Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Curriculum and Instruction Committee Meeting, Thursday, April 4, 2024

Date: Thursday, April 4, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 19m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/930828126?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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:00:01] - Good morning, everyone. I'd like to call this April 4th, 2024, Curriculum and Instruction Committee meeting to order. My name is Lauren Chernoff, and I'm here with my esteemed colleagues, Dr. Deans and Dr. Sumair Rashid. We appreciate your presence here today.

[00:00:16] We are going to begin with our agenda, but before we do, we are going to have public comment. We value public input, and we are going to have one speaker today, and that is Sandy Sullivan. And you will have three minutes, So go ahead.

[00:00:42] - Good morning, I'm Sandy Sullivan, an elementary school teacher who currently serves the members of the Loudoun Education Association as their president. I'm going to begin my time by sharing remarks from Andrea Weiskopf as she is currently teaching. I wanted to attend this meeting. As someone who has taught Latin and will perhaps again, I wanted to be present for the WLC presentation.

[00:01:02] I have, however, in the three months you have been on the school board, already taken more than a full day of leave to attend committee meetings. The presentation on the instructional framework states that educator input is wanted. If you truly wanted input, you wouldn't hold this meeting when educators can only attend if they take personal leave.

[00:01:20] Black Lives Matter. As for my remarks, this committee has, is, and will do critical work for LCPS. Continued work hinges on ensuring LCPS, you, are listening to employees and the community and working together to make decisions that support all of our educators and students.

[00:01:39] I'm deeply disappointed no change has been made to the times of these meetings. I expect there to be committee meetings held when your educators and the general public who have regular work hours will be able to attend and participate. Thank you for your comments.

[00:01:57] Your input is valuable to us. All right. We need to approve the minutes from our last meeting. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes? If there are no objections or corrections, I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes. So moved. Is there a second?

[00:02:14] Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? seeing none the minutes are approved all right now we will move on to our agenda items we have three information items this morning and we are going to begin with item 4.1 which is world language offerings and options and I believe our presenters are mr. Jeff Roundsley the director of teacher and teaching and learning and miss Kelly James the supervisor of world languages and cultures welcome and the floor is yours thanks for sure enough I'm gonna kick us off it's okay so we are excited today to be talking about world languages and

[00:02:54] LCPS it's kind of it's not world language week but we also talked about word languages at our special programs committee meeting earlier this week with a specific focus on dual language immersion more broadly speaking our secondary offerings when it comes to world languages is also a topic of interest and that historically has been a topic that CNI has discussed there has been a lot of talk about expanding opportunities for our students at LCPS and world languages are one of those opportunities that our community is keenly interested in and so we have done some work over the past few years with the previous board and so this is an opportunity to kind of bring that conversation to the current board to think about what might be some strategic

[00:03:33] next steps when it comes to offerings for world languages for our students and families so we're joined today by Miss Kelly James our world language and culture supervisor in our world language team we have some members here with who will be introduced in Mr. Roundsley and he's going to kick us off. Good morning. So I'm excited to talk more about the opportunities that we believe exist around world languages and expansion. We know that's an area that our community is keenly interested in and how we can make that an opportunity for all students in LCPS. So Kelly James is our supervisor for world languages. Miss Angie Goetz is our specialist in world languages and I believe that is it from our world language

[00:04:13] office who's here right now. So I'm going to turn it over to Kelly who's going to kind of give us a background on the world language program and we'll also discuss some opportunities we see for expansion good morning thank you so going over our agenda for today we'll provide a brief overview of our current world language offerings in LCPS we'll talk about alternative pathways for students to earn world language credits we'll discuss a final report from a world language student and family survey from 2022 and we'll also discuss options for

[00:04:46] expanding course offerings and availability. So this shows our current world language offerings both at the middle and the high school level. It's important to notice that not every language is offered at every LCPS school.

[00:05:02] That's mainly due to student interest but also teacher availability. It's really hard for us to find ASL teachers so that is certainly a priority of ours. Students may begin taking a world language as early as seventh grade. Most Most of the world languages are available to continue through level 6, which is usually an AP level course.

[00:05:28] Certain high schools offer dual enrollment language course offerings if the teacher is certified to teach dual enrollment, and those are often in the fifth year of the language. Students who are native speakers of Spanish and wish to continue to learn Spanish can opt to take Spanish for fluent speakers, which progresses through a level 4 honors, after which they would take an AP Spanish course.

[00:05:54] So talking about some alternative pathways for students to earn world language credits. We offer what's called the credit through testing exam. LCPS allows students with the ability to communicate in languages other than English to earn high school credits through a state approved world language assessment.

[00:06:14] It's offered every year to LCPS students and is free of charge. Students can take the test a maximum of twice per language over their high school career starting in ninth grade to attempt to earn credit in 26 languages so as of March 22nd this year 512 students had earned at least one credit through credit through testing whereas last school year we had 370 students who earned at least one credit so we're really excited to see the growth of this offering the credit through testing exam assesses student proficiency by

[00:06:53] by having students write responses to two essay prompts consisting of multiple paragraphs. A student who does not possess this writing ability will likely have difficulty demonstrating the required proficiency to pass the exam. If a student has difficulty reading the exam language, they will likely be unable to understand the prompt well enough to write a cohesive response.

[00:07:15] Assessments are scored by a team of proficiency assessment specialists. The World Languages team reviews the student transcript awards appropriate credits based on the level of proficiency earned on the exam based on their results students may be eligible to apply for the Virginia Department of Education seal of bioliteracy on their high school diploma so this is the current list of languages that are offered for students to earn credit through testing this was this list was created based on requests from the community but also we ran a report based on the top languages that were

[00:07:55] home languages spoken by students at home and we are certainly open to adding to this list we know that there has been some interest in adding sanskrit to this list which we are certainly open and looking into so going back to the 2022 world languages survey and um from families and students this student survey was available to students in grades 6 through 12. all lcps high school and middle schools were represented on the student response the parent survey was distributed via email and parents were instructed to respond on behalf of their youngest

[00:08:34] student all LCPS schools were represented in the parent response as well so they were asked to select their top two language choices from a list of 50 languages seven languages that were on that list are currently taught in our schools and then the following chart shows the top ten the top ten language choices from parents and students on the course interest survey and that includes the specific number of students and parents who chose that language and the percentage of respondents so as you can see Spanish was the number one choice

[00:09:14] from both parents and students across the division American Sign Language was number two and then the top ten the following vary and the next slide is the top 20 choices that were represented as top language choices from students and parents. So at least three of the top five parent and student language choices are languages that are currently offered in LCPS. So that would be Spanish,

[00:09:53] American Sign Language, and French. However, Arabic, Japanese, Hindi, and Italian were also among some of the top languages from both parents and students that LCPS does not currently offer. And now I'm going to pass it off to Mr.

[00:10:11] Roundsley to talk about some potential expansion opportunities in world languages thank you miss James so a couple of things we wanted to point out here is that already we have started some opportunities to expand world languages through the use of virtual loudon and so this started last year as a way to provide students in ASL 2 3 and 4 and Latin 4 5 and AP Latin opportunities to continue their study you saw in that slide earlier in the presentation that sometimes there are difficulties in making sure that languages are offered in every school this is a way to help with that and so

[00:10:47] this is really it's an asynchronous course that students participate in with a weekly check-in with a teacher so next year Virtual Loudoun is planning to add ASL 1 and also Latin 3 as opportunities for Virtual Loudoun participation that would allow all students to have the opportunity to participate in a in a world language class although it may be looking a little different than they might traditionally experience it but that would allow ASL 1 to be a full pathway for students and also to allow students to continue in Latin should their school not be offering Latin for a variety of

[00:11:24] reasons. We also wanted to talk about a couple of ideas on the next slides for some long-term expansion opportunities so that's that's one fix that we can apply immediately but there's also some things that we believe we could do to help make these languages more accessible to all students in LCPS.

[00:11:41] And one is a way -- is looking at a model of some centralized staffing through the World Language and Cultures Office that would allow us to strategically place teachers in areas that would allow for more students to participate in a world language. So we had a model of this that we are -- we would hope to implement at some point here in the future around the expansion to Arabic as a language.

[00:12:03] Through that survey, we were able to identify four schools that had a higher interest in Arabic than some of our other schools as well and and we had plans to hire two Arabic teachers who would be able to be shared part-time between those schools and so that would allow us to place students in areas where we see a large demand for a particular language where they might not exist and to be strategic about how our staffing is allocated out to schools it also allowed time for those teachers to collaborate together and to engage in curriculum development and planning since oftentimes that teacher might be the only person teaching that particular language in a school it would foster more collaboration between them and also would allow us the opportunity to grow

[00:12:43] that program if we see students student enrollment rising to be able to add more sections in these particular schools so that's a model that's followed in Arlington County Public Schools for some of those more specialized languages that would allow us greater flexibility in placing teachers in areas where we see a high demand our next one is about the idea of establishing regional hubs at high schools where maybe not every language is offered in every school one of the primary challenges that we face is our ability to staff some of these programs so ASL is a keen example of this we see lots of opportunities for

[00:13:19] students lots of interest among students and families in students being able to participate in ASL and also a lot of difficulty and being able to staff those positions with teachers the idea of a regional hub we would be able to offer certain languages at different high schools across LCPS and engage with our transportation department to help those students get to those locations to take those classes at a nearby high school so maybe not every language especially a language like ASL or you saw on our list things like Chinese or an Arabic program if we were to expand in other areas we might not teach that at every school but we have opportunities for students to be able to travel to those

[00:13:56] schools in order to participate if they were interested so again that would provide some equitable opportunities and we do have some models of this that already exists it's very standard for middle schools to send students who are participating in advanced math or advanced languages to the neighboring high school but it would require a lot of collaboration and coordination between schools between our teaching and learning office and our transportation department to be able to pull that off and the last one is to look at the opportunities to expand virtual synchronous learning so that a teacher would be live in one classroom with students and have another group of students at another school

[00:14:33] who is participating virtually we had some models of that that existed during especially during covet time and virtual learning i know at my school at willard we had a german class that participated alongside a german class at harper park middle school they were in our library they had supervision but they were able to kind of see that teacher interact with that teacher so that's another way again that requires a lot of coordination between schools it requires some work with ddi to make sure we have the right infrastructure and equipment in order to make that a positive experience for everyone it would probably require some additional looking at staffing to make sure that we had people who were available to supervise those classrooms of those

[00:15:11] students and maybe an example something to think about there is the way in our dli program we have a language ambassador who is an assistant but also has some knowledge in that language to be able to support students as well. So these are all things that we're looking at. They're not quick fixes, but we would be very open to having that discussion and feedback about ways that we can make our offerings around world language more transparent, equitable, available to all of our students and families at LCPS.

[00:15:39] Wonderful. Thank you so much. I'll turn it over to my colleagues for questions.

[00:15:55] ASL, approximately how many students do we have who require the sign language or instruction? Are you talking about students who need ASL as an intervention, who are asking for it to take it as a course?

[00:16:19] No, students who are requiring it to understand what the teacher is saying, an interpreter, the presence of an interpreter in an instructional area. I'm not sure we have access to that information, but I can definitely get that for you. Thank you. You had mentioned on one of the slides, I think it's slide six, about CTTs available in 26 languages.

[00:16:49] you said there's a possible edition of Sanskrit in fall 2024 based on community feedback. Is the community feedback, will that be based on surveys? How would that be conducted in order to get the feedback? I'm just curious. And is it regional based in the area?

[00:17:09] - So I can speak to the idea of it being regionally based. We offer it at several different high schools. So throughout the fall, there are dates established at different high schools for students to be able to participate in that. Typically, members of the teaching and learning office and teachers at that school help facilitate that.

[00:17:26] I think in terms of adding languages, that really is, I don't know that we have a formal way that we've done that in the past. Do we have a formal way, Angie? - We check the population of the number of students that have a home language in a particular language, and if it's 50 or above within the high school population, then we choose that language.

[00:17:52] So those 26 languages have at least 50 students the high schools and another question I know that in 2022 there was a survey overview that you had mentioned and I was curious if one will be done for 2024 or maybe one already hasn't has been done I just missed the slider I didn't find that data so we we can definitely talk about that this this survey was done at the direction of the previous CNI committee and I think it is all about philosophy of how often do we want to survey this particular interest

[00:18:27] there are some emerging tools that we're going to have available to us with the new school links course planner students are going to start having seven-year plans and we'll be able to see trends about like where the interest is now that's not going to help us for opportunities that don't exist so we probably need to continue doing dipsticks we feel that the 2022 information still is really informative to us in terms of cluster interest but if there is interest from the board in doing another survey we could definitely explore that we don't have plans to do another survey right now.

[00:19:00] And maybe we -- I don't want to put Dr. Oktala on the spot, but that's one of the questions I would ask our research office, like how fresh do we consider data like this for cohorts of students? Because we definitely want to be sensitive to over-surveying the population.

[00:19:18] So I'm happy to discuss that if you'd like to see us do some kind of additional outreach on this topic. Sure. Definitely. Thank you. I know that in the past -- I don't know what year it was -- I know there's been a change in demographics within the last few years, and I know that maybe the demand might have maybe changed the list to some point.

[00:19:37] Aside from community feedback, is it also considered in regards to, let's say the community feedback says, I don't know, some language is in high demand. Would it be that you would have to look for a teacher that specializes in that language before you seek the feedback or after you seek the feedback?

[00:19:56] I'm assuming it's after the feedback, but I'm just curious, I wanted to ask that. It would probably be on, there'd be a number of factors. And so when we look back to choosing Arabic, Arabic may have not been, our initial recommendation for expansion was Arabic based on not just it being in the top 10 or top five in some cases, it was also about anticipation of the availability of instructors for that course.

[00:20:24] Ms. James could talk a little bit more about this, but there are some connections with some of our teachers who currently teach French who could possibly help us with the expansion. We have a level of confidence that we'd be able to find teachers that can help us with curriculum development, because you can imagine there may not be a plethora of resources from the VDOE for some of these languages. So we would need to do some in-house work and also really seek out resources. And so there may be language of interest that would be harder to find licensed teachers to actually teach. So that's something that we would consider as well.

[00:20:55] I don't know, Kelly or Jeff, would you add anything to that? Just that we would work closely with our HRTD recruiting teams as well to help identify where those areas are. And there are surrounding jurisdictions that do have some programs in Arabic, for example, that we could look to for some support in how we might staff and recruit teachers who are available.

[00:21:16] And I know Kelly has talked a lot about, Kelly's a former French teacher, talked a lot about how many of our French teachers may be equipped to teach some in Arabic as well. So to get kind of real, so like when we're talking about the Arabic pilot, we're well what if we were to put together a package to get for FY 26 for example we would put two licensed teacher FTEs in the world language budget and then we would work with four high school principals and say look we want you to add Arabic one into your master schedule for the next school year we're gonna provide you staffing so you don't need to figure out bits and pieces from your

[00:21:52] staffing allocation we're gonna control the schedule so I'm just picking schools for our woods you have to offer it first block Stonebridge you have to offer it fourth block right and then we would identify similar to what we do for IB schools that would feed into these different schools if there was an interest so maybe Stonebridge captures the Riverside students and the broad run students who might have an interest in Arabic that would have a consequence on scheduling for those students there's a lot of orchestration that would go behind it and then we would also need to be doing curriculum development at the same time so these specialized languages take special attention and so we could

[00:22:31] probably implement that model for for many languages that the community of the board has an interest in it's just a matter of dialogue between the community the board and staff for what we want to do I really asked because we had well I had a lot of constituents and I'm glad we're here a lot of constituents that reached out to me about Sanskrit there's been a petition that has been in many neighborhoods that said that we really want Sanskrit so I told them there's a process that you know needs to be followed in a pathway that needs to be followed it's not that simple so that's why I come out and I asked about that

[00:23:04] thanks um I think you said that you two times a year you give the assessment to see if a student is proficient in a language what about students moving in and out I don't know if Loughton has as much but I know with the federal government been said in such close proximity there are a lot of families moving in and out is there any flexibility to give those proficiency tests at other times right so we offer the credit through testing once a year

[00:23:42] traditionally it's in about mid-November early November we offer it on four or five different days depending upon school availability to host it as a site we try to schedule it throughout the county and there are alternative pathways other tests that students can take to earn credit through testing that they just have to prove that they have passed it it's just that the county is not paying for this this is one way for them to take an assessment that is free of charge for them to demonstrate proficiency but there are other assessments that they can take to get credit through testing being a member of

[00:24:20] the board we talk about adding FTEs have you considered as one of your resources the federal government because for an example my son-in-law speaks five languages and they are given eight hours per pay period that they can volunteer so if you had that French teacher that would be the certified teacher and have federal employees to provide the actual instruction would that be a resource that might be considered is there any kind of working relationship with the

[00:24:58] federal government in terms of Loudoun County Public Schools so we don't currently have that managed at the central level it's very possible that at the school level parents may volunteer that's often the case we don't have a structure in place to identify assets and deploy them in that manner right now but it's definitely a feedback that could be considered that might be something to consider right now he's just sort of going to work doing nothing

[00:25:32] just just the thought because I know the principal over in Sterling got a group of the engineers from the federal government to come in to tutor for math and they do it for free and I'm looking as a member of the board as much free stuff as we can get as long as it's quality so that was just a thought when we were talking about languages and then I misspoke just a moment ago I think I misunderstood your question as far as earning credit through testing it's only through that once a year credit through testing the other assessments are for

[00:26:09] students to earn the CELA by literacy at graduation my apologies for misunderstanding the question related to that I would recommend individual needs as the families move in and out of the area I would just add to that though one the things that does happen frequently is when students who may speak a language a heritage speaker of a language enter into loudon county part of what happens is that their their transcript is evaluated at the welcome center and it's oftentimes working through the program of studies that the welcome center will request a new class be created so that we are able to award credit to

[00:26:49] students who come in speaking a different language and maybe one that we don't offer and to make sure that that their work that happened in another school is reflected through their transcript in LCPS and I just and I just want to add knowing bringing up FTEs I do want to acknowledge and thank the board for approving an anticipated program assistant to support CTT from funds that we reallocated there's been tremendous growth of opportunity through our CTT program that has been managed essentially by a 20-hour part-time person who has who has helped the team I mean great support led by the leadership of the world language office I don't want to diminish

[00:27:28] that but when you think about coordinating assessors for 26 different languages recruiting those folks making them feel valued and connected to the school system so they come back year to year coordinating sites across the county making sure you have a secure test environment where students are successful in getting all of these credits it takes people and so we now have a half-time person that's helping with this with this lift so you know continuing to expand testing dates and opportunities you know there's there is limitation to what people can do but we could definitely consider other opportunities but just it does it does

[00:28:06] take coordination from a human capital to coordinate those kind of things so just a big shout out to the world language team for that for that support and the vision for growing it even more with possibly Sanskrit in the future just a question I think you guys mentioned it before so when you do CTT and you test out on any heritage language but let's say it's Spanish for example if a student is in the IB program or a specialized program would they have to take they would they would still have to take whatever is required

[00:28:43] by their program even though they test it out I'm just trying to see where that would fit in into the specialized programs they would correct me if I'm wrong but what would that do is open doors for other electives that's part of the that's part of the incentive for teachers for students to take this that they could get their credits for high school language and they could maybe take a CTE sequential elective or go deeper into computer science, for example.

[00:29:10] Is that accurate? - Okay, so that is okay for the, like for example, the IB program, I know they want four years total for a certain language. So if someone tests out for that Spanish, for example, and CTT, they would automatically be okay for a specialized program like IB.

[00:29:29] They wouldn't have to retake it, is what I'm saying, on an IB level, 'cause I thought it was at an IB level they had to take those languages. - They would still need to meet the program requirements, but for example, if you have a heritage speaker who was placed through a placement assessment that we have that we give heritage Spanish speakers, and they were placed in Spanish four, and they took the credit through testing and they placed at an intermediate high, they would get three credits that would take Spanish one, two, and three, so it would look like they have Spanish one through four on their transcript.

[00:30:04] And if we don't, it's likely that these students may be taking an additional language on top of the credit they're getting as well. So there's, you know, there's, you know, it's about choice for students in our system. Thank you guys so much.

[00:30:21] I am very appreciative of you bringing this to us, Dr. Rashid, because I did not understand all that goes into everything that you all are doing. And I look forward to continued discussions. I really like the idea of the Arabic pilot. I think that that, you know, seeing the community feedback into action and that plan.

[00:30:37] So I know that that's probably something that will land on our plates for approval. So I really appreciate that. And also just the community understanding of all the nuts and bolts that go into this. It can't just like, you can't wave your magic wand and have a new language. It's lots that goes into it. And so I appreciate that background and context as well.

[00:30:54] If there's no further discussion or questions, I thank you so much for joining us. And we will move on to our next agenda item, which is 4.2, which is an update on the instructional framework. And Mr. Slevin and Mr. Roundsley are going to present for that. Thank you, Ms. Chernoff, for the opportunity to bring another update.

[00:31:23] We laid it to the instructional framework to this committee and to the public. We have been hard at work in the development of this instructional framework led by Mr. Roundsley and a team of dynamic educators in the Department of Teaching and Learning and working with representatives across the school system.

[00:31:39] But we know that with a big vision for this instructional framework, want to make sure we are communicating about this consistently we're getting community feedback we're getting board feedback and so we want to spend a little bit of time this morning sharing you sharing with you what we've been up to what cut what has the community been saying and hopefully get some dialogue with board members in terms of what we should be thinking about next just as a reminder this the purpose of this project is to develop an instructional framework for lcps to help streamline focus and set our instructional priorities the instructional framework defines the the overall philosophy of instruction and will define expectations for learning

[00:32:17] for all students in every school within the division the curriculum identifies what we teach the instructional framework will clarify how to teach to ensure engaging authentic learning experiences are happening for all of our students and how we might assess learning the framework will provide a shared understanding and commitment to the educational goals and principles that guide instruction learning and assessment within the division so with that I'm going to turn it over to you. It's Mr. Brownlee will take us from here. I think that this slide speaks to what Mr. Slevin was just talking about and kind of pulling back a little bit and

[00:32:54] understanding how the instructional framework fits into a larger picture of teaching and learning in LCPS. So we have our profile of a graduate which outlines the skills the competencies the knowledge that we want all students to have when they graduate from Loudoun County Public Schools and that really serves as our why what we're trying to achieve what we want every student to have when they graduate from LCPS or through their instruction they receive in LCPS.

[00:33:17] The framework should provide teachers with a how. So these are the big strategies, the big actions that we believe help our students learn and develop those skills. And that is in dialogue with an aligned curriculum that gives teachers what we teach.

[00:33:32] Those two things together, how and what, should lead us towards equipping students with those skills, the knowledge, the competencies that make up a profile of a graduate for an LCPS student. So these are the components of what our instructional framework will have, and I'm just going to quickly speak about these, but they're rooted in a vision, a vision that has been adopted by our school board and our strategic plan, some core values, empowering students to make meaningful contributions to the world.

[00:33:59] That kind of serves as what we are rooted in and what we're trying to achieve with the framework. The key components are big actions, so big actions that teachers take day in, day out to make their classroom a place where effective teaching and learning happens, and indicators kind of further explain what those things mean.

[00:34:15] So we have a design team that has been meeting throughout since January, and that's what they've been focused on, defining what some key components of the framework are and starting to draft some indicators, and we'll be able to share a little of that with you today. In the coming year, we are going to move on to those bottom areas of descriptions and progressions.

[00:34:33] So descriptions will equip teachers with what these things look like, sound like, feel like in a classroom, development of resources that are aligned with that. And progressions are about how we help our teachers and our principals take a step forward in these areas. So what does it look like as we grow and advance in these areas of the instructional framework?

[00:34:52] Those pieces, again, will be built out at a later date. But we are starting with the foundation of rooted in a vision, key components, and indicators that help teachers understand what good instruction in LCPS looks like. So since January, we have had four design team meetings.

[00:35:10] Our design team is composed of about 30 educators, the majority of them from a school, so either teachers, assistant principals, principals, facilitators, lots of different voices in the room, and then also representatives from the administration building, so representatives from teaching and learning, special education, our EL department, student mental health services, all of those voices coming together to kind of talk about what good teaching and learning looks like.

[00:35:39] Each meeting has also involved those people reaching out to colleagues outside of that meeting to further advance the different voices that are engaged in this. We've also worked really hard to engage with our stakeholder groups, different committees that exist, and community groups, our principals, our assistant principals, the superintendents advisory committees, and also this is just part of an ongoing cycle of work.

[00:36:02] So the design team is giving us lots of input, we have a project management team that's trying to take that and turn it into actionable feedback and information and we're also working on a graphic or visual that will help represent what we've been hearing about teaching and learning. These are just some views of the teams that have been a part of teaching of the design team meetings and again what you'll see here is a diverse group of teachers from all different levels, all different contents. One of the key things about the instructional framework is that this should speak across all contents and all levels so from kindergarten through seniors we are trying

[00:36:38] to articulate a vision of what teaching and learning looks like in lcps and to do that we need lots of different voices in the room doing lots of different opportunities to provide input feedback collaboration and discussion those were really phenomenal meetings that we had just a great group of educators who really brought their best ideas to help us understand what they need to do their best work in lcps and these are some examples of that stakeholder engagement that i i was talking about so we've had our four design team meetings we've done lots of outreach to schools so we've spoken to the principal's advisory committee twice we've had multiple times at principal meetings to make sure our principals are

[00:37:16] aware of this work and what's happening we've had multiple meetings with the superintendent's teacher advisory committee I've presented twice to them about this work and we also met in March with our super with this student advisory committee and I'll show you their feedback in a second and that was one of the best of them all such great ideas around what good teaching and learning looks like and really helped clarify some things for us. With our community, we've spoken to CNI, LEAF, SEAC, School Business Partnership, MSAC, CTAC, Gifted Advisory, all those different groups have had opportunities to engage in this and provide their feedback to us around what this should look like in LCPS. And these are the questions that we have been asking.

[00:37:54] Remember we're trying to define a vision for teaching and learning and so these are the three questions that we consistently asked. What are the characteristics of grade instruction? How do you know when grade instruction is happening and what elements of high-quality teaching would you like to see happening more often or more effectively in schools across Loudoun County Public Schools and we kind of have some examples of the feedback we've heard from the different groups so this is our community feedback as you can see we heard from a large cross-section of different groups in LCPS and these are some emerging themes that we've heard on the next slide regarding what good teaching and learning oh I'm sorry sorry also from our staff we had 133

[00:38:30] different responses from staff about this, and the way we gathered that information was at each design team meeting, the design team was tasked with reaching out to three other people in the same job that you have. So assistant principals reached out to other assistant principals. We tried to give them some categories to make sure we got some diverse feedback. So we asked them to reach out to someone who might disagree with your ideas, someone who has more or less experience than you, someone who has a similar role but do it at a different grade level or a different subject area, and people who have worked outside of LCPS to try and make sure we're hearing lots of different voices in this.

[00:39:04] And as I mentioned, we've also given this survey to all of these different groups that are listed there, teacher advisory, principal advisory, principals meetings, and aspiring administrators. For the student feedback, we met with the student advisory committee. You'll see here in a second that one of the words that kept coming up was the word engage.

[00:39:22] And there was a lot of discussion among teachers, among administrators around what that word engage really means. So we took that, that's the question we took to our students and asked them what does it look like, sound like, or feel like in your classroom when your class is engaged in learning to try and bring some words to that so that we could help the adults who are doing this understand what exactly that means and also the specific actions that teachers take in order to foster an engaged learning community within their classroom.

[00:39:49] And we'll show you those responses here in just a second. So these are the themes that we see from our community work. Again, it comes back to safety, respect. Students feel valued within their classroom. Again, that word engage, you'll see that over and over and over again. Rigorous learning, that students have lots of experiences that are intentional, that we are being responsive to student needs, that they're excited about learning, that they come home with something to talk about from what happened in school that day, something that we heard over and over again.

[00:40:19] Again, that it is responsive to the needs in the classroom, that we are equipping students with the skills that they individually need in order to be successful, and that they have lots of different ways to share how they learned something. That it's not just testing, but projects and other opportunities for students to express what they're learning in class.

[00:40:38] From our staff, the good news throughout this whole process has been that there's a lot of agreement and consistency around what great teaching and learning looks like. And I think you'll see a lot of the same things. Students feel encouraged, affirmed, supported within their classrooms, that they're engaging, that they're rigorous, that they're aligned to standards in our curriculum.

[00:40:55] feel a connection there's authenticity to the work that is accessible to all students because of the work teachers are doing to differentiate or scaffold learning that they receive lots of feedback throughout the process to help students grow and understand better and that they have opportunities to collaborate to participate and really that teachers are in a role as a facilitator to help bring out from students what they know and to give students voice and choice over what they learn so again a lot of alignment there between those two groups and our students I just put in some quotes of what students said on the next slide because they were just too good around what engaging looks like so they're engaging in conversation with others

[00:41:33] feels like everyone is focused there's good questions being asked I was really students really honed in on the idea of having conversations with each other on collaboration discussion that those are things that teachers want I love the idea of there's an intense discussion with a lot of back and forth and a variety of opinions with the teacher chiming in occasionally you know that idea of being a facilitator and letting student voices be heard and let students dialogue with each other the idea that some classes require a lecture just to get material communicated there's lots of different ways that teachers teach but there's also activities where knowledge is applied there's ongoing projects and

[00:42:09] assignments and really let students dig into and work with their material so that was kind of their definition of what an engaging classroom looks like oh and there's more so these this is a question around specific actions that taken by the teacher so they communicate the why behind a topic that students understand where this fits into their overall learning that there's some release of control by the teacher and that the students have some autonomy over what they're doing the teacher feels excited to teach that they understand their students and know their students on a personal level where their interests are where there's an authentic connection with them and the teachers are kind and forgiving and understand that students learn and think differently

[00:42:49] from each other and have that flexibility built into their classroom to allow for that expression from different students so these are where we currently stand with our recommendations around the instructional framework and if you'll remember these are the those key components we're going to delve into the key components and indicators part of where we are in developing this in the process so having taken a lot of feedback from teachers on the next slide and from all these community groups we really did hone in on what we believe those those broad actions that happen in a classroom to be able to create

[00:43:26] effective learning environments with students and those are design engage and assess we heard these things over and over again that design teachers being very thoughtful about how they designed their instructional delivery for students that it was thoughtful about the students actually in the classroom and kind of tailored to the students in their classroom the teachers make that learning engaging for students and we saw some good definitions of what that might look like and that they're constantly assessing and thinking through where students are and how they can help students grow we also heard over over again about a strand of reflecting and responding that teachers are always thinking about where their students are and what works for their students and

[00:44:02] not just reflecting but also responding and so taking action or making adjustments based on the the information that they're collecting from students the feedback the data that they're collecting from students they are constantly thinking about how should I shift this how can I adjust this to best meet the needs of students and then within that we have these indicators that kind of further explain when we say design what does that mean when we say engage what does that mean when we say assess what does that mean so those are further definitions and those are actually still in a development stage lots of wordsmithing happening lots of feedback being gathered from from teachers and from our Department of Teaching and Learning and from

[00:44:39] principals they've all kind of given us their feedback on the latest draft of that and we continue to make adjustments and tweak that as we go along so this is how this currently stands I don't know that we're in a place to share the specific indicators yet that's still a work in progress but We do have a document and a draft that we are starting to define, where we've defined these statements, where we've listed some key indicators, where we have what we mean when we talk about reflecting and responding.

[00:45:06] And then also a section, the idea that kept coming up, you saw that in the feedback around students being affirmed, encouraged, welcomed, valued. And so there is a section in there around being student-centered and what that means for a teacher to create a learning environment that is student-centered for every student, creating that welcoming inclusive safe and affirming atmosphere so here we are our next steps in this is that we're continuing to synthesize this feedback continuing to make sure that we are being reflective of the voices that we're hearing around what good teaching and learning looks like we are finalizing this instructional framework with the key components

[00:45:43] and indicators and we hope to have a final version of this we know we will have a final version of this ready to share at alt in july when we bring our administrators together as an introduction to this one of the key things that we keep coming back to is about planning and for next steps in this process beyond just the development of it on our next slide you'll see a timeline for where we are so we are currently in this building the foundation section that will last until all that's just creating it we know there's a lot of work to do and we know that there's a lot of resources that need to be built so really what we're trying to achieve in the 24/25 school year is for principals and teachers to have an awareness of this and to spend

[00:46:21] some time learning about it we don't want to say now we're all doing the instructional framework we want to give teachers principals administrators our community time to really understand what this vision for teaching and learning looks like and to give us an opportunity to build resources and tools that will support the implementation of this in a really robust and full way when we do so the next year is about aligning our resources making sure that we have the appropriate supports for teachers and for administrators to implement this making sure that we have professional learning around unpacking what this means and we have really clear definitions of what this looks like for LCPS and communicating that out to our community to our teachers to our principals so that everybody has a level of understanding around what the

[00:47:01] expectation for teaching and learning in our classrooms looks like and we have this instructional framework project page which has been our source that we continue to refer people to around it it has all of the information that I shared here today as well as more information about each of those design team meetings and the best part of it is a let's talk button at the bottom where any member of our community, our teachers can click on that and give us their ideas around what good teaching and learning looks like.

[00:47:27] It's been incredibly valuable. We've gotten lots of responses from teachers, especially, who have a lot of support for this idea and appreciate, I think, the work that's happening here and lots of feedback to provide to make sure that this works across all contents, all grade levels. It's been a really exciting project to be a part of, and I think there's a lot of support from our teachers and our principals and our community around I think what we can achieve with the with the framework I would just add with the let's talk page one of the new strategies for communication this year through teaching learning is our newsletter and with s'more you're able to see the level of interest in certain links and consistently we're putting

[00:48:06] items in there around the instructional framework and teachers are definitely clicking trying to find out more we understand that they know that this is going to have an impact on them so we we are glad that we have that level of engagement if you just talk real briefly before we turn it back to yes there is a separate document in um in board docs around the external survey feedback that we've received and so uh that contains all of the feedback that we've gathered as part of this process for your review from our community and um and from the different groups that we've gathered so it's it's summarized and

[00:48:42] what i just shared there's the the full complete picture of that in the addendum that's included in board docs today. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the update and we're coming along and I think everybody's kind of getting more comfortable with what this is, why we're doing it. Personally I think it's long overdue to have this umbrella that explains why we do what we do and the best ways to do it. I know as a teacher myself that that's really important. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of the themes are the same. I think our teachers are engaging in excellent instruction every day and probably don't have as much space and time to share all of that so I think

[00:49:21] us dialoguing with them about this process is really important and we've all talked about the importance of how we convey this as not one more thing because I think that that is the thing that is really pushing our teachers to the brink right now is this idea that people just create more stuff for them to do all the time and this is not that and you guys have done a great job reaching out to the community and expressing that and I just want to keep that at the forefront of the conversation at one of the listening sessions Dr. Spence said something that just really resonated with me I actually ran over to Neil and was like this is what we're doing and he said

[00:49:58] there's a lot of arrows going around in a circle in LCPS and we need to take all those arrows and kind of figure out how we can get them to go in the same direction we're all playing for the same team doing the same things and I immediately thought of this because I was like that's what we're doing with the instructional framework we're taking all these things that we've done really well for many many years and we're pointing them in that one direction together for the best of our students teachers and community and I I hope that we can continue to I'm really looking forward to the alignment piece of the resources because I think it's really important that we name what we've done in the past I mean I was in a conversation with

[00:50:37] some teachers through LEA a couple weeks ago and they mentioned one to the world and I was like, whoa, like it took me way back, you know, and I know, right, and I'd forgotten about it because that was one thing that was kind of taken off and we moved in a different direction with PL and PBL and the five C's and Profile for Graduate, CLT, PLC, like you hear all of these acronyms and people that have worked in LCPS understand what that is, but where does that all fit and how can we highlight the good work that they've poured in for years and years through the instructional framework because I think that's our winning message here to make sure that they do

[00:51:13] not feel overwhelmed is the committee my question is is the committee staying the same throughout this entire process or will I've gotten a couple questions from teachers is there opportunity for that committee to be switched out at some point so that design team meeting or the design team committee was really formed around those four meetings that happened in January February and March our next step one of the things that we really want to create our work groups that will start maybe this summer to give more people the opportunity to come in and see what we have and also talk about the resources that we need to build so one of the last things we did with our design team we looked at all the

[00:51:51] different frameworks that existed in LCPS and we asked them not just to give feedback on that framework but to give us some guidelines that we should keep in mind as we create new resources and that's really where some of these work groups will come into is help us think through what new resources that support the framework will look like how do we be responsive to what our teachers and leaders have told us about what makes a good resource that's useful in a classroom for teachers and so lots of work around focus groups work groups to continue to gather information and make sure that we are being responsive to what our teachers and leaders are telling us about what they need will that be communicated through the newsletter me I'm just trying to think

[00:52:27] how will teachers know that they can will they be tapped on the shoulder will they be able to sign up we can we can work on adding more information about engagement I do foresee the instructional framework being a consistent topic in the newsletter I'll be consistently asking you for some time in this meeting I think at some point we'll probably be briefing the whole board on on this as part of the superintendent's entry plan so we could definitely take that feedback I just really appreciate you calling out the expectations from teachers and as I'm going out to talk to teachers you know

[00:53:02] we may have a vision up here but is it landing in those classrooms you you go to schools you still see one of the world posters you still see the core for for PL right and so this really is a question of leadership and like working with our ourselves working with our principals working with our teacher leaders to make sure that like you said we honor what we did and I think when you you'll see some of the indicators you're going to see clear connections to personalized learning clear connections to our literacy priorities clear connections to performance assessment um but we need to hold ourselves to account and what i'm hopeful is that our teachers have seen a path towards communication with us so they can call

[00:53:40] us out and hold us accountable like this sounds like you're bird walking a little bit like are we are we how does this go back to the instructional framework um so those are conversations we're having within the department of teaching and learning how are we going to hold ourselves accountable and make some really hard decisions for for shifting some of the way we we do business because our teachers really need us to do that.

[00:54:02] I have one more question before I hand it over to my colleagues, but I read through all the feedback, and I enjoyed reading it. I think it's really candid. And something that was a reoccurring theme is the technology use and sort of that balance, especially from parents.

[00:54:17] I think a worry that there's an over-reliance on technology. Some of the students even said, like, you know, the computers, we don't want to be on the computer all the time. So I'm wondering if you envision, and this is just sort of a philosophical question down the line, if you envision some work on our end in terms of policies around, you know, technology use in the classroom and different things that might emerge from this framework that we might not have regulations or policies for.

[00:54:44] That was something I thought about, but I wasn't sure if that's kind of where this might lead. I know there have been some high-level conversations about evaluating the impact of going one-to-one coming out of the pandemic. know we obviously went there very quickly based on need at the time but now we're kind of living in that world that we created during that time and so have we stopped and asked ourselves the questions is this really this really what we want is it developmentally appropriate is it having the impact that we want and so I think those discussions are happening and where whether that's conversation happening with a full board or with CNI we could definitely work

[00:55:23] through through that with an agenda we are having conversations in our instructional technology office about the type of tools that we're putting in front of students and how decisions are made we made a ton we had a ton of conversation for example about library books and resources have we had do we need to have a similar discussion about the type of digital content we're putting in front of students how teachers make decisions about digital tools that they use in the classroom how are we helping them make those decisions and I do anticipate that coming back for a conversation with the board at some point in the future and then finally the conversations around generative AI that we

[00:56:01] have been slowly working through internally some of our approach to that and we're probably at the point where we need to have a discussion at a future committee meeting with the board to say here's here's what we're thinking when it comes to generative AI so yes educational technology has a large number of topics we can we can discuss and we could definitely have conversations with board members about what direction they want to head with that topic I appreciate that partnership I think that that will be helpful.

[00:56:28] Colleagues? Along the use of technology, several teachers, groups of teachers, have indicated that they feel that some of the assessments are assessing the same thing, but they still have to do the assessments.

[00:56:53] And their question to me was, could you give them some guidance on which assessments are required by the Virginia Department of Ed versus which ones, are there some that we decide to use in addition to those required from the Virginia Department of Ed? And their thoughts were, or their comments were, well, the fact that it's computerized now, they just throw their assessments at us because it doesn't take much work on their part. I mean, I'm just speaking

[00:57:28] from their language so assessments in terms of the instructional framework might there be some adjustment in the number of hours spent on assessments per grade level so we are definitely thinking about assessment holistically but you dr. Deans you're really queuing up our next presentation with dr. Tyler here and we I think we have some good news because we have heard that feedback back as well. Okay. And so we do have an item regarding the assessment calendar that's going

[00:58:04] to go into a little bit of the discussions around the different assessments and the rationale for them. And so if maybe I could defer your question to that presentation and then if you still have questions we could have that. Well sure. But I thought I'd get on the technology piece since it was brought up. We agree and we are definitely thinking about assessment when it comes to the instructional framework but you know again the instructional framework is a holistic look but when it comes to day-to-day operations we need to have the conversation with the assessment office thinking about the needs of the division when it comes to strategic planning and so Dr. Tyler is

[00:58:40] going to spend more time on that. Before we take that segue do you have anything Dr. Rashid that you'd like to add are you ready to move forward? I have any questions. Wonderful. Thank you. All right with that thank you Dr. Deans we will move to talking about our assessments with the assessment calendar overview and i believe we have dr ellis and dr tyler here today to present the chief academic officer and dr tyler is our director of research assessment and school improvement also known as razzie and before i turn it over thank you ms shernoff before i turn

[00:59:15] it over to dr tyler i did also want to introduce lee bennett who is our supervisor of assessment services and also our division director of testing or affectionately known as ddot at the state level And I will turn it over to Dr. Tyler, and as Mr. Slevin mentioned, we do have some hot off the press news that we do think gives us a great opportunity.

[00:59:42] Thank you, Dr. Ellis and Dr. Deans for queuing up the presentation. So we're going to discuss the purpose of assessments in LCPS and really pivot it back to teaching and learning, why we have assessments.

[00:59:57] And we're going to go into the assessment schedule, as Dr. Ellis introduced our amazing supervisor of assessment services. She and her team have on the website a lot of great resources that explain the different division level assessments, access for families. And we will talk about an exciting opportunity that has been presented to us as of March 26th.

[01:00:17] And we'll have, of course, time for questions. Next slide, please. So the Office of Assessment Services, and this link is in Board Docs, and this link will actually take you to the website. And Lee Bennett and her team have extensive kind of background on each of our division level assessments, the actual purpose of it. We will give you an example of the assessment calendar. There are three different levels that are outlined there. And there's really wonderful resources for families as far as their rights, you know, different ways to access information. So that is a great resource that is constantly updated. So the next slide will take us

[01:00:54] two. One more, please. Getting back to the purpose. Accessments exist for teachers to be able to check for understanding for students on different topics, whether it's standards and different skills, and be able to utilize that to drive instruction. Within that, though, there's so many different types, everything from kindergarten readiness all the way up to readiness for college, to acquisition of the English language, to screeners that we use for our MTSS system.

[01:01:27] So getting back to whenever we're thinking about assessments, as Dr. Deans had mentioned, if we have redundancies, making sure that we're getting back to the purpose. And if we have true redundancies, that may be an opportunity for us to free up instructional time. But making sure that we lead with the purpose.

[01:01:43] So going further to the next slide. So Ms. Bennett and her team have compiled a schedule. The public has access to that through the website and also through the presentation. And on the next slide, you actually see an example from middle school.

[01:02:02] So you can access it. I was going to say leisure time, but school board members never have leisure time. So whenever you get an opportunity. You see here this is an example of each assessment has a very particular purpose. So if we're thinking about it, making sure that we're looking at an assessment, not in isolation, but if we're thinking about whether we make adjustments or introduce a new one or exit an existing one, what was that assessment's original purpose?

[01:02:28] Everything from access for ELLs, to what extent are English learners accessing the English language on their pathway to get into a level of proficiency where it maximizes their ability to master academic content, to the Virginia growth assessments, the idea put in place by the state for a very particular purpose, to VAP, to the alternative assessments, to the different WIDA screeners.

[01:02:56] Each assessment has a particular purpose, and that is outlined, and there is a time commitment to each that we've talked about. And you see that's outlined, and there's a schedule there. So there were questions as far as what types of assessments do we have at the division level, and what's the testing requirements there.

[01:03:14] What you do not see listed here, though, are that schools often have latitude to have particular programs and implement their own assessments. So there's other assessment kind of responsibilities or assessment time that's taken up that are school-level decisions.

[01:03:30] And again, supporting that as well. But considering that each assessment has its purpose and there's trade-offs, there's instructional time you have to devote to that. And we also get valuable information to see, for example, the extent to which English learners were making progress so that we're maximizing the ability of a student to where learning the language is not a barrier to learning academic content and the skills that need to be college and career ready so this is an example there's elementary middle and high school level examples the elementary one is very heavy because there are additional assessments as far as

[01:04:10] kindergarten readiness and other early reading assessments and you will actually see on on further slides miss bennett and her team actually gave you an assessment if you will i didn't mean that on purpose, a review of the actual instructional time that is devoted to administering assessments. So for example, how much time on average will my student spend engaged in district-wide assessments? By each window of the year and by each grade, for example, a sixth grade student on average in the fall window will spend 240 minutes on the division-wide assessments. It increases

[01:04:47] in the winter and the spring you see there and again this is on average and you're thinking this seems pretty significant this is a lot of instructional time I'm sure teachers are looking at this and thinking that is a lot of instructional time and on the next slide you see what that translates into in percentages so this is not cumulative this is for each individual window if you imagine that same sixth grade example you may get 2.2 2.4 percent of the actual instructional time during a particular window that's devoted to assessments.

[01:05:20] So there is a tradeoff, though, because we need to know the extent to which students are starting to master the content to get an idea of how they're progressing year to year. So we don't have students that are losing ground, and we need something in that case that's common that doesn't vary by school, and we need to make sure that we're not missing certain pockets of students.

[01:05:42] Schools are doing a phenomenal job with knowing their students on an individual basis at the school level, delivering formative assessments. We do need assessments, for example, like MAP to show in our strategic plan that we are facilitating growth in students and that we don't have pockets of students that are not growing and that are falling through the cracks as far as being college career ready.

[01:06:07] So it's a tradeoff there. But if you think about 2% of a 108-a-day instructional year is 3.6 days of instruction. So the idea of how do we find that balance? Because we also, for the equity work, for being who we want to be in our strategic plan, we have to make sure that we're following through and we're accelerating students.

[01:06:29] We're growing students. We're making them college career ready. But we're also not taking valuable instructional time. So this is in response to the question about the calendar, hoping that the calendars make it clear why we have the assessments, the purposes they serve. There is a commitment to instructional time to these assessments, which brings us to the next slide, assessment policies.

[01:06:53] So the next slide, please. So while some of us were on spring break, the governor signed House Bill 1076. There's a Senate bill, corresponding Senate bill. And the essential kind of takeaway from it is that the Virginia growth assessments have been administered for a few years now.

[01:07:11] And we used to have only SOLs administered in the spring. Virginia growth assessments administered in the fall and in the winter. And the idea is that they were intended to give us exactly that, a growth assessment and a metric of how students are progressing throughout the year.

[01:07:27] So the governor signed a bill that gives us the ability to forego the Virginia growth assessments for the 24 through 26 school years. Now, we're still waiting for guidance from the state on how that actually will follow through on that because there may be expectations around if you don't administer the VGA, but if you use, say, an alternative like MAP, they may have certain expectations about how we administer that.

[01:07:53] For example, they may, and I'm just giving you an example, the idea of they may say make sure that each student in these particular grade spans are administered some kind of growth assessment. So we do need to wait to get guidance from them, though we may have certain ways we're leaning in that direction.

[01:08:09] So that was signed on March 26th. I think if you go on the actual website, it's active, I think, July 1st is when it's supposed to go active. So we're hoping to get guidance from the state in the next couple of weeks exactly how we will be able to make that decision and if they have certain expectations or parameters around that.

[01:08:30] So at this point, I hope that we've addressed some of your questions about the assessment. calendar why we have these assessments and the different time that's devoted to it and this opportunity I'm sure we're excited I'm sure we have different opinions about which assessments we would opt to not administer looking at the VGA and maybe in favor of others so if there I have no further content we have questions or any additions from the panel I just add one thing to this slide thank you so this is a conversation that we've had we've been

[01:09:05] having internally for a while now we've been using the map assessment for how many years so I think this is our eighth year is our seventh or eighth year seven seven or eight years some schools particularly at the elementary level rely very heavily on that growth data and we also use it in the middle school and and very in very small circumstances at the high school level so we have had this conversation we hear regularly and and feel the pain that we're a set

[01:09:40] essentially double assessing students on using a growth measure so we are really excited about this possibility we're cautious because it's a two-year window we're also cautious because as dr. Tyler we are not sure what the guidance is going to bring that being said we are already having conversations and plan to expand those conversations now that we have the flexibility in writing to gather feedback from stakeholders including principals and teachers at the elementary and middle level to to determine next steps and it could be it could be using the map assessment in lieu of the Virginia growth assessment

[01:10:20] it could be discontinuing the use of the map assessment but we we recognize that we are are essentially double assessing and we need to address that we've been hesitant to do it before because we hadn't gotten the information the rich growth information from the vga that schools rely on from the map assessment thank you so much um i really appreciate this being added to the agenda this has been this is sort of one of those hills i want to die on i think um it's really important assessment is key to driving instruction and i believe in

[01:10:58] that but i'm also seeing what's happening and was living as in the reading world you know what's happening with our particularly as you mentioned our elementary teachers losing so much instructional time and feeling that they are in order to administer these assessments and I do appreciate these graphs or these charts on slide 8 and 9 particularly though on slide 9 it the interesting part of this is what percentage of instructional time on average will my students spend engaged in district-wide assessment I would love to see how much instructional time is

[01:11:32] lost by the teacher across the whole class because now you're talking about yeah they're losing this much instructional time for their particular assessment but the teacher has to administer that individual assessment then to 23 or 24 other kids and so I mean I hate to go back to the technology thing but in a lot of these grades where there's not a TA or a co-teacher you are seeing kids on computers on programs or engaged in other things but it's not direct instruction because teachers are doing one-on-one assessments for the month.

[01:12:04] So I think we need to really take a keen eye. And I know I've already talked to Dr. Ellis, and I think we're going to schedule some visits to go see. Teachers are inviting us to go out and see them give the assessments and what it really takes because also you have to, for VKRP and VALS now, which is in pilot, so we're going to give that some breathing room and some grace.

[01:12:23] But VKRP is like you have to set up all these materials too. So it's not just like you can just give it and that's it. There's transition times, too. So I really appreciate jump-starting this conversation. I was following this bill. I'm going to continue to follow what's going on at the state level.

[01:12:40] And even in Legislation Audit Policy Committee, I still put it on the VSBA proposal because I knew it was only a two-year window here. And we need to see this extended out. I definitely have opinions about keeping MAP versus VGA.

[01:12:57] But I think we'll have to hash that out as a committee and then full board or as staff we'll have to, I guess, make those decisions. But really looking forward to kind of diving deeper and analyzing how all this is going to play out. So that's what I have for now.

[01:13:12] Do you guys have comments and questions? And then I just want to circle back. Are we going to touch on where we are with Policy 50-30 for grading and assessment in terms of feedback? Yes, I'm happy to do that.

[01:13:30] Thank you for the reminder. so policy 50/30 grading and assessment is not up for its regular five-year review cycle yet that will start next year so we're already we're a year out from that however we have received and we continue to receive feedback on some of the challenges that teachers face with grading and assessment around that policy so we are in the process of setting up a thought exchange platform for gathering feedback from teachers and administrators on policy on assessment

[01:14:06] and grading that thought exchange will go live I don't have an exact date but it'll be within the next couple of weeks in April to gather that feedback we anticipate that the feedback will help us do a couple things we're starting to gather information before we revise the policy and it will have also have implications for the regulations and perhaps additional training may be needed clarification tweaks to the regulation so based on that feedback we'll be able to start that process if those of you who are not if you haven't had an opportunity to use a thought exchange yet it's it's an interactive

[01:14:46] survey it's a uses a rating system dr. Tyler can explain the details better but it's a really unique platform to get a lot more information than just a static quantitative survey so we're really looking forward to getting that feedback starting with our educator cabinet group teacher advisory and then others and we will keep you all updated throughout the process I appreciate that update and I know I sort of see this like symphony of assessment kind of coming together for us in a couple of ways.

[01:15:18] We have Dr. Spence's entry plan, which I know he has specifically called out the grading policy as something that has come up. Additionally, I was talking with a group yesterday that was mentioning 5350 in terms of parental notification, not including FastBridge as one of the things that reports.

[01:15:34] So I don't know if that might be a discussion that we might also want to have about how we're reporting and also just how we're communicating to parents an understanding of the assessments that we're giving. I know also we have talked about MTSS at our full board meeting, and we're doing some follow-up work with that at a June meeting as well.

[01:15:54] So I think we're kind of on the right path, especially also hearing from VDOE about MAP and VGA. We're really going to be coming to a nice place here at the end of the school year in terms of having some clear direction about where we're headed with assessment. So I really appreciate all your work. I know it is a tightrope walk in terms of what needs to be assessed and what drives our instruction and also making sure that we are instructing so I really appreciate the conversation is there anything else on this topic before we move to new business

[01:16:24] hey do either of you have any new business today with that I have one item I wanted to discuss our public commenters and teachers have been reaching out about the timing of this meeting not being responsive to the public and I know that as a board as board members we can't since we're on the same committee we can't discuss that necessarily outside of here so I just wanted to bring up that we are being mindful we have heard you we are thinking about that we have made a plan for this calendar school year calendar

[01:17:02] to finish out the next two meetings in May and in June at this nine o'clock time frame but we are looking to change that after the recess in July to be more responsive, not only to work schedules, but also to make sure that we can ensure that staff can get here and be a part of our meetings. Additionally, something that I have spoken with Dr. Ellis and Mr. Slevin about is these advisory committees that have been put together by teachers. I think it would be really beneficial for us as board members to hear directly from those committees rather than a game of telephone necessarily, and we wouldn't want them to miss instructional time in order to be able to do that.

[01:17:41] So we have heard you. We are mindful. We are going to finish out and then make that change. And I believe Mr. Slevin will help us coordinate with that. It will be the August time frame, correct, that we will renew and start with a fresh time. Yes, so I'll be reaching out to each individual committee member for some windows of time, and I'll make proposals, and we will try to have a plan by our May C&I committee meeting.

[01:18:08] Wonderful. so our next meeting is scheduled for May 2nd, 2024. Oh, was there any comments or discussion about the new business? Okay, and then if there is no other business, I will entertain, I actually don't have to entertain a motion, right?

[01:18:23] Is that correct? I will adjourn the CNI meeting, so thank you all for your attendance.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com