] and it just goes to show how powerful a strong teacher can be
[1:50:54] when working with a student.
[1:50:56] Is that link working?
[1:51:56] One minute.
[1:51:56] I guess that's easy.
[1:52:01] And there are only a few months in.
[1:52:09] All right.
[1:52:14] And we're on slide six.
[1:52:17] Okay.
[1:52:29] All right.
[1:52:31] Okay.
[1:52:31] And so we've had lots of conversation about the declining academic performance at Havens.
[1:52:38] And yes, over the last three years there has been a decline in our overall ELA performance
[1:52:45] and our overall mass performance by 10% in ELA and then by 8% in mass.
[1:52:53] This is definitely an area of concern, I don't think it's reflective of what students know.
[1:53:00] I think there might be some other underlying causes and
[1:53:05] things that are keeping our students from showing what they know.
[1:53:10] And I do have some ideas of different things that we can do to interrupt this trend.
[1:53:19] When I saw this data, it may be really get interested about kind of the cohort, because
[1:53:25] this isn't showing us the same kids.
[1:53:28] So I wanted to look at, okay, so there is this general decline, but what if we took a
[1:53:34] look at the same kids?
[1:53:35] And the only same kids that we really have are current fifth graders last year or current
[1:53:40] fifth graders, last year's fourth graders who had two years of data.
[1:53:43] And so I looked at their third grade year for math and
[1:53:49] their fourth grade year for math, and that was overall 81%.
[1:53:52] So there was no change over time in performance.
[1:53:56] I expect that students who are making general progress
[1:54:03] should be making 3% gains per year.
[1:54:06] And if you're below kind of like 80%, you should be making,
[1:54:09] we should be working toward accelerated progress,
[1:54:11] which is about 5% per year.
[1:54:13] Those are rough estimates, give or take a percentage point here or there.
[1:54:17] So, no change over time in mass for this cohort, but we did see gain over here for ELA.
[1:54:25] But with our score starting at 69 and moving to 72, we would need to put in plans that would show accelerated growth here to get at least 5% a year.
[1:54:34] And here we would like to see growth every single year.
[1:54:37] They're right on the cuss, but I think that I would expect growth every single year if we're really focusing on the things that we need to focus on.
[1:54:48] So yes, accelerated data, accelerated growth is needed.
[1:54:53] The next slide talks about our local data, and so we have our literacy, our beginning of the year, divils, measure, and we have shown growth over the years.
[1:55:05] 8% growth over the years, I think this number here is wrong on this one.
[1:55:10] Yes, I think that number here on the 2023 is incorrect.
[1:55:14] But our baseline data for this year is 84.65%.
[1:55:19] For our math data, I wanted to pull data from both the bridges curriculum and
[1:55:27] the number corner curriculum which is represented by the benchmark assessment data.
[1:55:31] more of the things that are in that assessment are a part of the number corner program.
[1:55:36] And yes, we are seeing a decline over the years.
[1:55:40] This is not cohort data as well either, but the decline is so significant that I don't
[1:55:47] think we need to look at cohort data to know that we have an issue and that we need to focus
[1:55:51] on what's happening with math.
[1:55:53] I want to speak to some of the data that I was able to collect from our data systems here.
[1:56:00] And I've put asterisks here for a benchmark assessment data for 2024 and our bridges unit to assessment data
[1:56:09] because they want complete data sets in illuminate.
[1:56:13] For whatever reason, not all of the data for that grade level had been collected in those two years.
[1:56:20] I think that speaks to kind of the level of accountability and
[1:56:26] And the level of just making sure that we're getting everything done that had been going
[1:56:32] on in math.
[1:56:33] And so I think that's a big place to start just to make sure, hey, we're all on the
[1:56:38] same page, we're all doing the things that we need to be doing, and we're all moving
[1:56:41] together to make sure that kids are getting what things.
[1:56:48] So in looking at all of our academic performance areas, these are some of my really big takeaways
[1:56:54] and next steps for Havens in terms of literacy continued dedicated PD time for fish tank collaboration and implementation and that's already planned through our district CCT times.
[1:57:07] Thank you Ariel for that. I appreciate that. And in that time really looking at student work, really looking at the writing of students, really making sure that students are writing and pushing themselves further and figuring out how to extend it because when we do get to that cast.
[1:57:24] And to the big state test, they are on their own.
[1:57:29] So we want to make sure they have every tool in possible so that when they're sitting
[1:57:33] in that computer, that they know what to do and there's no secrets with that test, and
[1:57:37] they're really able to engage and show what they know.
[1:57:41] The next thing we're implementing is a dedicated monthly mass data inquiry and planning using
[1:57:46] the British unit assessments.
[1:57:47] From the conversations I've had with teachers and just kind of digging into the math world of bridges, it's not a program I'm super familiar with, but I'm learning is that the benchmark assessment is less.
[1:58:04] I wouldn't say less used but less kind of paid attention to then the unit assessments right the unit assessments.
[1:58:10] They give a pre-test, they teach it, and then there's a post-test, and then the kind of the benchmarks is to kind of see what they retain, you know?
[1:58:19] And so using the unit assessments as kind of, you know, formative test for teachers to look at data, make up plan around data.
[1:58:31] I think is the natural next step to focusing on improving math scores.
[1:58:36] I believe that what we pay attention to improves, and I think we just need to pay more attention
[1:58:43] to these areas in really specific ways.
[1:58:46] I spoke already about our reading resource teachers and kind of taking on looking at
[1:58:50] that cast data to kind of mind the gap of, you know, being able to read, but then being
[1:58:55] able to show their understanding of reading through writing and through that assessment.
[1:59:04] And I love being in classrooms.
[1:59:06] I'm going to continue my instructional walkthroughs and providing feedback to teachers.
[1:59:10] I try to get into classrooms every single day and leave notes about what I see and
[1:59:15] what I think and all the great things that are happening as well, too.
[1:59:20] All right, so student wellness.
[1:59:24] So we have two types of student wellness data that we're going to look at.
[1:59:27] This first one is the California Healthy Kids Survey and it's given in spring to our fifth grade students.
[1:59:33] Our chick's data is overall really strong.
[1:59:37] One area that I thought was interesting that I got curious about is, you know, carrying adult set school.
[1:59:45] That's kind of our lowest measure here at 79%.
[1:59:48] And some of the questions they ask on this one is, do the teachers and other grown-up set school care about you?
[1:59:56] Listen to when you have something to say, make an effort to get.
[2:00:01] So that makes me feel like maybe we have a little bit more work to do to show what for students to make sure that they know that we see them. And some of those things feed into some of the things we're starting, making sure that every student knows the lunch supervisors and knows the name of the lunch supervisors because they spend a lot of time in the day with the students at recess engaging with students on the yard, you know, going into classroom, letting kids know that we see them and engaging with them.
[2:00:29] with them, you know, as the little humans that they are.
[2:00:34] Our next set of wellness data is our panorama data, also very strong, both our wellness
[2:00:42] data as well above national norms, but we did an area that I thought was lower and interesting
[2:00:54] This area of emotional regulation, and this is in response to when you're having challenging feelings,
[2:01:04] are you able to regulate yourself, right?
[2:01:08] Are you able to calm yourself down?
[2:01:10] Are you able to kind of handle what's happening with you?
[2:01:14] And so that data point makes me think we need to really figure out how we get those tools into students' hands.
[2:01:21] into that we're working with our counselor and our psychologist to push into kind of like classrooms grade level teams to really do that social emotional work to give students those tools, right?
[2:01:40] Different partnerships that we have, we have a lot going on, all of our classes are going on lots of different field trips or bringing folks in to provide presentations to the students.
[2:01:53] and see Oakland Ballet just came in October, and that was a tri-school event where all the third graders came up to Havens and watched the performance of their Ballet.
[2:02:04] We have lots of different programs happening, Family PE Week.
[2:02:09] We only have one adult injury that day, he's fine.
[2:02:12] Our green team, of course, we work with schoolmates, our fifth grade is going to do the walk through the American Revolution.
[2:02:19] I can't wait to see what costumes pop up on that one.
[2:02:21] and our monthly school assemblies, which have been really, really popular with our students.
[2:02:26] We have lots of parent volunteers donating for our volunteering to come at lunch.
[2:02:31] We have our weekly activity table that I spoke about before.
[2:02:36] I am so thankful for our Haven's Parents Club and our dad's club and for PEF, and all the support they give Havens, and all the support they've given me.
[2:02:45] And other partnerships we're working with the Mosaic project with our fourth and fifth grade classrooms.
[2:02:49] and those are social emotional, social justice,
[2:02:52] self-advocacy, lessons for students, affinity mentors has been amazing too.
[2:02:58] I was just on the call with a parent today looking for an affinity mentor for her daughter.
[2:03:05] And so, we have a lot going on and it's a great place to be.
[2:03:12] I want to finish with going back to the notion of the graduate profile and
[2:03:18] what we're growing and in terms of initiatives I felt it was best to kind of
[2:03:23] see those in those things that we want our students to be when they grow up.
[2:03:28] And I've said a lot of these things already but I think they're all really important
[2:03:32] around just the different things we're working on right now.
[2:03:36] With a focus on scholarship and critical thinking,
[2:03:40] figuring out how we get kids to show what they know.
[2:03:46] I think Haven's kids are amazing kids.
[2:03:49] I think they can do anything that any other kid in California can do.
[2:03:53] I think we just have to open that door for them and figure out how we need to be as adults for
[2:04:00] them to show up and show us how amazing they are on this particular benchmark and test.
[2:04:05] They're already amazing.
[2:04:07] Self-regulation, RTR1 cell lessons, figuring out a nice menu of database,
[2:04:12] based social-emotional learning lessons and supports that we can provide students,
[2:04:17] the mosaic lessons, as I said, for commuting in climate.
[2:04:21] We are in the throes of figuring out a playground redesign because our, I believe our playground is from the 90s.
[2:04:29] The structure, and so, and I do love the 90s, but the structure, we're ready for something new and the kids will be really excited about it.
[2:04:37] We have our climate focus, our values awards, our values awards, and we'll be implementing more and more PBIS,
[2:04:46] positive behavior and supports strategies throughout the year.
[2:04:51] Our Havens DIB has a belonging year-long initiative.
[2:04:57] They took videos of me, they've been sent out.
[2:05:01] I can't watch them, I don't know what I said, but I'm sure it was wonderful things.
[2:05:06] And we continue to collaborate and build communication skills.
[2:05:12] We started a culture and climate team with our staff and we're looking at all kinds of things.
[2:05:17] Ways to bring kids together, ways to bring the staff together, thinking about ways to kind of maximize our teaching time at Haydons as well too.
[2:05:27] And one of the things that I'm really excited about and proud of is just bringing together lunch supervisors.
[2:05:33] We spend so much time at our schools feeding our kids, and any group that works with kids needs time to meet and collaborate.
[2:05:43] And so we have, by monthly meetings, which is the supervisors to figure out problems of practice, to talk with each other, to let me know what's going on so we can have nice roundabout communication.
[2:05:55] And I've seen the difference between lunch at Havens when I first got there and lunch at Havens in the last few weeks as well.
[2:06:02] Well, that is all I have.
[2:06:06] Do you have any questions for me?
[2:06:09] I'm sure we have lots of questions.
[2:06:12] Thank you, Principal Reed, for the very robust, informative presentation.
[2:06:17] Really enjoyed hearing more about what's happening at Havens.
[2:06:21] That's one of those people you mentioned that will have children there for decades.
[2:06:26] It's always good to hear more about what's happening.
[2:06:30] It's also really good to see the strong social emotional data.
[2:06:34] I know that's been a focus and appreciate seeing the results of the fruits of that labor.
[2:06:41] And I, you know, I really hope that we can get there with our academics as well.
[2:06:45] I feel, I firmly believe that students are more confident and happy at school when they feel
[2:06:49] that they are performing at their absolute best.
[2:06:53] And so, I'm able to reach their full potential.
[2:06:56] So, I look forward to that as well.
[2:07:02] I have a bunch more, but I'm going to focus on one question.
[2:07:07] And you mentioned that you weren't super familiar with bridges.
[2:07:10] I've heard some concerns from parents of kids who have difficulty accessing bridges,
[2:07:17] given the significant amount of words.
[2:07:21] It's very language-based as opposed to numbers-based, and kids who might not be reading at grade level, or who have other challenges reading, have a really hard time accessing that material.
[2:07:36] And I've experienced that with my kids as well, they get to middle school math and all of a sudden they're like, this is numbers, this makes sense to me because it's numbers as opposed to words.
[2:07:44] So, I actually wonder, if you think that some of that might be what's showing up in the data,
[2:07:51] is that kids are unable, like they have to translate the words into numbers to do the math?
[2:07:59] I think that's possible when we, we shifted over to Common Core and Common Core became very,
[2:08:05] Common Core curriculums have been very language heavy as compared to when we were still just using
[2:08:11] content standards, it was a big shift to, you know, we have to be problem solving, right?
[2:08:18] And if we're problem solving then there has to be a problem and there has to be words
[2:08:21] and there has to be all these pieces to it.
[2:08:24] It has gotten trickier for kids whose strength was numbers and maybe reading wasn't a piece
[2:08:31] of it.
[2:08:32] I think some of those things can be combated in a couple of ways.
[2:08:37] I think we keep, especially in the younger grades, because they're all emergent readers in those younger grades too, and it is text heavy.
[2:08:46] I think continuing that core foundational reading skills work to make sure that they're not only decoding, but
[2:08:57] they're also comprehending, so we have the Scarborough's rope of both things happening at the same time.
[2:09:04] I think, you know, reading practice in math, like, oh, we're going to just do math reading.
[2:09:09] Could be another thing that could support this as well too.
[2:09:12] And I think some of it comes down to how you structure your math lesson.
[2:09:18] The new California math framework talks a lot about the kind of three parts of a lesson that I don't think necessarily bridges has in the same way.
[2:09:29] And in that kind of three-part lesson, there's time for a lot of kind of like discussion and meaning making, and then there's that kind of independent work, and then there's kind of that reflective piece.
[2:09:43] And in that independent work time can be an opportunity to re-teach, right?
[2:09:49] So, I think a piece of this could be how are we structuring our lessons?
[2:09:54] As I said, I don't know bridges that well and I don't know how kind of like in step you have to be with exactly what it is.
[2:10:01] But in any kind of lesson that you have, there needs to be time and space for
[2:10:07] re-teaching and extension.
[2:10:09] And where is that and what does it look like?
[2:10:12] And for math, especially when it's so text heavy, time for meaning making around the vocabulary
[2:10:21] I have more but I will follow my own rule and pass to whoever wants to ask questions next.
[2:10:31] I just want to, I just have a comment which is what you've already done so far and how
[2:10:37] you've made havens yours and shaped very strong foundation.
[2:10:42] I appreciate you showing the, what are those scores?
[2:10:45] Well, the student wellness from the California Healthy Good Survey and the SCL results.
[2:10:52] Like, I feel like you're taking a really strong foundation and making it your own and
[2:10:56] infusing it with so much energy towards new traditions for havens, which is just really,
[2:11:01] it's really lovely to see.
[2:11:02] I also have to say Mr. Vellies' string class is amazing.
[2:11:07] Like, they're so good.
[2:11:08] It's like, I don't even, three months into the school year, that's like bananas, they're so good.
[2:11:13] And that's just one of them, that's just the one I happen to record that day.
[2:11:17] They are so good, yeah.
[2:11:19] It's really awesome, really impressive.
[2:11:20] Yeah, I'm just got fantastic presentation, thank you so much.
[2:11:25] It was really great to hear all the thought they put into how to address some of the problems that we're seeing in the achievement data.
[2:11:32] So you went deep on that, and I really appreciate that, thank you.
[2:11:36] That's it, yeah, thank you.
[2:11:40] I'm going to echo the words of thanks from everybody, and it's exciting to hear some of
[2:11:45] the many things that you've been doing.
[2:11:47] My only real question is, I'm curious how you work with the other tri-school principals
[2:11:54] and staff and administration to sort of further some of the many goals that I think we all
[2:12:00] share for Havens Elementary.
[2:12:02] Yeah, so you have to know that the notion of this tri-schools was one of the things that I was so interested in coming to Piedmont for like this idea that we are working toward a like experience for all students across our district was really just like, I want to be a part of something like that that we're a team in those ways.
[2:12:25] And so we meet weekly with just the three of us, both Amy and Ann and myself, and then we also meet again on Wednesdays with kind of the larger admin team to talk about different things.
[2:12:40] We have lots to talk about.
[2:12:42] But I have so much appreciation for ANVALVA for just kind of, you know, giving that historical
[2:12:48] context around things and, you know, offering her suggestions about different things.
[2:12:53] I've known Amy Fry for a lot of years and so there's a lot of kind of like comfort
[2:12:57] in that.
[2:12:58] So our really strong team, I think that this year with just both of Amy and myself being
[2:13:04] new to Piedmont, we're kind of like, okay, so what's next?
[2:13:08] So what's next?
[2:13:09] And so I think it will take us a minute to kind of get more of our footing around like okay, so what are the things that we're going to norm on and what are the things that we need?
[2:13:19] We are having separate sepsas this year and separate school site councils this year, but we're still planning together like all the different things that we need to do.
[2:13:28] So we're in contact with each other a lot just to figure out okay what's coming up next and then what are the conversations we need to have with our staff?
[2:13:37] what is your staff saying about this, what does they think about this, how can we bring them all together?
[2:13:43] So it's a good collaboration and it's still growing.
[2:13:50] I have a couple of questions on the academic, so first fish tank, I know that the reading level,
[2:13:57] the knowledge and the comprehension is more of a stretch than the prior and just any thoughts
[2:14:04] because that's new, how that's going, because we're going to be seeing that at our results next year.
[2:14:09] That would be my first question.
[2:14:12] And then my second one is about the benchmark.
[2:14:14] And you mentioned number corner.
[2:14:16] So does the benchmark number one have more kind of pure number task on it?
[2:14:20] Or is it also, or I wasn't quite sure I don't know what those benchmarks contain.
[2:14:25] So yeah, okay, so let me do fish tank first.
[2:14:28] So I think the implementation is going pretty well.
[2:14:31] I think that anytime you're doing something new,
[2:14:36] you're kind of just trying it out, you're jumping in, you're not sure, you know what I mean,
[2:14:44] all of those things, but I think there's a lot of excitement with the different texts
[2:14:48] that students are reading, and like kind of the larger themes that are happening across
[2:14:56] the different grade levels.
[2:14:57] I've gotten to, you know, pop into love.
[2:15:00] First grade and second grade. Fifth grade, we just finished up like a tri-school collaboration day because the unit three got moved up and so they needed time to do that intellectual prep for it. To make sure that they were ready to teach it and figure out like, okay, what are the key vocabulary words? What are the target tasks? What are the essential questions that we're going to use that are going to move kids forward based on the kids that we have in their needs right now? So I'm really hopeful about it.
[2:15:29] As we can continue our district CCTs with it, the more we can bring in student work and
[2:15:35] kind of calibrate and norm like what should a fifth grader be doing with this writing?
[2:15:40] What should a second grader be doing?
[2:15:42] I think we'll have better information about the impact of the program through that collaboration.
[2:15:51] And in terms of the assessment, so the unit assessments, it just assesses that unit.
[2:15:57] And so the benchmarks, my understanding is that they are focused more on the tasks of
[2:16:02] number corner, so more on fluency tasks, plus different pieces of the units kind of not
[2:16:12] shoved, but kind of squished together to give a broader kind of sense of how the student
[2:16:17] is doing across the year with multiple standards.
[2:16:20] So more cumulative?
[2:16:21] Yeah.
[2:16:22] That's the word.
[2:16:23] More cumulative.
[2:16:23] Thank you.
[2:16:24] Thank you.
[2:16:25] I
[2:16:29] am going to go ahead and open it up for public comment.
[2:16:32] I do not have any cards.
[2:16:36] Oh, I want to say thank you public comment on the item.
[2:16:39] Okay, please step up to the podium and then when you are done if you could grab a card and complete it.
[2:16:45] Thank you.
[2:16:48] My name is Nico French and while I was listening to that I've never designed an education system so this might not have much merit to it.
[2:16:58] But I was wondering why the three elementary schools all work to accomplish the same thing
[2:17:04] Because if I'm a parent coming into Piedmont and I see that beach is the school that's generally getting the highest
[2:17:11] Grays on the cast
[2:17:13] Why would I even think about enrolling my kid in the wildwood or Havens when I could enroll them into beach and it made me think about
[2:17:20] MHS and PHS and the approach that they have I
[2:17:25] think that having a
[2:17:26] The second option with a higher faculty to student ratio could be really helpful,
[2:17:31] especially for these younger kids, where the things that they're learning are so
[2:17:35] fundamental to everything else they're going to be learning through the rest of the K through 12 years.
[2:17:40] So I feel like it could be beneficial for one or maybe two other schools,
[2:17:46] two of the three elementary schools to be either accelerated or
[2:17:51] more paced for students to be able to have a learning experience.
[2:17:56] that's more digestible for them, and they can learn at the pace that's more fitting for them.
[2:18:01] Just like how it is at PHS and MHS, if you are struggling a little bit, you need a bit more help.
[2:18:06] You can go to MHS and get more help.
[2:18:09] But if you're ready to take harder classes, you're ready to do whatever, you can go to PHS.
[2:18:15] And I think that would just be a really helpful option for elementary students.
[2:18:20] Thank you, appreciate your comment,
[2:18:24] step up, and then if you could also complete a card after that, that'd be great.
[2:18:28] Thank you.
[2:18:30] My name is Donovan and I would just thought that it was kind of upsetting to see about the statistics on the amount of students that believe their teachers care about them.
[2:18:44] I saw that in 2024, it was about 71% of students.
[2:18:49] and I wasn't able to see what the percentage was in 2025 but it still kind of upset me because I believe that if we have more students that believe their teachers care about them they're especially early on it can lead to a lot of openness from the students and problem solvings and not only that but students will, students will feel more like they belong within, within their community.
[2:19:19] community, which is something that Pima is pretty like revolved around.
[2:19:25] And personally, for me, I've had a lot of better experiences when I believe my teacher cares for what I have to say.
[2:19:33] Thank you.
[2:19:38] My name is Ali, and I just wanted to kind of add on to what Nico is saying, because I really agree with the idea that with a higher teacher-to-student ratio, it would really increase, I think some of these scores maybe.
[2:19:50] I have a lot of friends who are at MHS and they really thrive with those environments.
[2:19:56] And I went to Haven's when I was a kid and I loved my experience there.
[2:20:01] And I remember playing that exact orchestra song when I was in the orchestra there.
[2:20:05] And so it was kind of a flashback for me.
[2:20:08] But I'm just excited and hopeful for the future of Haven's as well.
[2:20:14] Thank you.
[2:20:20] My name is Michael Martin, I am a student of PMOHA.
[2:20:25] My question really concerns for the difference between millennium and PMOHA for African Americans,
[2:20:33] for the test percentages.
[2:20:36] It was around 70 something percent for the PMOHA African American students, and around 60 something
[2:20:42] for the millennium students.
[2:20:45] My question is, what is the bridge between these scores and as a PMOI student, why are there more African American students at millennium than PMOI?
[2:20:55] What causes this separation?
[2:20:58] Thank you.
[2:21:03] Any other questions or comments?
[2:21:12] We can go back around. Yeah, we'll go back around.
[2:21:17] Any other questions or comments from anyone in the room?
[2:21:22] Can you please complete a card before you go?
[2:21:26] Okay, great, thank you.
[2:21:28] I have a comment.
[2:21:29] Oh, Dr. Hon.
[2:21:30] Yeah, I would just really like to commend Suzanne Reed has done a phenomenal job since she
[2:21:36] started with us and have had a chance to really connect with her and see her hit the ground
[2:21:41] running and collaborate with all of our administrators.
[2:21:45] And so just very excited and feel deeply that we have the right administrator for the right
[2:21:50] school and really excited about what's to come. Thank you, Dr. Han. I don't see any hands raised
[2:21:57] online so I'm going to go ahead and close public comment and I just want to echo what you said.
[2:22:02] In the conversations I've had with you principal read, I think every single time I've had some
[2:22:07] epiphany about literacy, get you talking about literacy and it's absolutely incredible and I
[2:22:14] look forward to hearing more because I think you have incredible knowledge and passion.
[2:22:20] So I look forward to hearing more, and I also just wanted to give a shout out to the green team because I think it's a really cool program
[2:22:26] and I've seen those kids in action at Havens and they're so engaged and it gives them a leadership opportunity.
[2:22:34] I have to prevent them from meeting the lunches occasionally, but they're adorable fourth and fifth graders, so I think that's a really cool program and
[2:22:43] I look forward to hearing more about it.
[2:22:45] Any other board questions or comments before we move on?
[2:22:49] Thank you so much for coming and for staying with us this evening and answering our
[2:22:55] many questions.
[2:22:56] I will pause to allow anyone who wishes to exit to leave the room.
[2:23:18] I am going to move on to the information and discussion portion of the evening.
[2:23:26] We have six items.
[2:23:31] The first is to approve elementary and middle school world language programs.
[2:23:37] This is a conversation we started over a year ago, closer to 18 months ago.
[2:23:43] We've had multiple meetings and conversations about how we can introduce these changes in
[2:23:46] a way that is additive and meaningful and I'm excited to hear more about this proposal
[2:23:52] and share it with the community.
[2:23:55] Great, I think we have Principal Karen Ship and Arielle Dolowich who are here to present this evening and I will bring up your presentation as you guys come up.
[2:24:21] All right, good evening again, thank you, we can move to the next slide.
[2:24:27] So for this presentation this evening, Ms. Ship and I have two stated outcomes.
[2:24:32] comes, one to outline the PMS design team process and formally recommend a foundation
[2:24:38] scores for Spanish, French, and Mandarin at the sixth grade level.
[2:24:42] Second to detail steps that were taken at the elementary level, and as a district,
[2:24:46] formally recommend Latin to be implemented at fifth grade for the 25-26 school year.
[2:24:53] Next slide, please.
[2:24:55] As President Thomason alluded to, this process began approximately 18 months ago.
[2:25:01] So there was a state of the district wondering in January of 2025 that led to a board workshop on February 7th of 2025 where the board provided direction to explore adding world languages to increase student exposure as early as fifth grade, continuing through each of the secondary grades.
[2:25:21] At that point, we began developments and ultimately formed two design teams, an elementary
[2:25:28] world-language design team and a middle school world-language design team, both of whom
[2:25:34] met together for the first time on June 9th at the beginning of the summer, 2025, each
[2:25:40] team met again in August.
[2:25:43] And from then, the middle school team continued to meet, develop two proposals, wade pros and
[2:25:49] and Kahn's received staff input, and Ms. Ship will make a formal recommendation shortly.
[2:25:55] It does deserve to be acknowledged that the middle school is tackling an entirely
[2:25:59] different master schedule challenge than that at the fifth grade level, so I will wait,
[2:26:04] and I'll provide additional information related to elementary once the PMS portion
[2:26:08] of this presentation has concluded.
[2:26:11] And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Ship to detail the steps that PMS took.
[2:26:16] Thank
[2:26:24] you, Assistant Superintendent Dolowicz.
[2:26:27] This chart illustrates the world language progressions and multiple entry points available to
[2:26:32] Piedmont students from middle school through high school.
[2:26:35] It represents how students can begin their language study at different grade levels and
[2:26:40] still advance through the full sequence of courses that culminate in advance placement AP study.
[2:26:46] At Piedmont middle school, the first entry point begins in seventh grade with level one.
[2:26:51] This path began this year.
[2:26:54] Students who start at this point can advance to level two in eighth grade,
[2:26:58] level three and ninth, level four in tenth and reach AP World Language in 11th grade.
[2:27:03] This provides an accelerated pathway for students who are ready to begin earlier
[2:27:08] and who wish to reach the most advanced coursework by junior year.
[2:27:12] The chart also shows additional entry points for students who begin at typical times and pace.
[2:27:17] Students who start an eighth grade enter at level 1 and can still progress to AP by 12th grade.
[2:27:24] Students who begin in 9th or 10th can also follow a complete and
[2:27:29] sequential program through level 3 or level 4 by graduation ensuring equitable access to strong language development regardless of their starting point, which meets high school graduation requirements and
[2:27:40] use the requirements and recommendations.
[2:27:43] In short, this visual reflects a flexible and inclusive pathway on lining the district's goals of expanding their early access while maintaining multiple entry points for all learners.
[2:27:53] It also highlights the importance of coordination between a high school and the middle school programs to ensure smooth placement, continuity, and readiness at each transition.
[2:28:05] Next slide.
[2:28:09] PMS was asked to create an entry-level option for access to six graders that would align with our current pathways.
[2:28:16] The goal is to provide early exposure to language learning, mirroring research that shows younger learners acquire pronunciation,
[2:28:23] listening, comprehension, and cultural awareness more naturally.
[2:28:27] Introducing a language in six grade also supports our strategic goal of investing in outstanding academics.
[2:28:34] The
[2:28:38] proposal for you tonight is a semester-long foundation class.
[2:28:42] This new course is an exciting step for our world-language pathways.
[2:28:46] It's called World-Language Foundation and will be offered as a one semester class for six, seventh, and eighth graders.
[2:28:54] The course gives students an introductory experience in Spanish, French, or Chinese with a focus on both language and culture.
[2:29:03] is designed for beginners, students who are curious, but may not be ready for a full level
[2:29:09] one high school-paced course.
[2:29:12] Students will explore basic communication skills and cultural traditions while also getting
[2:29:17] early exposure to elements of high school level one curriculum.
[2:29:21] This helps build competence and sets them up for a smoother transition into a more rigorous
[2:29:26] high school level one course later.
[2:29:33] This chart outlines our proposal to add World Language Foundations course beginning in 2627 while keeping the existing elective wheel structure at Kiedmont Middle School.
[2:29:46] Under this proposal, the foundation course would become a one semester class matched to the elective wheel in sixth grade.
[2:29:53] Students would take world-language foundations for one semester and have each and
[2:30:00] And have electives during the opposite semester. The chart shows houses path with a line through
[2:30:06] middle and high school for students who start in different grades. By 7th grade, students
[2:30:11] could move into high school level 1 taught at a high school pace. Students continuing
[2:30:17] into 8th grade could advance to level 2 and then proceed to level 3 at high school. For
[2:30:22] students who begin the sequence later, such as 7th or 8th grade, the pathway still allows them
[2:30:28] to reach level three by graduation.
[2:30:30] This model maintains flexibility and access.
[2:30:34] The foundation course is also a standalone.
[2:30:37] Maybe you want to try Chinese,
[2:30:38] but you're not sure if you will continue.
[2:30:41] A student could take a foundation class
[2:30:43] and then switch to level one the following year.
[2:30:47] Next slide.
[2:30:53] As with any program expansion,
[2:30:55] there are a few important implementation challenges
[2:30:57] we'll need to consider if we move forward
[2:30:59] with a world-language foundation course.
[2:31:01] First, in sixth grade, some of our existing elective wheel options may be impacted.
[2:31:07] If student interest in the New World Language Foundation courses high, we may need to
[2:31:11] shift the sixth grade wheel from sixth course of the year to four in the year to accommodate the new classes.
[2:31:18] Because the foundation class, Spanish, French, and Chinese would all need to be offered during the same period,
[2:31:25] this creates a scheduling constraint around the rooms and staffing.
[2:31:28] That means all three language sections and the sixth grade elective wheel would have to align in one common period.
[2:31:36] This alignment also increases the shared teacher constraint between PMS and the high schools.
[2:31:42] Since several of our world-language teachers teach across both campuses, coordinating and scheduling would require careful planning and collaboration.
[2:31:51] Lastly, as we rebalance sections and student enrollment, some seventh and eighth grade elected options could also reduce enrollment or potentially be eliminated to make space for the new offering.
[2:32:03] While these are real challenges, they're not insurmountable, they simply require intentional planning, creative scheduling,
[2:32:10] continue collaboration with our staff and district partners to ensure the new course strengths rather than disrupts the overall program.
[2:32:17] Next slide.
[2:32:21] While there are certainly challenges to work through, there are also clear benefits and opportunities with this model.
[2:32:27] First and foremost, the proposal preserves the spirit of the sixth grade elective will,
[2:32:32] allowing students to continue exploring a variety of claxes and interest.
[2:32:36] Even with the addition of world language foundation, sixth graders still experience multiple electives throughout the year.
[2:32:45] This approach also ensures that intervention and supports currently taking place during the elective will can continue without disruption, maintaining academic support for students who need it the most.
[2:32:58] Students would have the opportunity to try it out a world language through one semester foundation class before committing to a full year long course.
[2:33:10] Later in grades, that means they can explore Spanish, French, or Chinese, discover their interest, and build confidence before taking on the high school paste of level one.
[2:33:21] This course also serves as an intentional preparation, giving students early exposure to vocabulary,
[2:33:27] structuring cultures that sets them up for success in their high school level language courses.
[2:33:34] And finally, because world-language foundations would be offered or open to 6-7-8th graders it creates flexibility and equity offering an entry point for any student at any grade level who wants to begin or learning a language.
[2:33:50] Next slide.
[2:33:53] One of the biggest strengths of this model is that it allows for multiple on ramps and off ramps in the world-language pathways.
[2:33:59] Students can begin, pause, or continue at different stages without losing momentum which is especially important in middle school when interest and readiness levels vary.
[2:34:10] For example, heritage speakers, students who already have exposure to a language at home could take a foundation class in that language to strengthen literacy or explore a new language entirely.
[2:34:24] Afterwards, they could take a placement test and begin a high school level courses early
[2:34:29] a seventh grade.
[2:34:31] Students in seventh grade would also have the opportunity to take a one semester of
[2:34:35] music and one semester of world language foundation, giving them a chance to participate
[2:34:41] in both programs rather than having to choose between the two.
[2:34:46] For students with IEPs or those needing more gradual piecing, the structure provides meaningful
[2:34:51] They could start with a foundation class or move directly into a level one in eighth grade depending on the readiness and the support needs.
[2:35:00] And finally, this flexible model benefits students transferring into PMS from outside the district.
[2:35:07] With multiple entry points, they can join our path seamlessly and have the same language opportunities as continuing PUSD students.
[2:35:16] Overall, this model keeps the strengths of our current system intact while opening new opportunities for
[2:35:21] exploration, readiness, and long-term language success.
[2:35:27] All right, and thank you, and next is Assistant Supreme, Tendon Gowwich.
[2:35:33] All right, thank you.
[2:35:35] Thank you, Ms. Ship.
[2:35:37] All right, so as mentioned, you're welcome to move to the next slide.
[2:35:42] The district convened an elementary world-language design team comprised of a fifth grade teacher from each site as well as a librarian specialist.
[2:35:51] There is a review of design thinking processes, discussion of what other schools offer, and analysis of curriculum, as well as a candid conversation around pros and cons and discussion around instructional minutes.
[2:36:05] We also discussed various models.
[2:36:09] One of the models that we are considering implementing was the rotational model where students would have the exposure to all three languages that Piedmont offers, French, Mandarin and Spanish.
[2:36:19] One of the challenges with this is that fifth grade students select their sixth grade schedules in January.
[2:36:25] And so in order to be exposed to each of the three languages, it would be six weeks, six weeks and six weeks before January.
[2:36:32] And then leading them to, again, have six weeks of a rotational model for all three.
[2:36:39] That inconsistency didn't make a lot of sense to us.
[2:36:44] Separately, we looked at prioritizing one language rather than all three.
[2:36:48] For example, offering Spanish for our fifth grade students.
[2:36:53] But upon further investigation, a number of our students take Spanish,
[2:36:58] whether it's with an extracurricular activity or
[2:37:00] the Piedmont language school, so they're entering at different levels.
[2:37:05] And candidly, as district leadership, we want to support and grow all three languages.
[2:37:10] So it seemed unfair to prioritize one language over the other two.
[2:37:15] So ultimately, just to be clear, the recommendation is coming from the district, rather than the design team.
[2:37:23] And the recommendation is Latin at 5th grade for the 2025-26 school year.
[2:37:34] So, discussing Latin, just take a moment to digest that.
[2:37:40] I'd like to go into some of the components and tenets that we believe separate Latin from the two other models that I just mentioned.
[2:37:51] So, one, Latin provides a uniform starting point, whereas if you offer Spanish and
[2:37:58] students are coming in at different levels, all students are beginning their language
[2:38:01] study at the same introductory level.
[2:38:05] Also, in terms of the different categories of skills that they're learning, Latin
[2:38:10] enhances vocabulary growth, thus helping students build stronger literacy and language
[2:38:14] skills, as students better understand complex structures and improve comprehension.
[2:38:18] Latin fosters academic confidence, and through literature, historical events, and
[2:38:25] learning about ancient civilization, Latin can promote cultural awareness.
[2:38:29] Next slide, please.
[2:38:31] So we have reviewed a number of curricula.
[2:38:34] One that stands out is Elementa.
[2:38:36] It's offered at schools that implement Latin at the elementary level.
[2:38:42] And one of the reasons it's intriguing is because it emphasizes story-based learning with interactive activities.
[2:38:50] Next slide, please, but perhaps the most exciting and appealing element of Latin is that it directly correlates with our literacy curriculum and our supplemental adopted curriculum spellography at the fifth grade level.
[2:39:07] This is, there's an explicit connection with vocabulary growth and word study, those are English language art standards at the fifth grade level.
[2:39:15] There's literary integration through connected text, which I'll detail in a moment.
[2:39:20] And then there's interactive activities that are age-appropriate and highly engaging,
[2:39:25] thinking, chanting, thinking, coral response, different ways that teachers can get students involved,
[2:39:32] and have them have joy and fun when they're exploring that vocabulary.
[2:39:38] So the next two slides, fifth grade, as Ms. Reed mentioned, we just had a fifth day release
[2:39:45] day of all the fifth grade teachers.
[2:39:47] We're actually going to do another release day for fourth grade upcoming.
[2:39:50] It is the first year of implementation.
[2:39:53] So they have chosen to change and we fully support some of the units based on feedback and challenges.
[2:40:02] So, on this slide, they're currently teaching, protecting the Earth.
[2:40:07] Next year, for the first unit, they'll teach shaping dreams, a single shard, which is the fourth one down.
[2:40:14] And later this year, they're going to teach exploring Mars.
[2:40:17] So, we won't be teaching the other two units, but just focusing our attention on protecting the Earth.
[2:40:21] You can see an explicit connection with an instructional focus, with the environmental issues.
[2:40:28] Personally, I don't have any experience taking Latin, but I'm going to try my vocabulary in the third column
[2:40:34] connected to protecting the earth.
[2:40:36] Marae, sea, aqua, water,
[2:40:39] natura, nature, and so there's a connection with Latin roots
[2:40:43] with the science vocabulary, and that integration is pretty obvious for our students.
[2:40:51] If you go to the next slide, you'll see a connection with word study.
[2:40:55] So, word study, again, we have from phonics to reading at the foundational level for K-3.
[2:41:02] Spellography is for four-five.
[2:41:04] So, these are fifth grade word study, folk-eye areas, and you can see, with spellography,
[2:41:10] there's a connection with vowel patterns, again, with those terms, aqua, example words, aquatic.
[2:41:16] And then that explicitly connects with protecting the Earth's plastic impollution,
[2:41:21] and you can see different reading standards there.
[2:41:23] So that's one of the benefits is there could potentially be collaboration with a Latin teacher and the classroom teacher or reinforcement vice versa from what the fifth grade teachers teaching and then the Latin teachers coming in and teaching.
[2:41:40] If we go to that next slide, so pending board approval, we really want to get ahead of this.
[2:41:47] And so obviously identification of curriculum, but hiring as soon as possible,
[2:41:53] success of a program like this, just like we heard with Shana Revelli, with music in the fifth grade,
[2:41:58] it's contingent on the teacher.
[2:42:00] And then the Latin pilot would begin in the fall of 2026, and evaluation would occur periodically,
[2:42:08] both in the winter and in the spring.
[2:42:11] There's really three measures we're going to use to evaluate it.
[2:42:13] If you go to the next slide.
[2:42:17] So one, obviously formative assessments with vocabulary checks throughout different
[2:42:23] trimesters, and then we can compare benchmark data that we discussed here and specifically
[2:42:30] vocabulary with ELA data reviews.
[2:42:33] And of course, we would be responsive to surveys both from the students, but also from
[2:42:39] our staff and the parent community.
[2:42:41] So, just remaining cognizant of time, that is the recommendation from the district for Latin at the 5th grade level.
[2:42:54] I'm just going to add that there's a fairly lengthy analysis attached to the board agenda item.
[2:43:02] So, this presentation is kind of a brief overview, but there's a much more detailed proposal that includes assessment,
[2:43:11] what students will learn, the fact that it is also going to be spoken, there's some
[2:43:16] myths information out there that this is only going to be written, this in fact will
[2:43:21] include a lot of oral and iterative activities. And most importantly, there's myths information
[2:43:28] out there that we're going to take minutes away from English language arts or other subject
[2:43:33] areas. We've done a deep dive into the fifth grade schedules. I think the integration between
[2:43:39] I mean, the possibilities between English language arts with
[2:43:43] spellography and fish tank as well as the Latin curriculum are evident to us.
[2:43:48] And somehow that became misconstrued into we're taking away from English language arts.
[2:43:54] That is just not true.
[2:43:56] So we wanted to clear that up and we invite you to really look at the very thick and
[2:44:01] detailed proposal that includes much more information about how the program will be implemented.
[2:44:08] Thank you.
[2:44:08] Thank you, Principal Ship, Mr. Dolowitch, Dr. Hahn.
[2:44:15] I'm thrilled about both of these proposals.
[2:44:19] We were able to bring back language in seventh grade this year, a full year, which I think
[2:44:25] has been a real win for our students.
[2:44:28] And really appreciate the proposal to bring it down to sixth grade.
[2:44:31] I think it's a really elegant solution, and it allows students to experience a language
[2:44:37] that they may not have wanted to.
[2:44:38] or may not have experience with, or might want to try, but aren't sure they want to take, so I think it's great.
[2:44:45] And actually, when we talked to our tri-school principals about some of this, or, I'm sorry, parent club presidents, not our principals, I'm missing words.
[2:44:55] They had said that they thought it would be really interesting for kids to try a language.
[2:45:00] I think that that's something that they have heard that fifth graders are interested in and so this feels like a really great opportunity to do that. And then I am thrilled with the Latin proposal. As I mentioned earlier, we've been talking about this for, you know, timeout foreign language for a long time and how it could make sense in fifth grade. And I really believe that this proposal achieves our original objective and then so many ways are in so much more.
[2:45:28] I have had ample opportunity to ask questions about this, so I'm not going to take up time
[2:45:33] to do that tonight.
[2:45:34] But I do just want to point out how beneficial I think this is going to be for a really
[2:45:37] broad range of learners.
[2:45:39] I see the applicability for our neurodivisodants, especially our dyslexic students, and our neurotypical
[2:45:45] students, including accelerated learners, and I think it's one of those programs that really
[2:45:49] can be on the gamut because no student has a foundation in that and this program is going
[2:45:54] to be a great equalizer as you mentioned.
[2:45:57] It integrates foreign language, L.A. history in a really
[2:45:59] incredible way.
[2:46:01] And we've heard from community members have pointed out
[2:46:03] that it had pointed out benefits that we hadn't even
[2:46:05] considered.
[2:46:06] So I'm really, really excited about both these proposals.
[2:46:11] Appreciate you bringing them to us this evening.
[2:46:14] Rishi?
[2:46:15] I have also, I should have mentioned during my board remarks
[2:46:19] that I attended the World Language presentation.
[2:46:22] And so I've had an opportunity to ask a lot of questions.
[2:46:26] I'm so overjoyed by both of these proposals.
[2:46:30] Karen, I think like the idea of offering dabbling.
[2:46:35] It's like exactly what middle school is about.
[2:46:37] It's like an in-depth dabbling.
[2:46:39] And I hope that it is really joyful,
[2:46:42] because it is really an incredible opportunity
[2:46:44] for our kiddos to be able to experience.
[2:46:47] And Latin, I think that I might be the reason why there is misinformation about ELA because
[2:46:54] I definitely conflated just given how much overlap there is and how much of an opportunity
[2:47:03] for synchronizing across the two different subjects, I'm pretty sure that I'm the reason for
[2:47:07] the misinformation.
[2:47:08] And so I'm sorry about that to everyone out there.
[2:47:11] where we wouldn't, as a board, we wouldn't take away minutes from ELA, even for something
[2:47:18] as important as a foreign language.
[2:47:21] And the, I agree with everything that Lizzie said, the only other thing I want to add is that
[2:47:25] one of the things that I really appreciate is about Latin is how foundational it is for
[2:47:32] English.
[2:47:32] and I think this dot said 60 or 80% of, it was in the board background.
[2:47:43] Yeah, have a lot in origin and from English.
[2:47:48] Yeah, which is, it's like such a good gift that we are going to be able to give these kids
[2:47:53] to be able to help them be more prepared, so I'm very excited.
[2:48:01] Yeah, thank you.
[2:48:03] Huge thank you to the PMS World Language Design team.
[2:48:06] I think you knocked out a park.
[2:48:07] This is super exciting.
[2:48:08] And I heard from a lot of parents who are very, very excited
[2:48:11] to have this and hoping that we vote yes on this.
[2:48:14] So it can move forward next year.
[2:48:17] It's just a couple of questions on that.
[2:48:19] The sixth grade, taking that as elective wheels,
[2:48:21] not a prerequisite, right, to go into language one.
[2:48:24] Just wanted to clarify that.
[2:48:26] Yeah, correct.
[2:48:27] Yeah, that was hard to get all the details in there,
[2:48:29] but exactly you do not have to take the foundation
[2:48:31] in class in order to enter level one, great,
[2:48:34] the total adoption point makes sense.
[2:48:36] And we received two different letters.
[2:48:38] I think they're both last spring from APT
[2:48:40] in which they mentioned the need for
[2:48:42] a better development of vertical articulation
[2:48:45] of our world language courses.
[2:48:47] Now that we are expanding down to sixth grade
[2:48:49] and on it, just wondering if you may not have the answer
[2:48:51] but if that is something that we could
[2:48:53] have reported back to us as a board at some point
[2:48:55] because I'd be interested to know that
[2:48:57] and it would be good to know.
[2:49:00] I'll probably have some other questions, but I'll wait.
[2:49:04] Hey guys, I echo everyone's enthusiasm for this.
[2:49:09] I think one of the things that I've heard the most when I ran for school board and
[2:49:12] have been on the school board is that a lot of parents have been very eager to have language
[2:49:18] added back at lower grade levels, and so I'm excited that we're doing that.
[2:49:24] I recognize now the wisdom of spacing it out over two years.
[2:49:30] So I think this is a really elegant solution scheduled wise and offering wise, so thank you for that.
[2:49:38] And I have one question which is, I should probably know this, but
[2:49:43] does a pilot program for Latin and fifth grade mean all fifth graders next year assuming this is approved?
[2:49:49] Will get Latin or does it mean we're going to try it on a smaller cohort first?
[2:49:54] All students will receive it.
[2:49:56] Right, it just means that we're going to evaluate it as a correct, it's first year, we want to make sure that.
[2:50:01] Okay, thank you.
[2:50:04] Yeah, I have a couple questions, one about the middle school, and one about the elementary.
[2:50:10] So on the middle school, they're mentioned of a placement test.
[2:50:13] That's for students who want to go into like second year, is that, am I understanding that correctly or?
[2:50:18] Yeah, correct.
[2:50:19] So if somebody might take the foundation class, but already know that they have that heritage speaker background.
[2:50:24] and this is just reconfirming for them that they know it, and so they want to take the placement tests in their middle, their sixth grade year to get into level two as a seventh grader or, you know, and then keep
[2:50:35] jucturing that up, you know, they could take in seventh grade, they could take an eighth grade, we don't block them depending on their grade level, the ideas to make sure we're assessing them and placing them based on where they belong.
[2:50:48] And then the possibility of moving to quarters with the wheel, that was a little, I'm not totally sure what that would look like, but I can find that out later, so that's not.
[2:50:59] And then the other one I had for the elementary is finding the person questions about that.
[2:51:07] Yeah, so pending Board approval, this is a public announcement that we would be looking for a Latin teacher.
[2:51:16] But certainly trying to recruit intentionally through colleagues,
[2:51:24] through teachers that may be at other schools that have experience.
[2:51:30] But doing so, I think the priority is earlier is better so
[2:51:34] so that we can have someone that we feel confident with in place.
[2:51:38] I'll just add that I've reached out to several other Bay Area schools that offer elementary Latin and have had responses from all three of them to collaborate to connect potentially even to go visit and dare I say poach.
[2:51:56] Well, that's great to hear that. Thank you.
[2:51:58] Yeah.
[2:52:01] Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comments. Do we have
[2:52:07] anyone? I don't have any cards. Well, I do have cards, but I think they're from the
[2:52:10] students who all departed.
[2:52:15] Yeah. Oh, do you guys go ahead and bring some cards on them.
[2:52:37] Thank you. Okay. First up, Sarah.
[2:52:44] Oh, this is your earlier one. Okay. Got it. Sorry. I didn't
[2:52:48] the look at the topic. Betty,
[2:52:56] yeah, you can, so you'll each have two and a half minutes,
[2:52:59] so I'll call you, and when your two and a half minutes is up, we'll call Sarah, and she
[2:53:03] can have two and a half minutes.
[2:53:04] Thank you.
[2:53:06] All right, well, good evening.
[2:53:09] Board members and Superintendent Hahn and Betty Rojas and President of Pied P. Monkers
[2:53:14] for Inclusive Education. I'm joined tonight by Sarah Hauser, who's also a board member.
[2:53:20] As an organization centered on inclusion and equity, we care deeply about ensuring that all students have the resources and support they need to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.
[2:53:30] The Pivore recently shared a letter with the community and the board regarding the provost at Aladdin, and we'd like to each read a portion of that letter.
[2:53:40] So while we appreciate the intent behind introducing world language instruction in elementary school, we have concerns about taking time away from several foundational parts of the school day.
[2:53:49] that directly support student growth and well-being.
[2:53:52] Including home room where students build essential community connections in a sense of the line.
[2:53:57] For students who receive special education services and spend portions of their day outside of general education,
[2:54:02] home room provides important opportunities to build relationships and social connection with peers.
[2:54:07] Also social emotional learning, which of course, both academic achievement and emotional well-being.
[2:54:13] Castles medal analysis of over 200 SEL programs found that students who participated showed significant improvements in social and emotional skills, attitudes, behaviors, and academic performance, reflecting an 11% point gain in achievement and transition time, which is particularly vital for neurodivergent and disabled students.
[2:54:32] We're glad to hear that ELA is not an area that would be significantly reduced that we had previously misunderstood as well.
[2:54:41] So, rather than further dividing students limited instructional time across additional subjects,
[2:54:46] we believe it is more beneficial to strengthen existing core and support areas.
[2:54:50] That have a proven impact on student outcomes.
[2:54:53] These are experience that are essential in school days by nature.
[2:54:56] Students cannot easily access structure social emotional learning, classroom community building,
[2:55:01] or transition times outside the school day.
[2:55:03] In contrast, world language exposure is more readily available through extracurricular opportunities.
[2:55:08] allowing interest in-
[2:55:10] 30 seconds left to pursue it without reducing critical classroom time.
[2:55:13] We advocate for introducing more language options beginning in middle school,
[2:55:17] when students can engage more deeply and meaningfully in language study and choose a language
[2:55:21] option that best fits their interests without sacrificing critical elementary supports.
[2:55:26] Thank you.
[2:55:29] I'm Sarah Hauser.
[2:55:34] Hi, I'm Sarah Hauser.
[2:55:36] Furthermore, PIE believes the general education curriculum should serve the widest
[2:55:40] range of students' abilities and learning needs, Latin, as a complex, non-vernacular
[2:55:46] language, presents unique challenges in this regard.
[2:55:49] Because Latin is no longer a living spoken language, it uses authentic communication,
[2:55:56] it's use in authentic communication is inherently constrained.
[2:56:00] As a result, instruction often emphasizes grammar, vocabulary, and
[2:56:06] the revisits over a true interpersonal communication.
[2:56:10] With the proposed curriculum, Elementa,
[2:56:12] while the proposed curriculum Elementa includes some opportunities for
[2:56:17] students to speak in Latin, the curriculum's website, primarily markets itself,
[2:56:21] as an opportunity to incorporate into literary literacy instruction, and
[2:56:29] is flexible as a supplement to current English classes.
[2:56:32] In practice, this means Latin instruction primarily reinforces English vocabulary and
[2:56:38] provides historical context, skills that could be more efficiently integrated into existing literacy and social studies instruction.
[2:56:48] In contrast, a spoken world language naturally supports multiple learning modalities that promote inclusion and engagement for all students.
[2:56:56] many students, especially those who learn best through conversations, social engagement and auditory processing benefit more from studying a living language that allows for genuine dialogue, cultural exploration, and functional use both inside and outside the classroom.
[2:57:14] For these reasons, PIE recommends prioritizing a spoken world language when world language instruction is introduced,
[2:57:22] used ensuring that all students can engage meaningfully and inclusively through multiple learning modalities.
[2:57:29] Given that 80% of the parents indicated a preference for Spanish in Piedmont's language survey, we believe that-
[2:57:37] 30 seconds left should be the initial focus.
[2:57:40] It not only aligns with parent priorities, but also offers broad practical applications within our community and beyond.
[2:57:46] While we understand that the world language department may have programmatic and enrollment considerations,
[2:57:52] we believe the guiding question should remain to support what best supports the students learning inclusion and long-term engagement.
[2:58:00] Before making a final decision, we respectfully ask the district to delay the November 12th vote to allow more time for
[2:58:10] community input.
[2:58:11] But thank you both for speaking this evening.
[2:58:16] We appreciate your comments.
[2:58:20] I don't have any other cards, anyone else in the room wish to speak?
[2:58:27] No?
[2:58:28] I see at least one hand raised online.
[2:58:36] Laura, we're going to promote you to a panelist so you can speak.
[2:58:41] Hi everyone, it's Laura again. Thank you for the detailed presentation and thank you
[2:58:50] to Pi for showing up. I'm the parent of a neurodivergent kiddo as well and I think
[2:58:55] it's really important to make sure we're listening to the point of view they're representing.
[2:59:00] I've come at it from a slightly different place and I guess I want to step back and just
[2:59:05] thank the district for making these changes happen in a more general way a couple years ago.
[2:59:10] So I think it was when they had to introduce the health class as part of those state requirements
[2:59:14] and this foreign language in seventh grade evaporator because to accommodate that, many
[2:59:21] of us parents were despairing and thinking we were moving in the wrong direction and I really
[2:59:27] didn't think there was hope that we would see foreign language back in seventh certainly
[2:59:31] not in sixth and definitely not in the elementary schools.
[2:59:35] So thank you guys for making this a priority and making it happen as quickly as you have
[2:59:39] but in a very thoughtful way. As far as Latin goes, I think one thing that I, well two things,
[2:59:47] I think it's important to know this is for 60 minutes a week, it's not like we're doing Latin
[2:59:51] every day, that's 12 minutes a day, I know that's not how it's going to work out, but it's a small piece
[2:59:57] So the pile, though, I know every instructional minute.
[3:00:02] I think somebody alluded to, but there's kind of an equity piece to this. It's always frustrated
[3:00:08] me that kids and people who can afford to go to the language school and pay for those classes
[3:00:13] have access to foreign language at a much earlier age when their brains are best suited for it.
[3:00:18] And kids who can't don't have that option. And so I think we are moving in the direction of more equity
[3:00:24] by lowering the level of foreign language access
[3:00:27] in our public schools.
[3:00:29] And I think Latin is a great way
[3:00:30] to sort of really level the playing field
[3:00:32] as noted in the presentation,
[3:00:34] because I'm pretty sure other than
[3:00:36] Perti Jackson novels,
[3:00:37] no kid is coming in with Latin background.
[3:00:39] And I think that'll be a really special experience for them.
[3:00:42] So I really support this,
[3:00:43] and I think the board and the administration.
[3:00:45] 30 seconds left.
[3:00:47] I think foreign language in our district.
[3:00:49] Thanks.
[3:00:51] Thank you, Laura.
[3:00:52] Laura, do we have anyone else who wishes to speak on this item?
[3:00:59] No?
[3:01:00] Okay.
[3:01:00] I'm going to go ahead and close public comment then.
[3:01:04] Any other board questions or comments?
[3:01:09] Suzy?
[3:01:10] Yeah, I have a few, thank you.
[3:01:13] I guess first I wanted to clear up what might be a misperception, it might have been in some
[3:01:17] of the content that was published, but that although this is how I'm seeing it, although
[3:01:22] So this came in to Latin, speak about Latin specifically, those came into the discussion through our opening up and thinking about world language.
[3:01:29] This really is more of an ELA supplement, not an introduction of a new language that we specifically expect that we'll expand into fourth grade or up into sixth grade.
[3:01:39] If we were to do that expansion and think of it as an actual, we're going to introduce a new language expanded to fourth and sixth, that would be a bit of a different process than this.
[3:01:48] or not necessarily, in fact the proposal indicates that we might in fact expand down into
[3:01:54] fourth and into sixth. I don't think we're there yet. And I think as we noted this evening,
[3:02:00] we're looking at potentially 60 minutes a week. So this is very introductory at this point.
[3:02:06] And we've really tried to highlight the integration opportunities. But we do look at it as a
[3:02:11] world language. And so therefore we see it in that way, including in its potential to
[3:02:17] to dip it down into the lower grades potentially and to expand it into the upper grades potentially.
[3:02:22] I think we want to evaluate how it goes next year before we make any decisions around expansion.
[3:02:28] Okay, any expansion would have ample opportunity for more parent and put though, as these things do.
[3:02:34] Absolutely, right, cut to thanks.
[3:02:37] Pi, thank you very much for coming and presenting, I'm very much appreciated.
[3:02:40] And I think we all share the exact same concerns about taking away general education minutes for
[3:02:46] for our students who don't spend all their time in general education and I do trust that
[3:02:51] administration is going to work this through appropriately and support all of our kids.
[3:02:55] I do know all means all.
[3:02:58] The concern about also reducing SCL minutes and I remember our earlier messages in the spring
[3:03:06] we heard back from the fifth grade teachers they noted that SCL is not actually a separate
[3:03:10] set of curriculum or rather minutes that they stop the English language lesson and then
[3:03:15] and do an SEL and then move on, it's actually embedded
[3:03:17] and interwoven through everything that they do.
[3:03:20] So I expect this new Latin teacher should we vote
[3:03:23] and go ahead with this, we'll do the same, right?
[3:03:25] And bring the same SEL curriculum
[3:03:27] into the teaching classroom, right?
[3:03:30] Yeah, I think it might be also just to add to that,
[3:03:33] this isn't in conflict with what you said.
[3:03:36] It really varies by teacher at the fifth grade level
[3:03:39] and that's what we have really come to understand
[3:03:42] And that each teacher at each school is doing things differently.
[3:03:48] And so we're confident we can embed Latin into the program without compromising our other programs.
[3:03:54] And we recognize that it might look slightly different according to each teacher's program.
[3:04:00] This is part of why you heard this evening that we really want to look at the instructional minutes for each of our subject areas.
[3:04:06] is because we're finding that discrepancy might also be connected to other issues related to achievement, for example.
[3:04:13] So we're looking at everything.
[3:04:15] Awesome. Following up right on that, we've spoken a few meetings about trying to understand what our
[3:04:20] SEL curriculum actually is and program management of that and norming across sites.
[3:04:26] Is that something that we'll be doing then as part of this looking at instructional minutes or what might
[3:04:30] our next steps on that be?
[3:04:31] I worry sometimes that we have adopted what is its second step, I think it is, and that we've kind of done a set and
[3:04:39] forget it, and maybe not.
[3:04:41] I don't think everyone is using that at this point.
[3:04:43] I think it really does vary.
[3:04:45] I think we brought in Mosaic, which has increasing consistency, but it's new for us.
[3:04:51] So there's just a lot of variety, and in fact, I've heard some of our teacher's elementary teacher share that we need a new SCL curriculum.
[3:04:58] them so to your point, I think there's a lot of room for improvement in that space.
[3:05:02] That's great.
[3:05:02] So I'd love to see some follow up on that.
[3:05:04] We follow my chop.
[3:05:05] That's great.
[3:05:06] And I know Suzanne Reed spoke to that too, and Havens looks like she's digging into that.
[3:05:10] Thank you.
[3:05:10] And then I guess my last comment is there's a lot to get done on this, finding a fantastic
[3:05:16] teacher.
[3:05:18] If we were to vote, yes, on this, I don't know where it's going to go.
[3:05:21] A lot is writing on the execution of this program.
[3:05:26] And I am just, I'd love to better understand a little bit more level of detail how we're
[3:05:31] actually going to evaluate success.
[3:05:33] You know, 30 minutes and two 30 minute sessions is not a lot to get a lot done in the first
[3:05:38] year.
[3:05:38] I'm wondering if this might end up being a one or two, maybe actually kind of a two year pilot
[3:05:42] until we're actually going to get enough data that will help us understand, is this really
[3:05:46] helping kids achieve and improve their literacy and reading comprehension as we think, hope
[3:05:51] we hope it might.
[3:05:53] So, I'd like to better understand kind of how we'll measure the success, you know,
[3:05:57] for the benefits that we've discussed. That's one bit of it.
[3:06:01] The other thing is, I'd like to better understand how we will specifically support kids who
[3:06:05] struggle with reading or writing and have other specific learning disabilities.
[3:06:08] So, this may be something where when we look to the higher, can we ensure that they've got
[3:06:13] proven experience of working with kids with learning disabilities?
[3:06:16] Maybe that's actually kind of a forte, perhaps.
[3:06:19] I've, you've got other ways to, you know, understand how experienced these teachers are, can they come up with a sample lesson plan and how they would support differentiation or whatnot, but I just want to make sure that that's front and center to, because I think from my perspective, having a kid who's also neurodivergent and dyslexic, this could be enormous help, and actually when I've taken him to tutoring outside of the district here, this is what the reading tutor has focused on is actually the basic Latin, so it's not a surprise.
[3:06:49] to me at all, so. But it needs to be done well. So, yeah, thanks.
[3:06:56] I had just one other thing I wanted to add, which is as the parent also of a kid with
[3:07:01] a learning difference. One of the issues that we've occasionally had is, I want to thank
[3:07:06] Pi for their perspective. It has certainly heard as a parent of a kid with a learning
[3:07:12] difference. One of the issues that we've run into is that there are limited pull out opportunities
[3:07:18] She's in elementary school, and there have been a couple of times where she's missed things that she needed to not have missed because of the, and it's not always fault, just is what it is.
[3:07:30] But I do think that it's also possible that the Latin time could dovetail nicely with some of the special pull-out time.
[3:07:40] And so I just want to sort of advocate for that as an additive thing that this could be,
[3:07:45] and not something that's taking away from other time.
[3:07:50] And now that is all.
[3:07:54] I had one quick thing to build on what Susie said.
[3:07:57] I think the beauty of this is that it is a foreign language in the sense that it is completely unknown to virtually everyone.
[3:08:04] And so it will engage that part of the brain that we are so eager to engage as we,
[3:08:09] We have discussed teaching foreign language in our elementary school or to our fifth graders and it has the ELA benefits and I think that's the beauty of Latin is that it engages that part of the brain that we know the younger you engage it the better it is or the more successful kids are with learning additional languages and it will benefit ELA and I think that's one of the amazing benefits.
[3:08:39] I really appreciate that, the emphasis on how it engages the brain in language, learning
[3:08:45] foreign language makes, that helps me really situate it within foreign language as versus
[3:08:50] in ELA, so I can see how it's both, thanks.
[3:08:54] If we don't have any additional questions or comments, this is an approval item, is there
[3:09:01] a motion?
[3:09:03] I move to approve,
[3:09:06] no, just getting elementary and middle school world language programs.
[3:09:10] items. Is there a second?
[3:09:13] A second.
[3:09:14] As moved by Rushi seconded by Max, all in favour?
[3:09:18] All right.
[3:09:19] Motion carries, sorry, it's a hard question.
[3:09:22] Motion carries five, though.
[3:09:26] Thank you for coming and presenting and committing.
[3:09:30] We really appreciate all of the engagement around this and look forward to moving forward.
[3:09:36] The second review in action item this evening is the approval of the World History
[3:09:41] Course.
[3:09:42] Okay. You all have been so patient.
[3:09:45] You are rock stars.
[3:09:46] Let's get you up here.
[3:09:49] The History Department is of thank goodness.
[3:09:53] I want to just thank the History Department, Melanie McColley, Haley Adams for their
[3:09:58] collaboration on Apparent Night, which I think was a great success, along with
[3:10:03] collaborating on these course descriptions. There are three course descriptions
[3:10:07] attached, the regular college prep world history course for 10th grade.
[3:10:13] There is a proposed honors world history course which we are recommending.
[3:10:19] I have indicated that I support and recommend this course.
[3:10:22] And then there is also for your consideration AP world history.
[3:10:26] So we've attached that as well because there was strong interest in that.
[3:10:30] All three courses were discussed and presented at the parent night and then we're here this evening to formalize that presentation and to hopefully get your approval on the honors world history course this evening.
[3:10:46] Hopefully got that right.
[3:10:47] Okay, while I bring up your presentation, please do go ahead and start.
[3:10:50] Thank you.
[3:10:51] Right.
[3:10:52] Thank you, Dr. Hahn.
[3:10:54] Good evening.
[3:10:56] Happy to be joined by members of the social studies department, Ms. McCauley, Ms. Adams.
[3:11:03] And I know there are some other members that may be available for the question and answer
[3:11:09] following this presentation.
[3:11:12] So this, indeed, has been a partnership.
[3:11:14] As we know, we effectively press pause after a previous board member, subsequently Dr.
[3:11:22] Hahn and I have partnered with members, and then held that community meeting after a
[3:11:28] Peabont High Parent Club, I believe October 27th, which a couple of board members attended.
[3:11:36] Next slide, please.
[3:11:37] So for this brief presentation, we will share information with the board regarding the differences
[3:11:42] between the following courses, Modern World History, which, to be clear, is already approved and
[3:11:48] sophomore's take, Honors World History and AP World History Modern.
[3:11:55] And then ultimately, teachers will be formally recommending Honors World History for
[3:11:59] PUSD Board approval for the 26th, 27th school year.
[3:12:05] All right, so this is a course comparison of the three courses.
[3:12:10] Again, College Prep Modern World History, already in effect and approved.
[3:12:16] In essence, eight units, it begins 1750 of the common era to the present.
[3:12:21] And you can see the names of the units there.
[3:12:24] AP World Modern covers the longest time period, 1200 of the common era to the present.
[3:12:31] Nine units, one difference if you juxtapose the three courses.
[3:12:36] You can see an approximation of what the AP exam assesses for two consecutive units.
[3:12:43] This is an approximation, because if you go on the website, you'll see it'll say 15 to 20 percent.
[3:12:48] Or for instance, unit three, unit four, approximately 25 to 30 percent.
[3:12:53] And then finally, modern world history honors, 1500 of the common area to the present, a total of nine units.
[3:13:01] So we will break down some of the course content for each, and then lift up skills development as it relates to honors, to honors world history.
[3:13:14] Wait, was there anything else?
[3:13:16] Yeah, can you go back just a couple of additional points?
[3:13:19] I just, yes, we know that the AP exam is an approximation, but the point that I wanted to make is that the AP class starts 550 years earlier,
[3:13:29] than either of the modern world classes.
[3:13:33] And about 50% of the exam is on the years before 1750.
[3:13:38] So I struggle with that as a professional
[3:13:41] about that being a modern class,
[3:13:43] because if half the class is before 1750,
[3:13:45] that is a struggle for me to define it as modern.
[3:13:48] But anyway, so that was the one thing I wanted to point out.
[3:13:50] But you will notice that the modern world history course
[3:13:55] and the college prep rule history course,
[3:13:57] the content is very similar.
[3:13:59] and the honors piece would, well, Hayley will speak more to this, but it'll go deeper
[3:14:02] and it'll be more challenging and thus the honors. So, you can go ahead and switch. So, I'm
[3:14:11] not going to read because I slide to you because I know that's really boring, so you can
[3:14:15] take a look at it, but I'm just going to give you a little brief summary of the course,
[3:14:19] the College Pratt Modern World History course. So, the current course is rigorous and relevant.
[3:14:24] It inspires sophomores to make connections between past events and the modern world.
[3:14:30] We definitely get more modern.
[3:14:32] The base of knowledge is supplemented by lessons on, but not limited to media literacy,
[3:14:38] human behavior, cognitive bias, current geopolitical patterns, conflicts, and way more.
[3:14:45] I'm not going to go into all of them.
[3:14:46] It's scaffolded for students to build really critical historical thinking skills, writing
[3:14:52] and inquiry skills, and all of these prepare them for their future high school classes.
[3:14:56] And I would say beyond, because once you've
[3:15:00] I learned how to write critically. You can carry that into any profession. What I love the most about this college prep course is that all the student voices are in it. It's not there's no tracking. There's no segregating. They're all in there and they're blended with a variety of perspectives. They all the students are challenged every day. And then as we dive deeply into hard history, because it does cover a lot of hard history. They also then walk away with even more paths of inquiry and really find a passion for history.
[3:15:29] and just become lifelong learners, so that's that.
[3:15:34] Okay, I will read some of the bullet points.
[3:15:38] This is equivalent to an introductory college course in modern world history.
[3:15:41] It deserves to note that the social studies department is recommending that there's a prerequisite of
[3:15:48] role of cultures and an A and English one, two for ninth grade.
[3:15:52] That's to be discussed, the college board doesn't require a prerequisite.
[3:15:57] So there's some conversation to be had in this regard.
[3:16:01] The course of study, as it's attached, doesn't have the prerequisite attached since that came relatively recently.
[3:16:12] If whoever teaches AP history, they can choose to organize the course content differently based on their own expertise.
[3:16:20] As we all know, if you earn a four or five in AP exam, you're also earning college credit.
[3:16:26] And just like the honest course, each would receive a GPA bump.
[3:16:32] They are weighted courses.
[3:16:34] We already went through some of those course details.
[3:16:37] It is the longest of the three in terms of the time frame.
[3:16:41] And because it needs to prepare students for the college board,
[3:16:45] typically around May 7th, a month earlier, they have to ensure that all content is covered.
[3:16:52] So some of the depth can't, you can't go into, as you would, an honors course
[3:16:59] that's one distinction.
[3:17:00] And I mention this, again, it's one month less in terms of preparation in the school
[3:17:06] year because that AP exam happens relatively early in May.
[3:17:11] Without further ado, I'm going to turn over to Ms. Adams to take a thought.
[3:17:17] That makes me laugh though because this feels like it's been RL show since he just keeps
[3:17:22] coming up so you did an amazing job and I want to just appreciate that and usually
[3:17:28] this is about the time with my freshman that we put on a just dance which is about three
[3:17:33] minutes and we choreograph it together because we're feeling very tired right now and the
[3:17:39] energy's a little low so I'm going to try to pick us up a little bit how I would in my
[3:17:46] your children. So, yes, the honours class, I will try to go on the slides and a little
[3:17:55] off the slides to entertain you a little bit, but I did want to say that this was not something
[3:17:59] that originally the department led and thought was on our agenda this year, but I do want
[3:18:07] to say that it has been a pleasure of mine to try to curate a class for you that kind of fit
[3:18:14] the parameters of what the board is looking for, for what our school already has, especially
[3:18:19] talking to other teachers to make this an interdisciplinary class, especially talking to some of our
[3:18:25] AP lit teachers. What do you want to see? Students kind of accumulate in this class for their knowledge.
[3:18:33] I want to point out, yes, okay fine Melanie, we did go back a little bit in the time period for
[3:18:39] the honors, but that is mainly because of those interdisciplinary skills and
[3:18:43] topics that we want our students to have in their junior year, in their senior year,
[3:18:48] with other AP courses predominantly talking about the Renaissance,
[3:18:53] Reformation, Protestant Reformation, and a little bit about the late middle ages.
[3:18:58] This is a nine unit course.
[3:19:01] It starts a little bit faster in the first semester.
[3:19:04] We're looking to have units 1 through 5 be the primary focus of the fall semester within a later slowdown for the last four units.
[3:19:14] The reason being for that is partly because it starts us off with a timeline a little bit in second semester, which is like all of the terrible things that have happened in first semester in their inquiry leads them to World War I.
[3:19:30] That was the war to end all wars ironically as you may know it and of course right after we talked about World War II.
[3:19:38] But that slowdown is very intentional because in the sophomore curriculum especially because they read all quiet in the Western Front,
[3:19:44] which is a book that the English classes do read.
[3:19:47] It's the book, we actually give them for annotations that we could align that book with the units in that second semester
[3:19:55] so that we're not competing against what they're learning in English.
[3:19:58] We're actually supplementing what they're learning, and this would also give us more time
[3:20:03] to talk about the more modern sense of the modern world history class, especially looking at years
[3:20:10] from 1936 to today. That's kind of how we would like to split the class. It will be fast pace.
[3:20:18] It will have similar thematic units in the content from the regular class, but that's simply
[3:20:25] because history is history, so the days and topics will align.
[3:20:29] We also think that that's super important
[3:20:31] for having some universal experiences
[3:20:33] between our students.
[3:20:37] What about this slide?
[3:20:39] We have a slide about skills coming up
[3:20:42] and also about some of the supplemental materials.
[3:20:45] So I feel good going on to the next slide.
[3:20:49] Thanks, Jen.
[3:20:51] So like I said, content is easier to sum up
[3:20:54] because we can go through the topics I did in the course overview, in the course proposal,
[3:21:01] put a bunch of sample topics in which the students would be engaged in throughout the year.
[3:21:07] We're not married to each one, but this was something that I kind of whipped up in the last four
[3:21:13] weeks of things that I think that our honor students would be interested in doing deeper dives and
[3:21:19] and it's something that, again, it match up with our other course.
[3:21:23] But I'm more so and I'm excited to talk about the skills of this class,
[3:21:28] and kind of what I think that this honors course can really land for our students.
[3:21:33] Even though the kids don't care about this part,
[3:21:35] this is where the adults come in and the professionals.
[3:21:38] Essentially, I would like to see a flipped classroom model for this class.
[3:21:44] Primarily, kids would then have ad puzzles,
[3:21:46] or they would have their textbook readings,
[3:21:49] they would have the primary work outside of class.
[3:21:53] This is the model we also do for a pushed class,
[3:21:56] so it is something that we can gear them up for
[3:21:58] that next semester.
[3:22:00] But that will alleviate class time for us
[3:22:02] to then allow that primary source look
[3:22:05] to ingrain in the differences between what a secondary source
[3:22:10] is from a historical perspective to the primary source
[3:22:13] and also allow for enriched discussion and then another part of it would be teaching an entirely
[3:22:20] new skill that PMON High School has not yet fully engaged in which is teaching historical writing.
[3:22:28] Historiography is one of those very fancy words that you do learn in college and everybody
[3:22:34] takes that course when you're getting a history degree but essentially historical writing is looking
[3:22:39] at the examination of how history has been written and having our students engage in that
[3:22:45] historical writing themselves. So taking their inquiry, whether that be in military, political,
[3:22:52] social realms, I even put in the course looking at literary movements, environmental, sociological,
[3:22:58] and having the students actually walk away in the chosen topic. What's also in the course,
[3:23:02] description and course overview would be a book that we would use. It's, we would use it as a
[3:23:08] classroom reader, but it's titled a short guide to writing about history.
[3:23:13] And the really cool thing about this book as I've been doing research is it's not just
[3:23:16] about essay writing, it's also about how to take fantastic notes, how to draft, how to
[3:23:22] look at what the primary source that you've been given and how to actually engage in it.
[3:23:28] It's a pretty renowned book, it's like it is pretty much the universal book that most people
[3:23:34] engage in whether that's in secondary or in like a history 101 class as well in college.
[3:23:40] So emphasis in this case is that I really would like students we as a department really
[3:23:45] like students to walk away having a technical writing in this way.
[3:23:49] The other introduction to that skill for historical graphical writing is actually teaching also
[3:23:54] Chicago style citations.
[3:23:57] Right now all of our students teach our taught MLA and while MLA is fantastic in an English
[3:24:03] classroom.
[3:24:03] It actually is limited in a history classroom because it does not lend itself greatly to end notes.
[3:24:09] What is an end note to a historian? It's everything. It's all of the rich citation that you have. It's a lot of the background.
[3:24:17] This is a skill that students will need to have if they want to become historians.
[3:24:22] And I really do believe that we've done a fantastic job at PMON High School teaching the technicalities of our STEM classes.
[3:24:29] but we are lacking in that technical writing for our humanity students.
[3:24:34] So this would be something that yes, the English Department will be slightly mad at me about because kids will,
[3:24:40] and beginning start to kind of maybe get them a little confused.
[3:24:46] But in the end, we do want kids to walk away with having that strong writing foundation.
[3:24:52] And this is a really great way to teach this specific skill development so that they're not just writing
[3:24:58] I'm thinking that writing in history is like the AP writing that we talked about a little
[3:25:03] bit on Paranite and I'm happy to talk about more later.
[3:25:06] And then so sorry, last and at least introducing a new way of discussion.
[3:25:11] So you may be familiar with the Hercness model.
[3:25:14] I'm not sure it is actually an old model it was created in 1930, but it comes out of a private
[3:25:21] at school of extra in New Hampshire.
[3:25:24] And it's a really cool model of discussion
[3:25:27] because it puts the onerous and the work on the children.
[3:25:31] It also lends itself to disagreement quite a bit
[3:25:35] and kids walk away not so much with absolutism
[3:25:38] but walk away more with inquiry.
[3:25:41] It is similar to a secratic method in its style and look
[3:25:44] but instead of it being teacher led,
[3:25:46] it's actually student led where kids come
[3:25:48] with pre-written questions, and they themselves become the expert of that topic.
[3:25:55] We, I said this a lot at the parent night, but my hope for this class is that all of the
[3:25:59] history nerds and history buffs kind of take this class.
[3:26:03] I have been teaching here for six years, and there are some of our students that we have
[3:26:08] walked out of our classes, and we have said they should actually be teaching that unit
[3:26:13] because they absolutely geek out in so many ways, history is so hard because there's so many
[3:26:19] different patterns and paths that you can take that this type of discussion and inquiry can actually
[3:26:25] lend itself to allow students to go where they themselves want to go instead of a teacher telling
[3:26:31] them exactly where they should go. You don't come in so much with an agenda. You come in more with
[3:26:36] inquiry and that kind of top-down model that the children and maybe perhaps some of you are used to
[3:26:43] in a history class of teacher standing and lecturing,
[3:26:46] it gets dissipated with this type of model.
[3:26:50] And yeah, so in the last slide, one more slide.
[3:26:53] I'm sorry, it's late, I'm sorry.
[3:26:56] But we're going, we got this.
[3:26:58] Okay, so we wanted to kind of last and at least
[3:27:00] give some just overall benefits to this.
[3:27:03] And I think when we are looking and talking about
[3:27:09] But where we want our students to be beyond this classroom, having the ability for our students to really engage in the other classes that they're taking, whether that be in their science classes or their English classes, we're hoping that this modern world history honors course will have them walking away feeling more inclined to perhaps, I don't know, major.
[3:27:39] in history, which would be a really fantastic thing for us to see historians, especially
[3:27:44] history majors, do go on to become lawyers and they become doctors.
[3:27:49] And they literally actually are anything in the entire world because history as a form of inquiry
[3:27:54] and discussion and skill sets is widely used in all these realms. My dad is a history major or was
[3:28:02] a history major and my dad is coach basketball for 52 years. And he would say that that actually
[3:28:06] really, really lends itself in many ways the skills that he had.
[3:28:10] And as we said earlier, without the AP courses, additional instructional time is just one
[3:28:15] of those things for our sophomores, especially, that we really want to make sure that we're
[3:28:19] fostering their ability to grow as a cohort and with the amazing teachers that we have our
[3:28:26] ability to react and kind of supplement the needs as necessary.
[3:28:30] So we're not teaching to this test.
[3:28:32] we have that extra month.
[3:28:34] In that extra month, I've proposed a few things,
[3:28:37] you know, model UN simulations.
[3:28:40] That's where they should be writing a
[3:28:41] historical paper on their chosen topic.
[3:28:44] That links up to what they did freshman year
[3:28:47] with their eye search.
[3:28:48] It takes them beyond to perhaps what they might
[3:28:50] want to do in AP seminar or AP research.
[3:28:53] Like those are those kind of building and stepping stones
[3:28:56] that I'm really hoping that this class will ultimately
[3:28:59] We kind of meld and mesh itself into for this curriculum that we already have, and
[3:29:06] history is really great, and this content is really great, and this department is really
[3:29:10] great, and that's, I think, my presentation.
[3:29:14] So, let's go to comments and questions.
[3:29:19] So, we also wanted to include Ginny, Son, and Hillary Freeman.
[3:29:23] The four of us have taught the College Prep World History course for however long after the
[3:29:28] class.
[3:29:28] So we can feel any of your questions that you have.
[3:29:32] I just want to kick it off by saying
[3:29:33] you have incredible energy for this hour.
[3:29:37] Thank you.
[3:29:37] Even without just dancing, so impressed.
[3:29:42] I just wanted to make a couple comments,
[3:29:44] and then I'll come back for questions.
[3:29:46] I really appreciate the alignment with the other courses.
[3:29:49] I think that that approach makes a whole lot of sense
[3:29:53] and really makes it, makes sense for students and fascinated by the heart.
[3:30:00] Public mismodel of discussion, particularly how it allows for students to disagree, which I think is a really important thing for students to learn to do to disagree and have conversations about topics they might not agree on, or might not see eye on or have different perspectives. And I'm curious if any other classes at PHS use that model. That's a great question. So actually, Mr. Mayor, can I? Joe Mayor, can I?
[3:30:30] This was one of our focus of my evaluation this year.
[3:30:34] And so we were actually looking at if the Harkness model has been used.
[3:30:37] And there's variations of it being used.
[3:30:39] But widely at our school, we'd use the Socratic method.
[3:30:43] That's mostly because the Harkness method is not taught in teaching school, actually.
[3:30:49] Which is one of those things where I think it really should be.
[3:30:53] So this is something that you see often in,
[3:30:58] Like a history 101 course, especially like in our liberal arts private school, like I went to a little
[3:31:03] arts private school in college and it was the model that I was taught at Butler University and
[3:31:11] bringing that slowly but surely into the classroom. I've done it with my juniors a little bit when we do
[3:31:21] It's not, and that is actually one of the kind of, I don't know, leads that Mr. American I have been talking and engaging in to see if we could get a group of teachers together and see what that would be like.
[3:31:34] It lends itself in all disciplines.
[3:31:37] Actually, there's a really big push for it to be in math right now. That's where the, yeah, I hear myself.
[3:31:45] That's actually one of the things that you will see often in, like, Ed Topia right now.
[3:31:50] So if you Google Harkness, you will see it, like, math class, math class, math class.
[3:31:55] This is how math should be taught and led.
[3:31:58] So it's cool to bring it a little bit back into the humanities, too, because we don't do
[3:32:03] that at the school.
[3:32:04] Great.
[3:32:05] Thank you.
[3:32:05] And I just also just want to say I really appreciate the focus on technical writing.
[3:32:09] I think that it's a cool skill, particularly for more humanities, my dead students to learn.
[3:32:17] President Thomason, this is just a reminder that we have to make a motion to extend the meeting.
[3:32:22] Thank you.
[3:32:23] Do I have a motion to extend the meeting?
[3:32:26] I'm going to propose that we extend by what's the max, just so we're by 90 minutes.
[3:32:32] I don't think we'll meet it, but I'm fine.
[3:32:36] I move to sit in the meeting, but I can't.
[3:32:41] You second.
[3:32:44] I second.
[3:32:46] I have some ocean beverage.
[3:32:47] She's second advice is the all in favor.
[3:32:51] Hi.
[3:32:53] Hi.
[3:32:53] Hi.
[3:32:56] Is it a mentor?
[3:32:58] Yes.
[3:32:59] It is your turn.
[3:32:59] Okay.
[3:33:00] Cool.
[3:33:00] I'm afraid it's by zero.
[3:33:03] I have several questions I'm going to use our model.
[3:33:09] My comment is that I love end notes, and I'm so excited about the Chicago style.
[3:33:15] I also really love the tie-in with all quiet on the western front.
[3:33:18] I think that's really wonderful.
[3:33:21] The question that I wanted to ask you, this is really important for me, particularly given
[3:33:28] And the, actually, sorry, I have one more comment
[3:33:30] that I won't be able to say anything is fine.
[3:33:32] I think it's worth it.
[3:33:34] I've mentioned before I have a niece who went to Exeter
[3:33:37] and the Harkness model watching her evolution
[3:33:42] as a result of being educated in that model
[3:33:45] was truly like a beautiful thing to watch.
[3:33:48] And I'm really, really excited that our students
[3:33:50] will have a chance to be able to use that,
[3:33:52] to be able to have thoughtful discussions
[3:33:53] and engage with each other.
[3:33:56] I'm not really excited about that.
[3:33:57] I had no idea that, so that's really cool.
[3:34:00] I had no idea about that.
[3:34:04] Yeah, thank you.
[3:34:05] You spoke to me, made my heart saying in Lindsay's too,
[3:34:08] and I think Roochee's and perhaps everybody's just hearing
[3:34:10] more about the academic writing, how that might fit in.
[3:34:13] I would love the ICERGE, how this fits into APLIT,
[3:34:15] and what we're trying to build in our student's ability,
[3:34:18] the research and evidence and writing styles.
[3:34:20] So thank you for, and I appreciate that you're
[3:34:23] paralleling that a little bit to all the amazing
[3:34:24] basic skills that we teach our STEM kids
[3:34:26] Yeah.
[3:34:27] And trying to be more transparent and purposeful in how we build that for our humanities kids
[3:34:34] too.
[3:34:34] So, thank you.
[3:34:35] I love that very much.
[3:34:37] I love the hardness as well.
[3:34:40] I guess just the one comment I have is that I still, I worry a little bit how much this
[3:34:46] is a survey course versus where kids really need to learn just the fundamentals of world
[3:34:50] history versus bringing in something that's more
[3:34:54] meta-cognitive and a little bit more sophisticated
[3:34:57] that to me the history or historiographical view
[3:35:01] of things feels to me like it should not be the focus
[3:35:04] but more a supplement.
[3:35:06] So I'm curious if maybe you can kind of, is there like a,
[3:35:09] there's a 75, 25% approach to that or kind of how that will be?
[3:35:14] That's just, my hope for this would be that a kid could
[3:35:17] could take this class and take the AP test and pass, you know, with, of course,
[3:35:23] going to have to do some extra work and all that as they all do.
[3:35:25] But that would be an important takeaway for me.
[3:35:28] Yeah.
[3:35:28] I do think that that is easily like presented from this class because we have had kids
[3:35:36] successfully take the AP course just taking our college prep, modern world history.
[3:35:41] I think in terms of percentage-wise and what we're looking for in the raw content, they'll
[3:35:51] be doing in the honors, everything content-wise that the, our college prep will be doing
[3:35:58] and then a little bit more based on those topics.
[3:36:02] So the raw history, I mean, I guess we could say the content, the bulk of the class is about
[3:36:08] content and these deeper dives about these actual, like these topics. For each unit, right,
[3:36:16] I kind of looked at what we have currently, what I've taught before, and added like four to five
[3:36:22] other topics to kind of blend into that unit. So things that maybe take them geographically out of one
[3:36:30] region or to go a little bit deeper on a person or a thing. So in terms of, like, I want to separate a little bit
[3:36:38] the historiography side of it is really just about writing and it's more about how they want to
[3:36:44] or will produce that high order thinking. But of course there's still going to do regular essays,
[3:36:53] you know, responses to the content, check-ins about that. So it really is a contact course.
[3:37:01] The reason why I think I kind of wrote the course description in the realm of historiography is
[3:37:07] because I want it to be such an important tenant of the class for the technical writing,
[3:37:11] for the disciplinary side of that because I do think that when it comes to what is a rigorous
[3:37:18] honors course, content is content, but it is the skills that we're looking at.
[3:37:25] Because we also don't have an honors course within the history department right now,
[3:37:31] This is kind of our way to see what that looks like and execute it have, I mean, I want to say a pilot because we're always thinking pilot, but that is essentially what either course would have to do.
[3:37:44] They do have to be piloted because none of us have taught AP world, it would take time, but this will also take time too.
[3:37:54] And I think that that's actually a good thing because we have the ability to
[3:37:58] illicit feedback and contort to this class.
[3:38:02] But in terms of content, all the same stuff that they're doing,
[3:38:06] let's throw out a number, we're going to say 75% of that content exploration.
[3:38:16] And then probably majority is actually the primary source of kind of
[3:38:23] fight of that last little percentage and then about 10% to the writing, because the thing about the book that we're going to use and kind of the way that the class works is where we do DBQs in the modern world history right now, those little check-ins for writing would start their historical bit of writing, so it would kind of build upon what they're learning in English, but take it into that technicality and that way too that the students are actually also bringing in the secondary
[3:38:53] resources because that's a really key part about historical writing and our GBQs, we often see an
[3:39:00] over-align for our students to use primary sources and they're kind of afraid to use a critique or
[3:39:05] they're afraid to use, you know, like a New York Times article, even sometimes to blend into their
[3:39:12] writing, but that's really what we want to see is their ability to take multiple sources and engage
[3:39:18] in it because that's what it is. So yeah, numbers. I'm not a number scale, so I might
[3:39:24] have just gone 110% on that, but I'm not sure.
[3:39:32] Okay, I have a lot of things. I'm going to try and run through them. I will only do two
[3:39:37] now. We'll come back around. Can you talk a little bit about the sources you're going to
[3:39:44] into the classroom. In the class description, I just saw essentially two textbooks, two,
[3:39:51] I believe, documentaries and three other books. I assume you're going to bring more in,
[3:39:55] so can you talk about what those are? Yeah, so the the Northern anthology of World Literature
[3:39:59] is where all the primary sources are actually housed themselves, so they're quite large.
[3:40:06] So in that case, I didn't necessarily want to write every single primary source that would be used
[3:40:13] because then every single person going forward
[3:40:15] have to use those exact ones
[3:40:17] and things might change and things might go.
[3:40:21] But in terms of the sources of these materials,
[3:40:25] why I specifically chose these materials
[3:40:26] was because access and essentially like.
[3:40:31] To clarify my question a little bit more,
[3:40:33] are there going to be materials that are not the materials
[3:40:35] that you listed in the document that we read?
[3:40:38] I mean, potentially, there are always the ability
[3:40:41] to add in like articles or chapters or other secondary sources for a teacher to want to do,
[3:40:51] but I didn't want to put that in because I might not teach this course,
[3:40:56] somebody else might teach this course and they want to go a different route.
[3:40:59] I wasn't able to go to the presentation you made to parents because of the Brown Act,
[3:41:04] but I did see the handout that you gave and one of the books that was featured pretty heavily
[3:41:09] that I didn't see in the materials that we saw was Orientalism by Edward Said and just the chapter.
[3:41:15] Yeah, so I read that book in college and there is a lot and this I will get to my concern about
[3:41:22] the larger class. There is a lot of implied expected knowledge of many things in order to process
[3:41:30] that book successfully. I mean it's based on like Foucault there's and not stuff that 15-year-old
[3:41:37] 10th graders are going to know, and I would almost classify that book.
[3:41:42] I'm not, this is my concern with the class larger.
[3:41:45] Separate from that book is that this feels to me like what you're describing is a literary criticism class and not a history survey class.
[3:41:52] And so I'm struggling to connect the dot between what that is and what we did in college, many of us who were liberal arts majors.
[3:42:02] And having those kids be able to then go take the AP test if they want.
[3:42:09] Yeah, absolutely.
[3:42:11] Yeah, so, thank you, that's a wonderful thing.
[3:42:15] Yeah, so one of the things that ends up happening in a lot of our history classes in any
[3:42:20] humanities course is the ability to bring in diverse perspectives.
[3:42:27] It's not that, and this is kind of one of the things.
[3:42:31] I can see how it could come across as a literary analysis, which is why the course description
[3:42:36] itself was tweaked, and we kind of played around with that, so that it has the ability
[3:42:41] for a different theory or a different article to be presented in.
[3:42:47] And I think one of the cool things about all history classes is that, yes, kids will learn
[3:42:53] the content.
[3:42:54] They will learn the content.
[3:42:55] They will learn the history.
[3:42:56] they will walk away with all of the same content that the college prep course will have, too.
[3:43:03] And so I am pretty certain that they will feel that they are able to take an AP course.
[3:43:09] The potential for discussion and for kids to have that in a secratic seminar or for them to have a
[3:43:18] kind of breakdown of what the a theory like Said's first chapter would look like is kind of what
[3:43:25] What happens like within the classroom is supplement.
[3:43:28] We do that also in our APUSH classes where kids take all of the content mostly outside
[3:43:34] of the classroom, right?
[3:43:35] They do all their textbook notes, they do all of their ed puzzles, they do it outside of
[3:43:40] the course.
[3:43:41] And then inside the course, we bring in things for them to essentially critique.
[3:43:46] And sometimes, yes, it's definitely a critique on a narrative or a focus or a thing.
[3:43:52] But what essentially, for, let's just use, I would say, in that way there is the ability for students because of what they foundationally started to learn in like seventh, eighth grade and actually enrolled cultures.
[3:44:08] It does lend itself because essentially the, the statement to that is, what if we, what if we looked at it on this side, what if we looked at this specific map?
[3:44:17] That's one of the things, actually, in my modern world history class that we do on the
[3:44:20] first day, is I show them a map that's just the Pacific Ocean in the center.
[3:44:25] And that's an error, I mean, that's, yeah.
[3:44:28] My concern is that if you're, just to take Edward Said again as the example, Edward Said is very
[3:44:32] clearly saying that a specific framing of literature in the world is bad, and it's bad for
[3:44:41] these reasons.
[3:44:42] And if the kids have no idea what it is that he is talking about, essentially what
[3:44:47] what you're doing is giving them a thing that says, this is bad, and then, with the
[3:44:50] hardness model, saying, talk about why this is bad, and my concern there also is that
[3:44:55] you are not as much showing kids how to think, but a little bit.
[3:45:00] I've been telling them what to think, and that concerns me a lot about this class. I also feel, and then I will stop talking for now, that I've been pushing into some classrooms this year. I'm, you know, this is my first year on the school board, and this is going to make me sound like I'm a million years old, but there is a lot, a lot of kids talking about how they feel about whatever the subject is.
[3:45:29] And at a certain point, especially in an honors class,
[3:45:33] like things happened at a time and they led to other things
[3:45:35] and you have to learn those things.
[3:45:37] It can't just be about how you feel about a thing
[3:45:42] that you're just learning about right now.
[3:45:44] And so I am particularly concerned
[3:45:47] that this class will sort of devolve into feelings
[3:45:52] and in groups and out groups.
[3:45:55] So I think to kind of add, sorry, to add, it is a balanced class with objectionable facts, right?
[3:46:07] And we are, yeah, I'm sorry, objective, we objective facts, yeah, we are building like we are still using the California content state standards, right?
[3:46:20] we have our textbook that is going to be the basis for the facts, and that is where we're all
[3:46:26] starting from, right, with the flip classroom model, the factual learning, again, will ideally be
[3:46:33] at home, and then in class is where we give them a multitude of sources, lots of different primary
[3:46:42] sources, right, from different perspectives of the people at the time, and with that content
[3:46:48] knowledge from the flip classroom, they can dive deep into these different primary sources,
[3:46:54] secondary sources as well, to further their understanding of history and to be able to
[3:47:01] build their own interpretations and inquiries.
[3:47:06] Okay, I have more questions, but I want to honor the process here.
[3:47:09] The history is always the base, like that's everything is the history piece of it, so I want to
[3:47:14] put your mind at ease that's always the base for our classes.
[3:47:21] I guess my question, I was at the presentation the other night and the question is,
[3:47:26] what are the primary sources, and I thought when I saw the attachment there would be in there,
[3:47:31] but I did not find them.
[3:47:32] So that would be my question.
[3:47:35] Can you say more about the primary sources?
[3:47:36] So when you asked that question, I was like laughing because I was like, yeah, percentage,
[3:47:42] what is that?
[3:47:43] But again, that was one of those things where, like, when we're doing prep for our DBQs,
[3:47:50] for example, and we're pulling primary sources, like, we might use a different source set
[3:47:55] at any point throughout the year, because some things are recently found, there's different
[3:48:02] archives that kind of pop up.
[3:48:04] We also do that to combat plagiarism, so that our DBQs look differently.
[3:48:08] So that was the intention behind not putting like every single specific primary source because like if if we listed every single primary source that we use in our sophomore curriculum, it would.
[3:48:21] Well, I'm not asking for an exhaustive list. I'm asking for examples. Couldn't you show me 10 so I know what kind of primary sources you're talking about.
[3:48:28] I apologize for that. Yeah.
[3:48:29] We can build that out from sources that we, sorry.
[3:48:34] And we can build out examples from sources that we currently use in the college prep.
[3:48:42] And then it would, we would be adding for the honors as well.
[3:48:46] There is a textbook, it's called the Western tradition, it has two volumes.
[3:48:51] And it has a variety, it's kind of like a Norton anthology for literature.
[3:48:56] But it is for social studies classes.
[3:48:59] And you will have your classic pieces in there.
[3:49:03] You will have if this were, you know,
[3:49:06] you're going to have portions of the Communist Manifesto.
[3:49:09] You're going to have portions of Adam Smith's reading.
[3:49:11] And again, you know, yes, that's a little bit more economic theory,
[3:49:14] but it comes when we talk about industrialization.
[3:49:17] It's going to have excerpts from factory life and what it was like.
[3:49:23] It's going to have perspectives on imperialism
[3:49:27] and what it was like from the perspectives of those enduring imperialism and the benefits
[3:49:33] and the drawbacks for that and also the perspective of those that, you know, from why this
[3:49:39] what drove imperialism, et cetera, linking those units together. And so there are a lot of those
[3:49:44] types of textbooks and I know that we will pull from those sources and I think what's happening
[3:49:50] right now is that when we say a textbook, you know, the world has changed as well and so we
[3:49:57] tend to go straight to the internet but these are the sources that we have that are these common
[3:50:04] pieces that we always pull from for these and those that we use in the existing class, I would,
[3:50:17] And I hear that there's a concern that there's an agenda, I think, behind.
[3:50:24] And I-
[3:50:25] That's not really it at all.
[3:50:26] It's really just I'm asking you to define what you mean by a primary source.
[3:50:30] I am not sure we're concerned about that.
[3:50:31] Okay, all right, yeah, and I want to assuage you that our biggest goal here is to
[3:50:42] To teach the class as it is, it is that high school level class that the state has the curriculum for.
[3:50:51] In the past we have deemphasized a little bit of those early renaissance and reformation times.
[3:50:59] We are now hearing that those are things that need to be emphasized a little bit more given the breadth of what they cover in the literature spaces and so we're going to those places as well.
[3:51:10] But there is also this idea that students really are going to be looking at a lot of these very like we're going to look at the French Revolution and we're going to look at the same sources when we talk about Robespierre and what happened and just as you would in a U.S. class where you might have a look at the observations.
[3:51:39] You know, of all those other standard things that you remember, that's what we do, too, so.
[3:51:46] But to kind of make them maybe sharpen their skills a little bit, maybe there's going to be these things from left field and such to make them stop and say,
[3:51:58] I, oh, hey, I never thought of it that way, and so, and is this a challenge of a narrative or not, and to really talk through that as well.
[3:52:11] So, I mean, I think I don't want to, like, put words into anyone's mouth, but we are talking the same class, but on a higher level.
[3:52:22] I can certainly pull out a lot of primary sources from the Norton that I've looked at, but
[3:52:29] like the Declaration of Independence, Declaration of Human rights.
[3:52:33] The man is in that, actually prints the Prince Machiavelli is in that as well.
[3:52:38] There's a bunch of letters from during the opium wars between essentially tradesmen on why
[3:52:46] they were pushing opium into trying at that time to make those trade deals.
[3:52:51] One of the other ones that I was looking at, there's also interpretation of, we do the Ethiopian enlightenment as one of the supplements in modern world history, and Hattata is actually in that that's one of Zaria Cove's writings that it's actually a hundred years earlier than John Locke's writings, we think John Locke actually plagiarized him to be honest, but, so like Hattata's in that, and so it's, it's actually just
[3:53:21] It's a really wonderful, so I chose AD and E simply because they worked with the time periods that the C and B don't work with the time periods that we're working with, and there is a bunch of foundational American documents in it as well, because we do a bunch of comparison about the American documents, so I just didn't, I just didn't, I just didn't, that's what I was getting at, so I appreciate that, and that would be happy to, yeah, no, that answers my question, thank you.
[3:53:48] really?
[3:53:50] Great. I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment. Is there anyone
[3:53:56] in the room who was just to speak on the item?
[3:54:01] I have any cards. I don't see any.
[3:54:05] I do see
[3:54:06] we have two hands raised. Can you go ahead and promote the first person to speaker?
[3:54:22] I go you may unmute.
[3:54:24] Hello.
[3:54:25] Hi, Hiko.
[3:54:27] No, I can't use working.
[3:54:29] It's very, very good.
[3:54:30] We can wear you, Hiko.
[3:54:32] You're up.
[3:54:41] Hiko.
[3:54:45] Okay, Hiko, we're going to go to the next person and come back to you.
[3:54:49] So please stay online and raise your hand again and we'll come back to you.
[3:54:52] We're unmute.
[3:54:54] Greg, you may unmute when you're ready.
[3:54:56] Hello, can you hear me?
[3:54:58] Hi, Grant.
[3:54:59] We can hear you.
[3:54:59] Hello.
[3:55:00] So I've been top in most of these teachers here in Pima and I go to college for the stuff
[3:55:10] and I've looked at all the history classes there.
[3:55:13] I would love to see these classes being taught in Pima.
[3:55:18] Being able to deep dive into these history classes and learning multiple sources and
[3:55:23] being taught different perspectives on how to talk to each other is so important to learn
[3:55:27] in high school and applies so much in college.
[3:55:30] And stuff like that, like deep diving into that content
[3:55:34] and forming your own opinion about the works of history
[3:55:37] that we're given helps us so much to find who we are as students
[3:55:42] and form our own opinions about how history was.
[3:55:47] And also Chicago style citation to the big one, obviously,
[3:55:51] in history classes in college, they really do apply.
[3:55:53] but I just absolutely love to see this in Pima.
[3:55:58] That's all I have to say.
[3:56:00] Thank you, Grant.
[3:56:02] Of course.
[3:56:04] Next person, is it Sophia?
[3:56:07] I think I have a little strategy.
[3:56:08] OK, great.
[3:56:09] Hi, Ko.
[3:56:13] Hi, Ko, can you unmute please?
[3:56:16] Hopefully my audio is working out.
[3:56:18] We can hear you, Hi, Ko.
[3:56:20] OK, thank you.
[3:56:22] Sorry, I couldn't make it tonight.
[3:56:23] I had a couple of tests I just studied for.
[3:56:26] I kind of wanted to segue off grant.
[3:56:28] I really like grant.
[3:56:29] I had grant in my freshman year at an studies class.
[3:56:34] And I was one of my favorite classes.
[3:56:37] I'm sure these teachers are awesome.
[3:56:40] I've had every single one of these teachers
[3:56:41] in some form over the past three years.
[3:56:45] So I can definitely vouch for what they're saying.
[3:56:48] I think that honors modern world history,
[3:56:52] again, is like a really excellent choice for class over AP. I think it kind of, I mean,
[3:56:59] everyone went over it. I think it messes much better with the other curriculum and classes
[3:57:05] sophomore year which, you know, already has jumped from freshman year. When it comes to
[3:57:10] rigor, and it's definitely a good segue. I feel like a lot of things that's gotten brought up is
[3:57:14] is kind of like what I'm seeing in APUSH this year. I think it's definitely a good buildup that I
[3:57:20] I think is a good idea, but isn't as stressful
[3:57:23] or time-consuming as something up to you.
[3:57:26] Thank you.
[3:57:28] Thank you, Haiko.
[3:57:31] One more hand raised.
[3:57:32] Yeah, next we have Sofina.
[3:57:38] And Sofina, you may have me when you're ready.
[3:57:44] Sofina.
[3:57:50] Sofina.
[3:57:53] Hello, can you hear me?
[3:57:54] Yes, we can hear you.
[3:57:55] Hi, Sofina.
[3:57:57] Okay, awesome. Hello.
[3:57:58] So I'll keep it brief, but I just wanted to say
[3:58:02] that as a current college student and as a humanities major,
[3:58:05] who is currently taking history courses,
[3:58:07] the preparation that would be offered in this honors
[3:58:09] modern world history course would be something
[3:58:11] about absolutely really helping me out right now.
[3:58:14] That just seems like a really valuable skill set
[3:58:16] with like not only the Chicago style,
[3:58:19] writing academic papers generally for the humanities,
[3:58:21] like I'm currently learning how to do that
[3:58:22] and that just is intensely valuable.
[3:58:25] And also to touch on sentiments around discussion
[3:58:30] and the discussion aspect of the course.
[3:58:33] I think it seems odd to call into question
[3:58:37] like the strengthening of our own critical thinking
[3:58:39] through discussion.
[3:58:41] Our interpretation of history as we are learning about it
[3:58:44] is still relevant to the formation of history
[3:58:46] for talking about sociological processes.
[3:58:49] And I just think that overall this is a course
[3:58:51] that is going to be incredibly beneficial.
[3:58:53] So yeah, that's my two cents.
[3:58:54] Thank you.
[3:58:56] Thank you, Sophia.
[3:58:57] being a, I don't see any additional hands raised. Okay, then go ahead and close public comment.
[3:59:05] Do we have any additional board questions or comments?
[3:59:10] You're up.
[3:59:11] Okay, one, two specific questions that are related. Do you plan to teach 1948 Israel-Palestine
[3:59:19] and 1949 India-Pakistan?
[3:59:24] That is a great question. Thank you for that. Yes, that is a topic that should be talked
[3:59:31] about in history classes. One of the prerequisites or recommendations that we said was to have
[3:59:38] world cultures in which the topic is talked about and shown. So yes, that is something that
[3:59:45] currently in the modern world history curriculum, we just kind of allude to, but we don't actually
[3:59:53] talk about. And so yes, that would be a topic that should be in the honors course.
[3:59:57] And, um...
[4:00:00] How do you plan to police the discussion and the line between where anti-zionism can lead into anti-semitism?
[4:00:17] Well, like any other discussion that we have in the classroom that is fully charged and has a lot of emotions based off of how people feel, we will have the same conversations that we have already. We will listen to both sides.
[4:00:31] We will present curriculum based off of primary sources, secondary sources.
[4:00:38] This is not something that yet I have the day to day on, but essentially it would probably
[4:00:45] base off of the information that is taught in real cultures.
[4:00:49] Do you want to talk to that in a little bit?
[4:00:50] This is not the first time that we deal with controversial subjects, we are history teachers.
[4:00:56] So, I know that in the last number of years this has been a heavily charged topic, but understand that we deal in highly sensitive material on a regular basis.
[4:01:11] And so, every time we approach a topic that we know people have strong feelings for, we say this is a topic that people have strong feelings for.
[4:01:20] This is a place where we want you to be able to ask questions, we want you to be able to be informed.
[4:01:26] We also want you to learn to state your opinions in a way that you are respectful to your classmates.
[4:01:35] And in such a way that you feel sympathy for both sides because we know in history that nobody is 100% correct and 100% in the wrong.
[4:01:46] And so we deal in the gray all the time and that's one of the things that we want to teach.
[4:01:53] We don't want students to feel like they can't go to a class and not talk about hard things.
[4:02:00] Because if they're not going to talk about it with each other in a place where we are
[4:02:04] giving them those messages, then we are doing them a disservice.
[4:02:09] And we're asking for a society that has tick-tock wars in that way that we see is causing
[4:02:16] so much damage to our society today. So we all, this is what we do. So we teach the facts,
[4:02:25] we teach what happened, we teach, this is how one group feels about this, this is how another
[4:02:30] group feels about this. We teach that, you know, these things are not, you know, equated, we teach the,
[4:02:38] what Zionism actually means. And I'm using that as an example just of, I know that this is something
[4:02:45] and I go on to depth on, but in all things, we know the issues at stake, and we know how to prep students for those difficult conversations in class.
[4:02:56] So I hear you, and two and a half years ago I think I would have vociferously agreed with you.
[4:03:02] My concern is that without seeing the sources that are going to be used, I don't know if it will be equitably presented.
[4:03:12] and essentially you're saying trust us, and if there's one thing that the world has shown
[4:03:17] me as I walked around Lingmarit with my kids where the graffiti went from fuck the war to
[4:03:23] fuck Israel to fuck Jews, that I am willing to take a flyer on this one to be perfectly
[4:03:29] honest with you, especially not without seeing the sources, and unfortunately especially a lot
[4:03:35] A lot of the most vociferous anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic organizations today cite Edward Saeed as sort of their inspiring forefather of thinking.
[4:03:52] And so the combination of all those facts is extremely troubling to me.
[4:03:59] And I don't really have a question, I just am extremely concerned about that.
[4:04:03] But, you know, there is a law that was passed, AB 715, that the Teachers Union was seriously
[4:04:12] against, that is supposed to combat anti-semitism in schools.
[4:04:19] And, you know, unfortunately, the last couple of years have just really deadened my faith in
[4:04:31] this.
[4:04:31] And so I don't know that I can vote for a curriculum where the sources are like Edward Said
[4:04:39] had just trust us.
[4:04:41] I'm sorry.
[4:04:42] It's not Edward Said.
[4:04:44] It's not.
[4:04:45] It's actually not.
[4:04:46] I just want to say one thing.
[4:04:48] Yeah.
[4:04:49] So I also teach English.
[4:04:51] I teach mouse with my freshman.
[4:04:53] We do an enriched curriculum for our Holocaust studies.
[4:04:57] That's one of the reasons why actually we want to have the ability to control our curriculum
[4:05:02] because in the AP world class, we don't have enough time to really vet that topic.
[4:05:09] There's only nine classes that are given in the pacing guide for World War I and World War II combined.
[4:05:16] When I teach my novel history, I spend six weeks alone just on World War II.
[4:05:21] I do two weeks alone on the steps of the Holocaust Final Solution.
[4:05:25] I grew up in Chicago, I went to a predominantly Jewish high school.
[4:05:30] My family has also had ethnic studies for a very long time.
[4:05:35] There was a vet about ethnic studies.
[4:05:38] We were found that we are not aligned with the California state ethnic studies curriculum.
[4:05:44] We are teachers who are absolutely opposed to all forms of cruelty, especially anti-semitism.
[4:05:51] We talk about this almost daily, to be honest, in our SCL classes, I just want to push back on this for a second because as somebody who's in both departments, I see intrinsically the value of what we teach and how we are trying to have these conversations and also allowing multiple perspectives.
[4:06:15] Yes, Edward Said is a Palestinian, but what he's writing about in that first chapter isn't the citation that they use for that, and that's just something that's so important.
[4:06:29] The book is really interesting, by the way.
[4:06:30] I'm not saying people shouldn't read the book.
[4:06:31] Absolutely.
[4:06:31] We also teach like Polo Ferry with our juniors, right?
[4:06:37] We do that in APUSH too.
[4:06:38] We try desperately to allow kids to walk away being exposed to the really important,
[4:06:45] I would say theoretical works that they will eventually incline.
[4:06:48] Now, my master's thesis is actually on FUCO.
[4:06:51] I'm not teaching the children FUCO, I could if I wanted to.
[4:06:55] They won't like it, they won't enjoy it, none of them take French so
[4:06:59] So they don't even know the words, I get it, but I just want to be that person where
[4:07:03] I hear you, 100%, I absolutely hear you.
[4:07:08] And then my follow-on concern to that, and I appreciate what you're saying, and I hear
[4:07:12] you too, is that even if it's presented in the way that you're talking about, there is
[4:07:20] very clearly in the world now, especially with young people and in-group and an out-group,
[4:07:25] and the in-group is not, and I'm worried that that dynamic in the model that you're talking about for how the class is going to be conducted is going to lead to bullying of Jewish kids in the class.
[4:07:42] And even if it doesn't happen in the class, the conversation in the class, I'm very worried, will lead to bullying of Jewish kids outside of the class.
[4:07:52] And I don't know what you can even really do to stop it.
[4:07:57] I'm actually not looking for insurance from you because none of us can control kids' behavior outside of the classroom.
[4:08:04] But this is a, like your enthusiasm and all of your enthusiasm for the subject matter is like, I love it.
[4:08:11] I want to vote yes on this class and I'm really enthusiastic about history as you can probably tell.
[4:08:20] But I'm really struggling with this piece of it, and yeah.
[4:08:31] Vice President Richie, can you please turn on your mic?
[4:08:34] Yeah.
[4:08:35] Even the fact that we're able to have this type of conversation with this kind of candor is like, for me, it's really reassuring.
[4:08:44] And I think being able to express ourselves and things that we might be worried about is like, thank you for expressing those things.
[4:08:51] I don't know what that worry is like, that's specific worry, but a thing that I
[4:08:58] would ask you, like for us to talk about, not necessarily, like although you obviously
[4:09:04] are welcome to weigh in on it, is like it
[4:09:09] feels like,
[4:09:13] I don't know, there aren't
[4:09:14] very many sure assurances in life, right? But I really think that having a place where
[4:09:23] you can talk about these things and being very, very clear, like I'm not sure if I'm trying
[4:09:29] to create a way for you to be assured about the way that the conversation happens in
[4:09:33] the class but like I really I think that being able to talk to each other and have a dialogue
[4:09:41] about things and have the chance to be able to change each other's minds about something is
[4:09:47] something that could happen in that orientation and maybe it's something like we talk at the
[4:09:51] and like, sorry, you don't have to accept this suggestion.
[4:09:56] But like, one thing that we could do is,
[4:09:58] we could start out the classroom,
[4:10:00] start out the year by saying,
[4:10:01] this is a really different model.
[4:10:03] This is not something that you were used to.
[4:10:05] This is like, I don't know, Chattanham's rules.
[4:10:08] Like, we're not gonna repeat any of this stuff
[4:10:10] that is outside of the classroom.
[4:10:12] This is a safe space.
[4:10:14] You can treat it like a circle.
[4:10:16] If you violate the terms of this,
[4:10:18] then you will be subject to the discipline
[4:10:21] that already exists in multiple board policies in this way, we take this very, very seriously.
[4:10:25] We are treating you as not adults, but like sophomores that are taking an honest path
[4:10:32] that is covering a lot of subject matter that is really challenging and it's, and I'm
[4:10:39] not sure who said this, it may have been a person online, I'm sorry if you're not remembering
[4:10:43] or if it was one of you also sorry for not remembering, someone said something along
[4:10:47] lines of like, and especially if like second semester is from 1936 onwards, it's like
[4:10:53] we are literally living it right now. It's very, very close. On this subject, I like
[4:11:00] on the subject of the partition in India, on the subject of what's happening in Ukraine, like
[4:11:06] what's happening in Sudan, what's happening all around the world in so many different hot spots,
[4:11:11] it's going to be, it's going to be someone is going to feel something and I think that that is
[4:11:15] Is it probably a per-fush or that or some other per-fush?
[4:11:18] I agree with you, Ruchi.
[4:11:19] The difference is that, like, the vast majority of bias incidents and crimes right now in this country are anti-smetic.
[4:11:29] And they are not, and so if I feel like I'm helping to contribute to that in a small way, then I have failed.
[4:11:38] And so, I am extremely leery of the combination of the source material and the new model for those reasons.
[4:11:50] And on October 6, 2023, I would have 1 million percent agreed with you, but the laws happened between them, they're in here.
[4:12:04] So you're one of your specific, I definitely don't need a microphone.
[4:12:08] No, you do?
[4:12:09] Oh, sorry, online people.
[4:12:10] Okay, it's the law.
[4:12:13] To specifically address your question of drawing the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism,
[4:12:19] because I don't think we address that question, and I'll just explain more I draw the line,
[4:12:23] is that I as an American, I don't hate Americans, but I can criticize the policies of my country.
[4:12:32] without hating Americans, without wanting my country to end.
[4:12:37] And I think that's where you draw the line.
[4:12:39] You can criticize policies of the Israeli government
[4:12:43] that doesn't mean you're an anti-Semite.
[4:12:45] So I think that I just wanted to kind of address that.
[4:12:48] That there is a line where you can hold power to account
[4:12:53] on their decisions and their behavior and not hate the people
[4:12:56] because they are associated or affiliated with those people.
[4:13:00] And so, just like coming back and if I may not be saying it perfect, it's way past my bedtime, I might not be saying this perfectly.
[4:13:08] It's also someone who has Jewish ancestry.
[4:13:13] I think, just trying to bring back to being American, I criticize the policies of my government all the time.
[4:13:20] It doesn't mean that I want the end of the United States or hate all Americans.
[4:13:24] So I think that that's pretty clear, like that, we talk about this as a department all the time.
[4:13:29] It's very, this is on our mind, all of the time, and how do all of the kids in the classroom feel safe?
[4:13:36] How do they all feel cared for, how do they all feel like they're being listened to, and they can express something that they might not be able to even say outside of the classroom.
[4:13:48] So I just, I want to assure you that we know where that line is.
[4:13:52] It's incredibly hard to articulate, because even when you articulate the lines, you're pissing somebody off.
[4:13:59] And, but we, this is something we caretake constantly deeply with everything we've got.
[4:14:08] I appreciate that, and then I will stop elaborating this point.
[4:14:11] But, you know, unfortunately, I would argue that your colleagues at OUSD have
[4:14:17] I have failed that test of where that line is a lot of times.
[4:14:22] And so I am extremely nervous about it.
[4:14:25] I just am, and so, you know.
[4:14:28] I also don't, again, I don't want a history class to be talking about kids' feelings.
[4:14:33] I want them to learn history.
[4:14:34] So, and now I will, I've taken up enough time.
[4:14:38] I just-
[4:14:38] Well, if I could just say that, you know, these topics come up now in the college prep class.
[4:14:44] And we have these discussions.
[4:14:45] And it's fact-based, and it's a space for the kids to say what they want to say in a kind way.
[4:14:53] And we really stress that a lot, and we want them to feel like they can express it.
[4:14:56] I mean, that's a big part of growing up.
[4:14:58] And that's actually why we are.
[4:15:00] Advocating for this class because the way that an honors class would be set up is it gives a little more flexibility to, wow, this kid is really affected by this topic. We can go a little bit deeper. Whereas if you have an AP course that's geared only towards the test, it's what did we say an inch deep and am I a wide? And you don't have the flexibility to actually open up those conversations with the kids when they are interested in something or change the curriculum when the conflict in Ukraine starts, right?
[4:15:29] we came back from February break when it started and how to lesson.
[4:15:34] Here's the facts, here's the history between Ukraine and Russia and address it right then.
[4:15:39] So that's why this class, this honors class, I think, what we think is the better option
[4:15:48] because it does allow for those kind of discussions.
[4:15:51] And there is a lot of factual knowledge that goes on in our classes.
[4:15:55] It's not all feelings.
[4:15:59] I'm the rest of our department, by the way, we're all in the same department.
[4:16:03] I do not teach world history.
[4:16:05] I have a number of years ago, but not for some time, but I teach the college rep US history
[4:16:09] class.
[4:16:10] And what they're saying is very much true the next year as well.
[4:16:13] We deal with hard history all the time.
[4:16:16] And we struggle with what to put in front of kids and how much to put in front of kids.
[4:16:22] But there's one place that I'm thinking about in terms of what I try to do with my students
[4:16:26] and I think my colleagues would agree is that I think our students' feelings and beliefs
[4:16:31] are important but we can't allow them to only have emotional reactions.
[4:16:35] Like I think that it's really important that my students talk about what they think and how they
[4:16:41] feel. We're teaching argumentation all the time but we're doing it in a way that forces
[4:16:46] concession that requires them to look at the gray and I want them to have an opinion but I want
[4:16:52] their opinion to be based on an analysis of facts.
[4:16:56] So I don't think those things are mutually exclusive.
[4:16:59] And I think that often students come in and they sometimes when they haven't really done the real work,
[4:17:04] they just want to talk about those feelings.
[4:17:06] But what we're saying to them is, you need to have your feelings, but they need to be informed opinions.
[4:17:12] And you can think whatever you want to think, your opinion is your own, but
[4:17:15] you need to convince me that you have looked at the evidence that you understand what it means and
[4:17:20] You have a reason for what you believe in a way that's thoughtful and respectful of other
[4:17:24] opinions and even acknowledges the other side.
[4:17:26] And so like in US history, we constantly say, like, when you form a claim, you have to
[4:17:32] say, make a concession, although this is a little bit true, this is mostly true, and this is
[4:17:37] why I feel that way, without using the first person.
[4:17:40] And that's the skill that's at the center of how we're teaching argumentation in our history
[4:17:45] classes.
[4:17:46] And it builds over years.
[4:17:48] So while I don't teach 10th grade anymore, in 11th grade, we go farther, and then in 12th grade, even farther.
[4:17:54] And there are very specific historical thinking skills that we take very seriously, that we've scaffolded,
[4:17:59] making there's six of them in total.
[4:18:01] We've made two the primary focus of 10th grade, then 11th grade, then 12th grade, and
[4:18:06] that we really work hard to have a tight sort of reign on that.
[4:18:10] And so while an honors one in world history class might go a little farther and a little deeper,
[4:18:15] where this is a very cohesive and very professional department that talks all the time and is constantly learning all the time and it's hard to answer questions about sources because we're constantly bringing in new things and saying is this better is this different and we do a lot of work of like taking two things that are diametrically opposed and using close reading strategies to say okay well what is true and how do you know and what is the bias and why do you think that and why might they be saying this and what is not being said that's the work
[4:18:44] work of a social studies class.
[4:18:47] So anyway, I just wanted to add that to the conversation.
[4:18:49] Thank you.
[4:18:50] You have made me feel better to some degree.
[4:18:52] I have two asks.
[4:18:53] The first is, I would love to just be aware
[4:18:55] as the class progresses, if assuming it is approved,
[4:18:59] of what those sources are.
[4:19:01] And two, I have been, the district has been working
[4:19:06] with some groups to do some joint anti-semitism
[4:19:10] and anti-Islamophobia training.
[4:19:12] And I would I would hope that all of you would I will be a continuing development thing
[4:19:16] I think and I would hope that all of you will do that
[4:19:20] Yes, sorry. Yeah, I just apply so we have that scheduled January 6th
[4:19:25] Okay, I have I and G with Islamic network and
[4:19:29] JCRC yeah, yeah, so that's that to go are you guys all gonna do that?
[4:19:33] Yeah, is everyone gonna do it?
[4:19:36] So the the professional development it's a workshop option model
[4:19:39] So they can do that, but there are other choices at that same time, so not everyone.
[4:19:44] I would like to encourage all of you guys to take that workshop option model.
[4:19:47] Did I get it right?
[4:19:48] Okay.
[4:19:53] Any other questions?
[4:19:55] Sorry.
[4:19:56] Sorry.
[4:19:56] I actually have a question.
[4:19:58] Okay.
[4:19:58] I'll keep it fast.
[4:20:00] I'm going to reduce the number of questions that I had, but I was wondering what's the average.
[4:20:05] I actually have two questions that I'm going to ask you.
[4:20:07] They're fast.
[4:20:09] What's the average amount of reading you expect in a week in the slipped model for this class
[4:20:13] relative to the other class and then will there be a final paper in the honors class and my fingers are crossed that there is a final paper in the honors class.
[4:20:22] There is a final paper in the honors class.
[4:20:26] What would you say the reading is for current like current AP?
[4:20:30] No, current like for the Monroe College perhaps like for a week.
[4:20:36] I mean, it's not a foot monologue, it's not like currently with my class, I would maybe
[4:20:51] estimate 30 to 60 minutes of homework a week, give or take.
[4:20:58] So like 30 to 60 pages is the current?
[4:21:01] No, sorry.
[4:21:01] A minute.
[4:21:02] So, honors is going to be needed.
[4:21:04] So, from modern world currently, as we kind of do it,
[4:21:10] reading really depends on the unit outside of the course.
[4:21:15] I'm trying to think in a typical week.
[4:21:19] It's like packets and stuff like packets and stuff I'm kind of thinking about that.
[4:21:23] So, if we get to use the textbook,
[4:21:26] which we're hoping to use the same textbook reason being,
[4:21:29] we just adopted it very recently, and it does have all of the topics that we have in that
[4:21:36] start from the 1500. It has a little bit more to, but it's like a survey very, very, very quick.
[4:21:44] So essentially, it could be that when we're talking about block periods specifically,
[4:21:50] they would probably only read from the textbook once a week, right? So it would be like that once
[4:21:54] a week model, usually like a Monday, read that foundational text, then on Tuesday, let's
[4:22:00] say it's a period three, right? So a Monday, that textbook reading, then that block period,
[4:22:06] then they would have some extra reading. So maybe that would be what we're going to do in class,
[4:22:12] right? So they get that extra little section, and then they can come prepared with those questions.
[4:22:18] It could be that it's supplementing like an ed puzzle.
[4:22:24] Oh, so it's like recording ourselves, recording ourselves like in a lecture, so sorry.
[4:22:30] It's hard to know what, yeah, sorry.
[4:22:34] So you know, you record your lecture or something, right?
[4:22:37] So that might be them taking the notes part of it.
[4:22:40] So the reading actually though, the bulk of the reading will probably happen in the class
[4:22:44] itself, so that we're actually engaged in the primary source work together.
[4:22:48] Having kids go home to read a primary source, having kids go home and read certain secondary
[4:22:54] sources, like a theory, is actually dangerous, it is sometimes dangerous.
[4:22:59] Not because they are going to walk away with this encyclopedic knowledge, but actually
[4:23:03] they just don't do the reading, they don't do the reading, they kind of do the reading,
[4:23:08] but they don't fully engage in that reading, so that's why the flipped model is that the
[4:23:13] actual history part of it, not just reading from the textbook and the facts, and here's
[4:23:18] this timeline, and here's this person's name, and here's what they did, do that outside
[4:23:22] of class.
[4:23:23] Do that outside of class.
[4:23:24] That's boring.
[4:23:25] That's not what an honors history class should be about.
[4:23:27] We're not going to read from the textbook and slide the class as ridiculous.
[4:23:30] No, instead, when we open up our Northern anthology, when we are looking at that primary
[4:23:35] source, when we're looking at that secondary source, that theory, whatever, that's what we're
[4:23:38] doing in the class to lead a discussion to supplement.
[4:23:41] Because reading from the textbook, it ain't it, right?
[4:23:45] That's not the thing, do that outside of class.
[4:23:49] But that's how we foster those relationships.
[4:23:52] Like, ethnic studies for three years, it's like every primary source that we're read in the class.
[4:23:57] I'm not taking that out with them.
[4:23:59] They're not doing it.
[4:24:00] We want them to read it.
[4:24:01] I think that's our model of meetings.
[4:24:03] They want that.
[4:24:04] Oh, I apologize.
[4:24:06] I don't know.
[4:24:07] No apology is serious.
[4:24:08] I know, I'm also sorry because I think I asked a question that was too long, I'm so, I'm thinking about how much it was a great, it was a great because it supplemented, it went back to certain things, it was good, I want to validate you.
[4:24:21] And just to book in that with the college prep is we would perhaps be doing more of the reading in class together, they would read it individually, they do the textbook reading, right, they do small discussions with a pair, then we do a wider discussion.
[4:24:34] So, and that's really to ensure that they're getting that actual knowledge, if a kid is going to be taking an honors class, the expectation is that they would have that reading level that's a little bit higher, and that they would be able to synthesize that information on their own, and then it would go deeper in class.
[4:24:52] Does that help? I hope.
[4:24:57] This has been phenomenal. I've learned a lot about our history curriculum. You've clearly put a ton of work into it in a relatively short amount of time.
[4:25:06] I know this was not the plan for this year. And we really appreciate you pivoting and bringing us this course description or this course.
[4:25:17] course, the description of the course. And with that, I'm going to call for a vote.
[4:25:25] I would like to make a motion before the vote. If I killed, I would like to motion that
[4:25:30] we make the vote on a one-year basis for this class with a evaluation at the end of the
[4:25:40] year after which it's taught, and then we can approve it subsequently for the rest of
[4:25:46] time after that.
[4:25:48] Is anybody wanting to discuss that motion?
[4:25:50] We need a second first.
[4:25:52] Oh, we second it and then discuss it.
[4:25:54] Okay. Is there a second for that motion?
[4:25:57] I second that motion.
[4:25:58] Okay.
[4:25:58] Would anybody like to discuss the motion?
[4:26:01] It's kind of what we would do anyways, though, right?
[4:26:03] Let's come back.
[4:26:04] Yeah, you're putting fine points on it.
[4:26:05] We'll make me feel better to require the re-examination.
[4:26:11] And so, you know.
[4:26:12] I guess my question is, are we going to do that in a board meeting, and are we going to do that for every other course we approve?
[4:26:19] Well, that's up to you, Lindsay.
[4:26:22] Not me long.
[4:26:23] A few more weeks.
[4:26:25] I mean, probably not, but because this one, you know, my argument would be that because this deals with such a sensitive issue right now, and it is also a variety of new things in terms of it's a new model of teaching, it's actually multiple new models of teaching all at the same time that it is not out of bounds.
[4:26:43] to want to evaluate how that's going and try and tease apart the different signals before we
[4:26:47] approve it for all time.
[4:26:52] And I don't think it needs to come back before a board meeting. I think this is something that
[4:26:55] could be done in a report. Do you think well enough? I-
[4:26:59] Yeah, my main is to sort of legislatively require a review of the class after the first year of
[4:27:07] it being taught. Is my main intent here? We could do a report and then if there were questions
[4:27:14] an interest from the Board's schedule of presentation? That's satisfy the Board?
[4:27:21] That seems totally reasonable to me. That's actually, although it's not written down as
[4:27:26] protocol, that's why I assumed that we would do with kind of every first class.
[4:27:29] So you're saying essentially the review, but not a subsequent vote to approve the class
[4:27:34] beyond the first year?
[4:27:37] Yeah, good point.
[4:27:40] I'm modeling this after what we did with the AI policy, where we approved it on a one-year basis because we know it's going to have to change.
[4:27:48] This is approved on a one-year basis pending a review.
[4:27:51] Yeah, the AI policy, we said we'd come back just because we know it's an evolving policy.
[4:27:57] I think maybe you're thinking cell phone, which that one does.
[4:28:00] Well, it sounds like an evolving class.
[4:28:01] This one does.
[4:28:02] That has to come back.
[4:28:03] Yeah.
[4:28:04] Yes, if you improved as a one-year course, it would need to come back.
[4:28:08] You're correct about that.
[4:28:09] So that is my motion.
[4:28:15] You are exactly the same thing.
[4:28:17] I think my hesitation is that I don't want to get into a situation where we're
[4:28:23] approving every new class for one year because I think that creates a very, very slippery slope.
[4:28:28] I agree with that.
[4:28:29] This would be an exceptional case.
[4:28:32] And you know, you guys might not agree and that's fine.
[4:28:34] That's what we're doing here.
[4:28:38] I think that there's just a little piece about course selection, that's a piece that won't really work.
[4:28:48] This doesn't, this is not relevant, like they're going to prove it potentially for a year.
[4:28:53] So I know-
[4:28:53] No, I know-
[4:28:54] The first selection would still be fine for that year, but when can-
[4:28:57] That it would come back before the course selection of the following year.
[4:29:00] The following year.
[4:29:00] Yeah, we would make sure it comes back before course election of any given year.
[4:29:08] Okay, so can I, okay, because I'm not a math teacher.
[4:29:11] So this course will be taught for a year, and then you would decide that the kids will be with mid-year.
[4:29:20] We'd have to do it mid-year.
[4:29:21] So you'd evaluate the course on a semester?
[4:29:24] I think we'd probably have to, yeah.
[4:29:30] So wait, so okay, so I know it's right.
[4:29:33] This is why we do it in public.
[4:29:34] I didn't pre-meet about this.
[4:29:36] This is just off.
[4:29:37] Yeah.
[4:29:38] Yeah.
[4:29:38] Okay.
[4:29:39] You're right.
[4:29:39] It's a fair point.
[4:29:41] All right.
[4:29:42] So that's fine.
[4:29:43] Why don't I change it?
[4:29:44] We can just approve it or not approve it.
[4:29:45] Thank you for your input.
[4:29:46] I appreciate it.
[4:29:47] I also would like to express my appreciation for the general spirit of collaboration from your department.
[4:29:52] So thank you.
[4:29:53] I would just like to ask for a formal review and board presentation, after the first year of a-
[4:30:00] Essentially, what went well, what didn't go well of this class? So I would like to amend by motion. Are you okay with
[4:30:06] gender suggestion that you have a report, and if you need a follow-up presentation, you have a report in them.
[4:30:15] But a written report, please. Thank you. That you'll read outside of the report.
[4:30:21] Yes.
[4:30:21] Yes.
[4:30:22] Yeah.
[4:30:23] Primary source.
[4:30:25] Yeah.
[4:30:27] Okay.
[4:30:27] Okay.
[4:30:28] So back to the motion.
[4:30:30] Is there a motion to approve honors modern world history?
[4:30:37] Yes.
[4:30:38] Hi.
[4:30:39] I move to approve the world history course.
[4:30:42] Modern.
[4:30:43] Modern.
[4:30:44] That's the name of the modern honors.
[4:30:45] Sorry.
[4:30:46] Honors.
[4:30:47] Modern world history.
[4:30:48] Modern world history.
[4:30:49] Honors.
[4:30:50] Thank you.
[4:30:50] Thank you.
[4:30:51] I second that.
[4:30:52] Thank you.
[4:30:53] As motion by Bruce.
[4:30:54] Seconded by Susie.
[4:30:55] All in favor.
[4:30:56] All right.
[4:30:57] Motion carries.
[4:30:58] Five zero.
[4:31:02] Okay.
[4:31:03] Thank you guys.
[4:31:04] Thank you so much.
[4:31:05] Thank you.
[4:31:10] We have 34 minutes and four items plus consent.
[4:31:15] So let's go.
[4:31:17] Thank you.
[4:31:18] I really appreciate you saying so late.
[4:31:21] Third review and action item this evening.
[4:31:23] is to approve the par's supplementary retirement plan.
[4:31:28] Resolution 10, 2025, 26.
[4:31:31] Can I just share with you what my husband texted at 9.44 tonight?
[4:31:36] Yes.
[4:31:37] We don't have a lot of time, Ruth.
[4:31:38] He said, Nunk Dornium.
[4:31:40] Dornium.
[4:31:41] I love your husband.
[4:31:43] That's so great.
[4:31:44] Which means now I shall sleep.
[4:31:47] That's so good.
[4:31:49] All right, Ruth, you're up.
[4:31:50] Let's go through this presentation quickly.
[4:31:53] We're here to ask for a board approval to offer a supplemental retirement plan to certificate it and classify non-management employees.
[4:32:02] So if you go to the next slide, we have been working with public agency retirement services,
[4:32:08] parts to do an analysis of a SERP, and what you'll be doing tonight is our contract to work with them.
[4:32:16] And so just to be offering the plan, but
[4:32:20] the sort of jumping to the last page, we don't have to go there.
[4:32:25] But you won't have to actually be taking action on it until we know who is going to participate and do another analysis to see if we can actually get any savings.
[4:32:35] So Paris has been around for since 84.
[4:32:39] They work with many school districts who at the state and other agencies as well.
[4:32:44] If we go to the next page, the way the objective really is to get savings, and the way I'm thinking of it is we know that people retire every year, we get about two to five retirees every year in each between classified and certificated, so we're actually by doing this sort of a program, we're capturing the savings and sharing it with those retirees, because the way you capture savings is somebody at the high end of the salary scale.
[4:33:13] that schedule retires, they are replaced by somebody just starting out.
[4:33:18] And so that difference in the pay is what our savings would be.
[4:33:22] We took a look at this a few years ago and we just didn't have savings.
[4:33:26] But this time around we are seeing it and we'd like to again share savings with those who will be retiring.
[4:33:33] The process is that the board approves of the plan.
[4:33:38] We open a 60-day window, which starts basically tomorrow.
[4:33:42] Paris sends out to all of the eligible employees, they'll send something out.
[4:33:48] Then everybody, those people have 60 days to review, and then we'll come back to the board in January,
[4:33:55] and in January, with all of the commitments, and Paris will have done another review to figure out,
[4:34:00] are we going to get any savings for the people who have actually committed or not?
[4:34:03] And then based on that, the board would make their final decision.
[4:34:08] So, that final decision comes early February and whoever has made that commitment would then be committed to it, and if the board decides not to do it, then those would be rescinded and they can decide independently if they want to retain a retired or resign.
[4:34:26] So the proposed plan would be 100% of a potential, I'm going to call them retirees because that's how it's structured, but whoever participates doesn't necessarily have to retire into stirs or purse, they're just resigning from our district.
[4:34:44] So we would take the 100% of their final pay annual and that would then be the district would then be making that commitment to pay that over the next year.
[4:34:55] Next five years into an annuity, sorry, a 403 plan, and then depending on what that employee has chosen,
[4:35:04] they get paid an annuity over time.
[4:35:06] So we'll be making the payments over five years, but if you go to the next slide,
[4:35:11] employees get to different options, they can choose to get it at least five years,
[4:35:19] but it could go for their lifetime, and it becomes a monthly payment, a monthly annuity
[4:35:24] that an employee will get.
[4:35:26] On the next slide, there's about six, there's actually 67 eligible employees.
[4:35:33] It's an adjustment.
[4:35:34] We found another person that would qualify, but it's, so, those would be the employees
[4:35:39] that would get the letter tomorrow, will be mailed out to them tomorrow.
[4:35:43] And you can see ranges between, let me just say, there's quite a few that are not
[4:35:49] what we would consider retirement age, so the point of this is not necessarily
[4:35:53] that everybody's, you know, that's about to retire.
[4:35:56] The point of this is to encourage people who are close to retirement to take a second look
[4:36:01] with this supplemental program.
[4:36:06] So this is, I think, the most interesting and compelling slide in here.
[4:36:14] This is an average, a certificate employee and also an average classified employee of those
[4:36:20] the ones that are eligible.
[4:36:22] So an average certificate might be, would be 59.67 years old, their average salary would be 116,000.
[4:36:32] The reason that's actually lower than our high on our salary scale is because it's also looking at people who are less than full time.
[4:36:41] So that's a 0.8 FTE, their salary is going to be look less.
[4:36:47] So that would be their average salary, and then if they were to choose the option one,
[4:36:53] they would get $585 every month for the rest of their life, and then from there, there are several other options.
[4:36:59] The highest one would be option five where they get $2,000 every month for the next five years.
[4:37:06] So this is what are hopefully those 66, 67 employees will be looking at between now in January 15th to decide,
[4:37:14] Is this something they want to do, does this make sense, how does it fit with their plans?
[4:37:20] If you go to the next slide, we're looking at, according to the Paris estimate,
[4:37:29] they're expecting our retirements would go from that 2 to 5 for group to a total of 20.
[4:37:36] So if we were usually get between 5 and 10 retirees a year,
[4:37:40] there's going to double it. It's a big loss or change from our perspective, but that's what this plan alluded to.
[4:37:52] Next slide. So based on currently what parts looked at, there, that list of 66,
[4:38:00] They came up with this level of savings, which it's over five years because we're making the payments over five years.
[4:38:13] And they also taken to consideration that new employee that you hired at the lower end of salary schedule,
[4:38:19] they're going to grow on their seniority over five years so your savings will diminish.
[4:38:25] So assuming that every person who leaves is replaced, we are looking at $77,000.
[4:38:35] This is just based on their analysis.
[4:38:38] If one of those certificated positions was not replaced, there would be even more savings.
[4:38:46] So that's not our plan right now, our goal is, there's no plan to reduce, but
[4:38:52] that's just how the numbers work out.
[4:38:54] But this is the analysis that they're going to have to do again in January once we know exactly who has signed up.
[4:39:01] And it will be completely different numbers, they may be better, they may be worse.
[4:39:05] And then it will be back to the board to figure out, is that what you like to do.
[4:39:10] And I think this is the schedule.
[4:39:13] Again, I mentioned this already, the enrollment window opens.
[4:39:18] And then it closes and then the board gets the analysis and makes the decision.
[4:39:22] And if you decide to go with it, ultimately, we'll be back to the Board in February.
[4:39:27] And then those commitments would become, people would have to then act on it.
[4:39:36] And then benefit start is early is all this first, so that's it.
[4:39:41] This was prepared by Rachel at Paris, but I told her that we'd be on late and she didn't have to attend.
[4:39:51] We're, we know you've already reviewed this material and you know, we're just sort of on an urgent time crunch one.
[4:39:58] Just really important point to emphasize, we will not be offering this retirement incentive for at least another five years.
[4:40:05] So as Ruth shared, we have to pay it off over the next five years, which means we will not offer it within the next five years.
[4:40:14] So that's an important point for anyone considering this offer to take it.
[4:40:23] Do we have any, sorry, yes that's it.
[4:40:27] Do we have any board questions or comments?
[4:40:30] No.
[4:40:30] Okay.
[4:40:30] I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment.
[4:40:34] Do we have anyone who wishes to speak on this item?
[4:40:40] Going once, going twice, closing public comment.
[4:40:45] With that, I'm going to ask for a motion.
[4:40:48] Can I move to approve the par supplementary retirement?
[4:40:53] I'm sorry it's actually a resolution that's fine you just have to roll call but she could make a motion and
[4:41:01] Then yeah, I'm gonna call roll. I approve for a supplementary retirement plan resolution 10 20 25 20 second
[4:41:09] Thank you
[4:41:11] Hi
[4:41:16] Thank you for reminding me of the procedure it is late and I'm tired
[4:41:21] Okay, fourth review and action item this evening is to approve the tentative agreement between the Association of Piedmont Teachers and Piedmont Unified School District and approve Public Disclosure of Collective Bargaining Agreement per AB 1200.
[4:41:35] Yeah, very quickly, we made this offer to all of our employee groups to provide a zero cost employee only option for our current Kaiser plan options as we know healthcare costs have gone up.
[4:41:47] Last year we made this offer, we had two of our groups take advantage of it, our administrative group and CSCA.
[4:41:55] APT did not take advantage of it.
[4:41:57] This year, all groups have agreed to take advantage of it.
[4:42:01] This is our last agreement with APT agreeing to take advantage of this offer.
[4:42:06] So with that, we request approval of this agreement.
[4:42:11] Thank you, I really appreciate you bringing this to us and
[4:42:14] I'm thrilled APT is opted to take advantage of this benefit that our other bargaining groups
[4:42:18] had already opted into.
[4:42:20] Any board questions or comments?
[4:42:24] No.
[4:42:25] I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment.
[4:42:27] Any public comment?
[4:42:30] I will close public comment.
[4:42:33] This is yet another approval item, so we will need a board vote to have a motion to move
[4:42:38] the tentative agreement between the Association of Piedmont Teachers and Piedmont, USD.
[4:42:42] Yes.
[4:42:42] Yes.
[4:42:45] Second.
[4:42:46] As motion by Richie Seconded by Max All in favor.
[4:42:49] Aye.
[4:42:50] Motion carries 5-0.
[4:42:52] We're making good time.
[4:42:54] The fifth review and action item this evening is to approve resolution 09 2025-26 Signature
[4:42:59] card board members.
[4:43:01] This is an annual compliance item required by the county for board signature cards on file.
[4:43:08] We do need a roll call vote for this.
[4:43:10] I move.
[4:43:11] We approve the signature cards.
[4:43:15] Let me go to Susie this time.
[4:43:18] I was motion by Max.
[4:43:19] I can invite Susie.
[4:43:20] Oh, in favor.
[4:43:21] No, no.
[4:43:21] Oh, sorry.
[4:43:24] Michael Bailey-Oni.
[4:43:25] Hi.
[4:43:26] Max Roman.
[4:43:27] Susie Strubel.
[4:43:28] Hi.
[4:43:28] Richie Metaker.
[4:43:29] I'm Lindsay Thomas.
[4:43:30] Hi.
[4:43:30] Thank you.
[4:43:31] Resolution passes 5-0.
[4:43:33] The final review and action item this evening is the first reading of the 2025 or 2026-27 and
[4:43:40] in 2027-28 instructional calendars.
[4:43:43] Okay, Mr. Dollar, which I'm wondering if you could come up
[4:43:46] actually in person on this item.
[4:43:48] I think you have the most experience in the room
[4:43:50] regarding the instructional calendars
[4:43:52] and so maybe you could share a bit
[4:43:54] just about kind of the process you engaged in
[4:43:56] and then I'll take it over from there.
[4:43:58] Sure, very quickly.
[4:44:00] Okay, there's contract language
[4:44:02] and the calendar committee met administrators participated
[4:44:07] in it.
[4:44:07] I think it was reviewed earlier that ultimately, four calendars move forward for APT and CSCA vote.
[4:44:16] One of which stipulates in the contract that it's the current calendar.
[4:44:21] There are three additional and it's typically a two year.
[4:44:27] The last thing to say is in order to get ahead of it, we would like to start this process.
[4:44:33] next year so that we can get additional years and be ahead of it and get that out to the community.
[4:44:40] And Mr. Dolowicz, there had been a parent survey, is that correct?
[4:44:45] Yes, there was.
[4:44:47] With whom did you share that parent survey, the results?
[4:44:52] We discussed it at the calendar committee and I shared it with our executive cabinet and with the board.
[4:44:57] So the calendar committee.
[4:45:00] We received those survey results. Yeah, so we, during one of our meetings, we projected those results and we also, two different meetings. We also projected staff from last year. Okay, great. So everyone received the parent survey results. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And then it came to negotiations. It was sort of transitioned from the calendar committee. It then made its way to negotiations.
[4:45:29] It made its way back to APT for them to conduct their vote.
[4:45:34] They needed over a 50% vote.
[4:45:36] They received over a 50% vote.
[4:45:38] And the calendars that are before you, which is a two year set of calendars is proposed as the approval item.
[4:45:49] This is just a first reading, so this is a discussion item.
[4:45:53] And then if you have any direction, we can take that back.
[4:45:57] Thank you.
[4:45:58] Thank you.
[4:46:03] Do we have any questions or comments on this item?
[4:46:06] I have a question.
[4:46:07] Rishi.
[4:46:10] Okay.
[4:46:11] So, I want to thank, it took some notes, I want to thank Ali for talking about the complexities
[4:46:19] of how Ali is still here, hi, I was expecting you to not be here anymore, for talking about
[4:46:26] the complexities of the calendar and only says while in your opening remarks for APT,
[4:46:33] I'm really, really appreciative of the work that the entire calendar committee did to be
[4:46:36] able to get us nine different options than which we're narrowed down to four that folks
[4:46:42] voted on. Having said that, I'm not thrilled with this calendar for the simple reason that
[4:46:54] the feedback from the survey strongly indicated that folks wanted to start later.
[4:47:01] And on a personal note, and I know that you mentioned this as well, starting on a Monday
[4:47:07] is really, really hard when you've had the entire summer and then you come back.
[4:47:12] Their brains are working really over in overdrive and it's just a very tough first week.
[4:47:19] So, I have a idea because it is November 12th and we need a calendar and like people have written to us saying, what is the calendar?
[4:47:32] Which is to propose approving the calendar for next year?
[4:47:40] from the year 2026-27?
[4:47:42] Yeah, and separating it from the 27-28 in the hopes that we could be able to have more time,
[4:47:53] for the calendar committee to have more time to be able to come up with something different, so that's my vote.
[4:47:58] I'm going to echo your concerns about the Monday start.
[4:48:00] That's something we've heard quite extensively from the community is concerns about that Monday start.
[4:48:06] Not only because for secondary students, it requires they'd be back on Friday to pick up schedules and get ready for schools, so it actually shortens vacation and family time by four days, three or four days, not just one would be if it started or two if it started.
[4:48:25] It would be a violation of contract to simply do one year at a time, contracts as it's
[4:48:32] a two-year cycle, so I'm not sure how we would do something like that, we'll
[4:48:43] take a look
[4:48:43] at that.
[4:48:45] And then the other thing is the implication of the comments is that we haven't taken time
[4:48:50] and the calendar committee has been working on this
[4:48:53] since last March and we started surveying last March
[4:48:56] and have spent hours and hours and hours.
[4:48:59] It's not a function of time, it's my point.
[4:49:01] It's a function of, every choice that is made,
[4:49:05] you gain is an opportunity cost.
[4:49:07] What you gain, you lose something else.
[4:49:09] And so ultimately what it came down to, I think that
[4:49:13] for most of the teachers that I spoke to is that the trade
[4:49:18] off of having to start on the Monday,
[4:49:20] which nobody really wants.
[4:49:21] Somebody wants that.
[4:49:22] It would be that we would further truncate fall semester in such a way that it's so impacted
[4:49:28] for kids that we're having to put major major content and we're having to really rush
[4:49:34] their assessments when we really need to have process time, particularly in the fall of
[4:49:39] the lay the groundwork for the year, that really the other thing that seemed to be a little
[4:49:44] bit of a misconception and it was something like we had a big onboarding process with new
[4:49:48] people on the committee is that fall and spring semester in a way operates separately.
[4:49:54] So like a lot of people suggest, well if we just take this away at fall then we can start
[4:49:59] earlier but it doesn't quite work like that because we have to get enough days in fall.
[4:50:04] And fall is really challenging spring we have a lot more flexibility if that makes sense.
[4:50:09] And so, we are concerned that it's not a function of time.
[4:50:16] It's about educational reasoning, about how to teach yourself, about right enough.
[4:50:21] Oh, I'm sorry.
[4:50:23] Yeah, that is really about the educational rationale of what we're trying to accomplish with our students,
[4:50:30] and really valuing that time.
[4:50:32] And we did talk about this a great, great life.
[4:50:35] I think we looked at that survey, it was only I think about 400 responses, it wasn't clear, some of the responses asked is such and such a thing important to you.
[4:50:46] It wasn't through that people were opposed to some of the things.
[4:50:53] And what we kept coming back to was a school calendar is about education, it's about pedagogical concerns, obviously trying to schedule family vacations is important.
[4:51:04] But it just can't be the main driver of what we do and we just we tried everything we
[4:51:10] could to start on a Tuesday and you know it's a one day difference that's what we're
[4:51:16] talking about and we just couldn't the the educational cost were just too much and that
[4:51:22] was why people made the decision they did when they voted.
[4:51:27] And we also looked at all sorts of other options like we could have shortened Thanksgiving
[4:51:30] given week, right? But then that was an ADA constraint. And we have tried that in the past.
[4:51:36] And many families take their kids out. And it was an enormous loss of ADA. So we said,
[4:51:41] well, we can't make that. And then there was talk about whether or not we would shorten
[4:51:44] winter break and have people go into part of that week for school. But then that would take
[4:51:50] finals week over a weekend, which was an equity piece for if you have your final on a Thursday
[4:51:55] or not till the next Tuesday. And again, families really want to protect that time going
[4:51:59] into holiday.
[4:52:00] 30 seconds left.
[4:52:01] It was another ADA issue.
[4:52:03] So we looked at all of those options and it just went, we were really, really stuck because it
[4:52:11] wasn't a lack of interest or time.
[4:52:13] I mean, not just even me personally.
[4:52:14] I probably spent 40, 50 hours making calendars.
[4:52:18] We drafted more calendars than we ever have before.
[4:52:21] And that was really the issue.
[4:52:23] The issue was the give and take of trying to find the time to cover what we need to cover.
[4:52:28] Yeah, and the rock and the hard place thing really is, if you want to have finals before winter break, it's just impossible to start much later.
[4:52:37] You're trying to compress a semester into not enough time, so it's that you've got to choose one, I think, ultimately.
[4:52:45] I need to open it up for public comment and we only have 12 minutes left, so I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment, or we've just had public comment, but I'm going to see if there's anyone else who wishes to speak.
[4:52:55] Is there anyone who wishes to speak, going once, going twice?
[4:52:59] I'll speak.
[4:53:00] Okay, are you all?
[4:53:01] I mean, with all due respect, and I don't want to get into open negotiations here,
[4:53:05] but I do think there's a level of subjectivity, and there are other, there are additional
[4:53:11] variations.
[4:53:13] My understanding and correct me if I'm wrong is the counter that's put forth, there's a day
[4:53:21] a day with the Memorial Day weekend in the second semester that doesn't reflect how
[4:53:28] we currently have the calendar constructed.
[4:53:32] And so it really isn't reflective of the current calendar, but for instance, if that was
[4:53:37] removed, hypothetically, could we add a day in the first semester?
[4:53:41] And there are other variations to say that this is the best calendar for students,
[4:53:49] With all due respect, we heard loud and clear from the parents 455 survey results that starting on a Monday was a disservice to TK and kindergarten students.
[4:54:02] They have to go to school and they have to do the walkthrough on a Friday and a start on a Monday, which is not ideal because they forget about the new surroundings.
[4:54:11] It's difficult on staff and students alike and there is a consistent theme, at least from the parent community, to start later.
[4:54:19] Whether that means removing one of the non-student days in the first or second semester, and finding a creative way to do that, because I hear you, but the other piece of it is, 8793 is subjective.
[4:54:32] There are a number of districts, Oculonis and Palo Alto that do an 84, 8694 split, excuse me.
[4:54:40] And so, there's no contract language that says it has to be 8793.
[4:54:44] I completely recognize ending finals before the winter break, that makes sense for students, but just want to throw those points out there.
[4:54:56] Thank you. I really appreciate that point.
[4:54:59] I'm going to ask that, since this is a first reading, that you can investigate the idea of approving one year, whether that's feasible or not, given the context language.
[4:55:09] It is. I just looked at it. The contract language says that you have to present it, and I'm
[4:55:13] not going to get into a negotiation here, but I've reviewed the contract language. If you
[4:55:17] wish to give direction for one year of the contract, you're within your appropriate to do that.
[4:55:24] Okay.
[4:55:28] Really quick. Sure. Go ahead.
[4:55:33] I'm just slightly confused on our process here, because we went to negotiation for this calendar for
[4:55:40] the first time and my understanding was that we got four calendars that we agreed would
[4:55:45] be voted on, and then they were voted on.
[4:55:48] And now we're saying that those calendars aren't acceptable, the one that was voted on
[4:55:54] wasn't acceptable.
[4:55:55] So, I guess, you know, again, when I talk about process and procedure, I don't understand
[4:56:00] how we follow certain process and procedure, and then it can just be completely set aside.
[4:56:05] I think, Tiffany, it might be helpful to actually discuss this in negotiations.
[4:56:10] So we're happy to respond to your questions in negotiations about process and procedures.
[4:56:16] Okay.
[4:56:20] Julie, we don't have a motion, we need to give direction because it's a first reading.
[4:56:29] It's up, good idea.
[4:56:30] Yeah.
[4:56:30] Thanks.
[4:56:31] We're considering it.
[4:56:32] Okay.
[4:56:32] Okay.
[4:56:33] Okay.
[4:56:33] Thank you.
[4:56:37] We are going to move on to the consent calendar.
[4:56:42] I was not here last time. I'm sorry. We received a total of, sorry, can't do math really
[4:56:50] quickly, 15 emails from like up until the last meeting and then 60 emails from the last
[4:56:56] meeting until now. Thank you.
[4:57:01] Consent calendar. Finally, we have the consent calendar. There are two donations reports this
[4:57:06] One is the standard donations report, the other one is a big one as we received the PEF.
[4:57:11] Big check, I am going to very quickly read through that.
[4:57:24] First one, $3,554,203 for a PMA education foundation, amazing, thank you, PEF.
[4:57:33] P-E-F, our P-E-F instrumental music grant, 21,000 P-E-F elementary field trip funds, 15,833 P-E-F, or a donation from boys' water polo for a bus to practice, 5,981, P-E-F matching grant for a general donation, $1,114.
[4:58:03] $1,800, donation from HPC for a table, $6,060, a donation from BPO for facility rentals for
[4:58:13] each review of $5,000, PHS boosters clubs, badminton rackets, and a normate control unit, $1,889,
[4:58:22] $1,500, Piedmont baseball and softball foundation, $1,500.
[4:58:27] Wildwood school dads club inclusion room surprise, $523.
[4:58:31] And a donation from the new TET, I apologize if I pronounced that incorrectly.
[4:58:40] The Hun family for the Binks scoreboard fundraiser, $500.
[4:58:45] For a total of $3,613,606 dollars, which is absolutely incredible.
[4:58:57] Thank you, to all our very generous donors.
[4:59:01] And there's the second donation report for the generosity of community member Will Mughat
[4:59:07] for a piece of artwork that he donated, people who purchased it at a cost of $150.
[4:59:15] 50 dollars, there are more received a print of his creative print of Piedmont or
[4:59:20] his drawing of Piedmont, this fundraising effort raised $4,150,
[4:59:26] which will fund the half of the cost of replacing S. Ramis kiln.
[4:59:30] The list of donors is provided in the board background.
[4:59:33] Everyone is welcome to read it.
[4:59:35] Thank you to Will and to those who purchased his artwork.
[4:59:43] As the consent calendar, we will have no board discussion, however, members of the public
[4:59:47] may wish to comment before it's open for public comment.
[4:59:52] Closing public comments, is there a motion on the consent calendar?
[4:59:57] I move that we approve the consent.
[5:00:00] Childhood. I second it. Motion by Michael, seconded by Susie Allen favor. Aye. Motion carries 5-0, future board meeting on December 10th, annual reorg, beach data of the school, and an interim budget presentation. And we are five minutes early.