Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Curriculum & Instruction Committee Meeting, Thursday, January 16, 2025

Date: Thursday, January 16, 2025
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 57m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1047668619?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 2026-10-16. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] good afternoon we good all right good afternoon i would like to call this january 16th 2025 curriculum and instruction meeting to order my name is lauren chernoff i'm the chair of this committee and i'm joined by my esteemed colleagues dr deans and dr rasheed we are glad that you are here today normally we would move into public comment but we do not have any speakers at this time so we will move on to item number three which is approval of the draft minutes from the

[00:00:31] December 4th 2024 meeting do I have any changes or a motion to approve all right all those in favor aye aye any opposed all right with that the minutes are approved there are no action items say even though there's action items listed on our agenda we're gonna skip that and tonight we just or this afternoon we just have one item which is an information item on from the Department of Academics on policy 50/30 assessment and grading and I just wanted

[00:01:08] to make a note that this is not our customary time for having curriculum and instruction meetings as we have moved them to normally be Wednesdays from 4:30 to 6 p.m. to accommodate educator schedules to be able to be here to speak or to listen to the meeting but due to a tighter timeline with committees being reassigned on the school board we had to have this meeting in order to stay on track with our timeline for policy 50 30 and we felt that that was of critical importance so that we could get things in place should there be changes for next year so with that I will pass it over to dr. Ellis and her and the team

[00:01:47] from Razzie dr. Tyler and dr. Blakelock will assist thank you thank you miss Chernoff good afternoon committee thank you again for prioritizing this January meeting and we do really appreciate the committee's dedication to this huge project and its timeline and I also think I'll just add to your comments mission off about educators not being able to attend this meeting I do think that I want to make sure that people know that there will be ample opportunity for additional feedback before the full school board ever does see this policy

[00:02:22] so hopefully people will will take a few minutes and read the policy and provide feedback once it's on the public website for review and we'll take that feedback into the consideration as well so this afternoon if you go the next slide we will briefly review where we are in our timeline talk very briefly about the research the RASI team has compiled for you on assessment and grading that you'll see in board docs review the focus group recommendations that we discussed in more detail last time and then discuss how we have utilized that feedback and recommendations in the draft policy revisions that you see in

[00:02:59] board docs so in board docs you will see the research you will see a document that's essentially a crosswalk of the old policy and the new policy that outlines the recommendations and how staff has tried to incorporate those recommendations you'll see the original policy as it's currently written a a redlined version and a clean version of the draft policy.

[00:03:24] We also are very interested in the committee's feedback on the draft we're sharing with you today. Based on this conversation this afternoon, we'll also be prepared to post the draft policy to the policy webpage and we can talk at the end if that happens now or if that happens perhaps after the March meeting.

[00:03:41] We do have, I think we have some flexibility there depending on what you all recommend after this conversation. if we go to the next slide here's the timeline that we have been following with the ultimate goal still being to be fully prepared to roll out the policy at the end of the school year in preparation for implementation in august of 2025 and going back to my previous comment about the the public review process and when that might happen the the turnaround between today and And the February CNI committee is pretty tight.

[00:04:20] So just be considering that when we have this discussion and when we circle back to next steps. We can open the public review as early as tomorrow and keep it open for the required days.

[00:04:36] I'm not sure how much time, depending on the feedback that we do receive, how much time we would get to then incorporate those suggestions into the draft policy by February. So we may even skip February in terms of a discussion around this policy and bring it back in March with all of the public feedback.

[00:04:53] So those are just things that I'm thinking about and would love your input on that when we get to the end of the conversation. So with that, we will go ahead and dive into just a brief overview of the research. And then Dr. Tyler will provide that.

[00:05:09] And then Dr. Blakelock will dive into the recommendations and how we've addressed them in policy. Good afternoon. As Dr. Ellis explained, in Board Docs there is a resource that summarizes research on multiple topics. I would say that we were pleasantly surprised at the amount of research we found, everything from a review of 100 years of research on grading practices to implementation of the practices that we're speaking of at high schools or different divisions.

[00:05:44] So as you look at the resource, you'll see that there's general research and there's links to some of the sources that we found. There's specific research on a floor of 50 and no zeros and the different terminologies that's used to describe that practice, retakes, and formative assessments.

[00:06:00] We found a range of everything from scholarly research, as I said, literature reviews to case studies of the actual implementation of the gradient assessment practice that we're discussing. will also find on the last couple of pages of the board docs resource summaries of key ideas and to really highlight it as much as we talk about the spirit of for example having a floor 50 and no zeros and how it helps students to really recover if they're struggling with content what you see throughout is the idea of implementation is the key communication to

[00:06:35] teachers communication to families and students so we think we hope that this will be helpful in that there are some nice examples of lessons learned from implementing these strategies. There's a research kind of orientation to it as far as what it takes to implement at a high level, but there's a nice balance of what it takes to really carry it out.

[00:06:56] Communication with effective practices is what's key. So what I would also highlight, looking at the last couple of pages of the summaries, is that it really talks about this concept of there's different perspectives of students, and Dr. Blacock will go into more detail.

[00:07:13] Some of the research and the focus groups really speaks to students maybe who are not giving their full engagement in the grading and assessment practice and concerns that students are gaming the system, if you will, but there are also students who are genuinely struggling with content, who need that flexibility, who need multiple opportunities, and the idea of students who are perhaps high-achieving students who perhaps over-committed to a lot of AP courses, for example.

[00:07:41] So it's not necessarily one profile of students that we're trying to meet with these grading assessment policies. There needs to be flexibility for students from multiple perspectives. So that resource is in BoardDocs. I don't know if there are any particular questions about that that we can respond to later, but that's there in response to your question about what are others finding who've tried to implement this?

[00:08:05] What does the research say about that? So we feel that that hopefully responds to your request there, and I can hand it off to Dr. Blakelock. Thank you Dr. Tyler so to start with it today I thought it'd be good to kind of pick up where we left off last time and kind of go back through the recommendations one more time as far as what came out of the focus groups as well I'm not going to read word for word what's on the screen but ultimately the concepts here are broken into two categories from the recommendations some of them were very policy specific and some of them were more regulation implementation concepts those sorts of things so we've separated that out

[00:08:43] The overall theme of the recommendations on this particular slide was around improving the clarity of the policy to make it easier to understand, to put in some definitions, to summarize some language, and to make things a little bit more specific. The other recommendations came in as far as more substantive changes to the policy itself with the whole idea of the different tiered levels, between school level or grade level,

[00:09:13] Some of the requirements that students would have to fulfill in order to be able to be eligible for a retake or a floor of 50, and then the potential for changing the retake ceiling to a ceiling of 70. I will say right now that based on the discussion in the last committee meeting, we've abandoned that one completely, but because it was in the report, I wanted to put it here.

[00:09:32] But that is not something you're going to see in the revised policy and the draft provisions. And then these here are more the ones that are focused around implementation and regulation. We talked about the student responsibilities piece quite a bit, and we'll talk about that a little bit more in just a few minutes.

[00:09:49] But the idea being that these are going to be more in the making sure it's going with fidelity, making sure people understand it. It's going to be after the policy has been finalized and using the language that's in the finalized policy to drive these different things right here. So to echo what Dr. Tyler said a moment ago, there's kind of several different circumstances that we're trying to make sure that we're taking into account when we're coming up with the revisions to it.

[00:10:15] We have the student who is really taking a rigorous course load, taking a lot of AP courses and struggling to keep up. We have the student who's struggling to understand the content, who really would benefit from this policy because it really helps keep them motivated and engaged. And then we have the student who may be trying to skate by a little bit and, you know, a little bit of effort.

[00:10:33] So, and we heard all of those different profiles inside the focus groups as well. So, the idea here is that in this particular section goes back to sort of the first slide on the recommendations. How can we simplify and fix the policy? So we reorganized a little bit to give it a better flow.

[00:10:50] We simplified and took quite a bit of things out of it to put in regulation. And the big pieces that we took out of it were the student and teacher responsibilities. We thought that was better placed in the regulations itself, so it would be, you know, to focus there as opposed to actually being defined rigidly in the policy as well.

[00:11:06] We fixed some grammatical errors and simplified the language. And then we defined both homework and reasonable effort was the two big definitions that we added to the policy. The other pieces that we did was we basically made some change of criteria for when reassessment and the floor 50% could be applied.

[00:11:29] And that's probably the biggest change that's been made there with the idea of the reasonable effort on all work in order to be able to get the floor 50, in order to be able to get the retake. We did add some weighting for homework and formative assessments. That's something we heard from all the groups as far as, you know, 5%, 10% of the grade about if you complete all of your formatives and homework, that can count for that piece right there.

[00:11:50] We opened the door for the differentiation across grade levels. We felt that would be better defined in the regulations themselves based on the specificity that's going to be required for that. And then overall, we tried to provide clarity without constriction with sort of the philosophy that we took in simplifying the language and taking this approach here.

[00:12:08] So I'll now turn it back to Dr. Ellis to guide the discussion. Thank you, Dr. Blakelock. So a couple of things before I turn it over to you, Ms. Chernoff. So I did want to just outline one thing that Dr. Blakelock alluded to, and that is regulation and handbook.

[00:12:29] So our current plan is that we present the policy to you and to the board for approval. And at that time we will, and actually probably before then as we get a clearer idea of where the policy is going, we will begin to draft regulation and then another deeper level with more specific examples for teachers to really operationalize it in their classroom, we also plan on building an assessment and grading handbook that will accompany the regulation and the policy.

[00:13:00] So I think about the policy as the big, global, high-level non-negotiables that are approved by the board. The regulation and handbook are more specific guidance. As Dr. Blakelock said, that's where we really get into particular differences between middle school and high school, between potentially even 9th and 10th grade and 11th and 12th grade, honors versus academic, things like that, even different content areas.

[00:13:28] so our hope is that we gather a team of leaders school leaders assistant principals and teachers we want teachers help we need teachers help and really creating the regulation in the handbook because they are the ones that have to live it every single day with their students so those are things that are going to be built based on the policy that is approved so you'll see reference to that in the in the crosswalk document and we have tried to identify identify where in one of those or more three documents the the changes are going to be and sure enough we do have a couple of additional slides regarding next steps but I think it would

[00:14:08] probably be helpful if it's okay with you to turn it back to you for a discussion and then just if we could leave a couple of minutes at the end to wrap up and determine next steps you got it all right thank you guys so much for your work on this I know it's been a long journey to get here And in some senses, it feels like a new journey is beginning.

[00:14:27] So with that, I will ask my colleagues what questions they have about the red line revisions and any other questions about research or otherwise. Go ahead, Dr. Rashid. Thank you, Chair.

[00:14:43] I just had a question about reasonable effort in the red line copy in terms of clarification of the term here so that constituents, when they read it, it's more clear. I see it in the outline of the draft revisions. I see it in that. but if you could just point it out to me, I see it on page seven, on the red line copy, line 247.

[00:15:06] - So reasonable effort is defined on line 65 of the red line copy. We're all looking at the red line copy, right? Okay, yes. So it's section B5, reasonable effort is defined there, and then it's referenced throughout.

[00:15:27] Is that what you're asking? - Yeah, that's what I'm asking, because the only reason why it's very vague, - So, my only worry is if it's open to interpretation. - Okay. - Like in the focus groups, was that questioned or was that addressed at all in regards to its meaning or what is defined by reasonable effort is all I'm asking 'cause I feel like there might be some, I don't know, some people might say, well, what is a reasonable effort or what is not, what is a true definition of it?

[00:15:55] And I see it here, but-- - It was tricky for us to define. - Yeah, it just kinda looks like a-- And I'd love for Dr. Blakelock to speak a little bit to what he heard in the focus groups. What I read in the focus group feedback was constant reference to students not even opening an assignment or not even trying to fill out an activity.

[00:16:17] So we tried to take that feedback and sort of translate that into a definition. - Yes, so to elaborate on that, those were the two kind of behaviors that we were looking at that came out of the focus groups was one, students who didn't even open it and students who too would open it and write don't know for all of the responses.

[00:16:37] And so the idea of the definition here was that they were made an attempt on all parts of the assignment using some content that they had learned in the class itself. So they couldn't just put an X mark next to each question and those sorts of things. So that was the approach that I took in generating that definition to try to make it, again, it's that whole clarity without constriction as far as defining what it is and making sure that it's it's as clear as it possibly can be without being overly restrictive and will that be clarified to students parents I mean I'm used to the college world we have the syllabus and all that and I'm forgetting how it was in high

[00:17:16] school middle school if if there's a procedure as to how that's clarified well my son or my daughter you know a parent comes and says well they did a reasonable effort they truly don't know so that's the only reason why I'm questioning it thank you thank you Dr. Rashid yeah it's an interest it's hard to define these things sometimes.

[00:17:39] And when you think about it in terms of like, well, if a parent were to come and say, like, they did. What I do like about the definition, although I cannot believe we're in an age where you have to say open, which really means digitally. I mean, let's be real. But I like that it says that you had to apply something, like that you had to use the content or the things in the class, which would show that you have at least digested something from somewhere to put into an assignment.

[00:18:04] So I do appreciate that. I'll be curious to see if you have any more thoughts on tightening that definition. But I think those are valid points about parents coming back and challenging, for sure, wanting those grades. Dr. Deans? Reasonable effort would be a subjective decision by the teacher versus something that is more objective.

[00:18:32] Therefore, would teachers use the same standard for reasonable effort from one child to the next? Because if a child, for an example, had an IEP and could not and was distracted to the point that they did not open the assignment, where would we go with that?

[00:19:01] Where would we go with that parent who says that Johnny's grandma died so he hasn't been on task for the past two weeks or for the past week or what have you? Where would we go with answering that question for that parent?

[00:19:18] I guess is what I'm saying, and so reasonable effort would be subjective. Thoughts?

[00:19:33] And, Dr. Ellis, I think we had talked about how in either the regulation or maybe even in the handbook there's going to be a discussion about kids that are experiencing trauma, kids that might have health concerns that may be beyond even an IEP, and obviously in lines 18 and 19 it outlines and should outline that IEP and 504 plans definitely have to be followed so that would definitely be taken into consideration but is that correct that that is a plan to kind of outline with those kind of loosely extenu extenuating circumstances could be yes exactly and that's where I think dr. B heard

[00:20:10] frequently about teacher autonomy and there is some level of teacher autonomy and we need to have guardrails so we started with this definition we are absolutely open to feedback it's really hard to define something so vague and subjective but then in the in the regulation and handbook we would provide specific guidance around for example if a student even late work right if a student is absent and has a history of absences versus a student is absent because they have a serious illness teachers need to take that into

[00:20:47] consideration when when receiving late work right or when defining reasonable effort so that's that would be outlined in the handbook I think and dr. Blake clock and chime in if memory serves our member exchange between teachers on a focus group and they were trying to parse it out and the ideas if the teacher can see that the student was unable to complete an assignment due to a misunderstanding or misconception they have to make enough of an effort for a teacher to see that they're struggling with computation and estimation or a

[00:21:21] concept and not just opening the assignment so some of it may be the whole purpose of this is to if a student has a misunderstanding the teacher can see it in the work and can make a correction based upon what they see so a reasonable enough effort to show that they were unable to complete the assignment because they misunderstood something they didn't remember their sequence they didn't remember a connection to another concept versus just opening an assignment digitally so I don't know if Dr. B had any more and I remember several exchanges where teachers are saying I need to see what you don't understand so I can adjust instruction I don't know if Dr. B had

[00:21:58] follow-up no admittedly this is a very tricky one I mean the language is in there without the definition before and we've added a definition and it's risen to this level of dialogue about how we can interpret it but that's the idea is that you know is it is reasonable effort half of the items is reasonable effort that they don't know for half the items and try to answer the other half.

[00:22:20] And so that was what I was trying to do with the definition was, again, that vague enough to be all-encompassing, but specific enough to be able to lock down in some way, shape, or form to be expanded upon in the regulations and in the handbook. All right.

[00:22:38] Other questions? Yes. I want to take it a step further in that I want to ask, what did the research lean toward? I know you have many. you've cited multiple sources but what did it lean toward in terms of the 450 versus the zero so what's interesting as you go into the document and board docs and i'm thinking of see i'm going

[00:23:07] to the case against zeros in middle and high school from edutopia and the idea of students and i'm just kind of summarizing what i see on page four the document the idea of a student is showing that there are either gaps in their background knowledge where they're unable, they need scaffolding, and the idea of they're showing an effort, and it gets down to that misconception is that maybe they're not quite at that readiness level for the eighth grade content,

[00:23:46] and the idea is that they need interventions and they need scaffolding, and the idea of that floor of 50 helps that student to recover from, say, having a gap in their background leading to that point so summarizing kind of answering your question is that that effort that reasonable effort is that that student has attempted to solve multiple problems and you're able to see why they're unable to complete it so really from that research it's more a student who's struggling with the content versus a student maybe who's looking to just trigger a retake or just is not ready to

[00:24:24] complete the test at that time or it's not completing assignments so I hope that answers your question as far as the research was kind of looking at different profiles of students. I have a specific example. When my granddaughter's at my house, my, my, my, help me, my internet doesn't want to open Fairfax's content. And she has been there and not been able to do her math because they teach math totally online. And so we've got to get up the

[00:24:59] next morning and go to her house at 5 30 so she can get on her they have something that restricts the opening of of of some of their um information if it's not a internet service that's been used before they tie it to the child's home internet and it will not open at my house of course i live in a retirement community and we don't have good internet either but but i just wanted you know There are just multiple reasons why a child would not or have not opened the assignment.

[00:25:36] And I think that autonomy is where we have pointed to in the past to say that some teachers are more sensitive to than others.

[00:25:57] And so that's my reason for indicating that it's got to be all or none. I mean, I think on math and science, remember, the rules got to be all or none or the teachers will not interpret it equitably.

[00:26:19] That's just my comment. And the research highlights that as far as the communication and consistency that you also see referenced, that it's best practice in an understanding and shared agreement between students and families and teachers on the criteria. But some families are so busy making a living that they don't even know what's going on with the child, and the child may be an introvert and does not share with the teacher there are just so many variables yeah I'm wondering too like just with now that you're talking about that also going back

[00:26:57] to the assignment thing like when we say well maybe we need a other language too just besides making it opening like maybe accessing or you know something for or you know has reasonable reasonable has access to possibly yet has accessed or you know and has access to because that that did raise an interesting point um other comments before I dive into mine no all right here we go friends buckle up went line by line um I thank you for your work I this is incredible I mean we're

[00:27:36] we're at a really I think we're at a good starting place I'll say starting I think we we still have places to go um and i do feel that at some of the length the one of my biggest grievances with the policy prior was that it just felt a little dance aroundish like there was a lot of dancing around things and not really setting standards and so it did leave a lot of inconsistencies it did create that across our division and even within schools and and um so that was that was something i was looking for tightening up and like i said i think we're at a good start but there are some places where I feel like there's still some loophole type things that need to be addressed.

[00:28:14] And I'm probably going to fall, you know, pendulum-wise a little bit on keeping things tighter. But I do love the idea of a handbook. I think that that's important. I love that we're going to be able to kind of see the regulation as it applies to certain policy changes so that we know what is coming.

[00:28:34] So I'll just dive into my list. And I've got it marked by line. And hopefully it won't bore you too much. So lines one through six in the opening, and I really like the new flow. I think the flow is much better and I appreciate it's much less confusing.

[00:28:51] And the red line copy, here we go. In lines one through six, I would really like to see something in there, some language around promoting high expectations for all students. I think that we do believe in that. I think we, as a division, and I think we also believe in supporting our learners, and I believe we have the resources to do that.

[00:29:08] so I would love to see some some language around that and if you guys have a chime in on any of my stuff please buzz in okay line 11 where it says grades shall not reflect behavior this one kind of stood out to me because I'm not sure I agree with that I understand that the primary outcome of grading is a reflection of a student's mastery and definitely of their competencies of curriculum but grading results in behavior and action it results in

[00:29:45] motivation work ethic studying preparing research completion all of those are behavior so if we're not defining preparation and such as behavior how are we accounting for that so I have some language here about you know while the primary outcome of grading is a reflection of mastery we acknowledge that grading and assessment also reflects a student's motivation and work ethic to reach mastery.

[00:30:12] Because I do think the two are intertwined. I don't know that grading is, that the purpose of grading is always to assess that preparation piece. But you have to work to get a grade, well most people do. I did when I was in high school. May I comment on that?

[00:30:28] I think that that word behavior there is, sorry, sorry. Okay. I think that that word behavior there is referencing behavior as in discipline. Am I right? No? That's a question, I guess.

[00:30:46] Yeah, that's a good question. It says, grace shall not reflect behavior, but rather a student's mastery of content. And I think there is referencing negative behavior, suspensions, detentions.

[00:31:07] Yeah, I know what you're saying. You can't lower a child's grade because of his discipline. That makes sense. And that is really the intent, Dr. Deans. Teachers should not be giving points for things like bringing in boxes of tissues or, you know, an apple or Clorox words.

[00:31:29] And they should not be lowering grades for misbehavior or apathy or things like that. Go ahead. so I guess it's a question of just specificity right yeah but maybe we need to be more specific yeah yeah didn't even think about that so yeah I really didn't I'll jump down a little bit to line 57 look at that look how many we skipped guys are you proud of me line 57 where it talks about

[00:32:06] should be informing next steps for teachers I think it's important also for us to note about something about student ownership of their own learning i would love to see something in there about how we this that their formative assessments which are sort of the checkpoints along the way help students evaluate their own progress and set goals for future progress anything we can do to push language of the student taking ownership of their learning i think would be positive and i agree because we were talking about when we were talking about the cell phone policy we got a policy now you can't have your cell phones but at some point we want

[00:32:45] the students to take the responsibility of not taking out their cell phones during instruction yeah you know yeah so we want the student i'm agreeing love it the student needs to all right i'll keep plugging line 60 just has a typo it needs the word and that's an easy one uh line 65 and 67 is what i had next and we sort of hit on this with reasonable effort um and i noticed that in the crosswalk chart you talked about patterns of retake like needing retakes and patterns and

[00:33:19] there was a lot of feedback from the focus groups about how retakes burden the teachers because they're constantly trying to create the major summatives and then work backwards to do formatives and then also retakes so I don't know I know that and I got some feedback today that they didn't feel like that was strong enough and so I don't know if we need to incorporate some of those patterns into the policy but I believe the intention is for it to be either in the regulation or the handbook. Correct. That is sorry Dr. B go ahead. So just to kind of address that the the idea

[00:33:55] to counterbalance that again with the focus groups is the student is not putting effort in on the front end. Okay. So in order to get the retake you have to do all the work. Right. And advance the original one. The other piece to consider as well is that again the word patterns is yes vague and that's something that can be flushed out a little bit more in regulation and handbook to include a process of what a teacher should do when they feel a student is starting to abuse the system, so to speak.

[00:34:25] Yeah, I think I could get there with that as long as it's pretty clearly defined. And I do see stronger language in here about needing to complete formatives and needing to have all those pieces in place and, you know, removing some of the retakes on any of that. This is really helping us hone in on the retakes on the summatives, so I do appreciate that.

[00:34:45] Go ahead. may I share right there is that I think teachers would be appreciative of somehow having a document for the child to sign to say that they've done this X number of times. The teachers over at Farnwell Station said to me, you know, they said if I call XYZ student in right now, he will tell you that he's never taken a test on the date that I've given it. He's always asked for a retake and he would tell you that so I think that I don't know is there some way that that

[00:35:24] the student can sign a form. We talked about a little bit of last time. We did. Concerned about it being cumbersome on the teacher to have to track the retakes for every single student as it went along it is something because one of the suggestions that came up as well during the focus groups was a limit on the number of retakes like a student only gets one a quarter or one a semester or something along those lines and the thought in the discussion last time was That would be incredibly cumbersome on the teachers to try to keep track of all of that.

[00:35:53] Yeah, you'd have to have a method. I think we talked about, like, could DDI have a checkbox in the gradebook? But even rereading over the focus group stuff, I mean, even the gradebook, keeping up with just what we have now is already a challenge. So, yeah. But I can say that, for an example, my granddaughter is going to be absent again tomorrow because she's on a traveling soccer team.

[00:36:15] She has missed every math test on the day that it was given. because of that traveling soccer it's scheduled ahead of time she's even the mom the mom has even asked can she take the test thursday afternoon since she's not going to be there friday they wouldn't let her do that so do we punish that child because that parent has signed a contract for her to travel with soccer not sure we can answer that in the policy i know i know you might

[00:36:48] say we're getting in the weeds but she is she is in um advanced classes and she is not a slacker but they had to make a choice I think again I agree with Dr. Deans maybe there needs to be some more maybe expand the definition because if she thought that how many parents are going to have so many issues with clarity and being the educator that I am I have made my daughter send it by email and get a response from that teacher

[00:37:26] so she'll have her documentation as well but it's happened three tests she has not taken because she's out of town on a traveling soccer team yeah i also think and um i know dr ellis and i kind of noodled on this a little bit beforehand but something that has come up in one of my other committees which is the leaf committee was apparent we were reviewing feedback for the grading policy and she said you know it's all well and good for retakes to be available but my student gets on schoology and there's nothing but slide decks with like the name george washington

[00:38:05] And then that's it on the slide because this teacher spoke to that during the class but they didn't have access to go back and relearn the material. And I noticed in here it says that they're going back and looking at the material and re you know making effort to relearn it. They have to have it available.

[00:38:20] So that may be something that we need to address just at a division operational level of making sure that that teachers have an expectation of things that need to be on there. I know we don't have a lot of textbooks anymore. so it's you know back in my day that's how we learned we went back and reread the formula and you know we learned it so i don't with all of that transition there's got to be a bar that's set in my opinion that that holds that standard for kiddos because we can't penalize them for not doing well on a retake if they had nothing to relearn from um so that was my other thought on that continue

[00:38:54] and there are some courses that requires that data to be somewhere in writing more than others yeah for an example i cannot envision my child taking advanced geometry and she and you can't take the book and turn the angle upside down right geometry you do it from spatial stuff there's no textbook yeah i get you um moving to line 71 and 72 i had some thoughts about how are

[00:39:29] we now differentiating between minor summative and formative now that we can grade formative and homework up to 10% is there a need for the term minor summative at all so the idea behind the formative in 10% is like all of the formative right for the quarter counting up to 10% not 10% per assignment so to speak okay so you still think minor summatives would apply how would you define that I mean as it's defined right now the whole idea that it's up to like 10% I think what does it

[00:40:05] talk about with majors it's like 25% or more okay so anything in that range that's not included as a formative okay line 73 through 78 talks about elementary grading it's very brief and I you know maybe there needs to be further conversation about elementary down the road but do we need to I know a couple elementary teachers reached out and said they would like more guidance especially around reassessment because they've sort of followed the guidance I guess a middle school in high school because there isn't a ton for them and

[00:40:41] wanting to give those opportunities for learning so i think that that i was wondering if we you know are thinking about that can i speak briefly to that please i appreciate you asking that question and this has come up as part of our conversations as we have vetted this with legal and with cabinet and with the with the school leadership office and the office of elementary education does have a very strong desire to take a deep dive into the elementary grading procedures and so we are committed to tackling that after we revised this policy and they currently

[00:41:16] have several elementary report card manuals there's a k2 manual 3/5 manual with very specific guidance we really do need to take a deep dive into that figure out if anything needs to go into this policy or stay in the handbook and and get the teacher input on that manual so that is definitely a project on the roadmap that sounds good and I'm sure we would be happy to tackle that if that's needed moving along line 226 look see making jumps I do not this is about

[00:41:52] talking about standardizing summative assessments and I really dislike the language whenever possible on that line I just see the loophole there I see the inconsistencies unfolding maybe we need to allow more flexibility on formatives or minor summatives but I think the major summatives should be standardized across departments in schools like I think that that's a line that maybe that we should draw that's my belief I tell you it's got to be apples to apples with data team CLT's all the things like it just makes it really difficult if one

[00:42:30] teachers doing one thing another teachers doing something else I think based on what I have seen and heard when visiting schools and talking to school leaders deleting that phrase would be we would be comfortable with that I also want to ask you you mentioned earlier about sort of you didn't use this word but I'm going to like fluffy language yes and so I wonder if the first sentence on line 223 is is too fluffy is more of a narrative and could

[00:43:01] potentially be removed from the policy agree yes so that section three little I would just say grade level and subject area team should establish common standardized summative assessments okay colleagues all right line 227 says we do not as a division do midterm or final exams I was looking for a little bit of context on this I did get a email from a constituent today that addressed this

[00:43:40] specifically said it was talked about in detail and focus group and was shocked to see that it remained that we are not doing that so I didn't see that in any of the focus group reporting so I was just wondering if anybody could speak to to that and why we have we don't have that anymore so in terms of it coming up in the focus groups it came up in a couple of them but not enough of them like as consistently as the other topics that were okay or was so it was discussed in a few of them but not holistically like a lot of the other topics that were in the report were discussed okay and context on why they

[00:44:14] originally went away um not to put mr slevin or miss clark on the spot but do you remember the year that midterms and finals it was more than 10 years ago because they were gone when i arrived i will tell you that much here he comes and and i believe it was a pretty intense division-wide discussion and decision good afternoon everybody good afternoon mr slevin welcome to the dialogue So my best recollection is that discussion

[00:44:51] happened around 2014 2015 school year. It was a collaborative dialogue between the middle school and high school principals with the impact of one assessment counting for 20 percent of a grade.

[00:45:08] I recall the conversations being around those assessments shifting to being integrated into the course instruction recognizing there are a number of high stakes tests that students already take through their through their end of course assessments SOLs for example and so ultimately the decision was made by the principals to remove those exam days and just go forward with the quarter grades for the final grade I do think it was a passionate conversation and if it was something worse something we the

[00:45:44] community was interested in revisiting I think would be difficult to make that decision in a policy I think it could be a conversation that we reengaged the principals with because I think making that decision within a policy would be it would be that we would better serve to make sure that the principals are having this dialogue with with teachers and teacher leaders yeah I would I'll be interested to see what the public comes comes back with it I was surprised to see it still there too I thought that that had maybe been addressed but I mean

[00:46:22] And if it needs a bigger conversation, then that's probably, we should probably leave it for now and also see where the public comes back on it. And if memory serves, I think I can even find the resource. We conducted an inventory of midterms and final exam practices in colleges and universities.

[00:46:40] And there was a famous Ed Week study that was done. And it found that the Ivy League schools, less than a quarter of their freshman and sophomore level courses had midterms and final exams. So it kind of challenged our presumptions around what the college practices were.

[00:46:56] So that was an ask from the research office at the time. So part of it was, well, that's not what they're seeing in colleges and universities. They're seeing in less than one of their four freshman, sophomore, level courses. What is it preparing them for? Is it giving us value at our local level?

[00:47:14] So that was part of the conversation as well. Interesting. The counter to that was what this constituent was worried about, that we're not you know that they do have them in every course in college so yeah maybe to be continued interesting keep going the next one is just sort of has to do with the 50% floor and we hit on this a little bit already so I won't elaborate too much on it but I do believe it is a pretty big shift for students in that it will be only for major summatives can you clarify that

[00:47:46] on line 253 there will be that will only be in play for major summatives it only lists major summative in that portion so that was my assumption that's for the reassessment at the floor for the reassessment sorry but yes that's correct right sorry but to line 237 yes so it's for major summatives quarter grades and final grades okay perfect for the 50 floor it is and then for for

[00:48:25] reassessment it's major summatives only correct - that's correct yes we might need to add that word only in there good point on 253 just so that there's clarity I support that almost there line 275 to 278 this goes back again to the fluffy language I think saying it is important that teachers accept late work I think it should just say teachers should accept late work I also think that on line 277 it should say that late deadlines are required for late work

[00:49:05] because if late work if you miss the deadline you turn in late work and then you're allowed to have get a 50 percent floor on that late work because of whatever reason but then you have the late work deadline and you miss that late work deadline I don't think you should get a 50 percent floor I don't think that that shows 50 that shows reasonable effort but you can't have that if there's no deadlines and I know a lot of the feedback had said people were turning everything in at the end of the quarter and then they had a great all of it so this would allow teachers that autonomy to set those second deadlines and then they have reason they can manage their own time that way I

[00:49:44] think so we'll cross out maybe and replace it with our online to 77 and then as part of the regulation and handbook development we will work with teachers to be really specific about what those deadlines yeah I think that would be helpful but it says may I want it to say should yes deadlines should be required for submitting late work and I think teachers have that right yeah and

[00:50:23] then the last one before we wrap up to next steps I had was in line 288 to 290 I'm gonna just be very honest I'm gonna need that to be clearly laid out in that regulation and probably need to see some sort of draft of what that might look like before we move forward with a full board policy I know that that's not always best practice as far as regulations go but I'm sort of asking for at least some kind of loose outline so that we can feel like we have honored

[00:51:01] those differences of gradual release because I know that that was a big part of the conversation and you wrote I'm sorry you've already said that the elementary people want to yep rewrite theirs and so and I do feel like this is really a really great part of the policy because it allows in regulation for you to tweak and revisit those things as needed which I'm trying to get a better feel for that with regulation rather than having to only look at it every five years but I like that it's mentioned here because then it pitches

[00:51:38] it to the regulation and I you know think that you guys can take that but do think some sort of draft or thinking about that is going to be needed for us to really sign off on feeling good about it for me anyway and then we'll pitch it to next steps and yeah go ahead please I'm done it's amazing but I'm done thank you chair I just had one and it's a little silly but it's really open to interpretation so here on right below that 294 redline copy extra credit must be available to all students now I understand that the context of the sentence before that that extra credit may be permitted if connected to a

[00:52:17] course and it doesn't exceed 3% of the quarter grade extra credit that must be available to all the students I understand what that last line reads that if you're gonna give extra credit it should be available to all students but is there a way we could add if permitted or if allowed or if extra credit will be given all the students extra credit must be available to all students like like if it's all yeah that's what I'm saying that's all because I don't want students to think oh we always get extra credit yeah what that would put extra work like at a crazy level awesome good deal go ahead dr. Ellis for next

[00:52:52] great thank you I'll try to be quick so we need to do a couple of things in terms of our policy review policy process we must post a draft of the policy on the LCPS website for public feedback it is available for 10 days maybe 15 we will then we will consider all of your really helpful feedback from today we will incorporate public feedback my question is about time and I we also heard that

[00:53:31] you would like at least an outline or our best thinking in terms of where the regulation is headed specifically around the grade level guidance more before full board though sorry more before it gets to the full board I would say okay I don't want you that's not to rush through all that I just before we all sign off on it I think that that would be important that's great okay so my question is about timing and I'm glad mr. Slevin is here the next CNI meeting is the first week in February which I think is pretty tight a pretty tight timeline to get all of the stakeholder feedback and all of your feedback

[00:54:08] incorporated into a draft so one consideration and I think my recommendation is to essentially skip this topic in the February meeting and bring that back to you all in March does that work for you that keeps us on the timeline you think mm-hmm okay does it have to be only 10 days like could the feedback loop stay open a little bit longer since we're gonna skip February or is that policy I I will I'll check with dr. Bergen on that and if we can

[00:54:44] and I know also we have some advisory groups that have their own process and we want to make sure that they have time to do that as well to provide their feedback would your suggestion still be to open it now for 10 days but give us till March to kind of digest and get through all of that yes because then we have to take all that feedback and sift through it and determine what we can recommend in the policy and what we don't recommend in the policy and I'm looking at miss Crotty over here for SEAC and I'm thinking about leaf reconvening in February also to be able to give feedback so for me that I would

[00:55:20] support that because it gives more time even if the window closes the public window yeah the public window closes we could still through those advisories get get that feedback so I would be supportive of that if my colleagues are okay and in addition to just having it on the website we will also I'll work with DCE to get it into the staff newsletter so teachers have that extra extra way of reading it and encouragement to go provide their feedback. That'd be great. And the group about the group, what's her name, Renee? She's doing a lot

[00:55:57] of sessions every month. Might it be called to those parents' attention that they are policies that they need to take a look at and maybe name this policy? That's a great idea. That's a great idea. Yeah, I just think that. Okay. One of our topics in February is assessments, I think.

[00:56:19] that's uh yes that's correct so that would also be good wonderful we really appreciate your time and all of your feedback ditto anybody have any new business with that i will adjourn this cni meeting and we'll see you in february thank you so much

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