Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Curriculum & Instruction Committee Meeting, Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Date: Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 13m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1036234297?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 2026-10-20. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] all righty uh good afternoon everyone i'd like to call this december 4th 2024 curriculum and instruction committee meeting to order um lauren schernoff the chair of this committee and i'm joined by my colleagues dr rasheed and dr deans um there is no public comment today so we will go ahead and move straight into our agenda item 3.01 the approval of draft minutes from november 6 2024 meeting do I have a motion for approval or any changes so moved a second second

[00:00:33] with that all those in favor say aye all those opposed excellent with that the minutes are approved we will move on to our information items tonight with 4.01 the Department of Academics will be talking about policy 50/30 assessment and grading so I will turn it over to dr. Ellis our chief academic officer and And she is here with Dr. Blakelock, who is the Research and Evaluation Supervisor.

[00:01:04] Floor is yours. Thank you very much, Ms. Chernoff. As you mentioned, I am here with Dr. Blakelock from the Research Office. And I also just want to give a shout-out to the entire research team who supported the efforts with these focus groups.

[00:01:20] I'm going to provide just a high-level overview of where we have been and where we're going with the review of policy 50/30, and then I'll turn it over to Dr. Blakelock, who will do a deep dive into the focus group results. There is a separate attachment that is multiple pages, and Dr. Blakelock will provide a summary of the work that they did and the high-level results and the recommendations, and then we'll talk a little bit about next steps.

[00:01:48] So on the next slide, you'll see the overview of the timeline that we are marching through. And just wanted to keep grounding ourselves in that. On the next slide, you can see what we have done so far in this journey.

[00:02:06] And we are in, obviously in December, it's kind of hard to believe, where we're presenting to you the focus group feedback. did make a minor change based on the amount of the sheer amount of feedback that we got we are not bringing any policy recommendations to you this evening that is intentional we would love your feedback on the recommendations and we will then take that feedback plus all the information that we've gotten from the focus groups and make any policy revisions and regulation changes

[00:02:41] I think you'll see in the feedback that there is likely not a huge overhaul of policy 50-30. And I know we talked about this in previous committee meetings. We weren't expecting that. We didn't really see that need come out in the feedback.

[00:02:58] But again, we really would appreciate your feedback on that as we move forward. So we will then in January bring any recommended changes based on this evening's discussion. that keeps us on time, again, with our ultimate goal to have any recommended changes approved by the whole board in April, and that would give staff time to develop communication and training plans to be fully implemented for the start of the school year.

[00:03:28] So on the next slide, it's just a brief reminder of what we heard last spring, in the spring of 24 the things that kept bubbling to the top in listening sessions and what board member conversations with constituents and staff met conversations with constituents there were three big topics the floor of 50 retakes and the roles of formative and summative assessments that was the start of the conversation in the focus groups that dr. Blake lock and team led and as you will see in just a moment a couple of other ideas emerged again I don't think it's anything surprising necessarily really helpful and interesting ways that

[00:04:08] teachers and parents are seeing some of the challenges in the policies and I in the policy and some great ideas for moving forward so with that I'll turn it over to dr. Blake lock who will walk us through both the process and the ideas that came from it thank you dr. Ellis over the next few slides I'm going to talk about the recruitment for the focus groups the themes that were identified and a summary of the recommendations that were extracted from themes. Participants were recruited through several different methods. A link was sent to parents and guardians and secondary teachers that included a form where they could sign up. As you can see from the percentage of the emails read,

[00:04:47] we looked at about 45,000 people open the email from parents and guardians and about a thousand secondary teachers open open the email so we knew that they had awareness and accessibility to this particular project. Once we had the signup form closed, we did a random selection of participants for each of groups based on the session that they conducted indicated they were available.

[00:05:09] Principals and students were purposely selected, with students from the second superintendent's advisory committee having the opportunity to participate, we basically said who wants to participate, anyone who signed up, we invited them to do, and then there was a specific group of secondary principals that were identified to speak to about this.

[00:05:25] Go to the next slide, please. This is basically the breakdown of the number of sessions that were conducted for each participant group with the majority with the biggest one being the secondary teachers we had five sessions for them as the folks that were closest to the work around this policy in particular go to the next slide please in addition to the focus group a let's talk form that asked for feedback on policy 5030 was sent to the lcps community this slide shows the dates and channels the form was distributed the form was open at the same time the focus groups were being conducted and we received a

[00:06:00] total of 483 responses to the let's talk forum next slide please the next few slides will summarize the focus group themes they are broken into overall challenges the floor 50 retakes and formative assessments i think one thing that's important to note is that this is a perceptual data and so why you'll hear me say and you'll see in the report a lot of participants said participants reported because we're putting the results in the in the voice of the people who participated in the focus groups um as you can see participants reported there were overall challenges related to understanding the policy whether it be from vague language or challenges

[00:06:40] is with the vague terminology, participants universally reported that it was not being implemented consistently, so there's a lot of discussion about what should happen in each scenario, and because we had teachers from a lot of different schools, there was a lot of it should be this, it should be that, trying to gain some sense-making that happened actually in the focus groups themselves.

[00:07:02] We also saw with the inconsistency that it was not just between schools, but also within schools as well, department to department, and a lot of that may be stemming from the fact that there's some of the vagueness of the policy or the lack of that the challenges with understanding the policy. If you go to the next slide please. The participants also expressed the thought that having one policy that applied to all grade levels may not be the best way to go. They talked about the fact that as students progress and become closer to college that maybe the academic expectation should more closely mirror those of college and they also spoke about the idea that executive functioning skills for a sixth grader are much

[00:07:40] different than those of a 10th or 11th grader so they also shared that um one of the things about the one of the negative implications of the policy is on students completing their work and particularly homework and the formative assessments themselves go on to the next slide please so in terms of the floor 50 participants were unclear as to when the floor 50 should be applied some participants thought it only applied to the quarter grade whereas others thought it was to apply to every assignment that students completed principals teachers and parent guardians all said that the floor of 50 should not apply to the advanced placement

[00:08:17] courses. You will note that the word students was not said. They did not agree with that concept. Participants also said the floor of 50 should only be available when students regularly attend class. So the idea being that kids miss the entire quarter, show up the last couple of days and try to like cram in a quarter's worth of work that maybe the floor of 50 should not necessarily apply to students in those situations.

[00:08:41] Go to the next slide, please. Based on the focus group discussions, it was unclear if participants knew that retakes only apply to major summative assessments and does not go to minor ones. Pretty specific in the policy around that.

[00:08:57] The teacher shared that the students get caught in a cycle when it comes to the retake because they're studying content that was delivered three or four weeks ago, taking away from the time that they're studying the content that's being taught in the present day. And so they kind of get in this kind of constant behind loop as they're trying to catch up with the retake concept itself.

[00:09:17] They also shared that some students were not studying for the summative assessments because they knew they could retake a test. And so maybe they had five tests in one day and they're going to study for two of them knowing that they could retake three of them. So there was a little bit of talk about, you know, the fact that students in some cases will walk in and say, okay, when's the retake before even starting the test itself.

[00:09:39] If we go to the next slide. So some of the solutions we discussed, and some of this was based on the feedback that we got in the spring. There should be a deadline by which the retake is completed. That already exists in the policy, but it's somewhat arbitrary as far as the timelines in terms of when it says it should happen and different benchmarks along the way.

[00:10:03] There's mixed feedback. There was talk about from the spring of lowering the retake ceiling to 70, that you couldn't get higher than a 70. That got very mixed responses from the participants in the focus group. Some thought it was a lot of all of our problems, some thought it was not a good idea.

[00:10:19] Students should be required to complete formative assessments before they can do a retake, and there's two different ideas on that, with one being that they have to do all the formatives before the original assessment, before they could actually qualify for a retake, and the other was that they would have to do the formatives between the original assessment and the retake.

[00:10:37] And the idea behind that is, you know, teachers were not able to gauge students' progress for how they were doing with the lessons if the formative assessments were not being complete. So they didn't really understand what mastery of material was until the summary assessment was actually completed.

[00:10:55] And they should not be similar to the floor 50, should not be allowed in advanced placement courses and once again, the students did not agree with that concept. In terms of formative assessments, students are not grading them because they're not graded.

[00:11:14] Everyone was pretty clear on that idea. We heard from the parents that they thought the term formative was too complicated and the idea that the formative has this negative stigma to it because it's not graded, kids aren't completing it. They said, "Is this a quiz?" is kind of how they put it out there, the technical language around it.

[00:11:34] And then across the board, including the students, to consider making them a small portion of the grade, like a 5 to 10 percent, students like that because it took some of the weight off of their other grades, and the idea being that it has a little bit of a carrot to it for students to actually complete those form of assessments.

[00:11:53] So when we look at the summary of recommendations, and again, this is sort of pulled out from the body of the, you know, 11 or 12 pages, if we go to the next slide, really what folks were recommending was, you know, a revision of the policy and regulations just to create some clarity around things.

[00:12:13] talk about you know that if there is potential for you know retakes to not occur but it's not necessarily clear what that process is there was some talk of allowing sub-level of teacher autonomy and determining if there's an extenuating circumstance with a retake or not clarify the deadline by which the retake must be completed and the big one being communicate that the opportunity for reassessment only applies to major summative and that's something that could happen right away because that's already in the policy the other term to be defined is a reasonable effort when it's applied to the floor of 50 it could be kids took did half the questions to kids never open the assignment in

[00:12:53] Schoology go to the next slide please a big one was developing a clear communication strategy for staff and families to improve the understanding of the policy obviously we had a pretty big wild-card event that impacted that when we the policy originally came out but that's something that came out clear that we really need a clear understanding of from both parents and teachers of what it is that this means and what we should do there should be a system to review the practices to make sure that that fidelity is occurring so looking at that consistency piece to kind of check in to make sure things are happening as they're supposed to be the tiered expectations speaks to the idea of the

[00:13:32] one-size-fits-all may not be the best way to go and then I have one more slide require students complete homework and form of assessments before the initial assessment summative assessment in order to be eligible for retake that one had more favor for it than the one that's doing it after, just to show that level of student effort that goes into the work and the learning experience. Consider changing the retake ceiling to 70. Ensure teachers are entering grades into the gradebook in a timely manner. That comes from the idea of that's one part of the trigger of the timeline in the policy and also helps keeps parents aware of, you

[00:14:10] know, where students are, how they're doing, those sorts of things. And then add completion of formative assessments to the student responsibilities section of the policy because that it's not in there right now with that I'll turn it back to dr. Ellis thank you dr. Blakelock and thanks again to you and your team for organizing and taking notes and summarizing all of the focus groups responses so before we talk about next steps I do have another slide after this but before we get to the next steps I would love to open it up for committee

[00:14:47] discussion to talk about and hear what you all are seeing in the feedback and thinking about the feedback so we just have a couple of questions for you you can go in any order pick a question that that speaks to you what are you noticing about the feedback in the report are there any surprises to you and what recommendations for revisions or clarifications to the policy or the regulation do you see emerging at this time based on this feedback thank you so much before I open it up I just want to thank you for the work they really did

[00:15:25] the work and you did the work with the people in the trenches who do the work every day with our kids and that really matters to me it matters to our committee I think it matters to our board and I think it helps us make good decisions so I definitely appreciate all the work and I appreciate that now we can be grounded in what people actually feel I actually like that it's perceptual data Like, I love numbers, too, but I feel like in this instance, like, we really got a clear trend and theme across, and, you know, we're really seeing where some of the pitfalls are, and I think we can close those gaps fairly easily.

[00:16:00] And I know there was some fear that this might be a very contentious process as we kind of look at this from the very beginning, but I haven't felt that way at all. I have felt like our educators and our families have walked the path with us and shared willingly what has been a concern. And so before I open it up to the questions, I just wanted to, as you know, the chair that brought this forward in early February, I think, we've come a really long way.

[00:16:25] And I think we're in a really, we've positioned ourselves well to make some really, really good decisions that are going to benefit our kids. So thank you. I will open it up to the committee to tackle the questions. Dr. Rasheed? Thank you, Chair. I just noticed the main thing in the feedback or feedback report was 50-50-50-50.

[00:16:43] I just keep seeing that over and over again. The point of the matter is that students feel that, you know, I'll just get a 50, so, you know, why bother? Why study? I also like the different recommendations that it talks about in regards to the suggestions.

[00:17:04] I like, well, another thing I did notice was the timely manner of grading. Again, we talked about this, I think, a couple months ago, where students think that, oh, I have an A, and then all of a sudden, you know, they're getting regraded and then they have an F or a D and then, you know, the anxiety kicks in. So that is the common theme that I notice.

[00:17:23] And I think that this is kind of more of something to think about over and over again. I don't think it's something that is definitive. And I like that. I like the recommendation of not having one universal policy, which did not work. Thank you. Dr. Deans, did you want to speak to the first question?

[00:17:41] Or any, I guess, Dr. Ellis. The question or the information about the ceiling to 70, consider changing the retake ceiling to 70.

[00:17:58] Okay, what was the retake ceiling initially? 80. So the current retake ceiling is 80, and some of the thinking behind the change to 70 is that you could have a student who worked really hard to get a 78 and then wants to go through the process of retake to try to get those extra two points.

[00:18:14] Or you have students who put in a lot of effort and can only get to, like, a 75 or 77, and then students who are coming in with a retake and able to get that 80 on the second try through. Okay. It concerns me that the ceiling was moved down to 70 because I think that if the teacher is going through the extra effort to give the retake, then there should be a higher ceiling. That's what I'm thinking.

[00:18:48] And especially since you're not, the recommendations don't include the advanced students. I think that's a low expectation to change it to 70.

[00:19:07] I think we need to keep high expectations, and I think it should remain at 80. That's my thought. So seeing that sort of concerned me. And the part about the teacher having some autonomy in determining which kids would actually take the retake, that also, am I right about that?

[00:19:40] - So the idea behind that idea is when we limit, if there is a limit to retake, so if there's like a hard limit of like one or two per quarter per class or something along those lines, that there may be some extenuating circumstances that occur with students that maybe one or more would happen.

[00:19:57] Again, this is the feedback that came from focus groups themselves as far as an approach to be able to work through this policy. Well, I'm concerned about leaving it to the teacher. I think we need to put as much in the policy as we can and not leave it to the teacher because from discussions, not with your focus groups, but from discussions, students talk frequently about teachers' varying autonomy in terms of different students.

[00:20:28] So we need to write as much in the recommendations as we can and not leave it, not leave so much to the teacher's autonomy. Those are the two things that jumped out at me. All right.

[00:20:47] I have a few things to say. I wasn't very surprised about the feedback. So on that end, I have a question for you. Was there anybody who was like, rah, rah, this policy is awesome the way it is?

[00:21:05] No. Okay. I think that that's a valid data point. Well, at least it makes me feel better about putting it forward earlier than its revision cycle. That kind of surprised me because I thought that, you know, usually with things there's people that are like, yeah, leave it be or change it.

[00:21:21] And I got the same sense from the people that I've spoken to. So I guess that's my one surprise. I would say that there is some extent of selection bias in that sense that, you know, you're signing up for the opportunity to revise a policy. that you may not necessarily do that if you feel that that policy should be left alone.

[00:21:39] That's fair. That's a fair point. I appreciate that. So, yeah, I wasn't super surprised. I really felt like most of the feedback aligned with the idea that students, like the policy wasn't intended to do this, but it isn't motivating students to consistently put forth their best effort.

[00:21:55] It definitely is creating sort of an effort scale, which I think was unintended, where it's like how much effort can I put in in the slot machine to get back my money, right? So that is definitely a major theme of the report. I thought that there was a clear sense that the policy has not been consistently applied.

[00:22:15] You hit on that. I didn't realize that people felt like that was not only school to school, but department to department. I think that that's very interesting. So how we can not only do work across the division, but work across our schools is going to be really important. And then also, again, it's the same questions we've talked about is like balancing between giving kids those second chances.

[00:22:36] supporting them but also making sure they're prepared for the real world and for me like when I think about revisions of this policy and moving forward I also very much agree with Dr. Rasheed that I think we need to address each level and I think it has to be middle high school and college level courses I think it has to be three different levels and what I would really like to see as I've thought about this and read through the feedback is a sort of gradual release approach where the scaffolding sort of shifts down if you will as they get older and as they have more experience in school so I am in

[00:23:14] favor of putting some caps and limits on retakes as they move up the grade levels I think that that would be something that would provide clarity for our teachers and make it very you know it is what it is I also was concerned about about the 70 percent. I was surprised to see that. Is that a D plus? A 70? That's a D plus. It's a C minus. Okay so to me I mean if you're going to take a retake and all you can get is a C minus

[00:23:48] I'm not sure what the purpose is in that but I would maybe as they go up that could be a gradual release as well. I'm very much in favor of clear definitions and communication. I think that we that's an area that we we always constantly struggle is like well I didn't know that's what that meant and defining what fits under a formative so maybe a checkpoint or a quiz or a you know an exit ticket even parents trying to understand what all of that is and just making sure that parents understand what it means to have completed the work on time and to do those

[00:24:25] expectations what that is and then the last thing I really wanted to think about and this will be more of a nuts and bolts as we go forward is really thinking about how we support our teachers in these changes so if we're gonna I was talking to dr. Ellis about this earlier if we're gonna put a cap on retakes right so now every kid gets one retake a quarter let's just say hypothetically now teachers across multiple blocks multiple subjects lots and lots of students now have to manage that so thinking creatively maybe I'm not a tech person but maybe DDI could look into you know when you submit the retake it checks a box so that takes

[00:25:04] that ability away just things that we can do to help support our teachers so that this doesn't become an enormous workload to manage just even the logistics of it I think would be important were there any other and then I wanted to say something to what you said Dr. Dean's about the the 50% floor and about teachers knowing when I do think we need to do some work in defining what those circumstances are whether that's illness or family trauma or I think we need to be very clear and maybe create a list and think about maybe what are we trying to avoid and then

[00:25:43] back into it that way and think about what we can do how we can word it to make sure those outcomes don't come in that was a lot that's kind of where my head's at one more comment the the advanced students you're getting them ready for college but in college do they not often have an opportunity to advocate for themselves negotiate for themselves I guess is what I'm saying and

[00:26:17] should we leave them totally out of the consideration for retakes and I say that Because the older the child gets, I mean, the higher the grade, the more activities that they might be involved in. Even some of them who are doing, what is it, dual credit, dual enrollment, and that kind of thing, and even driving from one place to the other, it's added stress on them.

[00:26:43] So should we leave them totally out of the retake process? That's a question. So just to add some clarity from the data itself, you know, with the dual enrollment courses, The teacher is required to follow the university's grading policies.

[00:26:59] So retakes are not available in dual enrollment classes, just based on the partnership with the university. The idea with the AP courses being that given that they potentially could have a college credit associated with them, they are more of an advanced course, to try to more closely mirror what you would see in a university in terms of the retakeability, more so than what we have currently in existence.

[00:27:25] Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to say as a college professor, there are no retakes, you know, in most of the courses that I can't speak for every college professor. As a college professor myself, we're getting more and more students at Northern Virginia Community College that are asking for this.

[00:27:44] So the students are growing in number that are kind of expecting a second chance, so to say. And I tell you, me and a lot of other instructors and faculty professors, we're just like kind of taken aback. We're like, you know, this isn't what's going to prepare you for the real world.

[00:28:03] But I can see this kind of flowing in. But then they get kind of shocked when they come to college. But just to speak on that part. Thank you. And to add to that, though, even in a professional job, you are often given an opportunity for corrective action before you're fired I'm just I'm just I'm just giving some what-ifs so yeah I appreciate the perspective from both of you I you know

[00:28:41] definitely coming from different lenses I think I fall more on the side with what dr. Rasheed is saying and what the feedback was saying in turn I mean this is coming from someone who wants kids to succeed has worked for kids her whole life but I do think we're doing a bit too much hand-holding and we got to do better and raise the bar and and help support them where we can and I yeah I think if it's a college level course or there's implications of that like we we've had enough practice with having second chances at that point so for me it feels a bit hand-holdy and we want our kids to be prepared but I definitely

[00:29:16] hear the sentiment the other thing I wanted to say that I forgot in my notes is that I really feel like as it relates to the 50% floor that if there is not an illness not an extenuating circumstance which you are gonna work on defining for us I don't think we should be giving out 50% when there was zero effort and work was absolutely not turned in I just can't wrap my brain around giving out a free 50 when 0% effort went in so I would like to see that clearly defined if possible. If my colleagues agree or not I don't know but I feel like if you

[00:29:53] don't do the work at all there cannot be a cushion. I agree with that but I also recommend putting that 70 up to 80. I agree. Alright thank you so much that was really helpful. We could go to the next slide. So in terms of next steps we will We'll take all of your helpful feedback and do a couple things between now and when we meet next.

[00:30:31] The research office is going to pull together a research brief on current research on assessment and grading. If we specifically were going to focus on the three main topics that we've been talking about.

[00:30:47] We plan to share any highlights from that that could inform revisions to the policy with you. also prepare draft revisions to the policy and clarification to the regulation based on your discussion today and based on the recommendations from the focus groups with the goal of in February so you would review those recommended changes in January have another discussion and with a review in February and state that at that point the stakeholder feedback window will

[00:31:22] open I've also been talking with dr. Tyler and dr. Blake lock about how we can include teachers more explicitly so everyone will have an opportunity to provide feedback in that open stakeholder feedback window like they do with all policies but we are also going to plan a way to incorporate more specific teacher feedback whether that's reaching back out to the focus group volunteers to say this is what we heard here are the draft revisions are are are those two things aligning um and then potentially teachers who were not participants

[00:31:58] in the focus group but perhaps have have a grading an assessment system that works really well in their own classrooms what do what would these changes do to their practices so we think that would be really interesting information to have moving forward and with that i'll turn it back over to you ms shirnoff thank you i have two follow-up questions um just to clarify so next time you'll bring the revisions to us for both the policy and the regulation or

[00:32:30] just the policy first so I am still not anticipating huge revisions write the policy so I think it would be helpful to have them side by side yes even though you won't officially approve the regulation okay yes I agree I was that's what I was asking okay and then I I think I actually misspoke I the feedback window will open in January and then February the committee will vote on the recommendations to move it to the full full board that'll keep us on our timeline sorry about that no that was what I was just wanted to clarify that

[00:33:06] sounds good and then I'm also wondering just after what you said just made me wonder I know with like the cell phone policy and things like that we've like kind of given like a buffer year like where we can kind of go back in and if there's things that aren't working and I'm wondering if that would also be something that the cni committee might consider is just sort of keeping it in the back of our minds to just sort of revisit if there are any glaring red flags since you know hope my hope is that this is gonna this is gonna stick and this is gonna work and we're gonna have something that we can depend on um but with the nuts and bolts coming together and it being a shift i think that

[00:33:43] that might be something to to consider so all righty with that we will move on to our are we good. We'll move on to our next information item, which is first aid, CPR, and AED certifications. And our presenters today are Mr. Jeff Roundsley, Director of Teaching and Learning, and Ms. Amy Wheeler, who's the Supervisor of Health and Physical Education. Welcome. Floor is yours. All right. Good evening, everyone. We are here based on some new business that Dr. Rasheed

[00:34:17] raised at the last meeting around looking at options for a certification for students before they graduate from high school when they graduate from high school in CPR and so Amy Wheeler our health and PE supervisor has been working diligently collecting some information from some neighboring jurisdictions and looking at options for how we might be able to provide that and also share some background information on what our current practices are in our schools now we also are going to talk about some options of what this might look like there are some challenges associated with a universal certification for students, mainly around, we already have a lot of curriculum components

[00:34:56] that are required in our health and PE classes, just the integrity of the process at a higher level for certification than what is currently happening in our classrooms, and then just the access to students to make sure that that certification is still relevant and valid when they graduate from high school.

[00:35:13] So we'll share some ways that we might be able to deal with those challenges and also some additional options for some more targeted certification opportunities for students that we would be able to provide in our schools so with that i'm going to turn it over to miss wheeler to share some background and some options we have for moving forward thank you for the opportunity to talk about the life-saving skill of cpr so just what the experts are saying if you could go to the next slide

[00:35:46] the goal of cpr training is basically to empower people to act immediately and confidently in the event of an emergency because immediate cpr can double or triple the victim's chance of survival and if you look at the last paragraph there about the average person the reason why hands-only cpr is widely accepted is because it is simple it's effective and it does not have the mouth-to-mouth component which is intimidating to a lot of people so later in the presentation

[00:36:22] we'll compare and contrast what it means for training versus certification and that's important to understand but this is what the experts are saying about CPR so hands-only CPR is the widely accepted method and then if you could go to the next slide this shows here that in an effort to empower more people specifically our students to respond immediately and confidently Virginia passed this law that requires first aid CPR and AED training they do classify it or require it to be a training not necessarily a certification and in the

[00:37:02] components of first aid CPR and AED we'll talk about that in a moment with the hands-on practice of the skills necessary to perform CPR so in the next slide the column to the left it breaks down what a training is and this is currently what LCPS and most districts around Virginia do and this is all basic skills and knowledge so it's basic skills and knowledge of the CPR first aid and AD and then it's hands only practice of CPR so while many of our

[00:37:41] teachers do stations of how to use an EpiPen or how to put on a sling that type of thing it's not required so they do station work but it's not tested the test that students take is everything like you're just talking in the grading policy it's it's all LCPS focus whereas if you look over in the certification column it becomes very formal and a lot of times with the the competency exam like the written exam for all three components it has a threshold like you

[00:38:19] have to get an 80% or higher which is difficult for many of our students to achieve and then the practical skill assessments are actual it's not hands-on practice there are actually assessments of each of the components so with all All that being said, you look at the last row about the duration and so when we're talking about a standard unit of health instruction for a topic that usually covers between like six and eight class periods.

[00:38:51] So with the training version, which we do now, a teacher is able to get through the content knowledge and go do the lab, I'm going to call it a lab because that's essentially what it is, of the hands-on practice versus the certification option which essentially doubles that amount of time because um there has to be remediation for the test taking the written test taking and then also the hands-on components because all of those components have to be met and then with this also there is a ratio of instructor to student which is about american

[00:39:30] heart says about one instructor to 10 students so just some logistics start to happen when we get get into the certification side of things then expiration there's no expiration on training so that's positive for certification it is an expiration after every two years so the reason why I wanted to focus on the duration between like a standard unit of health instruction versus if we were to certify and it kind of doubles it is because the topics in health and PE9 are

[00:40:08] really important and several of the topics anything with an asterisk is something that is required by Virginia. So required are either a very relevant important topic right now and so you see fentanyl awareness is there under substance abuse prevention, mental wellness, social-emotional health, of course first aid, CPR, AED. Under violence prevention is hazing prevention and that just passed so that's now a requirement that has to go into health

[00:40:42] PE 9 and 10 and then down at the bottom family life education also has some regulations that are required in that with that being said the certification model would have to bump something out of the ninth grade curriculum so I just wanted to point that out and I think we're ready for the next slide so I've been able to talk with many people many of my counterparts around the state and

[00:41:18] ask if they train or if they certify I haven't asked everybody but I think I was up to probably 20 some different divisions and only three are certifying two of those are much much smaller like only one high school and the supervisor that I latched on to the most was from Henrico and they actually used to certify and now have reverted back to the training because the duration was starting to bump other topics and it just wasn't being done with high fidelity or

[00:41:52] integrity to some extent so the next slide is what we're gonna oh not the next one in a second we're gonna get to a slide that's gonna be the Cadillac option and I got this idea from Henrico because it's what they're working with and I know they're a much smaller division so bear with us when we get there but I'll get to that in a moment so you can go ahead to the next we're going to go into some options and you're going to see a scary one and then we'll give you one that's less it's more budget neutral somewhat so the next slide

[00:42:31] shows you the certifying organizations and American Heart is definitely the gold standard and we don't use that we currently use emergency care and safety Institute this is good for this fits our needs and basic level information definitely not the gold standard they're both two years for certifications and then the student would have to go through the recertification path American Heart is much more rigorous and the last thing that I'll say on this is

[00:43:06] talking with Jeanne Cloman and actually Dr. she's talking with you it's apparent that if a student were to go and like go to Inova or something to try to get a job after high school many medical professional organizations groups whatever will not accept ECSI as a certification and the student would have to go through American Heart anyways so the numbers that I have in the next few slides are using ECSI and those are lower numbers so if we were to go with

[00:43:40] American Heart like everything would go up and here we go if we were to certify students through the ninth grade curriculum after talking with henrico they do have a cpr coordinator in place one to cover their nine high schools and this is not for certification this is just for the training so we still have students like who may be transferred to us that didn't get this from

[00:44:15] wherever they came from or for whatever reason they didn't get cpr training in ninth grade 10th eleventh and twelfth graders, they still have to get this for graduation. So currently we have our Health and PE teachers collaborating with school counseling to do this during their like planning block or before school or after school and this is without compensation.

[00:44:40] So Henrico has a position where that person goes out and helps to get these students to the finish line for their training for their graduation requirement. So what you're seeing here is for certification. it's important to note the difference there and if we're gonna shift from the training model to a certification model I'm proposing to have a CPR coordinator within six certified instructors who are assigned to the different planning districts and the next slide can I just add one one comment to that a point that

[00:45:19] Amy has brought up as we've been working on this as well is that CPR does cross out of teaching and learning into many other positions as well currently it is requirement for teachers for their recertification to be trained in CPR and that's managed out of Amy's office despite the fact that it's for other teachers the health and PE teachers have to provide that training so Amy's talking specifically about training for all of the students but there are lots of components around CPR that's done for staff members that's done for our school nurses it does cross out of teaching and learning to many other aspects of the organization thank you and this slide breaks it down a little

[00:45:57] bit better so that coordinator would manage the CPR platform whether it's American Heart or ECSI so right now we're doing that anyways with our teachers our ninth grade certified instructors the coordinator would manage the inventory for the equipment order maintain it and then you see the bullet that's what Jeff was talking about there at the very end manage all aspects of CPR for the office that includes teacher licensure we help with coaches and then of course with our health and PE teachers who we have to keep their

[00:46:36] instructor certification up as well so then the six certified instructors they would be assigned they would be like itinerant to three schools and they would assist with the ratio that we would need with certifying in the ninth grade so they would help with the ninth grade certifications if we were to go that route and then they would also help to track those students in the 10th 11th and 12th grade who needed for their graduation requirement as well there are some other things but my eyes aren't working so I can't even read that but I think we've covered most of that yeah I think the idea there would be that part

[00:47:14] of what's taking so long is that a teacher would have to work with a very small group of students in a health and PE class may have 35 to 40 students they're working in groups of one to ten and so that's what extends that time out if we had additional people we could have additional groups within each classroom working with we would be able to move students through the training or the certification process faster because we'd have more adults providing instruction and then the cost breakdown the total FTE you can see is a large chunk of change then the digital certification cards this is through ECSI

[00:47:49] and that comes out to about seventeen thousand dollars it would be more if it was American Heart the workbooks right now we have a class set of them and that comes into about thirteen thousand dollars I believe that if we were to certify that the student should actually have the workbook for reference and so then that would be a yearly cost of a hundred twenty five thousand seven hundred dollars then just the wear and tear of the equipment budgeting about two hundred dollars per school per year to re-up their inventory that would come

[00:48:26] in at about five thousand and you can see option one and option two it's between nine hundred thousand and a million dollars next slide and then we also have a more reasonable proposal that I think would I think would be very beneficial to students and that includes identifying students in courses that are already in a pathway such as camsci or the nasm personal trainer course or sports medicine where they have a vested interest in the medical

[00:49:04] professional or medical profession even offering it to students who are interested who maybe aren't in those classes maybe for babysitting or lifeguarding and then some of the costs that we decided to that we thought would be fair was to provide a stipend for health and PE teachers who are certified to host up to 10 students and we we thought two like one per semester and so that's just a rough

[00:49:37] estimate based on what do we say 650 students kind of what we gauged and then still for the each student to have a workbook I really think that's important that if they're going to go through the process they should walk away with that book I don't have the number for shifting from ECSI to American Heart.

[00:49:58] But I do know Jeannie Coleman and school nurses have recently done that, so we've been in talks. And that would be important in this situation because we'd be specifically targeting students who would need that certification at ANOVA or other work-based sites when they graduate because they've demonstrated their interest in pursuing that.

[00:50:28] Thank you, and we are happy to take any questions you might have. Dr. Rasheed, I'm going to open the floor to you first since this was your item that you brought forward. I'd love to hear your thoughts. - This is great, thank you for putting this together along with the numbers.

[00:50:44] And just to clarify for constituents, this would be something by choice. And students wouldn't have to like, it's kind of like FLE, like there would be an option to participate. So I just wanted to make sure that that was clear. Yeah, one of the proposals was quite outrageous.

[00:51:00] Yeah, that's a lot. But for, I saw the arrow facing up for this slide, if you can clarify that again, you had said something about it. - Yes, so the numbers for the workbook and the digital cards and that type of thing, it's all based on ECSI numbers of what we pay now for ECSI.

[00:51:26] And if we were to shift to American Heart Association, all of those numbers are going to increase. I just don't have those calculated. - That's fine, thank you, no problem. Thanks for that clarification. And then this would be done on juniors and seniors or later in their junior year since it expires after two years.

[00:51:46] So for the identified courses, they would be whatever grade level that I guess that would be. I know NASM, for instance, and sports medicine are definitely 11th and 12th grade for ham sci, though.

[00:52:03] I mean, I guess we would be able to target that in those courses as they find a course pathway where that makes sense as they get approached to their senior year. And that would allow them to graduate with a valid certification from all of those programs. And then the idea for that third line about hosting it two times per year, in my mind, I was thinking like the school would advertise that for interested parties.

[00:52:32] And if they wanted to, that they could. And so that could essentially be a 10th grade student who decides they want certification for babysitting or lifeguarding. Can they renew it in their senior year if it expires at the end of their junior year, as you had said?

[00:52:50] Yep, so that would be part of the process. So if they were in the 10th grade and they needed to come back for renewal, yes, we would have renewal coursework. Okay, okay. And just in terms of, I'm not sure about this question. assumed it was a no but if you're you have to remediate because I remember you said the minimum is an 80 so that might be tough for some students and and that's that could be expected and if so could they retake it or would they have to

[00:53:17] like pay it or something like that okay okay okay thank you Dr. Deans did you have any questions comments my comment might not be received we can't be all

[00:53:48] things to all kids at all times. And certification in CPR, it's definitely a good thing to have. I had to get certified in infant CPR, and I've saved four babies since my own child. So I know it can be something that would be good to have, but I think that sometimes when we broaden what the public schools is doing can we get what we're supposed to be doing doing well that's I'm not

[00:54:25] going to walk out with Dr. Rasheed I'm good but that but those are just my thoughts that you could have some volunteer students to do it but in terms of certifying large numbers I think that that might be beyond what it is that we should be required to do you still my friend I am your it's okay to disagree um not to pile on but i tend to agree with dr deans on this one i there's just

[00:54:59] too much opportunity cost for other things that i believe we need to address before we can have all the bells and whistles and i am a little bit curious about the ham side programs and things like that getting those um higher level certifications that would benefit them that that is a thought that i had not had because originally i was like nope move along but i really do appreciate this information it's really valuable it's important I didn't know the depth of the training even that we did so I really am so grateful that you brought it forward because I learned a lot this would not be something that I could really probably get behind in a budget at this

[00:55:37] point just given some higher needs that I see as it applies to just basic learning and achievement but I do appreciate that and and I also know to Dr. Deans's point there is a lot of opportunities in the community at community centers and and different things to get CPR now those come with cost so I understand that that can be a barrier for families and for students but that is more available whereas the reverse may not be true of meeting the basic needs of their educational that is our primary job and then you know they wouldn't be able to get that elsewhere so that's sort of my thinking on it but

[00:56:14] again I really found this to be quite fascinating and really appreciate all the work that you did to bring this to us in a real way thank you go ahead dr. Dean I also wanted to say that we could target certain groups like the team captains of the sporting teams or the there are certain groups that we might could target to give that to but globally I would worry thank you for giving me your

[00:56:48] insight I thought that was the whole point was to target those students that were interested and my hopes were that with this price or cost rather is this subject to decrease based on how many students are interested in traveling that pathway or is this like the baseline yeah these were just we settled on 650 we sort of took the number of students in hamsi the historical numbers in nasm and the numbers as I know I'm in sports medicine and then we I mean we

[00:57:23] just kind of said 650 to give us some baseline numbers so the capacity for given those numbers a minimum of 20 students per high school per year and then if there was additional interest and we had additional CPR instructor teachers who are interested then we could provide an additional stipend okay so obviously not right now ham size only offered in select places so if there is is a smaller amount, I'm assuming, of students that are attending HAMPSY currently right

[00:58:00] now, and they were to take this and those who are in sports medicine, is it lower than the number that you anticipate altogether? On estimate, of course. Well, the number that's up there is based on the number of students who would be in the first group of graduating students from HAMPSY, and then historical numbers around the NASM course, which is a health and PE offering, and sports medicine.

[00:58:28] and there may be some other courses too that we would identify as being as part of that pathway that might fit into that as well the the stipend would not change unless we had the stipend number would not change unless we had you know we weren't able to offer two sessions per school year that's a stipend paid per session to the teacher so if a school only offered one that would decrease that number in the course of the year and then everything is really based on the number of of students who participate so if we had fewer students who who participated through the high

[00:59:01] school then we would have fewer workbooks fewer certification cards all of that so this is i think an average this is a very rough average of what it might cost yeah i saw it as a pathway more so i wasn't seeing it like all the students would get this so i just want to be clear to my colleagues here that i i it would be outrageous to say well you know we're going to require or have or the goal is to have every single student that would be nice but the goal was to have it those people that are traveling along that pathway to get CPR certified because if they are going to go down the healthcare pathway which that shows you

[00:59:39] got to get CPR certified whether you like it or not so it would be nice since we're getting CPR training already currently in LCPS why not up that and make those students CPR certified to prepare them for that pathway in college or whatever career that we got.

[00:59:56] I mean, we also have driver's license training. I mean, we're always preparing our students for the real world. So if we're offering CPR training, and they're already headed down the healthcare pathway, just have them get CPR certified would be something that would be a plus on LCPS.

[01:00:12] And it just goes to prove a point that those students that leave or graduate from us, that we really made them over the bar. And it also decreases the stress, And it also could save a life, you know, while they're in school. Hopefully they don't have to do something like that.

[01:00:29] And they definitely learn. Now, if I could ask for CPR training in terms of curriculum, what is the difference between CPR training and being certified? Is it only that chart that was shown up there and that's it? Yes. So for the training in LCPS through ninth grade, it's in the Virginia SOLs.

[01:00:50] And the training is where they are in the classroom and they learn the content knowledge on first aid, CPR, and AED, and then they go do the hands-on lab of CPR only, and then the certification would be just more rigorous content knowledge, passing that written exam at the threshold, I think it's 80%, and then doing the hands-on tests for all of the first aid components, the AED and the CPR.

[01:01:22] So in terms of what is waived after they get CPR training is just the hands-on? So it's essentially like a, it's basically like a checkbox that DDI created for, to show the achievement on their report card. So when the student goes through Health and PE 9 at the end of the school year, I alert DDI and I say, publish the assignment in the grade book.

[01:01:49] And so they send out the assignment. So all Health and PE 9 teachers have a CPR assignment that just appears in their gradebook. And then they select met, not met, or hands-on not met. And so that uploads in our system.

[01:02:08] And then if they're good, then they get a checkbox on their achievement. So they're good for graduation. And they maybe never have to think about CPR again. And if they are not met or hands-on not met, then that's when the whole transfer process comes into play.

[01:02:27] And that's where the counseling staff has to track all the not-mets. Then they have to communicate to the health and PE department, you guys figure out how to get these kids through this. So we have a Schoology course that the students go through the material.

[01:02:44] And then the health and PE teachers, either before school, during their planning, lunch, or after school, do the hands-on practical skill. And that's the piece where they're not compensated for. They're just finding time to do that. And so we have a fun tracking game in the spring every year to make sure that the seniors who are leaving us are leaving with that achievement box checked on their transcript.

[01:03:13] And when they get the training, do they get that in junior year, senior year? The training's all in ninth grade. So health and PE9, when they receive the unit, like the CPR, first aid, and AD unit, that's the training. They receive the content knowledge and hands-on practice.

[01:03:30] And then is there any assessment? I think you just mentioned there's an assessment every year to see that that is refreshed every year. So it's just a checkbox in ninth grade, and then that's it, then after 10th, 11th, 12th. Yeah. So that's what I just wanted to point to my colleagues, that that's where that gap is for those that are pursuing that pathway.

[01:03:49] That when they take the training in ninth grade, when you go to 10, 11, 12, I mean, that stuff is gone, like, out of your mind. So when that happens, it kind of defeats the purpose. So that was the reason why bringing this forth would be helpful for those people that were pursuing that health care pathway.

[01:04:06] It's going to expire in two years, and basically, the American Heart Association, to the best of my knowledge, is not going to honor the training that was done three years or four years ago than when they graduate. Thanks, and we're friends. Thank you, Dr. Rashid, and you bring up some really good points, and like I said, I learned a lot more than, you know, at first onset, I was kind of like, what?

[01:04:33] But I really didn't, and it's true, we do want to prepare our kids. So I guess my question would be, what would be the next step with this? Is this just a conversation for us right now? And then we can talk to Dr. Rasheed more about where she wants to take that next, maybe?

[01:04:51] We can continue talking about it. There's no immediate action needed or steps taken. Okay. So part of it is the course pathways that were mentioned by Ms. Wheeler.

[01:05:07] There are other content supervisors in areas that we need to be working with to make sure that this certification fits into the model. I would say generally we're about providing an expansion of opportunities to students, so this is an out of bounds.

[01:05:26] And even thinking back to the workforce summit that we had in October, one of the top certifications that employees are looking for is that CPR certification. So I think the idea of trying to find ways to expand access is good prompting. Yeah, definitely hear that.

[01:05:41] Did you want to say something? But could we look into the HAMSI curriculum and see if there's something in that curriculum that would lend itself to this? Yes, that's the next, yeah. So I think we are doing that. We're evaluating that.

[01:05:57] I think the question would be the stipend. It's almost like we're creating an extracurricular activity with that. and compensating teachers to stay after it could almost be viewed I'm thinking it will be almost viewed as an extracurricular that students would sign up for there's more of a process for that and with the budget that one's a little more tricky than just normal course development yeah appreciate that are there any other closing comments or questions on this info item all right with that we will move to item five which is a discussion item on the

[01:06:35] reflection of the work and the goal of this committee and so I will let mr. Slevin frame that for us and then we can have that conversation so thank you for including this on the agenda this is a time of transition you have been a committee for the calendar year and as you know you'll have an organizational meeting in January and so just wanted to give you all a little bit of a chance for reflection on the work that we've done up to this point feedback then also just think thinking ahead into the new year what are some things that you hope

[01:07:09] for this committee to be focusing on going into winter and spring of 25 all right colleagues you have any thoughts I do chair yes thank you moving forward I think I'd like to see a little bit more opportunities or expansion on game-based learning I know we have some things currently in place but a little bit more development or expansion, especially with kids that are into games, even though I don't like

[01:07:45] saying it that way. But having more innovative concentration or focus on game-based learning was something that I'd like to hear about next year. And also, and I think I mentioned this in SPCC, agricultural courses or environmental courses. We have all this land in Western Loudoun that's not utilized. It'd be great to have some sort of courses or part of the curriculum that incorporates environmental sciences, farming, farming development, that kind of talks about that and has students more involved with land-based activities.

[01:08:22] I know we have some, but it would be great to have more expansion on that. Thank you. Dr. Deans? My only thoughts are the new pathways that have been put into place.

[01:08:38] Could we get some reflection on them in terms of up to this point? We sort of fell into the middle of much of what we were putting into place for August when we came in January.

[01:08:59] And, of course, we know about it, but is there any additional reflection, evaluation? Evaluation is a hard word. Reflection is better on where the staff and the students and the parents feel about the new pathways that were put into place this school year.

[01:09:22] thank you um i do want to take a minute to just honor the work that has been done this year um this has been really fun for me i've enjoyed it very much i hope i get to stay um but if i don't uh it has been a great year and i feel like we've really accomplished a lot and i'm thankful to the staff and to everyone that has contributed to following along on our journey and just wanted to highlight a couple of things in case anyone in the public is listening um we We really, I really think we accomplished a lot.

[01:09:56] We tackled a lot with the huge literacy transition, both in elementary and the beginnings of middle school transition as well. We've talked a lot about schedules, elementary school master schedule and the middle school schedules, and really getting creative with some of the ways that we can move towards helping assist our teachers and our staff to make that the most efficient as possible.

[01:10:20] We've tackled a lot about technology, use in classrooms, and we are the trailblazers of the AI policy, so I'm very excited about that work. We've also talked a lot about arts and the stipends there, so that's been a big one, and professional development.

[01:10:36] The curriculum audit was very enlightening, and then I think that, you know, we're just going to be queuing up for a very, very big further discussion about the grading policy. I think that's been kind of the common thread throughout the year. So I thank you for all the work.

[01:10:52] Those are just the highlights. I tried to pull out the biggies, but wanted to make sure that we put that on record, that, you know, we've accomplished a lot in a year, and it's been exciting. For me, going forward, I would really like to see a couple of follow-up items.

[01:11:09] I would love to hear more about the course planner, how that rolls out, as well as continued updates on the instructional framework, especially as we look at the curriculum audit and kind of following up with really making sure that those suggestions are tied into our instructional framework and vice versa and really thinking about that streamlining for teachers and having so many resources, how does that all fit into the instructional framework?

[01:11:36] I think with the new accreditation system coming, I would like to continue to have conversations around our English language learners, how we think about that condensed timeline now of them not having the 7 to 11 years to get the language before they're tested in certain languages.

[01:11:55] So I think that's something we could talk about strategies around how to support those students, as well as revisiting the investments we've put into QTEL and really seeing what we're seeing from that with our English language learners and the scores. I would also love to give a little bit of attention more to our middle schools in terms of the literacy transition and how that's continuing to play out, especially as it relates to MTSS and getting creative with our scheduling, and also I would love to have a conversation about middle school honors.

[01:12:27] So those are just a few things to keep you busy next year, but I have really appreciated this time, and I have appreciated the discussion and learning from my colleagues as well. So thank you for a great year of work. It's been an honor. And is there anything else?

[01:12:43] Is there any new business tonight? There is not. So with that, I will adjourn our meeting. Thank you so much for coming.

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