All right, welcome. Um, tonight we will call tonight's study session to order. Joan, roll call. Director Gerspitch, >> here. >> Director Hawker, >> here. Director Kelzenberg, >> here. >> Director Lowour, >> here. >> Director Parker. >> Director Theelander >> here. >> Chair Sherman >> here. You have a quorum. Great. Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. >> Uh first on our agenda is an approval of tonight's agenda and I will go ahead and make a motion to approve. Can I get a second? >> I will second. Theelander. >> Great. Director Theelander with the second. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda, raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Agenda passes six to zero. Okay, we have our consent agenda. Two items on the agenda tonight. Um, is there a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? >> Move to approve. >> Great. Director Hawker with the motion and director Lowour with the second. All those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda, raise your hand and say I. I. >> I. opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. Um, today we're going to have a couple of first reads on policies. Our first one is policy 213. Um, and I think I'll maybe take a little bit of this one just because it's a this is a policy of the boards. Yes. >> Um we had a study session on this and um and so when it was reviewed in policy uh we kind of fashioned it after what was going on in that study session. So you will see that it more accurately reflects what we currently are doing. Um we will have two standing committees policy and legislative that will kind of just meet regularly. Legislative meets obviously seasonally. Um and then we will establish ad hoc committees as needed. So I know for example during that study session we discussed maybe there would be a need um or a desire by the board to have an audit committee at some point in time um within this policy we can do that um as we are inclined as a majority of the board. Um also we discussed which isn't a part of this uh policy but we did make some other revisions which were reflected in our last assignment um committee assignment. So uh that's I guess the the big picture of those changes again establishing the um and codifying keeping the ad hoc committee process and just sharpening up what we actually are doing as a board which is legislative and policy. Um, this is a first read. So, if you have comments or questions, um, if you could get them to Paul, copy Mike and Joan, and then we can discuss them as a policy committee, which, um, just for reminders, the policy committee this year is, uh, Director Kelzenberg, Director Gersovich, and myself. So, we will be happy to consider all of that feedback. Any comments at this point? Great. Now we'll kind of turn it over to Paul for the other policy work. >> Yeah, thank you and good evening. Um, so the second policy we're going to look at for a first reading is uh policy 423 uh entitled employee student relationships. Um we had a very very old policy on the books from 1972 uh that was really about tutoring but it had the same number um 423 um and it was reumbered in in 2021 but this is really a new policy uh for the district. It's a recommended policy by MSBA and our I know our um HR uh team and director reviewed this policy as well as the um the policy committee um this last week um and they felt it was um ready to be brought to the board for consideration. So, um the the purpose of um of this policy is that uh the district is committed to an educational environment in which all students are treated with respect and dignity. Every school district employee is to provide students with appropriate guidance, understanding, and direction while maintaining a standard of professionalism and acting within accepted standards of conduct. Um I'm not going to kind of read through the whole policy. Um but it really it really stands on the appropriateness of relationships with students, understanding the um some power and authority dynamics between that and that any inappropriate behaviors are um completely prohibited you know from the from the in alignment with teachers ethics uh administrative ethics and those things that we as uh licensed professionals uh uh abide abide to. Um I think on the second uh page item three it just gives a little bit of basis of how um any reporting and investigation will happen and it will be in alignment with policy 103 which is a policy we have in the district regarding how we handle complaints regarding employees, parents or other persons. Um it it indicates in in four that the upon receive report the district will take appropriate action and follow through with that and that would be the um the policy of the board to do so. Um and then a little then the last part is just a scope of liability that um as in as in many different cases if an employee acts outside of the realm of their um their role and responsibility um and engages in any type of illegal activity, then the the um school district is is not liable for that kind of um litigation that might result from that. So, that's a quick review of of policy 423. Great. >> And this is um a first read. So, as you review it and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Paul and Joan um and copy the superintendent so we're aware of that um and can discuss it in our next policy meeting. >> Excellent. >> Um and then we have our next policy which is the graduation requirements. There were a few changes that were made um that I'll let Paul get into. The committee did meet um we didn't have any feedback from the board, but we certainly did incorporate staff's feedback and kind of some of the feedback we generally discussed at our last board meeting. So, we'll go through that right now before we see if it's ready to move on for approval. >> Yes, thank you. Um so the first uh from the last meeting there was a um formatting um kind of issue that we took care of. Um you'll see that in the in the policy. Um and that was just a kind of renumbering of things. Um then in section five under graduation requirements um the one change is under D. Well there's two changes. Um and the the one in D we we talked about at the last meeting. It was part of the first reading that uh based on appropriate state guidelines, students with an IEP may satisfy state graduation requirements by meeting their IEP goals. And then the new language added um based on input um from some staff members in the district um is is subp part E which states based on state requirements students enrolled in the district's area learning center may satisfy graduation requirements by meeting the state minimum graduation requirements as identified in each student's continual learning plan. Um, and that language is consistent with what's in guidance from MDE and in statute regarding how ALC's um, function regarding graduation requirements. So, it was recommended that that language be added with that. Um, I believe those were the highlights. I don't know if uh >> we did take out the Yeah, we did take out there was one although I know that the high school wanted to go in the direction and wants to go in the direction of having the board review and approve a course um like a capstone project um because it's not something that has been presented to the board or board approved. We took it out in this version and we will just make a note that when it does come before the board and if it is board approved that we will we have a note in the policy to come back and review it and make an an a quick adjustment here. So that was the other >> Y right um this is one that we are prepared to take action on tonight um unless anyone had any other thoughts. Okay. Um, I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve the graduation requirements. Is there a second? >> Director Kellenberg with the second. All those in favor of approving the graduation requirements policy, raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you, Paul. Um, okay. We have an assessment update for our workshop topic. Um, and Elsa is going to come and have a great conversation with the board on FastBridge. >> Good evening, directors. Thank you for having me. >> And Elsa, you'll have to let us know how you want because this is a workshop topic. So, people might have questions. So, I'm gonna let you if you want to have us wait or just maybe guide us into >> feel free if there's a question on a particular slide to ask it then. But if it's a question that pertains to, you know, the subject as a whole or multiple grades, if you could save it towards the end of each section. We'll split it up into reading and math. >> Perfect. >> But we do have quite a few slides to get through. >> Yeah. >> All right. So, a brief refresher. FastBridge is our univers universal screening tool. It's taken three times a year in fall, winter, and spring. And we use it for two purposes. is we use it as a universal screener to measure the strength of our tier one instruction. That's the instruction that every student receives in their classroom. And we also use it as a tool to identify students for additional support. So for our tier 2 and tier three programs at the primary years, K1, we have early reading and early math. Those are all individually administered. It takes quite a bit of time um with teachers sitting down individually with their students. And then grades 2 through 12 are all computer-based. We do a reading and a math. That's what we'll talk about here today. But we also do auto reading um CBM math automaticity and CBM reading. So these additional screening tools we go in order to be used as a screening tool. We look at a set of benchmarks. These are test specific cut scores that indicate the students risk of performing at or below grade level by the year's end. High risk are students that are scoring below the 15th percentile. Some risk are students scoring between the 15th and 39th percentile. And then low risk either means the 40th to 99th percentile. That's for early reading and early math. Or we can split that further into low risk and advanced 40th to 70th and 71st to 90 99th percentile. You might also hear me say on track to lump together those two groups. One thing to note is that low risk is not no risk, especially at the low end of that range. It's a very broad range. And we'll talk about that a little further on in the slides. We use FastBridge for a lot of things. We use it to identify gaps in instruction by grade level, by classroom, by school, to identify students for tiered intervention through our swim process. CAT teams look at it, bar teams look at it, built teams look at it to inform building level conversations. And we're also looking for student growth and progress monitoring. We'll dive into early reading. So, as I said, this is an individually administered assessment, and one thing to be aware of is that it changes quite a bit from fall to winter and spring. And that's because students skills develop so rapidly at that age that the test has to change. Um, letter sounds and onset sounds, nonsense words, and word segmenting are measured in the winter of kindergarten, but you'll notice that onset sounds is no longer there in spring. Now, we're on to site words. When we look at kindergarten, the kindergarten class came in higher this fall. That's kind of great news, but it's also not something that's really in our control as a district. We get a new bunch of kindergarteners every year. So, they came came in at 73% low risk, but to the difference of last year, we see a return to the pattern of dropping in winter. That's been consistent in 2023 2022. So, last year was the exception. One thing to note uh that will be true throughout the duration of this presentation is that because of our calendar shift, winter screening was before winter break instead of after. We kind of expected that that might mean an increase in scores because there's no winter break. There's no winter melt essentially, but that did not broadly seem to pan out. >> And can I just say this is also the first year of the new curriculum, >> right? Okay. The first year of a new curriculum. It's this will be a recurring theme. There's a lot of changes this year. So, it can be hard to trace anything to any one change. We don't really exist in experimental conditions. >> So, we have a lot of different factors at play. Yeah. Here's what we see at early reading over time by building. There is a lot more alignment between schools compared to previous years. We see especially strong growth at Stonebridge that's in the blue from 74% to 87% but we also see large drops for example at Lake Elmo from 73% to 52%. Um, one thing I did want to point out is it can get lost in the noise, but we have some year-over-year winter growth at Brookview. So, that's in the red or winter 23 to winter 24. And we kind of lose it almost at winter 2025, but that's growing from 43% to 65% on track. >> Just one more. Um, Amigos Unitos is also included in all fast. >> They are included in this. Uh, last year was the first year that they were fully included. Yep. And then this year continues. there. At grade one, we do see growth from fall to winter, but it's smaller growth than in years past. Um, that being said, it's a continuous pattern of growth from fall to winter. We see this year's first graders coming in a lot lower and growing a little bit less. So, we don't see that winter to winter growth over time. Um, we do however see small winter to winter growth at Brookview and Lake Elmo. And yes, I have a note that this is the second year testing all of grade one in English at Lake Elmo. >> Yes. >> Yeah. One question I had, you know, uh, great to see the early reading for the kindergarten scores are up um, this fall from previously. Um, and I apologize for not asking this advance. I don't need to answer right now, but I guess I'd be interested what correlation that we have with pre kindergarten programs and obviously the evidence that shows, you know, greater preparation uh going into kindergarten and and are we able to see kids that are take are we able to find that out? Obviously, we do know kids that are in our own prek programs. Do we know kids that are coming in from other prek programs that and we're seeing a correlation to improve scores? >> I'm not sure. One thing I'd want to look at, I know it's about, you know, 200 out of 600 students come from our preschool programs. >> So, I'd be interested to compare that population to the general population that we get from all over the district. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> And then I just had one more question because um the new curriculum is the only school that it's not new Anderson. Is Anderson in year two >> of the No, Anderson first grade is in year two. >> Oh, first grade. Okay. I I would have to >> Thank you. So that's So Anderson first grade is on year two. >> All right, we'll jump ahead to A-Ring. Uh Aing is much more your traditional you think of a reading test. This is what a reading test looks like. You're reading passages. You're filling in the blanks. If you're looking at vocabulary, um 30 minutes computer-based adaptive assessment, so it'll get harder or more or easier as students go through it. As a district, it's looking quite stable. This is the first year that we're actually able to compare historically because now we've had secondary completing a reading um both last year and this year. We do see a slight the slightest growth from winter to winter, 67% to 68%. Um, and about half of students are um at that advanced level in the dark purple. So that means that they're scoring at the 70th percentile or higher. When we look at second and third grade, second grade is the only elementary grade that grew from fall to winter. Um, they're a little bit lower than this time last year, but they're higher than the winter of 2023. Third grade came in higher at 75% um but did drop down to 68%. Um one thing I'll talk about tonight is kind of a relay baton pass. Um the second graders that left last year at 72% they then came in higher in third grade at a 75%. So maintaining that growth from grade level to grade level. So, so Elsa, on a national >> level, what do schools typically do from fall to winter >> score-wise? It's >> a good question. The norms should remain the same from fall to winter because it's normed against your sample. So, this is comparing our sample of students to a sample of 10,000 students from across the nation and how many of them are at the 40th percentile or higher. So that quantity shouldn't change in that ideal sample, but I can poke around at some other districts. >> I mean, because, you know, if we're seeing consistent, okay, if we come in at 73, then we go to 68, then we go to All right. Where is that on a, you know, on a larger scale, are we consistent with or what why are we dropping if nobody else is? >> I'd like to look especially at the state level because so many districts across Minnesota use um because of the read. we have that opportunity. >> I think that'd be an interesting data point. >> Yeah, that would be. >> Please. >> So, the assessment that gets us this information, is that like a one-time snapshot uh a test that the child takes or is it a a an assessment that takes more than that? >> I guess the answer to your question is both. We give this assessment in fall, winter, and spring. So, it gives us three data points per year on a child. in addition for students um receiving intervention services. So tier two and three we use this or variations on this assessment for progress monitoring and that might be up to every two weeks but it is a point in time between those um fall and winter. >> Okay, >> screen periods, right? So between August and December. >> That helps. Thanks. >> Yeah. When we look by school at grade two, we do see quite a bit of alignment. Um, one thing I want to point out, and I'll go to this on the next slide, is just the growth at Anderson because they were that pilot, well, we hope because they were that pilot school last year. We see huge growth in first grade, which translates into second graders coming in higher to begin with and then maintaining that growth through second grade because now this is their second year experiencing the same curriculum. For third grade, again, we see this fall to winter dip. Um, we do see some winter to winter growth, particularly at Anderson and Brookview. And we again see some pretty tight alignment between our third grade classrooms across the district. For fourth and fifth grade, we start to see larger drops, continuing a multi-year trend of fall to winter drops at fall to spring, fall to winter. Um, in grade four, it's a little bit larger um than in years prior. Grade five is fairly consistent. One thing we think about um when implementing a new curriculum is that fourth and fifth graders haven't experienced it for the past three years, whereas second graders are missing only one year of that prior experience. So, we would expect to see more of an impact at fourth and fifth grade to start with as they catch catch up essentially with that prior knowledge. One of the one of the many of the conversations I've had with staff members in the elementary buildings I've visited have been particularly in grades four, five, three even. The rigor of the new curriculum is significantly higher than it was previously which is a challenge. But then the greater challenge or the equivalent challenge at least is the kids coming in in K12 have not been exposed to that rigor. And so suddenly if we have kids who have not been provided these this level of expectation and now they're coming in not having the the base um that future kids will have now that we're all on this. Um that can identify some of the challenges we're having and and some of the gaps particularly in our middle elementary grades. One thing that we can look at in tandem with for grades four and five and earlier grades, but four and five in particular, is our CVM reading, which measures oral reading fluency. So, students reading out loud, how quickly and fluent they are, and how accurate they are. Um, this is our measure of foundational reading skills. It's also what we use in our intervention programs as one of the progress monitoring tools. Um, so we're looking to see these numbers increase before we see a reading numbers increase because it's that precursor to those comprehension skills. And we're seeing that especially in fourth grade and then some catching up in fifth grade. The other thing to note is that intervention becomes that much more tricky at fourth and fifth grade. Those students in the pink um would be high risk in some risk. Other students who are eligible for intervention, but because you're now at fourth grade, you're at fifth grade, it's just that much harder um to build up those foundational skills. Looking over time, here is our grade four reading. We see winterto-inter growth at Afton Lakeland and at Anderson. Um, and the biggest drop at Rutherford. We also see very tight alignment, which is promising. We would just like to see that alignment move in a the other direction. Fifth grade is very similar um, but it masks some pretty significant winter growth at Anderson, Lily Lake, Rutherford, and Stonebridge. One thing to note here is that we see our feeder schools start to separate here between the middle schools. So at the in the orange and green and red, that's Anderson and Brookview and Lake Elmo. Uh Afton is in the middle there in the dark blue. And then we have Lily Rutherford and Stonebridge. So we might think about will we see this again next year in our middle schools as these fifth graders transition up. >> Please. Yeah. when we're looking at this chart. Um, fall 24, is that a fourth grader or is that a fifth grader? >> These are all fifth graders. >> So, fall 20. So, if we're Why would we compare yeartoear? Help me understand the benefit of comparing year to year. It feels like that's comparing a population set versus teaching standard or or curriculum benefit. >> The goal is to compare both. We compare year-toear to measure the improvement in instruction over time essentially even though you always have a different cohort of students and you might see that's part of why we talk about fall to winter growth and winter to winter growth. You might have a cohort come in lower and then end up higher. Um, we also in a few slides we'll be able to look at um crime cohort level data and then it's easier to at a school level like when we look at or here if we look at fourth and fifth grade then we're able to compare where last year's fourth graders ended up and then where they are in the fall of this year. >> Thank you. >> That helps. This is the first year that we have longitudinal data for secondary including six, seventh and eighth and we mostly see a lot of stability. Um, one thing we were curious about last year is whether we would see similar fall to winter drops in secondary and that seems to be true. Um, something interesting happened in eighth grade. I don't think we really know what yet. That could be that cohort effect of this year's eighth graders were a lot stronger. Um, and then really one thing I'm looking for here is just what is happening in sixth grade as a transition year from elementary to secondary. We do see a slight dip from fall to winter this year. Last year it was more pronounced. Um, but what was interesting here is that sixth grade is really tightly aligned um between the two middle schools. And this was true both for a reading and a math and reflects at least conversationally the alignment between the teaching at each school. We start to see more divergence in seventh and eighth grade. Part of that, too, is that students diverge more in the courses that they're taking. All sixth graders take the same courses. That's no longer true as they get older. Uh, and then in seventh grade, we saw a more significant fall to winter drop at SMS, but at eighth grade, it was reversed. We saw a more significant fall to winter drop at LMS. When we look at ninth and tth grade, we see actually some really exciting signs of growth in ninth grade, both from fall to winter as well as winter to winter, going from 71% last winter to 76% this winter. And then 10th grade is super stable. One thing to note, um, we're usually looking for about 80% to be on track in the that's the ideal world where everything happens like in the textbooks. We're never going to be the ideal world where everything happens in the textbooks, but that's a way of allocating resources. We know that there will always be students who need additional support, and it's sustainable to be able to allocate that support to about 20% of students. In ninth and tth grade, we have students in all of our English classes. PSO is not really a factor, and very few online courses are a factor. So, screening represents about 90% of students. That's a bit lower at 11th and 12th grade. 11th grade sits around 80% and then 12th grade sits around 55%. So 12th grade is very much a grain of salt. Um but we see similar trends of dips from fall to winter. And some improvements in 11th grade. We don't really look school by school here just because the ALC is so small relative to the high school that it's not a consistent comparison. But here's some of that longitudinal data comparing those cohorts over time. One thing that I would note when looking at this data is we see increasing gaps between kindergarten and first grade. So if you go from the kindergarters of 2021 to the first graders who then become first graders in 2022, their scores improve slightly. Um but after that point it's a wider and wider drop off. Um, third and fourth grade is a little bit similar as well, and in some ways that reflects instructional shifts between third grade and fourth grade. Fourth grade is that point where you're no longer learning to read. You're reading to learn. One thing that I don't see yet, which is really encouraging, is we don't see any kind of drop off between fifth grade and sixth grade. That's something we'll keep watching. We only have a couple years of data, but that's really promising. The only place I wouldn't compare cohort to cohort um is between first grade and second grade just because the early reading exam is so different from the A reading exam and that's something that's consistent um statewide certainly if not nationwide. >> That's the first to second grade. >> Yep. Because the first grade is so much still the foundational reading skills and now second grade you're independently doing a reading assessment on your Chromebook. One of the reasons we use FastBridge is its ability to predict predict um success on the MCAs. And part that's because that's what it was designed to do when FastBridge was created. It was used um validity testing was done with the MCAs as well as with state exams from Georgia, California, Illinois, kind of a wide variety. So, it's meant to be predictive of MCA scores, but that is still broadly true in our district in particular. When we say that low risk is not no risk, that's because there's those a decent chunk of students who are at low risk on FastBridge, but still not meeting proficiency on the MCAs. Um, the 40th percentile is the cutoff to be considered lowrisk. But if you'll look on the right hand side of the students who scored between the 40th and 50th percentile, 52% were proficient on the MCAs at the end of the year. And this is all using um winter fast bridge just for consistency. So this is why our buildingwide goals are both that 80% of students are at low risk or advanced and within that bucket of students who are already on grade level, we want 85% of those students to be at the 60th percentile or higher. So pushing for that more and more advanced level fast is really powerful because it gives us the ability to identify areas of need and areas of growth. We won't go into it here but in addition to looking school by school, grade level by grade level, we can look teacher by teacher and that can be really fruitful for principles and buildings to look at. Um we see uneven progress across elementary grade levels as new curricula are implemented. definitely see this consistent fall to winter drop in elementary but we also see growth in grades eight and nine and stability and other secondary grades. >> Can I ask a question please? So the previous or all the previous slides you you have averages but now I want to pull out an individual. So the all sudden the individual is going from low risk to high risk. Is something different now happening to that student? Uh because now they're high risk. So any different level of instruction or is that a separate thing? >> The short answer is yes. Especially at the elementary level, we have a really robust um we call it swim schoolwide intervention process. So after each round of screening in fall, winter and spring, if there is that student who drops between categories, then they will be placed into a reading intervention. That might be during win time with their teacher, that might be with an interventionist. That depends on the level of need, but that's a really strong process that happens each fall, winter, and spring. And that's part of why we screen so frequently is to be able to respond in real time. Secondary is currently building that out. That's not something that has existed in the secondary school day. Um, if you think about the difference between a a secondary schedule and an elementary schedule, there's a lot less flexibility. So, it's been a real learning process to start to implement that. So, that's in its beginning stages, particularly for reading, but it's a very similar risk identification process. Yes. >> Right. Thanks. >> Any other questions? My question was, and kind of goes a little bit um off of what Pete was asking, could you maybe just talk a little bit about um I mean, how are these utilized then to as we go into second semester? Because I kind of like that these are all now done, right? All these scores and they this the teachers have them now for second semester. Are they just reviewed kind of once in that swim or are they reflected back on more? >> Kaitlin will help. And and I guess and a second question, do parents receive these scores too? They Okay. >> Yes. Y >> yes, parents receive these scores. And um timing wise, yes, we did these this year before winter break. Right when we returned from winter break, we went right into that swim process, which is that schoolwide intervention meeting. And so that's where the grade level teams come together as a team and they are looking at all of the so all third grade teachers are going to get together. They're going to look at all the third grade students and they're going to say, "Okay, these students need tier 2 intervention, which is what happens during win time, what I need." And then students that are at the the highest risk level, they work with the interventionists at each of the elementary schools. So they're getting that very personalized. >> So I guess I'll take it the step further. We talked about the individual, we talked about the school. How we do how do we use this as a district and do we use this to align resources or things like that? Can you talk about that at all? >> Yeah, so we we use it in teaching and learning to look at at instructional trends and like where we may need to support or provide professional development around high impact instructional strategies. You know, if you've got a couple teachers, maybe a grade level that's just really rocking and rolling, it's like, okay, let me go there. let me see exactly what they're doing so that we can scale that. Conversely, if you have a grade level that as a whole grade level is not maybe seeing the same level of momentum. So building principles are looking at that really carefully with their building instructional leadership teams and then consulting with like myself or Sky or Amber um depending on whether it's reading and math to say what are the interventions I need to do either for a specific teacher or a grade level or a buildingwide intervention. >> Thank you. >> Great. Any other questions? All right, we'll jump into math. >> Sounds good. >> All right, so early math again is individually administered. It's kind of interesting. I've never seen a math assessment like it. Um, but the skills are very discreet at each year, but compound on each other as you go through kindergarten, as you go through first grade. So, you'll see decomposing numbers that starts in winter of kindergarten and continues throughout. And by the time you're at the end of first grade, you get to do story problems. Uh we see a really consistent drop in kindergarten from 87% to 72%. This is similar to last year and is consistent across schools, whereas first grade remains very consistent. Um both from fall to winter and from winter to winter. Um again, the 70 to 80% range is not a bad place to be with these assessments. We're looking for 80, but we have some wiggle room. we see really tight alignment in kindergarten, but similarly to what we saw before, um we also see alignment in that dip. Um we do see winter to winter improvement at Afton Lakeland and Lake Elmo. Um and we see that additional skill in winter of kindergarten is decomposing numbers. We move from matching quantity to decomposing. In grade one, I want to highlight 16 point growth at Anderson and 13 point winter to winter growth at Stonebridge. We see a slight decline um winter to winter overall, but not much to be too worried about. I want to highlight Stonebridge here again um for this kind of cohort comparison. Passing the baton, kindergarteners left at 90% on track. That's awesome. Um, in first grade that looks like 80% on track, which makes sense because the assessment is different. And then we continue that momentum through the fall and winter. A math again is kind of our typical this is now a math assessment. If you picture a math assessment in your mind, it probably won't look too different um from what we see here. But the goal is really to cover all the different domains of math. So number and operations, algebraic thinking, um fractions, measurement and data, and geometry. As a district, it's super stable from fall to winter, which is consistent with what we saw in a reading. Some of that is because we have 8,000 students in our district. We would expect it to be more stable at that large number. Um fall to fall shows a slight increase. Winter to winter shows a slight decrease. Um and again, secondary is fully included in this. One thing that we were curious about was whether we would see a drop in math scores um with the increased instructional minutes for reading and that's not something that we've really seen. So that was encouraging. The most growth again was in second grade um from 70% to 75% low risk. That was consistent with last year. And then third grade again is very stable at 75% low risk. We don't see as much alignment um in math at second grade as we did in reading. And third grade is skipped here just for the sake of time because it looks very similar. But again, we see a little bit less alignment. At fourth and fifth grade, we saw slight growth from fall to winter, 70 to 73%, but a slight decline from last winter at 80% to 73%. Um, and in fifth grade, we see a drop from fall to winter, 78% down to 70%, but that leaves us steady with last winter. Uh, one thing to note here, too, is that we see more students moving to that advanced category from fall to winter, which we hope is indi indicative of pushing the rigor in the classroom because we know that that's a point of focus in fourth and fifth grade especially. Overall in fourth grade, we see a decrease from last winter to this winter, but a relative increase from winter of 2023. Um, Lily Lake, Stonebridge, and Rutherford showed the most fall to winter growth this year. For fifth grade, I really wanted to highlight Anderson because we see huge growth from winter to winter, starting at 47% in 2023, 55% last year, and then 74% this year. That is huge. >> I know >> they've been putting in the work. >> And again, part of that comes down to that relay race, right? Our fourth graders last year ended quite high overall, >> including at Anderson. And then they're able to maintain that growth in fifth grade. For grades six, seven, and eight, this is our first year of having longitudinal data. Um the sixth grade dip is consistent um from last year to this year but looks a little bit larger at seventh grade and then eighth grade again is fairly consistent from year to year. So this again is what I mentioned earlier this tight tight alignment in sixth grade across the two middle schools. We'll be watching to see last year we see some rebounding from both MS especially and SMS. So hopefully that trend continues this year. Whereas seventh grade we see more and more divergence. One thing I'd like to look at is just based on course placement how it aligns. We I would expect it to um because we do our course placement based on test scores in some ways. Um but that's one area to explore. And then eighth grade as well um is overall higher than last year and we hope to see that continue as well. Ninth grade is holding pretty steady between fall and winter. Last year they made some growth. This year it's holding steady, but still relatively higher than last year. Um both ninth and tth grade the math on track rates are a little slightly lower than a reading at the same grade levels. 11th grade looks very very stable at 68%. And then again we're we start to take students out of this sample because of PSO online classes. And then in 12th grade you're not required to take a math course. We only screen students who take math with us because they're the ones we are instructing and want to respond to. We see the same trend of correlation between a math and MCA math. I would argue that with math, it's a little bit more dramatic. You need to push a little bit higher to then be making proficiency on the MCAs. Whereas with reading, that 40 to 50th percentile, 52% of students were passing the MCAs, quote unquote. Um, in the case of math, it's 39%. And one reason to do this is that we had looked at this for elementary years. Um, a few years ago, we did this same process. Um, but now that we have secondary, um, making sure that it's correlated as well. >> Go back a slide. Um forward one right here. Okay. On the left you've got 60th percentile plus MCA proficient is 93%. In the right chart you have got percentile band 60 to 70 at 83%. How does that compute? >> So if you take everyone who's at the 60th percentile and above. So that would be 60 to 70 70 to 80. you're talking that would be yeah >> okay >> so within that you can get more and more granular in those bands um >> okay >> but yeah if we use a 40th percentile cutoff 80% of students well 79% of students are proficient on the MCAs but if you dig into just those students at the 40th to 50th percentile is much lower >> okay >> so again fastbridge allows us to drill down to the school, grade, and teacher level. We're starting to see more alignment in early math, continuing the push for rigor in math and grades four and five. The work is certainly not done, but it's continuing. Uh the math review cycle has begun as of a few weeks ago. New standards are coming in 2027 2028 school year. Secondary as well is showing those areas of strength and need and pockets of alignment as well. This is for you to have the data appendix with all the labels. >> I won't skip ahead to the slide that says questions. I'll just invite questions now. >> Can you go back? >> That right there's good. >> Okay. I'm going to look at your partner in crime probably as much as you here. Um, so one of the things that I have heard in my time here in our district is there's not a lot of value in some pockets for professional development. We don't like it. We don't think it's effective. Um, yet here we have some pretty clear areas that you've identified through FastBridge. um that we can improve our skills. So, I'd just like to hear your thoughts on that, Caitlyn. Um and moving forward here. >> Yeah, I think a lot of it is alignment. Um so, if we where we're seeing value and um people are are showing up and walking away with some tangible things is where we're putting our energy, right? So, the redact kind of forced some of that alignment. um and then the the stress going into it versus the output. So like now that we had to do this, we're starting to see, okay, if we focus on one thing and we go deep and we start making those connections between the curriculum and the high quality instructional materials with the in conjunction with a high impact teaching strategies, you're starting to see that um that connection is being made by our educators of here's the value in participating in PD. if that PD is deeply connected to the materials I have in front of me and to the content that I teach. And I think that we are getting better but still have lots of room for improvement in making sure that we are aligning um our PD to and materials together. And so because I think what we used to do is we do a lot of like we're going to talk about curriculum over here and then we're going to do this PD over here but they we weren't bridging that to say these things actually go together. And so we're starting to be able to focus more and more and similarly we're just starting to kick that off with math. Um, and that started with a a PD around what are the high impact instructional strategies in math and what are you already familiar with and what do you need to learn more about. So that's kind of where we're at right now where we're trying to understand what prior knowledge are our teachers who are teaching math bringing to the table and what do we what are those gaps that we need to fill with those high impact math instructional strategies so that as we go into that curriculum adoption we're coming at it with the lens of this is what good math instruction looks like. So let me make sure I'm also picking materials that align with that. So that same thing could be taken for literacy as well. >> Absolutely. >> Could I ask a follow-up question? Um >> so as you speak about professional development um and how we're using data to kind of guide that is da is u professional development set from the beginning of the year like I know we have professional development like every month throughout the school year. Is it set for to begin with or is it adaptive based on like the winter scores that we've just gotten? Mostly it's the first and where we need to get to is the second. Right? So historically it's been like here are set PD days. This is what we're going to do. And if you think about all of the people that that have an interest in both giving and receiving PD, you have a lot of competing interests. So you have to really stop and say, what are our priorities and what does the data say? And we're getting to that place. Again, we have room for improvement, but um I would say we've moved to a place where there are pockets where there's abilities for us to adapt and I see even more opportunity next year um with some of the learning that we've done throughout the past two years. >> Great. Thanks. >> It's a good question. >> Any other questions? I think my question was more and I know um you're specializing in the elementary but um within the secondary and the PD. I mean I'm I know a lot of people are you know I'm just I've always it's always been concerning to me and I know budgets are tight but we don't have interventions in the middle school. So in the middle school when you're identified as uh high risk or you know or low risk what are what can we do in the middle schools or what is being done? >> They are a little bit of building the plane while they're flying it so to speak but yes we have some middle school intervention happening. Okay. >> Um I believe most of that is actually being done by our social studies teachers. Um and so uh Sky has been working with that cohort of individuals to develop like if this is what the data says the needs are, how can I support you in delivering some of that during uh pony time and uh advisory and I think that will be there will be opportunities to scale that as we figure out what what works and as the um middle school principles work together more around alignment and schedules. >> Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. There's a lot of data here. Um so if we have any follow-up questions, we'll send them your way and copy Dr. Funk, >> please. >> Thank you. >> Okay, our next item on tonight's agenda is a prioritybased budgeting process update. and we'll go to Superintendent Funk. >> So, over the last few years, we have kind of put together um some priorities and shared them with the board and we've been meeting as an administrative team. I think we've met three times over the last 10 days to look at our financial situation moving forward. And so I did not feel um you know we're looking at cutting five and a half million dollars. Um so this is these are very significant cuts when you consider we cut close to five million or over five if you consider all the the adjustments we made last summer um last year. So that's you know that's a $10 million over two-year time. So I did not feel comfortable bringing that to the board tonight. Um, but I I have some ideas and I'm going to talk with some members of our team and you're going to probably receive some communication from me in the near next couple days on a suggestion on maybe how we could look at this a little bit differently moving forward. Uh but I I think it's crucial that uh uh we have um we receive some guidance from the board on as far as you know we've got different pockets we could look at potentially reducing but I I think it's very important that uh the board be part of this and give us some direction on this um because these are going to be impactful for the community. So, I would imagine um you'll you'll receive something from me in the next day or two um on a suggested approach after have a chance to talk over with the administrative team. So, that's kind of where we're at with it tonight. >> Great. Thank you for that update and we'll look for that uh follow-up communication. Uh any questions for Superintendent Funk on that? Okay, tonight we do have a close session. Um, I'll read the the statement here. So, the next item on our agenda is a closed session. Pursuant to Minnesota statute 1303b, the governing body of a public employer may by a majority vote in a public meeting decide to hold a closed meeting to consider strategy for labor negotiations, including negotiation strategies or developments or discussion and review of labor negotiation proposals conducted pursuant to sections 179A.01 01 to179A.25. I will go ahead and make the motion to adjurnn to close session. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Great. Director Theelinder with the second. All those in favor of moving to close session, raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> We will move to close session.