Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Curriculum and Instruction, Monday, September 11, 2023

Date: Monday, September 11, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 11m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/864083394?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-21. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] - Good afternoon, early evening. I call to order this Monday, September 11, 2023 meeting of the Curriculum and Instruction Committee of the Loudoun County School Board. We'll begin with item two on our agenda, which is public comment. I have one individual signed up.

[00:00:16] Is anyone else here for public comment today? Okay, so our first and only speaker today is Andrea Weiskopf, and I will be allocating five minutes per speaker. Ms. Weiskopf, you can begin when ready. - Okay, five minutes.

[00:00:31] You just want to hear more of my jokes. I'm pretty sure that's it. Okay, I will start with one then. Latin's not dead, it's just roaming around. Okay, okay, okay.

[00:00:50] Oh, I got more, I mean, yeah. Okay, so I was going back to the policy about sexually explicit material. I went through my library, there was nothing there.

[00:01:06] the only thing in my classroom that is sexually explicit and has gratuitous nudity is the virginia flag now do i need to i don't have it displayed right now because of that um is the county doing a permission click with a 30-day notice so that i can display the flag um you know I cause enough trouble without having sexual nudity.

[00:01:42] So that's just my comment, is question. Will I get in trouble if I display the Virginia flag with the U.S. flag? Especially since I'm virtual, I have the U.S. flag behind me so that we can do the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:01:58] Thank you. Thank you. And Ms. Weiskopf was our only speaker today, so that will conclude public comment. We'll now move on to Item 3, which is approval of minutes and Item 301, specifically approval of the draft minutes for the August 28, 2023 meeting.

[00:02:17] Is there a motion? I move that the committee approve the draft minutes for posting from the August meeting. Second. Seconded by Ms. Reiser. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor of approving the minutes from the August 28 meeting, please raise your head and say aye.

[00:02:37] Aye. That motion will pass unanimously. We have no action items tonight, so we will move on to our information items, starting with 401, Policy 5125, Alternative Paths to Attaining Standard Units of Credit.

[00:02:55] Mr. Slevin. Thank you, Mr. Srotkin. I'm presenting tonight on behalf of Dr. Ellis. The Policy 5125, Alternative Path to Attaining Standard Units of Credit, was recently adopted by the Lionel County School Board on January 5, 2022.

[00:03:13] The new revisions that we have here tonight in the information item have been incorporated by a legal counsel in June of 2023 and have since been reviewed by Cabinet. Essentially, the policy has been updated to incorporate newly enacted Virginia Code in response to House Bill 1929 to include a new Section C, Children of Certain Federal Employees.

[00:03:36] It's being presented tonight as the first time to the C&I Committee and we'll seek our normal feedback process following our discussion tonight. I would point out a section, the most significant changes are lines 49 through 67, and it references titles 22 or 50 in the United States Code. Generally, title 22 and 50 relate to the U.S. national security and foreign relations workforce. It governs public policy and national defense. So title 22 would be our diplomat core

[00:04:14] and Title 50 would be our intelligence agencies and personnel that I would respond to, be in response to. Most of the other changes are simply technical in nature. As I've shared, the significant portion is on the new Section C.

[00:04:30] So I'm happy to take any questions or feedback prior to bringing this back as an action item in the future. Thank you, Mr. Slevin. So were there changes to Virginia code or U.S. code? Because the whole Section C, it's referencing U.S. code.

[00:04:47] So what exactly changed that is that triggered changing our policy? So the specific Virginia Code sections that have been updated were incorporated into sections 22.1-370 and 22.1-371 and 22.1-380.

[00:05:07] And this was as a result of House Bill 1929. So it was through the Virginia General Assembly. Thank you. Committee members, do you have any questions or discussion regarding the changes to this policy? Ms. Ogadek, thank you.

[00:05:22] Ms. Ogadek, thank you. Ms. Ogadek, thank you, Chair Sorotkin. Would it make sense, or would you normally reference the Virginia Code within the same paragraph? Because it does reference the federal code, or just leave it in the footnotes? It's a question.

[00:05:41] Mr. Is there a specific line you're referring to? Ms. Well, so the Virginia Code references are in the legal references on 105 and 106. But in Section C, you're referencing the federal code. I'm wondering if it should also reference Virginia code, the relevant Virginia code there as well.

[00:06:02] So I think the issue is that the changes that were made to Virginia code, that language references the U.S. code, which is why it's referencing the U.S. code actually in the policy, but the Virginia code is just in the footnotes, which is, I think, for changes we're making to be compliant with state code or U.S. code, it's usually just in the footnotes.

[00:06:26] I think that's the reason why it's showing up in a language here because that's the language in state code, which is a little weird. But I would defer to Mr. Slevin if I got any of that wrong. That sounds accurate, but we could also add additional language if you think that would add clarity to the policy.

[00:06:44] I know that we have received some feedback about clarity about action that's happening at the state level and how it's impacting local policy. So I think that's maybe where you're coming from. So if you have an edit or we could bring back a version with it, I'm happy to do so.

[00:06:59] I think we do sometimes get questions about where specifically things are covered in state code. So, you know, if it said after where it says to titles 22 or 50 of the U.S. state codes and then in parentheses and the three code references from Virginia state code.

[00:07:22] Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Okay, so without objection, we'll follow our normal policy review process and then bring this back after that as a action item.

[00:07:39] And we'll move on to 402, update on CTE career investigations and SSGS course progressions. Mr. Slevin. Thank you once again. I am joined by team members from the Department of Teaching and Learning, specifically in our social science and CTE office.

[00:07:57] here tonight to talk about a few issues related to course sequences and course progressions. Both of them are in response to some external decisions or feedback that we received. Ms. Graham, our social science supervisor, will be talking about the new social studies standards and its impact on course pathways in social studies and a recommendation for what we may do locally in Loudoun in response to that. And following that presentation dr lee smith will be presenting some information on career investigations in a middle

[00:08:32] in our middle school and some next steps based on feedback we have received from a recent cte review so danielle graham is going to start us off and i'll get the presentation to you thank you mr slevin um so you might have heard that our 2023 history and social science standards were approved by the Virginia board of education in April this included some recommended sequencing that had not been done in previous sets of standards so the implementation timeline just for reference through this school year we'll have the development of the curriculum framework as

[00:09:09] well as the video e-textbook approval next school year would be our crosswalk year where they would still be using the current 2015 standards along with integrating in and looking at how they might integrate in the new standards and then august 2025 is the full implementation of the history and social science standards of learning as i mentioned one shift with this was a recommended sequencing our current sequencing has virginia studies in fourth grade a local curriculum in fifth grade and then u.s history is split between sixth and seventh grade with u.s history to 1865

[00:09:48] being our sixth grade course, and U.S. History 1865 to the present, a seventh grade course, and then Civics and Economics in eighth grade. The recommended sequencing from the Virginia Department of Education in the Standards of Learning now would remove the local U.S. geography curriculum and push U.S. History 1 down to fifth grade, U.S. History 2 to sixth grade, Civics and Economics to seventh, and adds in World Geo, which is right now an option to meet world history and geography credit as an eighth-grade course that could serve as either a middle school course or a verified credit course, which would be high school bearing.

[00:10:27] Next slide. They also included wording for this. So historically, they have offered a lot of flexibility around this, and they emphasized that this is a recommended grade-level sequencing, that we're strongly encouraged to adopt it, but it is not required, and that the local school districts do have some autonomy in deciding whether or not to adopt the sequencing, but they need to ensure that any gaps in student learning are avoided.

[00:10:53] Next slide. And so one of the things we've been doing, I've been gathering a lot of data to look at the implications of adopting the recommended sequencing. One of the things it does is it does split U.S. history across elementary and middle schools. So the first half of U.S. history would be taught in fifth grade in elementary school, with U.S. history two that starts with reconstruction being the course for sixth grade.

[00:11:17] There are concerns about the limited time in elementary to support the U.S. history one course the allotted minutes are not equal to that that's offered in a middle school sixth grade class. Additionally this puts a lot of accountability on the fifth grade teachers and the students are being assessed in all four core areas.

[00:11:35] They are being tested in three out of the four and this would add required performance assessments in social studies at the fifth grade level. Additionally if world geography is offered as a verified credit course there are some licensing and staffing implications as the middle school teachers would have to hold a license that would license them through high school which also has staffing implications in high school right now our world geography has provided students an option as it tends to be a lot more visual tackles some authentic issues and so it's been taken as an alternative to world history in some cases and then teachers and principals

[00:12:14] surveyed really strongly feel that we they want to keep our sequencing as is we sent out multiple surveys in the spring to kind of gather data on not only what they prefer, but what supports they might need. Should we make any shifts? And so I have that on the next slide, please. So 73.4 percent, we actually surveyed all of our principals, fifth grade teachers, middle school teachers, and world geography teachers, because those would be the ones impacted. 73.4 percent of them wanted to keep our sequencing as is. 18.3 wanting to switch to the VDOE sequencing. And about eight percent said they did not know or they did not have a

[00:12:52] preference so with all of that our recommendation from the Department of Teaching and Learning is to keep our current sequencing as is however there is currently meetings going on with House Bill 585 workgroup to look at what the assessment plan might be starting in 2027 2028 and if the assessment plans change for social science and global studies then I feel we might want to revisit this I'm just for context right now we do have performance assessments in 3rd grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, and high school, and SOL tests in 4th grade, 8th grade, and still in some high school courses that are not using the performance assessments

[00:13:32] for verified credit. - So I'd like to open it up for questions after each presentation. That way we can have it while it's fresh in our minds. Committee members, any questions regarding this?

[00:13:48] Ms. Reeser. - Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the presentation. Could you just remind me what the benefits are to changing the sequencing? - So one of the benefits that is highlighted is it would put in a place three years of world history or geography, so it adds a foundation because students really haven't engaged in world geography before they're diving into world history in ninth grade.

[00:14:15] Depending on what, like how we would offer the course, whether that would be a middle school course itself or a high school verified credit course, there's a possibility that students could earn that credit or at least get more opportunities to earn that credit.

[00:14:31] Those have been the primary ones outside of that. I'm sorry. I don't follow. There's a difference in sequencing, but in the current sequencing, there's still the option of having world geography. Yes. So the first thing you said, just repeat that for me.

[00:14:48] It puts in place three years of it. So right now, if they were to take world geography, it would be an option in place of it. So there's still only two years of world history and geography in our sequencing. So one thing that was highlighted by our teachers is that offering world geography in eighth grade would allow a year to kind of get acclimated to the geography before diving into the history.

[00:15:08] Okay, but the same exact courses are available under both sequences. So if somebody wanted multiple years, they could elect that the way things are now.

[00:15:27] Yes, at some of our schools, though, I will say I do not believe we have students that opt into that with the exception of they would take like world history and then AP human geography as juniors and seniors where they do get that extra year of geography.

[00:15:43] So is the determination being made that world geography is somehow more important than having U.S. geography taught by itself in that sequence? The U.S. geography course is our local curriculum.

[00:15:59] So the Virginia Department of Education was the one that made the decision to add in the world geography in place of local curriculum. Right now, some districts split Virginia studies across 4th and 5th grade. Some offer a local curriculum in 4th or 5th grade, depending on the district.

[00:16:15] Okay. And was there any specific feedback that the division was looking for from the committee? Or this is just a presentation for our informational purposes? We recognize that this may become a public conversation in terms of how school divisions do have different options in responding to this guidance from the VOE.

[00:16:39] We are paying attention to that, we're having conversations with other folks in Region 4 and across the Commonwealth, and we're also maintaining our relationship with the VDOE. But since we are making the decision to remain status quo, we wanted to have a public conversation about that decision with you all, if there was feedback, but also in general just to be transparent with our decision making.

[00:16:59] Okay. Thank you very much. Additional questions? Comments? Yeah, I was -- I try -- my default is I try to be open to change because I understand that oftentimes we have a, you know, a visceral negative reaction to change as a default, but I was really struggling to find any benefit to the VDOE recommended approach, and I haven't really heard one tonight either.

[00:17:24] So, in absence of any additional information or any changes, I would completely support the staff recommendation to retain our current sequencing. I just -- it's just introducing a whole lot of problems with like three years of world history in a row, and then you're going back to U.S. history in 11th grade, possibly for an AP or DE course without having gotten any instruction on U.S. history since the sixth grade.

[00:17:49] Like, this makes -- this makes no sense. So, I'm -- if we get more information or if they change the recommendations, then, of course, I assume we would take another look at it. But I think I'm comfortable with the approach that Steph has laid out.

[00:18:04] Any additional questions or discussion? Okay. I think we're ready for the second half. Male Speaker: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Graham. At this time, I'm gonna turn it over to Dr. Lee Smith and Ms. Renee Dawson to talk a little bit about career investigations in middle school.

[00:18:24] - Thank you so much, Mr. Slevin. I'm Lee Smith. I'm the supervisor of career and technical education. And joining me is Ms. Renee Dawson. She's the Director of Teaching and Learning of Community Connections. So we're gonna go through a series of slides.

[00:18:42] One, we wanna give you the background of career investigations. going to talk about what it currently looks like within the school division we're going to discuss briefly what the problem or the issue is and then we do have some proposed some potential solutions and then we'll have questions and answers so about a couple of years ago the general assembly put together in the law the need to have career investigation in middle school now what that looks like when the language came out was up to the school division but it but the

[00:19:19] requirements are that it has to be authentic it should be rigorous and it's equivalent in content and rigor and provides the foundation for students to develop their academic and career plans so what it currently looks like within lcps is in the seventh grade students take family Consumer Sciences for 18 weeks. Within that 18 weeks, we have three independent lessons that's co-facilitated with the Office of School Counseling. So we have school counselors and we have FACTS 7

[00:19:54] teachers who are co-teaching three separate lessons, 90 minutes each, all focusing on career investigations. So those three lessons, again, are integrated within the FACTS 7 course. It's an 18 weeks course and that is what career investigations looks like within the school division. So I wanted to show you what a sample would look like let's say um billy is taken seventh grade so first semester billy would take fax 7 and then second semester billy would take tech ed 7 and those are

[00:20:27] both under the umbrella of cte so the problem that we had was last school year we had we were fortunate to undergo two federal reviews one was a civil rights review in cte and the other one was a federal program monitoring review under CTE. And under the federal program monitoring review, there was insufficient evidence to show that LCPS was using the CTE essential competencies as listed in the Virginia CTE Resource Center website. So in essence, what they shared was we

[00:21:03] should have at least nine weeks of career investigations integrated either in a class or in the school division. So we internally looked at all of our feedback given from the federal review and we came up with a couple of solutions. So the first proposed solution is option A and this will essentially allow the family consumer science seven course to be reduced from 18 weeks to 19 weeks so that we can build a standalone career investigations phase course for nine weeks

[00:21:37] and the number one question that is always asked is who can teach the course so any licensed teacher can teach the career investigations course but of course CTE will provide the necessary training that the teacher would need so we put together a chart if we lead it read it from left to right again the current process semester one fact seven 18 weeks a student would take tech ed seven for the next 18 weeks. The proposed process for option A would be career investigations for nine weeks and then fact seven would be for nine weeks and then that student would take a full 18 weeks of

[00:22:16] tech ed. Option B allows the career investigations course to be offered as a standalone course for 18 weeks. So with that being said, students would either have to opt into fact seven for 18 weeks or they would opt into Tech Ed 7 for 18 weeks.

[00:22:35] Again, who could teach the course is the same. It wouldn't change, but we wanted to just reiterate it here. So this is what the sample would look like. The proposed process shows Career Investigations as 18 weeks, and then Semester 2, that student would either take Fact 7 or Tech Ed 7.

[00:22:57] Option C is to offer the Career Investigations course as a standalone course for 36 weeks or for the full year in grade 7. This essentially would retire both the FACTS 7 course and the Tech Ed 7 course. So this is what the option would look like.

[00:23:21] So I put together just a slide of the summary of proposed options, knowing that each option has its pros and its cons, but this slide will just allow you to see it side by side. So the next steps that we have are to work really collaboratively with our stakeholders both in central office outside of central office to internally review the middle school CTE course offerings. We'll work together to prioritize a communication timeline and to make sure that we're sharing this presentation as long as as well as other resources with our stakeholders to

[00:23:57] gather their feedback. Back in August our CTE Advisory Committee convened a subcommittee to focus on career investigations. We meet the third wednesday of the month from 8 30 to 10 o'clock right here in the admin building and we will be talking about this briefly next wednesday september the 20th so once we have all of that feedback we want to present the committee's recommended options to the cni committee and we hope to implement this in the fall of 2025. so i'll see what questions you might have thank you board members uh miss Ms. Okadekbe, and then Ms. Reeser.

[00:24:37] Thank you. So, just to clarify, will that be coming through committee as an action item through CNI? It would probably follow a similar format to the social science recommendation where we would share the recommendation and if the board thought there needed to be more discussion or input from the board, we would move from there.

[00:25:05] Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I am wondering, the way that the classes and the coursework are currently taught, both FACTS and the TechEd are part of the curriculum by choice or by requirement?

[00:25:29] So in seventh grade, they are required courses, and the idea would still be that this would be a required CTE course in seventh grade.

[00:25:46] Does LCPS require them, or does the state require them? So career investigations phase is required by the state. I'm asking about Tech Ed and FACTS. So Tech Ed 7 and FACTS 7 is required by LCPS.

[00:26:03] So there is no other coursework either in elementary, middle or high school where students are exposed to the topics that are taught in either FACTS or Tech Ed, right?

[00:26:24] That is correct. The reason I'm confirming all of that is it's been a while since I had a student in middle school, and I just wanted to confirm that none of those facts had changed since that time. I mean, my recollection of middle school students and their experiences with both of these courses was that they very much enjoyed being exposed to these topics that they have never had and might not otherwise have because our school division and similar to many other school divisions doesn't have another place where there's space to

[00:27:03] offer them so for for what it's worth I would as one board member support keeping an option that exposed students to all three of these topics while as we increase our education of as required around the the career investigations and even if we weren't required I think it's a really important thing to continue to offer more of two students as workforce development is necessary both for the community and for students who are interested in in a career and not school

[00:27:41] right away or even as they investigate careers that include college so increasing that is something that I'm very supportive of but eliminating the opportunity to be exposed to those other soft sciences is something I would steer away from. So thank you for that feedback Mr. Reeser. I'll let Dr. Smith talk a little bit about what career investigations we would made up of but essentially the idea behind the career investigations course is that students would have different opportunities to experience different CTE pathways that

[00:28:18] describe exactly what you're talking about a connection to workforce readiness so some of those standards and facts class that we know traditionally would be embedded in a career investigations experience tech ed would also be what what we're missing is opportunities to explore business and information technology and also newly identified pathways for health and medical sciences so the plus side would be in a career investigations course there'd be a more robust overview of what's available in our CTE pathways.

[00:28:51] That is correct. So career investigations would touch base on all 17 of our career clusters, from business and health medical sciences, like Mr. Sullivan stated, to energy, to facts, to early childhood, to STEM. So it would be 17 career clusters as opposed to just two that the students are currently receiving.

[00:29:13] That is really helpful. I appreciate the follow-up on that. I still think it's good to keep the other topics that would otherwise be eliminated and offer all of these three courses to our students and perhaps even consider an elective in eighth grade that further allows career investigation for students that maybe want to go deeper into that.

[00:29:35] I know that's not part of the topic here, but it is something that popped into my mind. And I know that singletons can be hard to staff and schedule, but it's just a suggestion. Thank you. thank you do you have information about what our other surrounding school districts do in order to meet this requirement how they how they've tackled this yes so we were able to take a look to see what other school divisions are doing and a lot of them are offering a standalone career investigations course so i'll be more than happy to work with staff to develop a comparable school division on

[00:30:11] what that might look like thank you but because i i share miss research concerns about what we might be missing if we go to a you know a 36 week career investigation class and so I think it would really be helpful to see both what other school divisions are doing but also if we went to that model or really to any of these models where all of the subtopics would fall and what might be falling off entirely if for for each one of those models I think that'd be very helpful sounds good thank you miss Reiser just one follow-up question I mean I was really proposing that option A is the best option and option B is the maybe the

[00:30:51] worst well depending on with option C those units that you were talking about that would be lost could they be added to what career investigations include so really it would be all three courses getting taught over the span of the 36 weeks you got it I think you nailed it and there would be a lot more so the foundation would be we would pull in some of those core competencies from FACTS 7, from TechEd 7, and then add more that the students could really get a deeper dive into over the course of 36 weeks.

[00:31:24] So the business, was it business information systems or business, there was a business topic you mentioned, Dr. Slevin. Would that be included in option C, whereas it might be lost in one of the other options? Yes, it would. So when you think of business information technology, those are like cyber security, computer information systems so those competencies students would be able to touch on in that 36-week course. Okay and with option A I'm just curious why you suggested Tech Ed be 18 weeks instead of nine weeks and FACS be like why is there

[00:32:00] no option to swap that? I think I know but yeah. Okay so currently the career investigations is embedded within FACS 7 so all of our FACS teachers have gone through the train and they actually have come to the table to do the co-curricular rewrite with school counseling so all of the teachers in fact seven are aware for tech ed seven we would have to start and level set from ground zero because it has been like a fact seven initiative thank you any additional comments mr sloven i just want to acknowledge that we're

[00:32:39] coming to you all with this issue early we do plan to engage in the community we have been following the current model that we have in seventh grade CTE for a long time and so there are going to be people with different points of view and opinions and so we want to have a robust engagement plan and we may come back with new or different ideas once going through that process we just want to start somewhere and and we we recognize that this is going to be an important community conversation no i really appreciate that we've talked a lot in the last couple of years about bringing bringing problems early and you know not not trying to bring the problem and the solution at the same time so

[00:33:18] i really appreciate uh bringing this issue to our attention and uh the the number of options that are being considered and evaluated by staff at this time miss okadagbe thank you just briefly to that point um this as we got further into the conversation it became clearer so it might be helpful to start with what is career investigations list out all of those subtopics because then it resonates more what it is that you're fully talking about where this would really be option C offering really

[00:33:52] a comprehensive and robust approach where students have earlier exposure to all of these various fields because I I think about you know what my child who's in eighth grade now did last year and it wasn't all of that so just thinking about how the depth of that would be helpful to communicate up front as you're socializing things. Thank you. Thank you for the feedback. Any additional discussion? Okay. Thank you very

[00:34:25] much.

[00:34:50] Thank you, Mr. Slemon. We will now move to item 403 update on gifted services for K-3 gifted learners. Mr. Slemon. Thank you, Mr. Srekin. Our final presentation for this evening is from our gifted supervisor, Ms. Wendy King, and so she'll start the presentation as I get it queued up.

[00:35:08] Well, good afternoon or evening. Thank you so much for your time to talk about K3 gifted programs and services. So in this presentation this evening, I'm going to review our current programs just very briefly and our service structures.

[00:35:28] I'm going to talk about new curriculum components developed for DCI. If you're not familiar with DCI, that's differentiated classroom instruction for K3. I'm going to share some next steps in our process to make sure that we are really meeting the needs of our young gifted learners.

[00:35:46] And throughout this presentation, you will hear me use the terms gifted learners and high ability learners interchangeably. And there's a reason for that. The resources that we talk about today are developed specifically with K-3 gifted learners in mind, students who are identified as in need of gifted services.

[00:36:06] However, there may be students who are not identified for gifted services but may demonstrate high ability in a specific domain like language arts or math, and may need access to these enrichment and extension resources at various times throughout the year once they have demonstrated mastery and core content.

[00:36:29] So for a brief review, here are our current K-3 gifted programs and the service structure in place for K-3 DCI. So as you know, SEARCH and EDGE are talent development programs that focus on building critical and creative thinking skills and a growth mindset.

[00:36:51] In these programs, students tackle challenging problems, learn to persevere through rigorous tasks, and discover the meaning of productive struggle. These programs also enable gifted and classroom teachers to work together to identify students who may need gifted services now or in the future.

[00:37:13] classroom instruction, DCI, not, I just noticed, not differentiated classroom services, DCI instruction, is the structure in place to identify and meet the needs of K-3 learners who demonstrate exceptional academic ability and performance in the classroom.

[00:37:34] So let's take a deeper dive into DCI for K-3 gifted learners. Originally, the intention of this service structure was for gifted resource teachers to consult with classroom teachers and share resources and strategies to help classroom teachers appropriately differentiate instruction for gifted learners in their classrooms.

[00:37:59] Over time, this service structure kind of lost momentum because the resources provided at the division level were not robust enough to really make an impact. So as a result, gifted resource teachers found their own ways to provide services for or to support k3 classroom teachers and gifted learners so services look different from school to school so at the request of this committee the gifted office reached out to content area offices gifted resource teachers school leaders

[00:38:34] to discuss how to coordinate efforts to address the needs of gifted and other high ability learners taking advantage of and working within the existing structures and initiatives in LCPS elementary classrooms.

[00:38:51] And at this time, I feel it's important that I mention when we're thinking about all of this in terms of better serving our K-3 gifted learners, I want to mention a challenge the elementary gifted team is facing. So the responsibilities of the elementary gifted resource teachers have increased as As a result of our changes to our program model and our evaluation process, gifted resource teachers play a variety of roles in schools.

[00:39:20] They conduct gifted evaluations, teach search, edge, and fusion, support math and ELA, English language arts enrichment in grades four through five, service resources for staff, and conference with families.

[00:39:36] So, to ensure that their role is manageable and that we are supporting the needs of our For our gifted learners, including our gifted learners in grades K-3, collaboration and coordinating efforts is really essential.

[00:39:52] So with collaboration and coordination in mind, last spring the gifted office reached out to the math office to strategize about how our teams could work together to better meet the needs of our K-3 high ability learners.

[00:40:07] Our office started with math because we received the most requests for enrichment in the area of math, and we already have a very strong relationship with the math office through other initiatives. So the math team was extremely open to collaboration, so we got started over the summer. And the vision for the collaboration was to gather together a team of elementary teachers and gifted resource teachers to explore how enrichment and extensions connect to LCPS initiatives such as personalized learning and the workshop model and to

[00:40:43] develop grade 3 enrichment enrichment and extension resources aligned to grade level standards to be utilized in classrooms to support the needs of k3 gifted and other high ability learners and we're actually very excited because we expanded that to do the same thing for second grade as well over the summer so our common understanding when we started this work was there's a need for targeted resources to support differentiation for high ability learners.

[00:41:10] There are a variety of outstanding resources for extending math and enriching the math curriculum. The resources need to be curated. It's a word we're using to curate to facilitate this process for teachers and align to the standards and resources need to be shared with classroom and gifted resource teachers. So in collaboration the math and gifted offices developed a curated set of resources to extend, enrich, and/or accelerate student learning and mathematics.

[00:41:44] To better meet the needs of students ready for greater rigor and deeper learning in math, these lessons and activities were developed to be implemented alongside of or in addition to the current math curriculum. So these second and third grade resources are intended for use by classroom teachers when working with students who require instruction beyond the standard curriculum to extend and enrich their learning.

[00:42:12] This collaboration is a model for future work with other content area teams, and we will continue the work of this team to include curated resources for kindergarten and first grade as well. So as I shared before, we wanted to really work within existing structures in place in the elementary classrooms.

[00:42:32] As you can see here, this is kind of the workshop model block, and there is time in the workshop model for extensions and enrichment through the intervention enrichment block. Extensions and enrichment can also be incorporated into personalized learning playlists, small group work, and learning stations.

[00:42:59] The gifted office also met with other content area teams to discuss how we could collaborate with their teams to enhance instruction for K-3 gifted learners. The Office of Reading and Writing has suggested a variety of ways to differentiate instruction for high ability learners, such as identifying key standards that could be addressed at earlier grades such as author's purpose, making connections between texts, and making connections to content area topics in their reading.

[00:43:30] We also discussed increasing the text complexity for students, focusing on higher level questioning with them, incorporating more opportunities for content area reading, and encouraging student-led book clubs.

[00:43:45] The Social Science and Global Studies Office is interested in curating a variety of PBLs for students that revolve around big themes in their content area, such as community. And the Science Office is interested in collaborative planning to develop science resources, such as PBLs and performance-based assessments for students, kind of just like we did this year with math.

[00:44:11] One thing we have learned is that the best efforts in creating curated resources can be ineffective if they don't go hand-in-hand with professional learning. So we can create all the resources that we want, but if no one knows they're there, or if they don't know how to use them, or they don't know how to incorporate them into their current work, then, you know, why are we doing this?

[00:44:34] So we've already shared information about these new resources at ALT and at our beginning of the year professional learning meetings. However, more professional learning is needed where gifted resource teachers and elementary teachers work together and explore how these resources can be infused into what they are already doing in their classrooms.

[00:44:56] So enhancing instruction for our gifted learners, for our young gifted learners, is an ongoing process. Our next steps include continuing our interdisciplinary work, curriculum development, providing professional learning for gifted teachers and classroom teachers together, and gathering classroom teacher feedback on the use of the resources.

[00:45:16] Are they really using them? What can we do better to support them in their efforts? And then further work will include revising the DCI evaluation process to take advantage of data available through MAP and exploring additional ways that the gifted resource teachers can support this process.

[00:45:32] And I also just wanted to provide a quick update on the gifted plan. As you may know, I recently shared that it has been revised to incorporate our new gifted model and the current evaluation process.

[00:45:48] It is in the review stage now. We just recently got some additional feedback from the gifted advisory committee. And it will be ready this year. And hopefully it will be set for the next five years. And in the spring, one thing I just did want to share, which I thought was very interesting.

[00:46:07] The advisory committee requested that we have a summary document of the approved plan to help families better understand all the different -- the many facets of the gifted program that are included in the plan. And we will -- once we get this thing developed -- or excuse me, confirm -- or once we get it approved by everyone who needs to approve it, we will work on that document so that families can better understand all the different work in the program thank you thank you miss King thank you very exciting to hear these updates about what's been going on you probably heard me like frantically writing a million

[00:46:46] questions down but I'm gonna open it up to committee members first like a good chair and see what what questions my colleagues have committee members do you have questions regarding the presentation okay okay I did my due diligence here I go okay so first you talked a little bit about the DCI identification process and I also saw the first thing I saw on the bottom of slide two that talks about DCI big services provided for K through three learner K through three learners who are formally identified in need of gifted services and I wasn't actually aware that we had a formal identification

[00:47:26] process for DCI so can you talk about what that process actually is if it differs from school to school and if there are any changes that are being looked at there in in light of these new supports and resources yes it's it's pretty straightforward if a parent or a teacher request this evaluation process for a student we collect work samples both math and language arts work samples for the student and then we have a committee almost like a child study committee where we get together we talk about things that we're seeing in the classroom and if we think that this student would benefit from DCI services

[00:48:04] And then at that point, we do some additional testing. We use the KBIT, which is a kind of brief ability test. And so we put all of that data together and make a decision about moving forward. A student can be identified for services in English language arts or math or both.

[00:48:24] And that is consistent, but it doesn't happen often because what has happened over time is just teachers kind of skip over that process and just provide support for teachers. And so we need to get that process kind of more standardized and then maybe look at the data that we already have to see if there is data that we have so that we don't have to do additional testing.

[00:48:49] So that's the part I want to firm up. So is that a school-based decision per student or is that something that kind of goes up to the admin building in the same way that the formal grade four gifted identification does? No, it is school-based. Okay, so does it differ from school to school or is there a defined process in place for doing that?

[00:49:10] It's a specific process, yes. Okay, but it's more local. It's school-based as opposed to -- okay, got it. So I think that answers my questions about kind of who gets the DCI resources. It's those who are identified as gifted at the school level through the process.

[00:49:27] if a student is identified as gifted in kindergarten or first grade and is getting DCI services do they then need to be identified as gifted again when they get to fourth grade or does that carry through yes historically that has been the way it has worked so if a student is identified for DCI K3 when they get to third grade they go through the process again okay why um well I will share that this is a specific academic identification and when we get to third grade it's general intellectual so it is more intense and we're looking for a

[00:50:07] balance of a balance of strength in particular areas so it is something we could certainly look at I'm not but it's something we could discuss but it's also a since it is school-based at the elementary level and then we get to the division based um we would really want to look at that carefully okay i wasn't advocating one way or another i really was just curious about you know what what the merits of it or or but that makes sense the way that the way that you described it uh so so we're right now

[00:50:44] it's the additional supports we put in place are grades two and three in math that's that's what we've gotten that what we've gotten to thus far and i think social studies is coming very closely behind that. This year? Okay. So can you talk a little about what this looks like for practically what this looks like for students as far as what might be different from what we would have provided last year? I know you had one slide up there that showed, you know, intervention and enrichment for the last 20 minutes of the instruction block. So is that where the differences where they would be seeing these additional assignments or additional resources or the

[00:51:23] It could be, but it could also be a part of curriculum compacting. So if a student has shown that they've mastered a particular standard or particular skills within a unit, the classroom teacher can compact the time that the student is spending on that particular unit, and then we can use these resources in its place to enrich or extend the curriculum.

[00:51:48] So I think it can go hand-in-hand with curriculum compacting, as well as being incorporated into other structures that are available. - Okay, so how many students do we have in grades two and three who have been identified for this that are getting these resources this year?

[00:52:04] - I can get that for you, but it is small. - Okay. - It is a small number. In fact, I just recently got word from a school that another student is going through. That's why it needs to be formalized, because I think what's happening is it's skipped, and then we're just providing these services students as they come up rather than formalizing the process I'm not saying that it doesn't happen but I'm thinking that we need to work together as a gifted team to make sure we're formalizing this and I think one thing that will help with that is having robust resources available for the

[00:52:41] students can you give me a rough order of magnitude for how small we're talking right now or ten a hundred a thousand I talking more probably like 20 like 20 is it rolled out across all schools so all elementary schools and I would say that's formal but I'm not saying that that's that students aren't providing those services already if that makes sense okay so they may be informally providing similar services through the previous processes or just more informal supports being provided at the school level yes okay what's communicated to parents about this or is a parent I mean is a parent notified that you know hey

[00:53:21] your students been identified for DCI here are some things we're going to be working on with them here are some additional assignments they're going to be getting in math yes and what happens is the school goes through the process and then we have a forum that's sent to parents to share information about the about the program okay yeah one thing I think I would like to add to this is the progress update on students and how they're doing and it might just be at a student conference but this would kind of formalize this process a little bit so that we have some reporting back of how a student is doing in this process or in

[00:54:00] the program. Okay so I had a question about plans to extend to kindergarten and first grade but you cover that towards the end of your presentation where you said that yes that that is the plan as well as extending this to social sciences or science reading other content areas. Yeah and that's what I'm excited about because this is something that's been brought up in the past that our specific academic services focus on math and language arts and really there hasn't been an opportunity for science and social studies so this is our opportunity okay and so I venture to say that there are more than 20 students in

[00:54:37] second and third grade who are in need of these services so you mentioned trying to formalize this with schools but practically what is that going to look like as far as rolling this out and making sure that the students who would benefit from this are going to be identified for this yeah I think we need to pull together a group of gifted resource teachers and possibly some classroom teachers as well to talk about what this process will look like and we need to look at the qualifications for students to be identified for this these

[00:55:17] services because in the past it was just specifically 97th percentile and above and support in the with the work samples but I think we need to revisit that so that is probably the next big step in this is that process what do you need because this is this is a huge change from the way it's been done and it's ambitious if we roll this out across all four of those grade levels and all of the content areas that we've been talking about so I know I know you can't do that with the existing staff that you have and I don't I don't know what else

[00:55:56] you need in addition to that so that's why I'm asking how about I work with mr. Slevin and we decide what we do realistically need because yes we'll work together decide what we need yes staffing is an issue okay I think that's the slide that had to do with challenges and the scope of work already in place for the gifted resource teacher in all our elementary schools so likely likely a look at the staffing standard and then support across content areas from a curriculum curricular point of view um it would not be insignificant thank you board members addition now you guys have questions

[00:56:36] okay i will go miss reaser and then miss so you talked a little bit about how previously it was 97th percentile or higher basically my recollection is is that you would have to be formally identified by either Kogad or an accolary even if you were in K through three if you wanted to get the services earlier and one of the risks that a parent would run opting that path for their student is if they didn't qualify there were a certain number of years before which they couldn't be retested which could mean

[00:57:10] they then missed out on gifted services in fourth and fifth grade because so the formal ID the the test that you talked about now would not have that potential pitfall. Am I right about that? I don't know if I have an answer to that question yet, but I will keep it in the back of my mind as we think how we want to revise this process. But I think one thing we really have to think about is the level of instruction at a school. If we have a school

[00:57:46] where the need is so high for these services, we need to think about instruction as a whole at the school in terms of bumping up the rigor because this is really um would be a smaller number of students identified for this service these are students that we think need something in addition to what they're learning in the classroom uh what they get from the general core curriculum so we really have to look at that when we look at this process and assuming it's not enough that

[00:58:20] we're looking at what an entire grade or school needs assuming it is just a small cross-section that desperately needs something that is not available to them a barrier has been that if you go through the formal testing process and your child just misses it but maybe in a year would have gotten it then you can't get it and I and I want to avoid there being a deterrent to parents exploring the option of whether their child needs something in second or third grade.

[00:58:56] And I would imagine if we're not using COGAD or Nagliari and that it is local and not division-wide, that doesn't need to be a barrier. - I think also, too, we have to remember that throughout the gifted evaluation process for grades three through five, all the way up, we have multiple indicators that we're looking at.

[00:59:19] So if a student misses a particular test by a few points, We usually can pick it up either in the portfolio or in one of the other tests that we -- assessments that we use. Sure. So I'm still not hearing really an answer to my question about whether having your child evaluated in K through three will still include the possibility of then precluding them from being able to get gifted services in four through five if a determination is made no in the earlier years.

[00:59:54] can we avoid that we will definitely take that into consideration i don't think it happens very often that a dci student would not be found eligible for gifts and services at the upper elementary grades but it could happen so we will keep that into consideration okay so let me ask the question in a different way if you're not taking a cog out or an accolary or whatever test we are using at the time that we identify for grades four and five and it's something different in grade two or three, are you telling me there would still be the potential that, even

[01:00:29] though it was a different testing tool, that that, if they were found ineligible, that could carry over into grades four and five? It could, yes. Is that an internal decision?

[01:00:46] It would just be, if the, if the, I'm trying to think of how to answer this, yes, it could be an internal decision. No, I mean, there's nothing that requires us to do it that way, is there? Right. And then my other question was, how do families know that they can ask for this?

[01:01:07] And I think we danced around that, but I don't know if that was asked directly. I mean, I heard you talk about families being informed if their child is identified, but how do families know they can request it at grade K or one? We have always included it on the webpage.

[01:01:24] We have included it in videos that we share about our programs. So we have put the word out. I haven't done it as much over the last year just because we're trying to revise the process. But in the past, it's always been in our gifted plan. It is in our new gifted plan that we're reviewing.

[01:01:42] So that information is out there. If someone knows to go seek it, right? But the videos and the information are not given to every single family? You have to look for it? We do actually share that information with all the families. We send it out in a blast email.

[01:01:58] In an email. Is there anything for, like, families that are less, I mean, there are a lot of families in my part of the district that are not able to read English. Is it in multiple languages, and does it also go in any format that's not electronic? It's shared by gifted resource teachers at their schools as well.

[01:02:19] Everything that we send out, we send out in two languages, so, yes, we have shared it that way. Okay, thank you. And I know that, just to follow on to that, I know there's been, there's gifted identification, town halls isn't the right word, but information sessions that the gifted team does throughout the county, and there's some information about the DCI process that's been included as part of that, but it tends to just, it tends to predominantly be the third grade parents who come to that because they're getting ready for the gifted identification process in third grade for the fourth grade.

[01:02:58] fusion future and fusion programs so I think if we're rolling out formal services earlier and expanding the DCI program then we need to maybe rethink that and start encourage parents as early as kindergarten to come to those information sessions to get more information about the process maybe it's even something that could be presented at back-to-school night just so that there's some component that is outreach that's personal, not just, you know, someone going to look for it on a web page or having to -- I think a lot of information gets missed

[01:03:35] in e-mail. Ms. O'Connor? Thank you. I think following along with this same topic, my question is thinking about the accessibility of the information or the thought whether or not parents think that they can ask for something.

[01:03:55] Ideally, this is not parent-initiated, but it would be something that was more a universal screening and I know that we've gone that way for our upper elementary gifted education and and I think I'm hearing like I didn't hear that specifically from you but I am hearing that you're looking to revise the way that students are identified but ideally you know understanding you know there's also a capacity issue and you mentioned thinking about how that impacts instruction in a school and so forth but I think it's important that any student who

[01:04:31] demonstrates that they are gifted and in need of these services is identified regardless of whether or not their parents think to call and ask for them to be screened that's why I did mention we want to look at I know we don't have map for all of our grade levels but we want to look at the existing map scores that we might be able to use for that particular reason to see if there is something that lets us know okay this student needs to be considered and then to your point that you already said, just making sure that this is consistent across the schools

[01:05:08] and not reliant upon individual teachers to think of this, that there's actually a process involved. Yeah. Thank you so much. And part of that is, you know, there's the parent-initiated process, but then there's also professional development on the teacher side that also needs to occur, which you talked about a little bit in starting with ALT and some of the other things that are going on to make sure that teachers know that these resources are available, how to work with their gifted resource teacher to put these in place and make sure students are identified.

[01:05:42] Any additional questions? Thank you very much for the update. I think it's been six or seven months since we talked last. So I really appreciate the update on what's going on and looking forward to rolling this out more broadly. I think the only other note I have is I recognize we only have a very small number of students who are thus far identified, and I know we're only three weeks or so into the school year, but it would be great to get some feedback from those families once we get further into the year about how it's going, what they like, what they don't like, and I think that'll help inform how we roll this out more.

[01:06:22] In fact, we did have a new referral for a student to go through this process, so I contacted the teacher and I said, okay, here we go, this is our chance, and so let's talk about this process so we're going to be meeting soon to talk about that any additional questions or comments okay thank you again that will conclude our information items and we're on to item five which is new business is there any new business tonight seeing none we are adjourned thank you

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