Board of Education - Regular Meeting

Great. Thank you. Uh, and now I'll ask uh, Trusty Chak to read our um, foundational commitments. AD vision. Each and every student is empowered to realize their fullest potential, ready to lead, contribute, and thrive in an everchanging world. the support of a diverse, engaged, and committed community. Mission Alba Unified School District provides an excellent public education that empowers every student to achieve their fullest potential. We honor the unique ways students can learn and are committed uh to oh off um I'll just say celebrating differences and fostering critical thinking. uh and we ensure that every student is prepared to contribute to a just and joyful world and thrive as productive members of society. Uh core values number one, we believe in equity and excellence. Every student deserves access to high quality, rigorous and inclusive learning experiences that honor their uh potential and ensure that they are to thrive. Number two, we believe in student centered learning. Students flourish when they experience agency, belonging, and wellness in safe, supportive environments designed to meet their individual needs. Number three, we believe in collaborative learning or leadership. Uh shared leadership and transparent accountable systems are crucial for building trust, driving improvement, and fostering a culture of learning. Number four, we believe in honoring individual strengths. Each student brings unique gifts, identities, and ways of learning. Recognizing and valuing these differences is foundational to meaningful education. Number five, if we believe in the power of community partnership, when educators, students, and families and community partners work together, we create great schools where everyone belongs and every student is empowered to lead and contribute and

thrive. Four norms in code of conduct. Number one, focus on what's best for students. Ensure respectful environment. Number two, value diverse perspectives. Act with dignity and professionalism. Number three, maintain distinction between board and staff roles. Number four, commitment commit to continuous learning and professional development. Thank you, Trusty Chak. Take a breath. Um, okay. Now, I'll ask for an approval of the uh meeting agenda. Do I have a motion? I move to approve the meeting agenda. I'll second the motion. All in favor? I

opposed. The motion passes. Great. I'll turn it over to Superintendent Stone for our staff recognitions, please.

Good evening, uh, trustees, um, community. I'm very, very excited, um, to share this month's staff recognitions. Um, first I'm going to start with um somebody who wasn't able to be here tonight um but so deeply deserves um this recognition and that is Brandy Bill, second grade teacher at Cornell Elementary. Um the nomine the person who nominated her says that we can share who who who did it. Um so he she was nominated by Jeffrey Luna Sparks or Jingle Jeff. Um and this is what he said. Brandy has a challenging class this year, but she never ceases to be fun and creative with academic activities for the children. She goes above and beyond as a teacher. She is also very kind and compassionate to all of her students. So, I'd love for everybody to just give a round of applause to Brandy Beiel. Um, and it is my deep honor and I'm so excited um to share our classified um staff who's being recognized today, who's actually in the audience. I don't know if you want to stand up maybe at the podium. So, Christian or Chris Baravel, our maintenance technician, um was nominated. Unfortunately, those and there were there were a few who nominated him did not want to be uh they didn't want their names shared tonight, but you should know that they this is what they said. Chris embodies customer service. Faced with any task, he will complete it with acumen and a smile, which I have seen myself. He takes initiative to make corrective corrections even when not asked. His breadth of knowledge of tools and equipment makes him a valuable resource for the maintenance team.

Thank you. That's one. That's one. The second, he's a great addition to the team department. He has been taking care of the lock the locksmith work districtwide ever since he's been on board with the department, which we desperately need. Please, please join me in giving a round of applause to Chris. I couldn't have done it without all the team. Everybody Oh, wow. Thank you. Thank you. You mind taking a picture with me?

Well, like I said, I couldn't have done it without the team. So, we are all like a machine. we all work together and uh stuff gets done. But I thank you very much for this one. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all you do.

That was sort of fantastic. Okay. Um we're going to move on to the uh consent calendar. Um I have one item that I want to pull for discussion out of the consent calendar and that's the personnel report. Anything else? Yeah, I would like to pull the educ educationally related mental health services coordinator to discuss at the next meeting to better understand how that new role fits into special ed and just the impact to the kids and the staff. Oops. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, should we talk about the items first and then approve the consent calendar?

Yeah, great. Okay, so um I pulled the personnel report. Um, one of the things I know in the personnel report is we're hiring a couple of new principles. Um, I'd love a little color on like what the process was, who was involved, how we kind of made those kind of key decisions. Absolutely. I'm going to ask our uh, chief of human resources, Marina, to come up and share some information about that.

Hi, good evening everyone. Can you hear me? Okay. Okay. Awesome. Well, um we were fortunate enough um to receive a lot of interest in um our district. We advertised for an elementary principal. Um and we didn't specify that we were actually looking to fill two positions. So, as far as the outside world knew, we were just looking for it to fill one spot. And we received 28 applications and we interviewed eight candidates. and we put uh candidates through kind of a rigorous um process with the first round. Uh the panel, it was like a 12person panel. Uh it involved it included our cabinet members, um a teacher from each site, a classified from each site, program specialist, uh and a TSA. And the candidates had to rotate through different stations, four different stations, um performing performance tasks, right? Role play or prepare um a presentation, interpret this data, that sort of thing. Uh and they and they survived. Uh and then we had a second round with some of our top candidates that were selected and those folks interviewed with a panel from each of the elementary schools. So they interviewed twice for that second round and that those panels um consisted of certificated staff, teachers, uh interventionists, uh ed specialists, also classified staff and parents. and uh there were two folks who rose to the top and we are excited to have them here today.

Thank you. Um so we want to move to approve the consent calendar including um the personnel report with the exception of the one item. Can I have a motion? I move to approve the consent calendar with the one item taken out. I'll second the motion. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. Yes. Why don't we introduce the new

All right. Well, I am very Thank you for passing that motion. I'm very excited because we have our two um new principles in um the audience tonight. And I'm wondering would you both be willing to come stand over right over there? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, so first I would like to introduce Jen Korn. Jen, wave your hand. Um, Jen brings more than two decades of educational experience and a deep commitment to equity, student achievement, and inclusive school communities to her role as our new Cornell Elementary School principal. Jen is a bilingual educational leader who's fluent in Spanish. She served as a teacher, a literacy coach, a principal, a district administrator, and is an elected school board director in a neighboring district just next door. with a proven record of improving student outcomes and fostering positive school culture. Throughout her career, she has championed strong family partnerships, instructional excellence, and systems that ensure that all students, especially historically underserved students, feel supported, respected, and empowered to thrive. So, welcome, Jen. I don't I don't know if you want to say a couple words. I don't have anything prepared, but I'm very excited to be here tonight. Um, I'm super excited to be going back to a principal ship at a school site. I've been working as a district office administrator for about eight years after seven years as an elementary principal. And I've always

said it that being a principal was both the best job and the hardest job. And I'm an empty neester now. my kids are safely off at college. So, I'm just feeling really excited to lean back into that amazing role as a site leader and I'm really excited to get to know everybody at Cornell and hit the ground running.

Thank you. All right. And it is my deep honor and I'm very excited to also introduce Dr. Virginia or Ginger Cook who will be our new principal at Marin Elementary School. Welcome. So, Ginger brings more than 25 years of experience as an educator, instructional leader, and advocate for equity centered schools to her role as elementary principal. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated a deep commitment to improving outcomes for students in underserved communities through strong instructional leadership, early literacy expertise, and collaborative school improvement efforts. Ginger has served as a teacher, a district coach, consultant, and principal leading initiatives that strengthen student achievement, professional learning, and family engagement across multiple school systems. With a passion for fostering inclusive student- centered learning environments, she is dedicated to building strong relationships and ensuring every child feels supported, challenged, and inspired to succeed. So, welcome, Ginger. We're so happy to have you. And again, if you'd like to say a few words, we would love to hear them.

I um have really enjoyed getting to know the people in Albany, and I'm thrilled to get to come um work as part of your team. like Jen, um my husband's here, we are empty nesters and so this is the time to be able to lean in fully and really um be in partnership with you all. So I'm really excited to be part of the Albany team. Thank you for including us. Thank you so much. All right, welcome to Albany. We're so excited that you're here. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome. and I'm soon to be an empty neester, but I'm not going to be a principal. Um, God bless them. Okay. Um, uh, moving on to the next uh the next topic, which is general pop uh the general public uh for items that are not listed on the agenda. Um, each speaker will be limited to two minutes. Um, and consistent with the Brown Act, the board may not take action or respond to matters that are not posted on the agenda. I'll start with the room. Is there any any comments in the room?

Hello, my name is Elaine Stelton and um thank you so much for your service. Um I'm coming here tonight to ask you to consider bringing the mobile museum of tolerance to Albany. I had the pleasure of uh attending uh the event which was uh hosted at Piedmont, the Piedmont school district and um the district attorney was there that Ursula Dixon Jones. Uh Nikki Fortonato Bass was there. Um representatives from UC Berkeley student uh life were there. Um and I was had the pleasure of sitting next to the superintendent of schools for Berkeley and I think everybody got a lot out of um the event. So basically there is a physical museum of tolerance which is in Southern California. And then there's also a mobile um of what just I don't know how to call it. It's a museum on wheels. And um the speaker that we heard was also amazing. They have a lot of fancy technology. The speaker in particular was saying how he managed to partner with somebody who was former KKK and how hard that was, but that he managed to bring himself to do it. And in fact that this individual now in now that he's had a chance to experience the other side brings people out of the KKK and in fact he collects their robes. To him every robe is like like an honor if he gets one from these former KKK members. So I'm hoping that you all will consider bringing in this wonderful free event. you can avail your staff of it,

the school board members, um students, and I think it would be a wonderful way to bridge any community community concerns. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Uh any other comments in the room? Hi, my name is Daria Durens. I'm the grandparent of a child who will attend Albany schools. I urge the school board to place on the agenda the issue of the eth ethnic studies curriculum as soon as possible. Many parents have taken note that the school has participated in bias against Jewish students that has come from the top and in our classrooms. I want my grandchild and all children not to be subject to indoctrination and propaganda. It's against California and federal law to introduce curriculum that promotes discrimination and presentation of one political outlook as though it were fact. We need an ethnic studies curriculum that builds our students appreciation of all ethnic, religious, and other minorities. The district in the past has used CARE, which is an organization that openly supported the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7th to teach our students. Kamas is a terrorist organization sworn to the destruction of Israel. In another instance, a Jewish descendant of a Holocaust survivor was prevented from speaking about the Holocaust at the school because he used the word quote Israel unquote in his talk. This is outrageous discrimination and should never have been used against this speaker. The public needs to see the curriculum that we can trust will be used not just in the ethnic studies course, but in the history courses starting in the middle school and perhaps even earlier. Let's not allow Albany Unified to become Oakland Unified that is now being sued for its blatant

discrimination against Jewish students that resulted in 30 Jewish families leaving the school district. Albany cannot afford to spend precious dollars meant for education on lawsuits. Please make sure that the teachers are teaching real history, not indoctrination and not propaganda in our schools. Thank you very much for your hard work. Thank you.

Any other comments in the room? Hi, my name is Sarah Hower and I'm a parent and a staff member here in Albany and I was just feeling compelled to speak and let you know that I feel very similarly to the last speaker and it's been really disheartening to have written to all of you um about some concerns and having received zero response. So, I know that you were bombarded with lots of emails over some of the incidents that were mentioned by the previous speaker, and I'm sure it was a lot to respond to, but as a parent who has watched how this has unfolded and having Jewish children myself and recognizing the impacts of how this has um all felt for them since 2023, 107, and potentially before that, but certainly that's what I'm referring to. It's just been really sad to realize that the neutral and respectful stance that our district has taken throughout all this while other districts have not. Just like the last speaker said, my own sister had to remove her children from Oakland Unified due to the environment that they were facing. And I really thought that we were going to be able to stay out of that. So, it's been really scary to know some of the things that have happened and to, you know, only hear one side of it because I didn't get any response from anyone. Um, so I I heard what I heard and I trust it to be true, but maybe it isn't, you know, and so it would just be great if you could please remember the importance of following our board directed guidelines on teaching and educating about controversial topics because I think that those guidelines have been overlooked recently based on the accounts that I've heard. So, thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments in the room? Go ahead.

Good evening. My name is Mati Tablum. I'm a resident of Berkeley and a father of three uh USD students. The current is a uh junior in high school. And I would like to follow on the points that made by the two uh last speakers. Um last week you had a speaker at uh Albany High School. Uh controversial speaker to say the least. Um, now none of this is catching any of you by surprise. You've been living in this country in this on this planet for the last two and a half years. You know exactly what's going on. How schools, campuses, classrooms are being used to indoctrinate against one and only entity, Jewish people, and the state of Israel. I'm not catching anybody here by surprise. This is not a like coming out of the blue uh news to you. So, if you haven't yet, you had plenty of time to prepare for this situation to make sure that you have your guidelines and your priorities set clear in following your own uh uh rules and guidelines and the state law in terms of what's the education on controversial issues and how do you introduce the classrooms into actual history and information and not indoctrination. I ask you to do just that. That's your responsibility. It's very uh appreciated that you read those values at the beginning of each meeting coming from a lot of very contentious B USD meetings. It's very nice to see what you're doing here and I really hope that you keep to these values and keep every student safe if they're even if they are yes Israeli or Zionist. Okay. Anti-Zionism is a form of hate targeted specifically at Jewish people because only Jewish

people are Zionists. Most of Jewish people are Zionists. So when people come to you and talk about their political opinion of anti-ionism, please don't fall for that. That is a form of hate against more or less 15 million people on this planet. Please don't let it be in your in your school system. Thank you. Go ahead.

Hi, my name is Tal. I did not prepare anything for tonight, but I after hearing all of these wonderful speakers, I want to say something quick. Um, I was an Albany student through and through from Marin School through Albany High School. I graduated in 2014 when I was a senior in Albany High. Um, I was just talking casually with a classmate about how I was not I was potentially not going to be able to go to Israel that summer to visit my entire family because there was a war. Um, and another classmate of mine um just came up to me and said, "Well, your entire family should have been killed in the Holocaust anyways." This is not new. That was 12 years ago. Anti-semitism has only gotten worse. Um, when I tried to escalate the situation, I was told that that's just how kids are. Nothing happened. There were no punishments towards that student. Um, and again, things have only gotten worse. I now have three young family young family members in Albany schools and I'm really I really don't want them to go through the same things I did where nothing is nothing is happening to make it a safe space for Jewish students. We are less than 1% of the world's population and we are more than half of the hate crimes in the world are against us. Um, I just want Jewish students to be taken into account into your thoughts when you are planning curriculum, when you're planning pres presenters. To hear that a Holocaust uh survivor was not allowed to speak is really sad. I mean, I'm the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor and that that hurts me to know that um people weren't able to learn from someone who survived something so horrific. So, thank you for listening and I hope that you're willing to put in the work to make it a safe and inclusive

and welcoming space for all students. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments in the room? Seeing none, I'm going to go to the video, the Zoom. Go ahead. Uh, hi. Is that me? That's you.

Oh, good. Thank you so much. And, uh, thank you for calling on me. Congratulations to your new principles. I'd like to speak in support of the speakers that came the the public comments that came just before me. I would ask that it please get placed on the school agenda that Albany Unified. And by the way, excuse me, I'm the aunt of uh two students that are attending uh middle school and elementary school of Albany. Uh I would ask that it please be placed on the school board agenda. It seems that the the rules that are enacted to allow for new education, and now I'm speaking of the uh ethnic studies classes, it seems that the rules that we have in place for public comment and parent review were not adhered to. And I'd like to please ask that we restore the system and the order as it is. And to also underscore what has been previously said, anti-semitism, Jew hate, anti-ionism, Israel hate, it's all hate. And if we accept hate here, if anyone in this room is saying, well, well, I agree with those politics. So that kind of hate is okay. I'd like to please point out you can't have cancer or gang green or any kind of poison in any part of the body or the water system and keep it contained. Hate spreads and once it eats up, if we do nothing and it eats up the jewels, who's coming next? This is not the environment to raise our kids. This is not the teaching we want for the future. It's certainly not what I want. I would imagine it's not what most people in the room want. If you smart, educated, trusted people in this room can't speak out and stop it in our school district, it makes me very concerned for what future we have in our country and for the future of our students. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead. You're uh you're next. I just see a phone number. So,

hi. Uh thank you board members. I'd like to um talk a little bit about how ASD a USD is making policy revisions. important that safeguards are in place to ensure students and community members are not discriminated against. This pertains to uh administrative regulation 6020 parent involvement board policy and administrative regulation 6143 courses of study and board policy 6146.1 high school graduation requirements. For example, ethnic studies is a mandated course but it's not clear the board and public had reviewed and approved the curriculum. I'm not saying that there's anything specifically wrong with the current ethnic studies, but I just want to be clear that the process should occur. I ask for a public adoption process. Having the board approve ethnic studies as a graduation requirement without official board and public review of the curriculum and instructional materials is troubling. The board must follow due process and review all curriculum at mandates for students, particularly ethnic studies, pursuant to the legislaturator's clear requirement. We'd appreciate further engagement with you on this topic. Um also um there's been mention of uh different um double standards that have hurt many valuables or community Israelis and many others. Just as Arab and Muslim and Palestine are not bad words, Jew and Israel are not bad words either. AUSD students in the wider community should not be getting the message from the district staff that it is, particularly given the hateful anti-semitic and anti-Israel graffiti in Albany and the urban East Bay. Not to mention assault and damage to public property that has occurred in our neighborhood streets and parks. Double standards are doing just this.

Great. The community needs a school district led by our superintendent to clearly and consistently communicate and enforce the district's policies, rules, and precedents. setting clear expectations in front. Great. Thank you for your comment. I appreciate that.

Yeah. Make sure you're talking into your Zoom appropriately so we can hear you appropriately. Okay. Um on to the next um go ahead. I also want to address the uh the ethnic studies issue. Um, I think having the board approve the ethnic studies as a graduation requirement, but without any kind of official board or public review of the curriculum, um, and and the materials that that the instructional materials is very troubling. Um, I'm asking that the board follow due process and review all curriculum that it mandates for the students, particularly ethnic studies. Um, that's what the legislature requires. Um, we just, you know, as other people have said, anti-semitism and Jew hate is is prevalent and it's not something that we want our community and our kids exposed to and schools are on the leading edge of the battle against that and uh uh we really hope and appreciate that that this Albany school district will be the leader of of the community in that regard. Thank you. Great.

Thank you. Okay. Uh, seeing no more comment, we're going to move on to uh, reports starting with our student board reports.

Thank you. Um for our student uh board member reports uh we've got one key thing we want to talk about uh which is that we have completed recruitment for our presentation at the next sport study session on the transition from middle school to high school uh mathematics education and also mathematics education in general in ASD uh and we're looking forward to you know sharing

report sheepard anything Okay, great. Right, I'll move on to uh labor partner reports. Uh would representative of one of our labor partners want to give an update and I'm just giving a Can you hear? Can you hear me now? Okay. Um giving just a public update on our uh ATA elections. So, Jen Gripman and I will be moving off from our leadership and we will have um Patty Bruns and Jared Law and that will begin on July 1st. So, that's my report.

Thank you. Have any other labor partners here today? Okay. Um I'll turn it over to the superintendent report. Superintendent Stone. Oh, there I am. Okay. Um, I am going to share my screen. Apologies. All right. Sorry, wrong thing. Technical difficulties as usual. Apologize. All right. Let me try this again. Okay, I think I have it now. Thank you. Apologies for that. All right, so Okay, there it is. Great. So tonight, um

I'm I'm taking this as an opportunity to talk a little bit about some of the um work that we've been doing around listening to our community, around our portrait of a graduate. Um, and I want to tie some of that into um how we're collecting data and information and talk a little bit about assessment and my um draft goals um that I am currently working with the board on developing for my future here. So, I'm excited about the work that we have started with the portrait of a graduate. I know that um there's some questions about well why why are we doing this? Why are we doing this now? what's the purpose of it? And the reality is the purpose of this is that it really is the um the grounding force for us as a district, a north star for our district that we can now align a strategic plan and our new local control accountability plan um on next year. We will have to come up with a new local control accountability plan. And the best kind of LCAP is one that is actually also the strategic plan and is moving in the direction of where we want our kids to go ultimately. So, we heard from over 200 folks. Um, and we're still getting more feedback. In fact, um, my hope is I will be at Marin later this week to meet with some students. Um, I want to continue to get more student voice in this conversation. Um but we have heard from students, families, staff and community regarding what they think um a graduate of Albany Unified um should be. We provided a survey in five different languages and um we got most of our responses in English um Chinese simplified and Spanish. Um and but we are working hard. We heard from the community how important it is that um

people who are multilingual learners have an opportunity to give their feedback and so we took that into account and ultimately there were basically six dimensions that really kept coming up in the data. There's a dimension around knowledge, what we want kids to know, the skills we want them to have, the values we want them to come away with, their readiness for life. their ability to focus in on and have um uh not only an idea around how to create equity around them, but also that they are receiving equitable experiences and to have a growth mindset. So all of this is important and under some of these dimensions there were were some like really specific things that kept coming up over and over again. um under knowledge and foundations, academic, that's like a given, right? That's why we're here. We want our kids to um to be able to be literate, numerate, um and have all of the different um understandings about the world around them. Um, civic engagement came up over and over again. Being able to understand their place in in um in the world and uh really in in how to um show up as a civically engaged person. Financial literacy was one of the top things that came up and fortunately California now has a requirement that we will be um needing to come up with a financial literacy um class. And that's great because that is what people want. Um, having an understanding of cultural history. Um, technology and AI came up quite a bit. AI is definitely a big one. And that is something as a district that we need to start to really think about

what our true policy and our our practices are around AI. Um, environmental awareness came up quite a bit too. Under skills and competencies, no surprise, critical thinking and communication skills, the ability to collaborate, the build the ability to um advocate for oneself, um to be able to solve complex problems, and um this idea around executive functioning, be able to organize yourself. Under values and character, the big ones that kept coming up um were around resiliency, having empathy, holding integrity, having curiosity. Um again, civic commitment came up over and over and over again and having a growth mindset. Postgraduation readiness was a huge one and there was definitely some tension around um how what this looks like. Um but ultimately the the thing is the thing which is we want our kids to be able to go to college if they choose to be prepared for career to be prepared if they would like to go into skilled trades to be again prepared for civic life. That was over and over and over again a huge one. Um to have the ability to understand um how to how to be well healthy um physically and socially and emotionally. um being able to be independent adults and have healthy relationships. Equity and access came up around um how and it really what this was is the vision um only matters if it's achievable for each and every student. So the the feedback here was great, we'll have a graduate profile, each and every student should be able to get there. And um there was really some intention and some some conversation in the data around um ensuring that we have inclusive environments, that we have

language equity, and that we're supporting our special our students who have IEPs um in our special education program. And then there were some areas for growth that um popped up again as sort of a theme or a dimension. Um, growth mindset was definitely one of the themes, but also this idea again the things that kept coming up over and over again, financial literacy, life skills, social emotional learning support, having more student voice, AI literacy, um, arts wasn't an area for growth, but it was something that people wanted to see very protected and that they really want our students to leave here having a full rich life and having access to the arts. Um and there was conversation about more advanced pathways. Um some of the quotes that I really um I wanted to to pull up um graduation is not the end, it's a beginning. Graduation graduates should be prepared for a lifetime of learning, adopting and contributing. core academics, cultural and historical understanding and real world learning experiences are important and resilience, civic commitment, a can do mindset. Again, these were kind of pulling across a lot of the themes that we saw and definitely some key tensions. Again, I said like academic rigor versus the whole child. And I don't I want to say I don't think this is an eitheror or a zero sum game, but we definitely want to make sure that we have the strongest academic programs that we can have for students. And we need to make sure that we are in we are creating the space for social emotional learning um and that these aren't competing. College track versus multiple pathways. This this came up also. And again, I think the overwhelming kind of theme here is we want all of our kids to be

able to go to college period. And we also want them to understand what else there is out there in the world that maybe would be um a path that makes more sense for them. And equity versus challenge for advanced learners. So, this was an interesting kind of piece that came up and it came up in the graduate profile and it h it is coming up in the um uh the survey around um just general impressions about leadership in the district. But there's calls to center marginalized students and there's also calls to ensure that high achievers are still getting all of their needs met and have really rigorous experiences. So this is completely a draft again we need a policy but sometimes AI is great because I don't have a graphic designer. So this is really ultimately at the core um the different areas just in graphic form. This is not our portrait of a graduate. I want to be clear, but it is kind of a a prototype of maybe where we would want to um to think about. And what I would like to do is now take this information actually out to the students and get students feedback on this. I think what was really interesting when we did this as a board um as a board activity was the two students who are on our board really had some very important and very interesting things to say about what they want for their future. I want to bring this prototype out to our students and ask them does this resonate with you? Is this what you would like to see in your future? What are we missing? And also ideally a student or students will design what this ultimately looks like should be rooted in our students. So some phases which I just started to explain. Um right now I'm I'm you know we're looking at the different

information that we got. Uh it's going to be important. Um we're there's not a lot of time in June. So really when we come back to school in August to start looking at vetting and validating the data and looking at student focus groups, staff sessions, family listening, um board study session, and taking I'm sorry, there's a typo, but taking our um taking things to things like our um our uh student or sorry our um SACE and our ELAC. Um phase two is to deepen engagement. Again, really want to make sure that we're hearing from all the different voices in our community and especially those who maybe um haven't always been heard from. And then taking that information to a student drafting committee and having um us solidify and adopt ultimately what our portrait of a graduate will be. And then we're going to shift and start to do some engagement and conversations around our strategic plan and our LCAP. So again, whatever we come up with in terms of what our graduate profile is, that really the roadmap to get there should be our LCAP and our strategic plan. And the hope um we absolutely will have to have an LCAP done by the end of next year. That is that is not something we can um get away from. That said, the the hope is that you know the strategic plan that aligns to the LCAP is really solid also at that time. So the other um feedback that I am currently collecting, we've had about 110 responses as of today is around general impressions in our district. Um how are we doing as a district and what do we need to do better? Um and when I say district, I mean district leadership. um across the board and you

know specifically me as a leader as well. So what we heard is um there is definitely a value um and a strong sense of um or value the strong teachers that we have. The teachers really truly are amazing. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I brought my own child here because I saw what um this district um does for kids and my son has had an incredible experience here. Um, there's definitely concerns about this idea of top- down decision- making and that is something again that you'll see in my goals later that that I'm wanting to address. Um, and there's absolutely an emphasis on relationships, teacher voice, and meaningful engagement. Something we need to to do better. So, why data matters? Why why are we um grounding in data and why are we using these types of surveys as well as our assessments of students? Because um it if we don't make decisions grounded in evidence and data um we're actually not going to necessarily make the decisions that um serve the students in the best way. We can't just listen to the loudest voices. It also helps us to identify patterns and access opportunity and belonging across our students groups. and it informs but does not replace relationships, professional expertise or community voice. And so moving forward, I remain and it says we here because this is about our district leadership team, but I remain committed to using data and evidence, relying on teacher expertise because they are the experts. They're the closest to the work. Um listening to student and family voice, and um engaging in more community dialogue. And so we're thinking about different ways to do this very authentically and um to open up the spaces for this so people feel

comfortable coming and sharing. So our commitments again strengthen engagement in an authentic way, humanize the use of data. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. and also um our uh executive director of teaching and learning Karen Shriner will be even deepening that conversation in her presentation later. Um and we're going to work really hard on building shared ownership. We want to invest in teacher leadership and collaboration and we want to ensure that our equity goals and progress are co-developed with the communities who are most impacted. So how do we humanize data? I am a big research um nerd and so I love Richard Elmore, Peter Sen, and Michael Fulen um and uh Brick and Centoro. And ultimately that research all comes back to these four questions. What do we expect students to learn? How do we know that they are learning? How will we respond if they don't learn? And how will we respond if they already know it? And so I thought this was really important because it's exactly what people said in the graduate profile. This is exactly the thing. What are we going to do if they're not learning? What do we do different? How do we make sure we're getting them to that end goal? And if they already know it, how are we accelerating? How are we continuing to advance? So I appreciate this. And I want us to think about a a little bit of a paradigm shift around data. So at the beginning of uh my superintendency when we first presented vital signs which we've now which have now become a part of regular um cadence of our board meetings we talked about this notion of street data um and again this is research um guided by Shane Sapphira and Jamila Dugan and the idea around street data is that data is um

holistic and if we act as ethnographers not just statisticians and we gather assetbased data through deep listening, observation, and studying artifacts of student work. If we believe that agency is the goal, that the model is practitionerdriven, teachers become researchers who take action based on rapid eye level feedback loops and agency not just of our teachers, but also of our students at the at the center. ultimately want we want our students to be um responsible and engaged in their learning and be and feel agency um and efficacy over that. And ultimately if we think of this as an anti-rac as an act of anti-racism. So it's not neutral. There's a commitment to taking direct action when we see the information and we're valuing the lived experiences of our students who have been historically marginalized. So if we do these things then the the idea is that we will actually see more positive impact for each and every student. And so I'm bringing this idea um back to the table tonight and just an example of um this this idea of street data. So what we've been used to is looking at satellite data. Um when I first came to the district um when I started to look online and look for data very very easily could find our CASP scores. Um I could find I could find some information about these other things. Um, and that was great because we do need satellite data. The one issue with satellite data is that it's lagging. So, it's not giving us the information about what we do next. It's like looking it's like

looking very much like from a satellite view. Okay, I can see something, but I can't get down there and do anything about it in this moment. We also had some map data. Um, we were collecting and continue to collect some FastBridge data. we had some literacy assessments and definitely um those things are important and and very very much a part of teaching day-to-day as well as the lagging indicator. So those can be leading in terms of okay this is what I'm seeing I need to do for my class here is my next step and as a lagging indicator it can also be seen as okay that happened what was the result all of these are important satellite and map data super important the notion that we're starting to bring in more of um and especially with um the again the the the work that's being done around our uh literacy adoption and Our literacy initiative is really looking more at our street level data. Teachers do this too. They do this all the time. They they read a student's paper, that's street data. They look at student work, that's street data. They talk they go and talk to a student about something, that's street data. So, this is already happening. I think that the thing that we want to do is make sure that we're capturing some information regarding this. Um, and one new uh data point that we have is our dibbles assessment. Dibbles again can sort of be map, but it's definitely closer to street data because you can do something about it right away when you see the information. You sit and you read with a child, you immediately know exactly what it is that they need. So all of this is framing what I think my goals should be next year, which are not super super different than the ones from this year, although I have consolidated them slightly because eight goals is a lot and nine goals is really crazy. Um, and so what I

tried to do is organize them and consolidate them a little bit. Um, I'm going to continue to focus on accelerating learning and closing opportunity gaps. That is why I do what I do. That is why I'm an educator and that is at the at the core of everything I believe in. We need each and every student to be able to thrive continue. In order to do that, we need to continue to cultivate belonging, well-being, and thriving staff. And the thriving staff piece is something I think we really need to and I I take this seriously and I know that not everybody thinks that this has been my mission, but I understand that we need to have happy staff to be able to do their their work and I will continue to say that we have to focus in on our kids. That is the number one priority. That's why we're here. That's why we do what we do. Building trust through transparent responsive leadership continues to be a goal. We started this idea of a net promoter score which is how the um the feedback that we're getting the survey right now is helping us to address um getting a net promoter score. If we were to look at that information today based on the 101 that we got our net promoter score across the board is a negative 19 negative 19. So it's you go from a negative 100 to a positive 100. You're trying obviously to get to the positives. And the net promoter score says this is how likely I am to want to bring my kid to the school or keep my kid to the school or recommend my kid to the school or the district. Um and then for the staff net promoter score, we're at we're we're low. We're at a negative 62. And so again, this is if I were to set these goals today, how I would want um what I think is a reasonable shift. And one thing that I really want to focus on next year is having a cycle around when we hear feedback, we're

really clear. You said this and this is what we did. And have those updates each semester. Continuing to ensure fiscal stewardship and operational excellence. So so so important. without really clean and well um purposed facilities, students are not going to be able to access the learning in the same way. And we all we need to have a good budget. We need to make sure that we're being fiscally responsible. And my new goal, my last goal is really around developing and adopting a district strategic plan and that is aligned to the portrait of a graduate and that it is launched in the top three languages that we've seen people really respond to. Um, and that we're really clear about our year one baseline around that. So, I do want to just close with some things I feel really proud of that we've been able to accomplish so far. We've had definitely an increased percentage of students at or above reading. Um, and we've seen percentage gains for our students. We saw this in our midyear vital signs report. I'm I'm excited. We'll be doing our end of year vital signs report um at our next board meeting and I'm I'm very confident that we're going to continue to see these gains. We've maintained strong instructional stability with 96% of our students who began the year at benchmark remaining at benchmark. That's huge. And that's in that's specifically in literacy. We've reached 96.1% average daily attendance. Um, which means that we've reduced chronic absenteeism and it's the lowest that it's been since pre- pandemic. We've continued to reduce suspension rates while strengthening systems of support for students and families. We've definitely built a stronger and more transparent system with greater

coherence with 100% of our students reporting confidence in the school um site plan and budget development process this year. And this the goal with this is to keep this as close to the school sites and with the people who are working with the kids to make the decisions about how budgets are used. We've expanded opportunities for community voice um through surveys, listening sessions, again portrait of graduate engagement across multiple languages. And I will say my work will continue to focus first and foremost on students, ensuring each and every student feels safe, seen, supported, and challenged and empowered to thrive in Albany. And what I believe is needed for this work to continue moving forward successfully. I need a willingness across our community to build trust through ongoing communication, honest dialogue, and shared problem solving over time. This means that if there is something that you are not happy with, that you come and speak to the person who's closest to that decision. I need grace and patience for learning, growth, and course correction at all levels of the system, including district leadership. I need partnership and shared responsibility from staff, families, students, and community members in helping strengthen systems and support student success. Openness to engaging in difficult conversations and working through complexity together rather than from positions of assumption or division. Meaningful participation in feedback, collaboration, and decision-making processes with a commitment to moving the work forward. not continuing to keep in the in what happened but moving forward and a shared commitment to uh coherence, consistency and follow through in service of each and every student. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh now we move on to board committee reports. I'll start with Trusty Boyd. Um last week I attended the policy committee meeting uh where we approved a number of policies which will come to the board for approval approval um sometime soon and uh also attended the student achievement committee meeting where we had the opportunity to review uh current data not quite the end of the year data yet but um and saw some great growth in a number of different areas around attendance uh performance on eval EV valuations, a sense of belonging, and looking forward to when we have the final end ofear data and we can review it as a board. But there's some exciting gains there um that it was great to get to talk about.

Thank you, Trusty Khan.

Um okay, for special education, I'm like backlogging my reports, but um um there was a wonderful event with Dr. Biggs and our program specialist, Dr. Dr. Mr. Walter. um um hosted uh at the Albany adult transition program courtyard area and um they our adult transition program served you know drinks and coffee and everything and community members were able to come speak with Dr. Biggs and Mr. Welchure. While I wasn't able to attend, I heard really wonderful things um about the event. Um I I know our goal is to continue doing more just to make you know special education more accessible and you know meet parents where they're at. Um we uh the committee members are also working with the um our wonderful principal Mapes at the AMS to host an orientation for students um who either have an IEP or 504 plan um to be able to have like a special orientation for our students who are incoming AMS students. This is in the works and we're really excited to see this happen. Um, and you know, AMS has been really wonderful about making uh time to make this possible and our PTAs are helping spread the word, but we're hoping that more folks in our community will continue to spread the word and make sure that all of our students who may want to have this orientation will be able to attend. Um, equity council Trusty Boyd and I attended many moons ago. Um, we finally landed on a title for our um, mural. I don't know if that's been made public yet or not.

Am I allowed to? Okay. Um, the team, breaking news, guys. Our team landed on uh Mosaic, uh, Voices of Belonging and Justice. This was a collaborative effort with all of our parent engagement groups, our staff, members of our executive board, and even school board members. Um, we also had a chance to, um, at the Ocean View PTA, uh, multicultural night, we were able to have, you know, um, uh, card stock available for students and families to be able to, um, essentially do mockups of what they envision for this mural. And it was really wonderful to have so many students participate. Um, and you know, currently our goal is to have more of our uh, parent engagement groups submit what that vision looks like for them and what that vision looks like for Albany. Um, and um, I do want to give a huge shout out to um, our amazing PTA uh, parent volunteer, Ellie Lure, who helped led lead that effort at Ocean View, and it was open to everyone in the community to join. Um, and I had a bunch of other stuff, but my brain is fried. Um those are kind of the big ones that I could think of. Oh, um Ocean View had a math night for the first time in like two, three years and it was really well attended. I want to give a huge shout out to um our parent um of course I'm forgetting their name now, but um we have a wonderful team of parents and teachers who helped make that possible, including Coach Kevin. Um, and you know, it was just really exciting to see the kids be so excited about math and like what that looks like and be able to try different things with their parents or um, guardians or whoever. Um, and then we do have open house coming up soon. Um, be there. Oh, and tomorrow we have volunteer appreciation which is hosted by Ocean View teachers and staff for all of the wonderful parents that continue

to volunteer either in the classrooms, host events, and so forth. Um, so if you are one of those parents, please come be appreciated by our teachers and staff. That's all. Thank you. Uh, committee reports. Uh, uh, Vice President Nicholas. Sorry. I have no I have no committee report.

Um, from a committee reporter perspective, I I was I shared the board policy committee meeting with uh, Trusty Boyd. Um I think one thing I would highlight for the board is we're going to have to have a future board conversation about comp possible changes to compensation. So look for that for a board meeting coming. Then facilities master planning um we had a meeting I guess was last week um reviewed some of the latest latest plans initial costing and um the plan is to do a board study session uh at the end of this month so we can get uh everybody on the board can get really deep in terms of um what was heard what uh what the recommendations are and what have you. So, look for those coming going to your next board meeting. Uh, going into board member reports, Trusty Boyd, what do you got for us?

Okay, a few Cornell things. Um, had the chance to attend the final PTA meeting of the year at Cornell and just really want to applaud and appreciate all of our um, family members who are um, so involved and uh, really contribute a great deal to to helping our school sites run. um run well and our students um be celebrated and our teachers and staff be celebrated as well. Um I also got to attend the Cornell community time this morning. Um saw wonderful student performances uh singing, dancing, uh a speech that um a fifth grader had written. I want to just especially acknowledge um a group of students who opened the community time uh with a Mongolian dance. Um the dancers were very skilled, wearing beautifully vibrant, colorful uh costumes and just showing such pride in their heritage and a willingness to share it with all of us. It was really beautiful to witness. And uh then for a few upcoming events, uh Cornell's open house is this Thursday, the 14th, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. Um the PTA is hosting a movie night this Friday, the 15th, at 7:00 p.m. Um the gates open at 7 with ice cream and then the movie starts at 8. The movie is Zootopia 2. Um, and then on Saturday the 16th, there's a field day at Cougarfield um for families from noon to 2 pm that's hosted by high school students in the AHS Youth Athletic and Wellness Club. And this is going to give students a chance to try new sports and explore new activities. Sounds like a really cool event and um really appreciate the high school students who are going to be there to um to put that on for our younger students.

Trust Khan, anything to add? I realized I mixed my Oh, good. It's all good. It's just information. We're getting it out there,

right? Um I think the only thing I would add is um I was able to attend the coffee with the principal with principal Delgado and uh President Josh Mahoney uh which was wonderful. We were able to talk about a number of different issues and I appreciate the parents for coming out and sharing their thoughts, feedbacks, and concerns. Um we had a really wonderful um teacher appreciation week at Ocean View. Um it was just really wonderful to see every single door decorated this year. Um all of the parents and community members that put in the time and effort to make sure all of our teachers and all of our staff including our custodial staff, our ESN teachers, all of our teachers be appreciated. Um as well as our ACC staff that you know um support our students after school. Um I just major shout out and appreciation to all of our parents that make this possible. And I'm gonna leave it at that because I have too much.

Vice President Inklas.

Yeah. So, I want to say thank you to the all the PTAs and volunteers for teacher appreciation week last week at um AMS and at the high school. I was able to attend one of the days at the high school and um then saw pics of all the other days. So, it was amazing. Um for AMS, the spring forier was a huge success. It happened a couple of weeks ago. 523 AMS students attended. Um, I was fortunate enough to be there to sell tickets at lunch and help with setup. Um, and thank you to Eliza Sears for chairing the event. The AMSPA meeting is this week on the 14th and the following the meeting there'll be a parent ed regarding how to talk to kids about money and teaching financial skills. So, if you can attend that would be great. Um, AMS won Battle of the Books last week against three other schools. Um, that's one of their clubs. And the AMS graduation is on June 4th. The high school graduation is on June 5th. And both are looking for volunteers. Thank you.

Sit on it. Pedmont or whatever. Battle of the books. Okay. Um, my daughter Battle of Books. We love it. Okay. Um, activities. Uh, I want to thank my student board members for we had a meeting late in April to talk about um selecting the new student board member that we're going to need to do. So, that'll be coming up soon. Um, also met with um the staff of state senator um Aragen um along with uh Superintendent Stone and CBO Woo um highlighting the potential impact of the state takeover of the Colgate field site, what it impact might be for education funding. Um, I'm planning on meeting with Assembly Member Wixs in early June as well. So, we'll we'll try and fight that battle and keep that keep some money in in education here in Albany. Uh, I want to thank everybody for the I went to the Ocean View site council meeting at the end of April. Parents, teachers, etc. The whole group for those of you who haven't been to site council meet to review and approve the discretionary parts of their budget. So, we we pushed the budget down to the different school sites. a bunch of the stuff is is kind of set in stone in the way of like you get a teacher in every classroom, but there's amount of discretionary money that each site has to determine what they want to do. That was great to see. And then I I realize I've been neglecting this for the entire year that the school event that I probably go to the most is actually my son's uh track meets and cross country meets and I've never talked about that. Um so I want to thank uh all the uh all the adults that are involved in that. Those are huge teams where we have tremendous participation. Um and uh every kid kind of gets to participate and run in these events and um last last the last week of April was uh senior day for the track and field team and it's the students pull it together in terms of um thanking all the all the junior uh leaders take care of the senior leaders who have who and thank them for what they they've done and what have you. And it just always strikes me that it's a very Albany thing where uh

it's not highly polished to be honest. It's everyone has handmade signs. Um but sports among other things is one of those things I think really gives kids a sense of belonging. For some kids it's theater, for some kids it's battle of the books for my daughter or what have you or or or singing or whatever it may be. Uh but sports plays an important role there and I've actually never talked about so I want to thank everybody who's involved in that including uh including all the coaches. Um, all right. Ocean View things that might have missed. Probably most importantly, I believe there are no otter pots. No otter pots tomorrow. Uh, that was late breaking news. You already mentioned the the open house. The open house is for K through five. The little already had their open house. And at the open house, they are doing the big tiny art show fundraiser. Uh, for those of you who don't know what it is, and I didn't, um, you get to bid on Post-it note art. I thought that's pretty clever. um PTA meeting on the 19th and then uh Ocean View talent shows on the 28th. Um yeah, so much so much going on. I So one one last so one last thing I was talking to um a former employee of mine uh at the GAP. So those of you may know I used to work in technology at the gap. Um I had an employee of mine uh he's an emotional guy. Um and I was I was talking with him. I haven't been there for a while and he's actually moved on. he's now a vice president. So, it's kind of fun always to see um your individual contributors kind of rise through the ranks. U we were talking about a time that um he came into my office and he was really frustrated. The deployment pipeline, in other words, how coders get their code out to production was just going really slow. Uh and Dave, like I said, is because I love his passion. Sometimes his passion gets the better of him. and he came in and he was yelling and ranting and talking about how incompetent everybody was and yada yada yada and so I asked him if he'd talked to his tech lead Alex

and he hadn't he hadn't actually done it and so I told him come back to me then when you have a problem um I've done that with a bunch of people in my organizations throughout the years which is when people escalate something to me my first question is always did you talk to the person had that conversation did you talk to their boss or what have you by the time it gets to me at the top of the organization or towards the top of the organization ation, you probably have to um you probably should have been talking to two, three, four, five different people um because those are the people that are closest to it and those are the people you should be having those conversations with and we tried to come up with a name. So I'll take feedback on the name which we called skip level complaining Dave and I. So if anyone has a better name, let me know. Um but uh I just kind of thought about that as we think about how we can best communicate and what have you. Giving our feedback to people individually is is definitely uh and directly is probably the best place to start. That's it. Now we're going to move on to our action items. Vice President Inklas, I think you are up to talk about the peace bowl donation to AUSD from the Rotary Club.

Yes. So, thank you and I am excited to introduce the next topic. The Rotary Club um would like to donate a peace poll to Albany Unified. Uh the message on the poll um is may peace prevail on earth. It would be written in eight of the most common languages spoken at AUSD. Um we live in a complicated and divided world and I know our kids feel that and I support the idea of a peace poll. It's simple and a meaningful reminder that peace is worth striving for. So thank you.

Thank you. Uh my name is Howard McNenny. I'm here with John Miler. Uh we're both members of the Albany Rotary Club and we're here representing our club in regard to the possible install installation of a peace pole on school district property. For those of you who may not know what a peace pole is, it's a global initiative where Rotary clubs install monument poles inscribed with the message, "May peace prevail on earth." To promote peace buildingilding, community unity and conflict resolution. As part of a global movement that began in Japan in 1955, these polls are typically placed in public spaces like parks and schools. We have Oh, and in fact, here's a example. That's a bunch of them right there. Um, and we have another slide, too. I think we have two. That's a better example of what they look like. This is a We only are proposing one in Albany. Not that many. Each poll features uh may peace prevail on Earth in multiple languages on its four to eight sides. To date, over 250,000 poles have been planted worldwide in every region and every continent on Earth, including locations such as in remote Canadian Arctic, the pyramids of Egypt, and of course, the Rotary International headquarters in Evston, Illinois. Peace poles are now the most recognized monument dedicated to peace on earth. The peace polls are often accompanied by dedication ceremonies that spark conversations about peace within their communities. So I'll now ask John to offer some specifics on what our proposal in Albany is. Go ahead.

Thanks. Uh so we are prepared to purchase this peace pole and we think it would look great on your admin building on Solano Avenue because of the great foot traffic. Um, just as a footnote, uh, Oakland, Berkeley, and Elserto all have peace polls, and we think it's time that Albany has one, too.

Great. Thank you. Uh, any questions from the board? Okay, I'll go to a public comment. By the way, just to clarify, the offer is to donate the pole. We we'd purchase the pole. We'd uh donate it to the city. And since it's on school school district property, most likely you would want your own um maintenance staff to put it in the ground. We'd like to be there, however, to help and for the dedication. Oh, and uh we'd be more than willing to uh keep it clean and you know, trim around it and whatever as well.

Terrific. Great. Uh do we have any motions? I move to approve um theou with Albany Rotary Club to gift and install AP Supply USD. I second. Any comments? Appreciation for your efforts and to bring this to Albany. I think we are all pro peace. I like to think we were hop. Uh so it's a great place to start. Um can I have a vote on the motion? Have a vote motion? All in favor? Yeah, we had a motion in a second. Uh all in favor? I

opposed. Motion passes. Thank you for your people. Uh I think you're up for the ratification of the tenative agreement between uh CSEA and the DR.

Yes, I'm back and the next five items are mine. So I'll just be here for a few minutes. Um so the ratification between so the district is excited to bring this forward. Um, we started negotiations with CSEA for this um for a successor contract uh which means it's a full three-year contract and uh it went over it went longer than we expected but um CSEA was um graceful enough to give us time. Mostly what we were waiting on was, you know, our numbers to sort of um shore up so we could know exactly what we could offer and they were graceful enough to give us that time to do so. Uh and so now we finally have this agreement in place and we're looking forward to issuing the salary increases uh for all of their members at the end of this month.

Questions? comments from the room or on Zoom. Seeing none, do I have a motion? Do I have a question? Trusted showc um is it is this like a back pay thing or like it says 2025 on that. I was just Yeah, it's like a back Yeah. So, um, each full contract is like a three-year contract, and the contract for CSEA actually expired June 30th of 2025, and we were negotiating a uh successor for three more years. So, this is going to be back pay retroactive to July 1st of 2025. Okay. Yeah,

I think a great question. Any other questions? Do I have a motion? I move to approve the tenative agreement between CSCA Ca and EUD. I second. All in favor? I uh against motion passes. Now we're on to the uh the agreement between uh SEIU and um AUSD.

Yep. And the same here with our other classified unit. Uh this SEIU represents our custodial maintenance staff and uh our food service workers and again they were gracious with their patience and here we are um bringing this agreement. This one is brief. We are we made no substantive changes to the contract language. We are just adding the salary increase. We are restating the health and welfare benefits as they are. And uh there was slight change to the language in the uh duration with the reopeners. So they have guaranteed reopeners as opposed to by mutual agreement. Great. Any questions from the board? Uh any comments from uh the public either online or in person? Seeing none, do I have a motion?

I move to approve the tenative agreement between SEIU and AUSD. I second. All in favor? I I against motion passes. Uh now we are on to theou on the placement of the salary schedule for uh speech and language pathologist I believe. Yes. So this is the mouthful I summarized.

Yeah. Right. Thank you. Uh so this is more of an addendum to our contract negotiations uh with ATA. Uh the board may recall that uh during those negotiations we the parties agreed to a new salary schedule for the speech and language pathologists. uh and but I think in our our excitement to reach a tenative agreement, we sort of uh overlooked the the language around how folks would be placed on that salary schedule and this is just to clean that up.

Any questions from the board? Uh any question any comments from the public either in person or on Zoom? Seeing none, do I have a motion? I move to approve theou between ATA and AUSD. I second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. Uh now we're on to item E, which is the approval of the substitute salary schedule for 2526.

So this is uh if you look at it, there's basically every classified position that we have in the district and um sometimes there's a need for a substitute. And what we do with this salary schedule is we use the rate of pay that is step A or the first step of each range for that particular classification. And so we're just updating this to be in line with the 2% increase. Any questions from the board?

Uh any comments from the room or on Zoom? I have a motion. That's a question. Wait, was it meant to be 25 26 or is it supposed to be for next? No, I'm sorry. The title has uh a typo in it. It's effective. These go into effect April 11th, 2026. So, if you look down where it says supporting documents Yeah. and where the recommendation is that it's effective April 11th, 2026. Gotcha. Yeah.

Good job. That's the question. So motion should be Yeah. approved. Uh I move to approve the substitute salary schedule effective April 11th, 2026. Yes. I second. All in favor?

I opposed. Motion passes. On to item F, uh, adoption of resolution 25 2025.26-15, reduction of classified services. This is a resolution. Um, it's a it's a duplicate of uh what we brought earlier in the year. So, um, well, let me back up a little bit. So, the positions that are listed or the classifications that are listed here for layoff are two library tech positions that are soft-funded. So that means um we receive not guaranteed funds for those positions each year. One is funded through school care and the other is funded through a grant and um we have not yet received a commitment from schoolare to continue funding the position and the other we are looking at what other possible sources of um revenue we can use if that position is a continued need in the district. Um, so there are timelines that we have to follow in my HR world. So we bring it once and we notify that there may be a layoff. Um, and we we serve that notice on March 15th. And um, if we if there are no changes and we still are moving forward, then we bring it a second time for final approval and we notify affected individuals by May 15th. What you might notice um if you were to look at the resolution I brought in February versus this one is that one of the positions or classifications that was being recommended has fallen off because we in fact um have already brought that position back for next year. So this is one of those things where it's sort of a timing like are we going to get the funding? What are the needs? We're still assessing. So it's a we're just following ED code here.

Great questions for the board. Okay. uh come in the room. We're on Zoom for the public. Seeing none, do I have a motion? Move to approve and adopt resolution number 2025-26-15, reduction of classified services. I second. I'll just make a comment before we before we vote, which is just like we've I not been on the board that long, but a couple years, but I've seen this before. And so, I just want to shout out and be super appreciative of all our fundraising organizations that really help help with these sorts of things. So, I know these things are awkward, but the fact that the community comes out and supports these things is fantastic. So, all right, that's my little comment, but now I'll ask for a vote. All in favor of the motion.

I opposed. Motion passes. Now, we are up to G, which is um the 2627 board of education meeting schedule, locations, and broadcast format conversation. I think I can start this. Um, so we have um a calendar that we're proposing for next year and I want to be really mindful of um as was just um named there's some very specific timelines that we have to follow around that are based on ED code. So there are certain times that we have to bring things to the board around budget, audits, um human resources decisions and in order to do that the calendar has to the board calendar has to match. The challenge is that when you're putting a board calendar together um there are a lot of holidays that we want to pay special attention to. We don't want to have board meetings on, for instance, the high holy days for um for our Jewish community or other types of holidays that are really important. Um Eid um holy like just there's there's so many different different pieces that go into this. Uh the other issue is that um we have been using this as our space for board meetings which is a lovely and incredible space and we're so grateful. And when we put together our calendar that makes the most sense with all of the holidays and with all of the timelines, it doesn't always match when this space is available. And so what we

are proposing is um first of all would like to look at this calendar and um get feedback or concerns about it. Um and then also name that there are some specific days on this that we know we will not be able to meet here in city hall. That said, it's an opportunity to maybe pilot holding our meetings at our school sites instead and to set up the conditions so that we can zoom record and stream through Zoom like we like we do every meeting and also um maybe create our own infrastructure to be able to hold our own meetings uh regularly at our at our own facilities. I will say that one of the things I asked um and I'm sorry it didn't make it into the board packet, but one of the things I asked for was just overall the amount of money that we spend to be able to rent this facility. And in 2025, sorry, 202425, uh we spent over $10,000 to be able to uh rent this facility. in uh this year up to date, we've spent over $8,000. So, there is a cost. It's not a huge cost, but it it is definitely something to consider as well. Um for us to be able to get our materials and supplies together to be able to hold these meetings in our own facilities, it would cost way less. So, these are just some considerations to take um under advisement as you're looking at this calendar. clarifying questions from the board. So, just to make make sure, so we already streamed these things on Zoom. The difference besides the this lovely facility and me getting to this set up a little bit higher than usual. Um the big

difference will be it won't be on public access. Is that the gist of it? Correct. It wouldn't be on KALB on those particular meetings next year. And again, if we do this, it's more of a pilot to see how it works. We also want to make sure that that it works. Um, again, part of this is really about making sure that we're following the right timelines and that we're not having emergency board meetings come up when we realize that we need something uh to be done for an audit or a human resources um deadline. Other questions, comments from the public, either in the room or on Zoom.

Seeing none, do I have a motion? I'm sorry. Give me a minute. Fuego, let's go. Um, I lost it. Somebody else has it or No, it's right here. Okay. Approval. No, that's not approval of 2026-27 board of education meeting schedule locations and broadcast format. I I second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. Uh now we're on to item H, approval of high school gymnasium scoreboard and sound system updates.

Welcome CBO.

Thank you. Good evening everyone. Um I'm here to present um a unique uh contract uh for the and recommending that the board approve uh to allow for us to proceed with uh the potential execution of this contract with Musco Lighting. Uh we've been um we've basically have an opportunity to engage with a private donor who's willing to help fund some um Albany High School gymnasium scoreboard equipment updates for us. uh of which uh one of the stipulations from the anonymous donor is that they want us to move forward with this project being completed by the end of summer. And so in order to do that uh we've we've uh our whole team actually frantically went out and got quotes from all the experts and found Musco who is um one of the more complete quotes that we were able to get um in addition to being able to provide everything that we were requesting from the donor and then also um being able to meet our summer time frame. questions.

The entire cost being donated. Yes. And I believe if I read it right, 10 years of maintenance. Is that right? Something like that. Yes. Trusty Boy, do you have any concerns about the construction that's being proposed? Any worries or anything like that? No. Yes. Coy Shepard. Um, will there be like a lot of construction in the gym like during the summer? There will be some. Yes, for sure. Okay. Was did you talk to like the coaches that use the gym during the summer? Yes. Okay. Yes.

Uh, we've interacted with Bill Trestler to make sure that this is actually going to work for the facility. I think one of the things for us to think about too in general since we've had a couple of these today is and I'm I'm pro peace and pro scoreboard just to be clear. Um uh is that we probably eventually will need some sort of framework or or structured way of which we think about some of these donations. These seems these two seem sort of no-brainery to me. Um but I'm sure we can get I'm sure we can get a donation that we might be feel less comfortable with. So, I think not asking us to set that guideline today, but probably something for us to be starting to think about. Um, any other questions from the board? Uh, comments from the public or on Z in the room or on Zoom? Seeing none, do I have a motion?

I move to approve the AHS gymnasium scoreboard and sound system updates with Musco Sport Lighting LLC. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, now we're moving on to our discussion items. Welcome, Director Shriner. AOSC Literacy Assessment Systems. me and technology. Um, good evening to our school board and our community members. Um, I'm here today to talk about um, our literacy assessment system in Albany. Um, and this presentation was initially a request from the school board, um, and got some good feedback from President Mahoney. So, um, excited to hear what questions you have today, um, about the work we're doing. So, I'm going to walk us through tonight, um, around Alby's comprehensive literacy assessment system. Um, I'm going to start with why a coherent system of assessments matters for our students. And then I'll walk us through four specific types of assessments, screeners, diagnostics, uh, progress monitoring, and outcome measures, and how each one gives us a different view of student learning. Um, as Superintendent Stone shared earlier, from satellite level to map level, and then to street level. And then we'll take a deeper dive into specific tools that are new um, this year in elementary and middle. And I want to name upfront that these types of assessments we're talking about today are not the only way that teachers assess students. Um teaching is the beautiful dance of teaching and assessing all the time. Um through both formal and informal ways um from turn-in talks to exit tickets to

end of unit assessments. Um but what tonight's presentation focuses on is our common district-wide system um that we've built across grade levels. And at the end, I'd welcome your questions, your feedback, and any direction that we can take um to strengthen our system. Assessment. Um we know this from lots of research. This quote comes from John Hadtie, one of my favorites. But really what assessment comes down to is how we understand what students know, what they still need to learn, and how to support them. And a comprehensive system really matters for us. It does five big things. It ensures all students develop strong literacy skills. Um, it catches reading difficulties as early as possible so we can do something about it. That's the whole point of assessing is doing something about it. Um, and interrupt inequities before they compound over time. Um, and that means providing timely support at every stage so that we have a really coherent system across our grades. And for data to be useful to us, it has to be a few things. It has to be valid and fair. It has to be reliable. It has to be predictive. This is really important. And we need to monitor it over time. Three times a year at the minimum is what um multi-tered systems of support research tells us. And more often for students who are not yet where we want them to be with their reading development again, so we can intervene and act. And our assessment system is designed to serve every student across all three tiers of support from universal instruction for all students to targeted small group work for students who need a little bit more um to more intensive individual intervention. And the data from each type of assessment feeds directly into these tiers so that no students fall through the cracks. That's really the goal. all students are screened and our students

who have more risk level which is a deficit based way that I sort of hate but that's sort of what the literacy research calls it um so again we can make sure students are making progress and I'm going to talk um for this next chunk of time about these four types of assessment data which each answer a different question and have a different purpose um and each give us a different level of view into student learning. So, we're going to walk through all four. Um, but again, keep in mind that these are these are just about common district-wide assessments. They sit alongside the many other ways that teachers assess students every day in their classrooms. So, we're going to start with screening, which really asks the question, who has unfinished learning and might need more support? In kindergarten through fifth grade, our new assessment this year that we know is Dibbles. And in grades six through eight, also a new assessment that we know, we use STAR. So screener data screener data answers the question who has unfinished learning. It also shows us the overall health of our system. So if 80% of our students are at or above benchmark, it's generally um an indicator that we've got a healthy system um with some room for improvement, which is the case in Albany, as we've seen from our past um data presentations at Vital Signs. And it tells us which specific students need more support. It also shows us how students are growing over time from beginning of year, middle of year to end of year and where we might need to shift our systems. Um sometimes at a classroom level, sometimes at a grade level, sometimes at a school level or even a whole district level. Um but again, keep in mind that screener data, screener data, it's a fun little combination of words to say there. Um it's really maple level data. So alone, it doesn't tell us exactly how to navigate and respond. It just sort of tells us the terrain.

And so now we will look at the second type of assessment which is diagnostic. Um and this asks the question, what exactly is the unfinished learning? And in kindergarten through fifth grade, we use either the core phonics assessment or the SIP's placement test as our diagnostic assessment. And diagnostic data tells us exactly what specific skills a student needs support with, where exactly to begin instruction and what instructional or intervention groupings to potentially um pursue. And this is what allows teachers to really act with precision. Um our diagnostic data, you can think of it as like moving us from knowing that a student is struggling to really understanding why they're struggling um and what in what instruction they need next. It's really actionable street level data. One important dist distinction I want to make is that dibbles though we can I'll I'll clarify this a little bit down the line because I don't want to contradict what superintendent stone said earlier because what she said is right. It is possible to use dibbles just as a screener and just as maple level data and use it to give information about the system without acting on it. And we are not doing that in Albany, which is great. Um, but I just want to be clear, their universal screeners are not diagnostics. It's kind of like you go to the doctor, you get your temperature checked, and it you have a fever, but you don't know why you have a fever. The doctor has to order several other tests to really understand what's going on for you. Um, so I want to make this really concrete to understand because we can really live in the jargon world of education. Um, and so I want to give an example here with um, what we call a diagnostic decision-making tree. And this is an example for kindergarten. Um, a diagnostic decision-making tree is exactly what it sounds like. It's a really structured and systematic process

that ensures every child who gets screened and is at risk gets the right diagnostic and the right instructional response. There's no guessing. There's no one-sizefits-all intervention. So in kindergarten, when a student scores below benchmark on dibbles, we follow this tree to understand what they need. So for example, if a student is at or above, great. They're going to get their tier one instruction. They'll get enrichment opportunities. They'll get extra practice to solidify skills that are so important at that grade level. But if they're below, we're going to look really closely at one of their subtests first, which we'll dig into shortly. LNF stands for letter name fluency. So, how quickly you can um identify your letters. And if they're below on that little section, then we give a diagnostic. We give them an untimed assessment of all the letter names and sounds to get more information. If they know them all, great. They're going to get some extra support, typically about 30 minutes a day, typically at least three days a week. And if they don't know them all, we're not going to move them into learning to read yet. We're going to shore up those letter names and sounds first. So again, just a super clear process that it's important for all of us to understand that, you know, we're not making decisions based on guessing. Our teachers are doing this in a really systematic way. And we'll dig into these subtests a little bit later. Similarly, won't go into all the ins and outs of this, but we when we look at the upper elementary grade, it's the same process, but first we look at reading comprehension because that's the most important piece at the upper grades. And then we drill down into any other subsklls that students might have gaps in um that need to get shored up before they can really read and understand grade level text, which is, you know, ultimately the goal. so our students can be informed and critical citiz citizens and change makers in their community. And we're constantly striking this balance between having comprehensive assessment that gives us actionable

information so we can do something about it without overassessing. Sort of like we want to assess as much as we need to to get where we need to be, but as little as we need to to not waste any teaching time, which is a tough balance to strike sometimes, but we do our best. Now, when we look at the middle school level, um you can see that in grades 6 through eight, as this begins to populate, our diagnostic decision-m is slightly less developed than in K through five. We start with our star reading assessment. If students are at or above grade level, which is about 70ish% in the middle school, our students get access to their tier 1 instruction and extension opportunities. If they're significantly below grade level, the middle school has a process for something new they're doing this year. Our Kim Gray knows better than anybody, a really great intervention opportunity called the called um the STAR intervention curriculum. And so they get considered for that intervention class. Um what that means though is that we have students in our middle school who are not proficient in reading but are also not um as in great need to be considered for that class and we don't necessarily have a clear diagnostic picture about what the next steps are for those students. Research gives us direction on what that is with our literacy development. Um but but you know before we move towards adding any additional assessments would really love to partner with our middle school team to think about you know what's working now, what's feasible, what fits their context, what would serve their students well. Um so curious to do that in the future when it feels right for our middle school team. Curious if the board has any feedback or direction about that too. So now we'll move on to the third type of assessment we're talking about today which is progress monitoring. Um, and we're beginning to sort of flesh out the full framework here of assessment. And progress monitoring really is how we know whether the intervention we chose

is actually working. So in K through five, this is what Superintendent Stone was alluding to before. We focus on one focal subtest in whatever the skill that the student has the biggest need in to focus on that skill and intervention and then progress monitor it over time. And that's really the use of street data which you can act on in a really actionable way. Um and then in our star intervention class there are a multitude of assessments that teachers can monitor progress with. So to keep the sort of analogy going progress monitoring is is our GPS of our street data. It tells us whether students receiving intervention are moving in the right direction. We want to monitor frequently typically every 10 to 20 days is what MTSS research tells us so that we can adjust quickly if something isn't working. We don't want to wait until the end of the year to find out about that. And last are outcome measures. Um these are end ofear assessments. Uh they're typically our state assessments and they evaluate really the overall effectiveness of a program. So our outcome data is our satellite view and our ESPback our CASP system tells us whether students met grade level expectations at the end of the year. It's less actionable. It's a lagging indicator um because data comes back after students have moved on to a new grade, a new teacher, a new school some of the time. Um but it is really essential for systems for identifying trends and equity gaps and whether our overall system is producing results for students. Okay, so now sort of big picture, broad strokes, we're going to dive more deeply but briefly into Dibbles in K5. So Dibble stands for dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills. It's a really brief assessment. It's one minute

timed for each subtest given to students. Um it's administered one-on-one with the teacher and given at least three times a year. again more frequently if the student is um in need of more support. Um with the subtest taken together, it measures the five pillars of reading research and gives teachers actionable data and teachers um selected it under Michelle Sinclair's leadership last spring um after California required us to um identify universal screener that was on their list and our prior assessment FastBridge did not meet that criteria. It's not new, it's not untested. when I was teaching in 2010. It was the assessment I gave by hand to my kindergarteners. Um has 30 plus years of research behind it. It's validated across tens of thousands of students um in all 50 states. Um and it reliably predicts uh whether a student will be proficient. And Dibbles produces a composite score which my non-mathy brain always says average but it doesn't mean average. It's like an algorithmic weight of how important these different subtests are at certain points of the year in certain grades. Um, and the composite score tells us the overall risk level. Um, and the subtest level, so for here example, in kindergarten, let me pause. These are like the numbers of the composite score, which ask any teacher, the numbers don't really mean anything. It's really about the risk level. Um, but what does start to give you insight is um, students performance on the subtests. Um, so you can see at the beginning of kindergarten, which is kind of wild to think about, but all of the research tells us that if students enter kindergarten unable to name 25 letters in a minute at the start of kindergarten, they're at risk for future reading difficulty, which is really why early intervention really, really, really matters. And also why TK and PreK are so incredibly powerful.

So each subtest is administered at specific grade levels where it matters most based on the research. And this slide just shows you when each subtest is given across kindergarten through fifth grade in Albany. Though the test is valid and reliable up through 8th grade. So we'll dive into each one very briefly. Letter name fluency looks like this. Um, it's given in grades K and one and it measures whether students automatically recognize uppercase and lowercase letters. It's one of our earliest indicators and it's super highly correlated with future reading success. It's pretty powerful to be able to have all of that information at your fingertips in just a minute as a teacher. The next subtest um is phone segmentation fluency also only given in kind. and it measures whether students can hear and separate individual sounds into spoken words. Um, and this is really um the kind of like the shelf that if if letters were books, it's the shelf that they sit on. It would be unstable if students did not have this ability. And so this is what it sounds like. The students are not looking at anything. The teacher says, "Tell me the words you hear in the word side. Tell me the sounds you hear in the word side." and the student, we want them to say s i d. Um, if you think about it, that's what you have to do when you're spelling, when you're learning to spell, right? You got to break apart those sounds. The next subtest is given in grades K through three. Um, and it's called nonsense word fluency. Looks like this in kindergarten and like this in third grade. And it measures whether students can apply letter sound knowledge to sound out unfamiliar words. they're purposefully not words because um many students can develop compensatory strategies where they memorize a lot of words which um can be helpful. Um but that's when we start to see a breakdown especially in

fourth grade when kids start to um see really long multi-elabic words in books. And if you're a parent of kids that age, they might look at the first part and then mumble the rest of it. Um and it's often because they haven't been taught how to systematically break apart words. So, it's a super super insightful assessment to let us know whether students might have hidden phonics needs. Word reading fluency is given in grades K through three and it measures how accurately and quickly students read real words in isolation. So, it tells us about their automatic word recognition which is a foundation of fluent reading. Here are some is an example from first grade. Here's an example from third grade. The second to last subtest, um, the ORE for the oral reading fluency, um, is the single strongest predictor of reading comprehension that has ever been studied. It is a one minute assessment of a grade level passage. Um, and it gives you two pieces of information. How accurate students are reading with their percentage of accuracy. If students are reading below 98% accurate, their comprehension is being impacted. And it also tells us their rate, how quickly or automatically they're reading. Um, and there's a certain number of words per minute that pretty reliably if you're not reading above that threshold, your understanding is being impacted. So, for example, here's a second grade text versus a fifth grade example. And the last assessment that starts in grades two, it's available up to grade 8. We give it in grades two through five. Uh the maze, it's the only group administered assessment. So this is not taken one-on-one with a teacher. It's a threeinut timed assessment um on a Chromebook where students are um

basically doing tasks like this um and it measures their reading comprehension of sentence level tasks. It sort of completes the picture that the ORF thoral reading fluency starts to paint. just to sort of bring this to life with an a real example of a student. It's a makebelieve example, but you know what I mean. A fourth grader at the beginning of the year, we'll call them Sandy. On their dibbles composite score, they scored 308. Number itself doesn't mean a ton. Um, but they fall well below. So, they're at great risk for future reading difficulty if we don't do something about it. So, what we would want the teacher to do is we would then look at their oral reading fluency. And in this case, Sandy's reading 85 words per minute and they're 88% accurate, which are both in that red category, that high-risk category. So, we'd follow our diagnostic decision-making tree. And we would know there's probably an underlying phonics issue at hand. So, we would give them the SIPs placement test, which is a curriculum embedded diagnostic. and let's say they place into SIP's challenge one that essentially correlates to like beginning of second grade phonics skills. Knowing that curriculum, there's 75 lessons in that curriculum which essentially spans second to third grade foundational skills. During win time, they would meet maybe with a reading interventionist, maybe with a teacher, depending how the grade decides to organize those groups. And for 75 days or more, that child would be in that intervention. They would be progress monitored through the curriculum embedded assessments within the SIP's curriculum which are given every 10 to 30 days to make sure they're learning what's taught. And in addition, they'd be progress monitored on the Dibbles ORF to make sure they're becoming more fluent and more accurate over time and their risk level is decreasing because again progress monitoring is what's going to tell us if our intervention is working.

When that child's phonics skills have been mastered, then the teacher would progress to supporting them to become a more fluent reader. So the goal is not to be an intervention forever, but to be met where you are with as much teaching time and as little assessment as possible, but also with the right assessments in place in order to make informed decisions. So, let's do a a similarly um and brief uh deeper dive into Star Renaissance, which is our new map level assessment in grades 6 through 8. Um so, I understand that last year teachers selected STAR in the spring because it predicts ESPback outcomes really well. Um and something that teachers named that the former assessment FastBridge did not do very accurately. Um really what this assessment does is it supports our monitoring of growth and proficiency in both ELA and math. But tonight we're just focused on literacy and it provides schoolwide data to guide any instructional planning. And so different than Dibble, STAR is a computer adaptive assessment. The child takes the assessment on the Chromebook and it adjusts in real time based on how the student answers. It gives us a scaled score so we can compare over time and it provides reports at the student, the class and the school level. Like Dibbles, it has a really strong evidence base in terms of being reliable, valid, widely used, and highly predictive of student performance. And in Albany, we administer similar to Dibbles three times a year during the ELA class or during math class. On average, um, Dan, our data and assessment TSA, pulled how much time kids in Albany actually spend on the assessment. And on average, it's about 20 minutes for reading, 25 for math. I think it ranged from like one minute for some students who obviously just, you know, clicked the assessment up to 60 minutes at the high end, but that was a very small number of students. Um

there's time limits for each question which helps keep um the assessment relatively contained so students aren't testing for really long periods of time. Um and that time limit is really intentional so that it students performance can be compared to national national norms which is helpful information. So it gives us a couple different pieces of information. It gives sort of overall proficiency a norm reference score. um it helps us again predict ESPback performance and we can monitor students growth over time. There's five domains or sort of similar to dibbles um that we get information on word knowledge, comprehension strategies, literary analysis, um understanding author's craft and argument evaluation. And these really map directly onto what students need in terms of all of the um ELA standards. So, the first domain, word knowledge, looks at two things really. Vocabulary strategies, um, how students use context clues to understand unfamiliar words, um, and the depth of their word knowledge. I'm sorry for the kind of grainy screenshot, but I was trying to get some examples for you that might help. The second domain is really about comprehension strategies which assesses reading process skills like making predictions or identifying text features um constructing meaning understanding organizational structure like cause and effect. So sort of similar in terms of a brief example of a question that a student might see. The third domain is really about analyzing literary text and that's pieces like plot and setting and theme and point of view. Um, understanding the difference between fiction and non-fiction, reality and fantasy. All of that really meaty work that lives in the land of ELA instruction in the middle school. The fourth domain is all about author's

craft, which is how well students understand things like figurative language, the use of literary devices, sensory detail, really the choices authors make and why they make them. And domain five, analyzing argument. Ask students to identify bias. so important these days especially evaluate reasoning analyze logical fallacies assess credibility um which are really the critical thing the critical thinking skills that are essential and that our community named is really important in the portrait of a graduate student. So considerations over the next few years um and these are just things that I've been mulling about in my head um and as I chat with our teaching and learning team. But these are some of the questions we're thinking about. How do we use STAR data to inform flexible skill-based intervention? Um whether that's a need within um our middle school, whether it's a need in a particular grade. um if we did want to use this data to inform supports, what kind of master schedule conditions would be needed to support responsive structures? Um also how we might strengthen engagement with STAR data um with our um assessment system in the elementary school. Something we've spent a lot of time on this year um and I'm sure we could do better, but is supporting our teachers to understand exactly what the Dibble subtests tell us and how we respond. Um, so how do we support our middle school team in that way with this data too? Um, and this question came up at middle of your vital signs and I've been thinking about it since then. Um, but how do we ensure that classroom testing conditions and student investment are there so that the results really do reflect students best effort and true performance during that 20 minute time. And lastly, very briefly, we'll talk about um the ESPback um our outcome measure, which is really our satellite data for grades three through eight and

grade 11. I think we know this, so I'll be brief, but ESPback is a computer adaptive summitive assessment. It aligns to the Common Core standards in ELA and math. It's required for all students in grades 3 through 8 and 11. And it measures proficiency at the end of the school year um while reporting overall skilled scores and domain specific performance. Ultimately, aspect data helps us evaluate our system performance, identify achievement trends, look at subgroup, look at student group performance over time. Um, and it's a helpful tool as we know for spotting equity gap gaps across schools or grade levels or particular student groups. Um, but as I shared before, the real big limitation is results come back late. It's a lagging indicator. The usefulness in real time is quite limited. So, at a glance and in summary, this table shows the common district-wide assessments that we have in place across grade levels. And I want to pause again and so it can't be misinterpreted, but empty cells don't mean teachers are not assessing students at these grade levels. They absolutely are. Um, it just tells us we don't have those con those common aligned systems across yet. Um, and a few things I want to name really explicitly. K through five has a system that is really comprehensive. We've got all four types working together. Again, I'm sure with room for improvement. Um, in grades six through eight, we have that map level and that satellite level data. Um, but our diagnostic picture is more limited for students who aren't in intervention classes but are also not yet proficient. Um, and in grades 9 through 12, we've got that satellite data um, for grade 11 with the ESPback, but not a common screener um, or diagnostic tool. So, just some questions to in invite some thinking at 9:09 p.m., which is when we all do our best thinking. Um, and not that I expect answers after this time, but just some thoughts to offer.

You know, where might we prioritize building out our assessment system next? Are there grade bands that feel important to prioritize first? Are there resources or conditions that we should consider as we close any gaps in the system or as we improve them? That's the end. Thank you. I was waiting for the the point, but thank you. Um, questions and comments from the board. I I can go crazy. Go. want to go first. My god. No questions, but I want to say that was super helpful to understand

all the different pieces. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Thanks so much. Yeah, I would say it was it was a super helpful obviously organized brilliantly. Um Josh is saying that because he helped me reorganize it. No, you had all the It was really good. No, but seriously, like it gives you a really kind of clear for me gave me a really clear sense of like what what we're using where

and I appreciate the flavor too of what the different tests were. So, I really appreciate that. Um, couple comments or thoughts that came to mind as I was listening. Um if I recall correctly from our last vital signs, our progress in um maybe reading and math, I could be remembering corre incorrectly at the middle school was not commensurate with some of the progress we saw at the elementary schools. And so for better or for worse, I drew strong conclusion between the the set of systems and assessments that we had in the middle school. So we're thinking about I'm not making any judgments around priority, but that's sort of at least what came to mind for me. It seems like we're a little bit less we have a little less of those systems in place without scaffolding in place, whatever the right word is.

Um uh maybe not a very fun fact, but I'll tell you anyway. So, so those of you who don't know, I used to work back in the stone age, like back in the 90s. Um I did educational research at the University of Maryland on use of technology by students with disabilities. And um when I wasn't doing that, they would farm me out to Baltimore City and um to do testing with kids and I had no idea really what I was doing, but I was clearly doing the ORF dibbles test because I was watching kids kids would read. I count the number of words I cross all. So you've just brought back a part of my childhood, no childhood, part of my uh early adulthood from like 95 or something. So that was that was great.

Well, if you're ever looking for volunteer hours. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that would get recommended. Um, any other questions or comments from the board? Trusty Boyd.

Um, related act. Oh, and also yeah, I mean stellar like amazing. Also, right in the beginning when you said like street versus map versus satellite, I was like, "Oh, that's what that means." Like I wasn't understanding. So, thank you for that. It was something with the the like hand gestures um that helped me. But um related uh to what President Mahoney was saying about um the middle school um growth levels uh and you know I was kind of puzzling around what you flagged which is you know that we have the if you're doing really poorly on that assessment you know this is what you do but the kind of um you know I guess not not that things aren't being done but that it's less sort of systematized I guess or less you know kind of um this is what we do when you're not performing in the way that would be best but you're not you know um having as challenging a time to do that you know the other step there. So I was just wondering you did note the you know I think like a potential next step is is kind of figuring out and and working with middle school uh teachers. Um, is that I don't know. Is that something that feels like it could like we could make progress on that sort of next school year or is that something that's you know kind of a bigger um we really have to priorit like figure out how to prioritize you know um like is that something that we could we could move forward with in a you know sort of sometime soon type of way?

Yeah, it's a great question. Um, I think for me it's important that these kinds of decisions are really made by the folks that are closest to the work and it's May so my like hesitation is like this is likely not the work of next year but it next year is the work of like talking with folks and seeing you know what could work and is there a particular teacher who's interested. I'm a big fan of making little bets and like trying out a pilot with a really small thing and then and learning from it and scaling over time. So, I'd be I'd be curious about that for sure, but um would definitely want to talk to middle school folks who have not engaged at all. Um but really have just been sort of thinking about this um as you all asked to share about this. H how should we think about um to kind of build on that how should we think about I would guess tell me if I'm wrong some of the challenges at the middle school are uh and challenges is probably the wrong word but some of the opportunities we saw at the middle school are um coming from the fact that um of opportunities we saw in K through five and by the time we get to middle school we're at a deficit for certain kids what have you. How how how should I weigh the work that we're doing now in in the early grades and knowing that that ideally we'll pay benefits later on versus um acting here right now and maybe that's the answer is yes yes yes and but um I'm trying to kind of reconcile that in my head it's a really good question um I think yes and is right I think it's always the balance of you know we have children in front of us right now who have particular needs and if we do nothing that is not the right choice is for the child. Um, and we have adults in front of us who have needs and if we change a bunch of stuff really fast, like that's not going to be useful to bringing folks along for it. And so, you know, if we do a lot of investing in K1 2 3 4 5, but really also, especially in K1, I know Ocean View in particular is really thinking strategically about how to provide additional early support with

kindergarten. Um, there's such incredible work that will that will carry over down the line. um it's imperfect, but we know that on dibbles, once kids become proficient, they typically stay there. Um and sometimes we'll wax and wayne year over year, but um there's a huge amount of payoff that can be made from investing early in and the carryover happening. Great. Thank you. Yeah, go back to back to trusty boy. Oh, good. Back and forth. It's like more like a sideeshow or something.

Um final question. Um I'm curious how you think about for the the high school level um with you know not having like the street data map data assessment at least in a formal way if that's something that is you know I could imagine less necessary at that level and you know there's perhaps tradeoffs as to how much time you're actually spending doing substantive course work versus doing you know evaluations and that sort of thing or you know is it something that could a direction we'd want to move in at some point after lots of collaboration, discussion, etc. Or is it something that's just, you know, just sort of not needed? Like how do you think about that?

Yeah, it's a great question. Um, I mean, the whole purpose of having a screener, right, going back to that first question is who is at risk and really like what's the level of risk? I do think that's such valuable data. Um, there are plenty of districts who who do that similar to what we're doing in the middle school where it's like a pretty short computer adaptive assessment. it is an additional assessment which probably does not feel great to folks um especially if there's not a lot of knowledge about it yet or the purpose or um or engagement around it. So I I do think it's something that's worth pursuing but I also think it's something to have a conversation with um the high school about leadership, the teacher leaders, department leaders, ILT um and the ELA and math teachers in particular.

Great. Any other questions? Thank you so much. I know it was a lot of work to pull it together, but it was it was sort of amazing. So, I appreciate it. Great. Thanks so much all. I appreciate the feedback and the questions. Okay, next item. Uh, future board meetings and agenda planning. Is there anything uh we should add to future future board meetings? It's May. I know we talked about at some point bringing back the high school math conversation.

Uh, yeah. Yep. I believe we're going to get some of that at our next meeting from from a student perspective, but not necessarily the whole whole kitten kaboodleoodle. So, let's that's great. We'll add that. We are we are looking at discussing what happened with the math vision team at the at the first meeting in June. Cool. Other topics. Okay. Now the board's going to recess to close session to finish up um some of our work and then we'll come back later. So thank you everyone.

Technically, I don't need a motion. I I always make a motion, but I'll I'll motion for you just to keep it real. Uh, the uh board is in progress. Sorry. The board is reconvening from um closed session. Um we took no further action. Um so, uh I'm going to move to adjourn the meeting. I'll second the motion. Great. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you so much.