Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Performance Monitoring Committee Meeting, Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Date: Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 22m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1058096302?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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[00:00:00] Good evening, everyone. My name is Arben Estreffi. Well, first let me call to order this February 18th meeting of the Performance Monitoring Committee. My name is Arben Estreffi. I'm the chair of this committee. I'm joined by Chair Mansfield and Mr. Chernoff. We'll go ahead and get started with public comment.

[00:00:17] Is there any public comment for this evening? There is not. No public comment. Thank you. I'm standing up to get public comment on it. Oh, no, I was just checking the link. Don't laugh. I was like, what are you talking about? I have plenty of comments. With that, I think we have an exciting agenda planned for this evening.

[00:00:36] We'll move on to approval of the meeting minutes. So approving the draft minutes of the December 17th meeting. Do I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes? I move to approve the meeting minutes. Second.

[00:00:53] Motion has been made by Chair Mansfield and seconded by Ms. Chernoff. Is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion, we'll move on to a vote. All those in favor of approving the meeting minutes from December 17th, say aye. Aye. That motion will pass unanimously.

[00:01:13] The meeting minutes have been approved. We will move on to our information items. I will pass it to Dr. Ellis for our first information item, revised roadmap for performance monitoring committee.

[00:01:29] Thank you, Chair Estreffi. So this evening, I told you last time we weren't going to revisit this every time, and here we are again. going to revisit the roadmap based on conversations with the full board last week around program evaluation. We did want to bring this back and get your feedback on how to incorporate those conversations into the future PMC meetings. And so we did shift a couple of things around and added a program evaluation update to the March meeting you'll see on the slide. We have not added the

[00:02:05] the topic in the remainder, in the remaining meetings of the year. That being said, I don't think that we could cover all things program evaluation in one meeting. So we probably need to spread out and do touch points. So really we were hoping to get your feedback on that.

[00:02:22] So as a reminder, we do have several programs that have already been completed. You saw one as a full board on professional learning. We have three others that the evaluations are complete and the reports are publicly available, and those are for SEL, Propel and Level Up programs, and Extended School Year, or ESY.

[00:02:46] And so one question for your consideration is, do you want to review these as a committee, and how much time do you want to spend on each of those? And then following that, we have programs being reviewed right now.

[00:03:03] in the data collection phase and one program in the design in the evaluation design phase and we can provide updates on these as you see fit and then finally we have a tentative schedule for the 25-26 school year and as I mentioned last Tuesday night with the full board we would love your feedback on this tentative schedule if this seems appropriate to you if there are other things that we should be considering when we finalize the schedule for 25-26.

[00:03:34] And so before I turn that over to you for your feedback, this is sort of what we are thinking in terms of next steps. I would like your thoughts on, again, how much time you want to spend on each, what that cadence will look like, and then guidance from you on the 25-26 topics.

[00:03:55] And then I will ask Dr. Tyler to jump in if I have missed anything. Thank you very much, Dr. Ellis. I'll just express some points just to kind of prompt the discussion even further.

[00:04:13] I definitely believe that we should do program evaluations in this committee. I see a benefit of having them discussed in committee prior to the full board.

[00:04:29] Just we can ask, spend more time, ask more questions, and then provide even more inputs for the full board as we evaluate programs. So that being said, there is some overlap potentially with CNI. And so I'm curious if there are any topics here that maybe would go to another committee instead like CNI or what other thoughts you all have.

[00:04:55] But I think that as a committee, it would be time well spent. I have been interested personally in programming that has started off with grant funding and that we hope to mature into our operating fund.

[00:05:13] And just to, I think that those types of programs fall nicely into the performance monitoring committee, so I would prioritize those. But that's, I'll leave some room for other discussion. Chair Mansfield. - Something that we are hearing a lot about is behaviors.

[00:05:30] And so I'm wondering if we could look at tracking significant interfering behaviors over the last three to five years, that kind of info. Because that would give us more evidence for more behavioral supports in class, in schools, more SLPs for language supports, those kinds of things.

[00:05:59] Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Mr. Streffi. I agree with your comments. I think that it is important for us to review here. I think for time's sake, and I'm pretty sure I'm not stepping out of bounds when I ask you this, but I think like us reading them ahead of time and making sure that we come prepared would help us, you know, and maybe we can get some background beforehand so that we come ready to do the actual work of asking the questions and sort of evaluating the evaluation, if you will.

[00:06:28] I would be happy to share the load in curriculum and instruction as well. I mean, we've covered topics like the elementary master schedule and things may fall into that. So if that made more sense from a time perspective, but from a consistency perspective, I guess I feel like if we're going to keep it here, keep it here.

[00:06:45] And additionally, I'm wondering if the 25, 26, if these are like in priority order or if they're just sort of how do you tackle, do you sort of tackle all these at the same time? Like what are the timelines on these kinds of items? So I'm going to ask Dr. Tyler to talk a little bit about that.

[00:07:03] It's not necessarily a priority, and there are multiple factors in terms of determining a program's readiness to be evaluated. So Dr. Tyler is the expert on that. Thank you for the question. So about a year and a half ago, the previous board with cabinet actually established kind of a three-year tentative schedule.

[00:07:23] So this is the last set of topics from the previous board as tentative topics. So whatever the context was from your predecessors, they're in no particular order of priority, but it kind of represents kind of the last topics of interest. So it's, at this point, the way the policy is written, it's the board and the cabinet moving forward with, do we continue with these items based upon why they were brought forward, or do you establish a different set of topics?

[00:07:52] So the short of it is that this is kind of the last vestige of a previous board's kind of topics of interest with the cabinet. And that just as a little bit of background, I'll note, for example, ROTC is on here because it is a longstanding LCPS program that hasn't been evaluated in as long as I have been here.

[00:08:12] Elementary master schedule, on the other hand, is something that was changed recently. And we wanted to give it a year or two at least to be implemented in its new form before we evaluated the strengths and challenges of the changes. So various reasons.

[00:08:27] I guess I'm just thinking too in terms of things that might have budget impact I know we just finished but here we go again it's never ending but I you know there's a bunch of things in the master schedule that are staffing related that may alleviate and allow for flexibility and so if we could evaluate where so that's why I'm just saying like in terms of timeline I think it would be helpful for us to think about what those are I know the dual language immersion program is just about to expand so I don't know if now's the best time to be looking at it or if we're gonna look at the base or should we wait till that second grade component is then a part of it.

[00:09:04] So I might need to noodle on that a little bit more in terms of other topics, but I really wanna also keep in mind what Chair Streffy said about timelines and being able to evaluate the productiveness of these programs in terms of do we need to make changes?

[00:09:21] Is the grant working? Is it worth it to continue and operationalize that in our budget? That's kind of the lens that I'm thinking about. So just to acknowledge our supervisor research evaluation is in the audience listening very closely to this conversation.

[00:09:39] So if you see on the final page of the slide deck, the timeline is that we're looking at maybe a couple of months for the PMC to consider the different options to come back to staff and to say April or May. here's the schedule for 25-26 so that RASI can then move forward with the program assessments to get those programs ready to be on the schedule.

[00:10:00] So there's no expectation that you have answers now, but give us two or three months to say, here's your decision, and we can get the sponsors of the programs ready to be on the schedule to respond to any questions you may have. And I'll just kind of restate my, the way I'm thinking about it is any program that we have invested in, whether that's through a grant or we're experimenting or trying to innovate or we intend to expand, whatever your choice word is, I would like this committee to inform the full board

[00:10:38] on whether we should take certain actions on different types of programming for the future. So that's kind of first priority for me. And then beyond that, some of what Ms. Chernoff has said.

[00:10:56] Other discussion? Yes, Dr. Oh. Thank you, that's helpful. So we can move on to item 4.02, goal two, exemplary staffing, use of differentiated and flexible staffing.

[00:11:14] Yay. Dr. Ellis, we have many presenters for this one, so I'm just going to defer to Dr. Ellis. We have many presenters, yes. So, and in fact, I don't, I might just let them introduce themselves.

[00:11:32] So we are actually really excited to talk about this topic with you. We have a little bit of data to share around goal two. We're going to talk a little bit about the school improvement process. We'll talk quickly through that because I know the three of you are well aware of that process.

[00:11:50] But we've made some significant improvements over the past several months that we're excited about. And then we'll talk about differentiated and flexible staffing. Casey Jones, our budget director, has some great data to share with you. And Ms. Mitchell and I can talk a little bit about the process that we've used this past year in terms of allocating flexible staffing.

[00:12:13] And then really excited to have Heidi Smith from Hutchinson Farm Elementary School and Dave Schaefer from River Bend Middle School to talk a little bit about how they've used their differentiated and flexible staffing in their schools. So we will start with Goal 2 data, and this is really just a screenshot of the typical data that we have been tracking in terms of Goal 2.

[00:12:41] And Lisa Boland, our Chief Human Resources Officer, is here if you have any questions about this. We won't read it to you. You are probably familiar with it, and I believe the HRTD committee also has seen this in more detail. And I will turn it over to Dr. Tyler to talk briefly about our school improvement process.

[00:13:04] Thank you, Dr. Ellis. So the idea of you've heard about our new school performance and support framework come from the state that has been approved with the federal government. And the premise of it is that we're looking at performance, growth, and getting students into pathways.

[00:13:20] And the idea of it aligns with a long-term goal of LCPS to prepare students to be college career ready with multiple skill sets, 5C skills. So there's kind of a congruence of a lot of ideas at the state and local level around how we prepare students, how we kind of judge our own success.

[00:13:39] So next slide, you see that that is driven by a plan, do, study, act process of schools, where every spring through the summer we convene with our 100 schools and we go through everything from sol data to used to be piles now moving forward devils one day looking at climate data looking at discipline data so many other factors to look at how are we situating and supporting our schools and accomplishing those goals of maximum performance for all students maximum growth for all students and college career readiness so the next slide you see that school

[00:14:13] improvement process is outlined where we look at goals and strategies, we look at our infrastructure, we conduct a root cause analysis, and we look at many different factors. One of the factors that we've gone more and more in depth with is the extent to which schools are staffed in ways that meet their needs and what we as a division can do to support with that effort. So the next slide you see in that support role, yes, we're meeting with them, provide just-in-time support and fine-tuning their strategies and just kind of highlighting some of the other items, opportunities to learn

[00:14:49] and support working directly with students. There are central office folks from special education, from language learner's office, from all the content offices, meeting with schools, some of them three times a year, some of them monthly. That kind of predates the school performance and support framework. And part of those conversations, and I'll mention, shout out Dr. Carter, is that To what extent do we feel that we have been able to staff schools and maybe some hard-to-staff positions in special education?

[00:15:20] And there's some factors that we as a division have to work with school-based staff at a division level across multiple departments that are factoring into our level of success with all student groups, all reporting groups, English learners, students with disabilities.

[00:15:36] So when you look at differentiated and flexible staffing, when we're thinking about when we want to support teachers with, for example, implementing research-based strategies in special education and English learning, we have to think about the idea of additional staffing to coach, additional staffing to provide extra supports, especially for schools that have higher populations of need within their student populations.

[00:16:02] So that means that as part of school improvement and to have a comprehensive support or approach to supporting our schools, providing the extra resources, whether it's professional learning, whether it's traditional staff with very specialized skills, is critical to this, particularly when we're trying to close those longstanding gaps in outcomes for English learners or students with disabilities, when it's an all-hands-on-deck approach.

[00:16:28] It's experts like Dr. Carter and her team, it's human resources, it's teaching and learning, it's our professional learning. All of these factors have to come into account to support our schools, and staffing is a key component of that. So we're going to take a deep dive into two particular areas of staffing, and that's differentiated and flexible.

[00:16:52] And as I'm sure each of you, it will be no surprise to you that when we work with schools, the biggest need is more people, right? We have infinite, it seems like, resources, and we need people to support students.

[00:17:10] and going based just on enrollment numbers doesn't always tell the whole story which is why several years ago we implemented differentiated staffing based on the percentage of students who are economically disadvantaged and English learner students in a school because again a simple number doesn't tell the whole story and then this past year we were grateful to be able to add flexible staffing because there are other needs that weren't being addressed and and things come up throughout the year right the the picture in August isn't necessarily the same in October or

[00:17:49] even January and so the flexible staffing has really been helpful and we are grateful for the board for continuing to see the importance of that and so we have a lot of information to share with you this evening on how those numbers play out over the past couple years so with that I'll turn it over to mr. Jones thank you next slide so additional staffing is a category within the school board's adopted budget that really is school-based discretionary staffing that's all it is it's really broken down

[00:18:26] in three categories within this current school year's budget we have flexible contingency and differentiated each with its own use and then we have the option to swap vacant positions as well, again, based on individual school needs. Each one of these are school-based positions that are applied at this school.

[00:18:44] For the budget that you just approved, we did also introduce a couple changes this year that were also much needed within the schools. That included instantiating or really formalizing a pilot that we started this year that combined flexible and contingency. If you remember, contingency was really just a numbers-based game.

[00:19:02] Did you have enough to justify? Flexible was needs-based, so for the FY26 budget, those are all together, and they can be divvied out based on Department of Academics and Department of School Leadership based on school need and the school improvement plan. We also have differentiated staffing, which we talked about during the budget process where we changed the formula a little bit, but that allowed us to give additional school-based support out at the discretion of principals, and we'll talk about what that looks like in a little bit as well.

[00:19:31] and we also expanded the use of swap so instead of just being for vacancies and capacity issues which is how it was introduced for 25 for 26 we've really recognized that it's school need and if you have that vacant position we don't need to tie those resources up and there's probably a better use of it for that vacant FTE so that's been expanded with the budget that you just approved as well flexible staffing like dr. Ellis mentioned was new this year so this is the first year that we've had it and it hasn't been contingency what really stood out and we'll dive into these numbers in a little bit more detail what really

[00:20:10] stood out at a high level is two things one is the diverse needs that it was meeting so one of the things that we kept hearing over and over again in the workgroups that we had on staffing standards was that the staffing standards were working really well in the main what they weren't doing was meeting individual school needs where a school had a unique circumstance that wasn't replicated across all the other schools and by definition the division wide staffing standard wasn't going to solve that so things like flexible staffing allowed the school division to step in and meet individual school needs because it is flexible and school based so one thing was the diverse needs and

[00:20:48] the second was just the large impact that it had and the board approved this year that we could kind of start merging flexible and contingency together and we got to try that out on a trial basis before we brought it forward in the budget this year, and it worked very well. Just quick high level on who's using this. We see that about 75% went to elementary schools. We'll talk about how virtual Loudoun played in with that. If you take virtual Loudoun out, which again, we'll talk in a minute, elementary school made up about 65%, which is what you would expect based on the number of schools that we have. We have about 60

[00:21:24] elementary schools. And then for middle school and high school, their proportions were really offset by how they used contingency staffing so it all leveled out but it's used across the school division for the part that you probably will find the most interesting is how those positions were actually used from looking at the 36.7 fte that were given out through flexible we could really identify six major categories that they were used for one was school-based stem teachers to provide six half ftes individual schools to kind of jumpstart STEM programs. We had school-based front

[00:22:02] office supports, special education, other school-based staffing needs, student supports, and virtual distance elementary. And over the next two slides we'll talk about individuals, but yes, Ms. Mansfield. Sorry, is that also nurses and things like that, or? No, I think school-based nurses are in another category, but on the next slide we'll go. Oh, it's in the next slide, never mind. I got it. We really tried anticipating so those three categories student supports is exactly what you're looking at for each one of these uses schools identified a very specific need

[00:22:42] it was either around school improvement plans and specific interventions that a school was looking for or it was around a very specific individualized student need for particularly students at a school so that's where we saw that category really come into play and that made up 11 of the 30 odd positions that have been given out school-based front office support the other category you asked were for assistant principals and deans and those and one attendance administrative assistant those were largely for schools that were on the upper end of their size for their level middle schools elementary schools where

[00:23:20] the staffing standards weren't really picking up that type of capacity at a school and this was a way to help alleviate that we had special education where five FTEs were given out directly to support individual student needs or schools where a larger school-wide caseload and served populations were just larger than anticipated and this was a good way to address that and then the two other categories to highlight real quickly other school-based staffing needs these were either to maintain supports that a school had in the prior year so a good example is one elementary school had a reading teacher

[00:23:57] that they really wanted to keep and they felt just below the staffing standard for it and this allowed that school to continue that support and then also just scheduling concerns where school is really trying to make a schedule work and this was a good way to step in and provide that extra coverage and the last was virtual Loudon Elementary the board did direct the LCPS continue virtual Loudon Elementary at the end of last year in order to keep that budget neutral we use flexible staffing all of those positions are now included in the FY26 budget, so all 11 of these FTE revert right back to flexible staffing, and they'll be used strictly for flexible staffing next year.

[00:24:40] So that's the flexible staffing component on differentiated, the other side that we were going to talk about today. There were 91.3 FTE that were divvied out out of the total 91.6 that were available in the FY25 budget. By far, the three most utilized positions were the school-based instructional facilitators, mathematics teachers, and reading teachers.

[00:25:06] And that's been one of the things that we'll do every several years is we'll pull historical data, relook, and we use that data to inform recommended enhancements to staffing standards going forward. So you can see that those are three areas that we've had improvements for over the last years.

[00:25:21] If you remember from this budget, there's five new division instructional coaches that was informed by this data where we can see schools were continually requesting this. So let's give it to them and let differentiated staffing be used for something else and we've done the same thing for reading teachers and we'll continue to do the same just as we monitor how schools are using differentiated staffing differentiated staffing by definition it's been around since FY 17 it was designed really to target economically disadvantaged and English language students and you can see just that where most of the supports are going to title one schools LCPS is 15 served schools

[00:26:01] this year and the vast majority of our differentiated staffing are going to those schools. And Title I schools on a ratio of 1.4 to 1 get more staffing than non-Title I schools through differentiated. So it's really consolidated in those schools. It is spread evenly across levels. Interesting to see. And finally, the specific positions that are actually being used. So the other chart was really an eye chart. There was a lot on

[00:26:36] there. This breaks us down by level. So you can see how those 91.3 FTE are spread out and what each one of the individual school levels are doing for it. And like you'll hear from our two principals in a little bit, each school's needs are unique and different, and this gives the principal direct access to those FTE in a way that benefits their school the most.

[00:27:00] I think that's my last slide. Thank you so much, Casey. So before I turn it over to Ms. Smith to talk a little bit about her story at Hutchinson Farm, I did just want to say that while Mr. Jones mentioned that most of the differentiated staffing is at Title I schools, I thought it would be important for you to hear from principals of schools that do not receive Title I funds and how they utilize differentiated staffing.

[00:27:29] One of the goals of using differentiated staffing back in 2017 was to be able to support schools that receive Title I funds, but then also still have the need and don't necessarily have access to those funds. So with that, I will turn it over to Heidi to talk a little bit about how they use differentiated staffing at Hutchinson Farm.

[00:27:53] Thank you, Dr. Ellis, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to share our story from Hutchinson Farm. Just to give you a little background on Hutchinson Farm, we're located in South Riding. We serve students in pre-K through fifth grade, and we have about 631 students.

[00:28:08] Our white population is 38%. Our Asian population is 33%. We have about 13% Hispanic students and 9% black. We have 16% of our students are EL, and 29% of our students are economically disadvantaged.

[00:28:26] So our school, in particular in the South Riding Area, is probably one of the most, if not the most, diverse elementary school in that area. So in school year 2021-22, 2021, I'm sorry, we were provided with the opportunity allotment of differentiated staffing.

[00:28:46] And so we immediately chose a school-based instructional coach. It was a school-based instructional facilitator at the time. They've changed the name. And we immediately chose that position. And the reason for that is we had previously had a division instructional facilitator as well as a math facilitator in our building.

[00:29:07] But when we had those positions, they were in our building for maybe one day or two days, and then they would travel to other sites. But we wanted a position in our building every day. And we had great success with the division instructional facilitator as well as the math facilitator, but we wanted someone who could build relationships and trust with our teachers.

[00:29:30] And that, we found, was really, really important. So that was why we went ahead with the school-based instructional facilitator and being able to provide that support for the entire school and build off of that and support our school improvement plan, which is the overall goal for our school-based instructional coach.

[00:29:49] So the role of the school-based instructional coach is really multifaceted. They work with the grade-level CLTs, with curriculum planning, professional development, reviewing data, looking at MTSS plans, there's collaboration with the leadership team.

[00:30:09] We are constantly doing needs analysis and reflection, looking at our action steps in our SIP plans and deciding do we need these strategies, take them away, add new strategies if we need to, and focusing on support staff so that the staff can work with the students and be able to provide the supports that the students need.

[00:30:32] So really the overall focus is on the big picture, looking at the school improvement plan every summer, looking at what our goals are, how do we need to focus on that, what action steps do we need to put in place. And so this role is changing every single year dependent upon what our SIP is.

[00:30:53] So next slide please. If you take a look at the chart here, you'll see in school year 2021 our math scores were at 56 percent so what we did with our school improvement plan is we decided that our overall sip goal would be focused on math but action steps that we put into place were related to personalized learning data analysis and rti structures our school-based instructional coach focused on this for the next two years we had collective efficacy as the whole school focused on this, you will see in two years' time,

[00:31:29] we were able to increase our percentages in our SOLs to 81%, which was huge and a great success. If you look at the next slide, I showed this. This is actually from last year, and this has to do with our achievement groups.

[00:31:47] And the reason I share this with you is because if you look at all of our achievement groups here, they are all on level one. And this was a great success for us because it shows you all these groups are showing growth. And this was a great success for us. And I believe this is a result of the work that we've done with personalized learning.

[00:32:05] And it was spearheaded by our school-based instructional facilitator and the work that she did with our whole school and all of our staff for multiple years. So this was a great success for us. And next slide, please. And the last piece of data that I wanna share with you is you will see that we were in 2022 with science. We were at 69%. We were struggling. And so we immediately, our SIP goal was related to science. We needed to implement a focus on the instructional model, the 5E instructional model.

[00:32:39] It was a whole school initiative, even though the SOLs were in, you know, fifth grade were being tested there, but we decided to do a whole school initiative. She worked with our whole school. she worked on experiments hands-on experiments we did walkthroughs and we we made an increase of 20 points in our science SOL in one year and we've had a just tremendous success with this role at our school and this year we're working on reading but again as I had mentioned before that SIP drives the

[00:33:14] focus and what we love about that is she's not pigeonholed into just being really you know focused on math or just being focused on reading it's it can switch so thank you thanks miss Smith I will turn it over to mr. Schaefer thank you River Bend is a very unique school very different than school in South riding of 600 we have close to 1200 in Sterling and I love when dr. Ellis said just looking at enrollment doesn't always tell the full picture of the school.

[00:33:53] And so what I do want to show is some staffing trends. We want to look at our growth that's unique with EL and economically disadvantaged. Similar to what Mrs. Smith said, our focus on student-centered coaching using that school-based instructional facilitator, expanding access to interventions, and then finally some consistency and needs-based staffing.

[00:34:17] So next slide. So this goes back to 2016 and something that's unique about Riverbend is our enrollment has been pretty stable, but you can see our instructional staffing has been up and down.

[00:34:32] This isn't official, we haven't received our staffing memos yet, but we do anticipate losing at least five positions for next school year, even though our enrollment is just dropping a little bit. So next slide. And then this just shows the pattern since 2016 of our differentiated staffing.

[00:34:51] And you can see that we have been pretty stable since 2020, and I'll talk about the uses in a second. Next slide. So a big thing prior to this year has been a driving force has been not only economically disadvantaged, but our English learners.

[00:35:10] And you can see, again, like when you think about the previous slide, stability and plateauing of our, yeah, perfect. So, you know, 2.3 to 2.6 has been about the same. And then the next slide, you can see that huge increase.

[00:35:26] And currently, we did not get any staffing for monitor students. So these are just our students that receive direct support. So next slide. And this is a slide, these numbers are not accurate.

[00:35:42] These change every single day. So this is the beginning of the year, just looking at some projected of our economically disadvantaged. So some of these schools are in our cluster. Some of these schools are surrounding us. And all of these schools, except for River Bend Middle School, receive some support, whether it's through Title I funds or additional staffing, but we do not.

[00:36:04] And so even though we have over 500 students who are economically disadvantaged, we have not received Title I funds to be able to support different needs that we have. Next slide. So just like Mrs. Smith, I would say the number one use that we have used since 2016 with our differentiated funds once we got to a 1.0 was in 2018, this, the school-based instructional facilitator.

[00:36:34] So Mrs. Smith kind of talked about all the different reasons of how we've used that position. I would say something else that we utilize that position for is coaching cycles with our new staff, Especially in Sterling, we have all the time, just with enrollment changes and just the location in the county, we have new staff constantly.

[00:36:52] And so to be able to help support those individuals is really important. We've also used it to bump up different positions. So as an example, this year we had a 0.5 FTE and EL. And having a person in your building every single day makes a huge difference.

[00:37:11] So to be able to bump that up to a 1.0 has been great. And then specific to middle school, but I do know that this impacts elementary and high school as well, we don't really have built-in intervention blocks and we're not staffed for that.

[00:37:26] So we can use different teachers, but in middle school, we're staffed for six blocks where they're teaching. And so to be able to receive some differentiated funds has enabled us to do some creative things. Like this year, our math teachers are teaching five blocks and then they have an additional block where it's math labs where we target kids for intervention.

[00:37:46] And this differentiated staffing has enabled us to do it. Also specific to middle schools, having pure interdisciplinary teams in sixth and seventh and including math on those teams. And then I would just say like from a principal standpoint, I just, I so appreciate the opportunity to give feedback and for the board or for central office to hear that and to make changes based on some of this.

[00:38:12] And so two big things here, you know, considering not just percentages, but looking at numbers of students. And so even in this year, this upcoming school year, our differentiated staffing is increasing based on our economically disadvantaged.

[00:38:28] And that will be huge for what we can do with our schedule. And then the last is providing principals with flexibility on how we actually use this. So when this started in 2016, we could only, at that time, we could only use it for teaching positions.

[00:38:45] And then we've been able to increase, like 2018 was that first where we could use it as a school-based instructional facilitator. You can see from that list whether it's an SSA, a counselor, special ed, EL, just giving principals that flexibility has been huge.

[00:39:02] So thank you for listening. - All right, thank you both very much for sharing. And with that, I'll turn it back over to you, Chair Streffi. I'm sure you all have questions for our principals.

[00:39:17] - Thank you so much. I wanna thank you all again for coming. This is probably the most excitement in terms of, I'll just keep saying the PMC is the best committee ever, but wanna appreciate all of what was presented.

[00:39:33] I'll just make very brief comments and I'll leave some space for my colleagues. But for me, I really appreciate what was said around having the SIP as the focal point for a lot of the work that we do and leaning on that. I think that it's something we've talked about in terms of how we see that magic recipe of flexible staffing, giving each school community what they need, giving them the discretion, and then leaning on the SIP to figure out what's working and what's not.

[00:40:06] One of the things that I did was, recently I skimmed through a bunch of school improvement plans, mostly in Title I schools, elementary and middle, looking for something that, you know, some pattern, right? And just kind of anecdotally coming up with some conclusions because it would seem that we're trying to do all the right things, right?

[00:40:25] We're pushing all of these flexible staffing, differentiated positions, and focusing on our SIP. But one of the things that I saw as a pattern, I don't know how much of a pattern it was, But it was a few schools where it was highlighted that staff turnover was one of the big pieces that was affecting student achievement.

[00:40:49] And so we could fill all of these positions, we could give all the discretion, especially in our Title I schools. One of the things I wanted to highlight was, and maybe potentially ask about in terms of the impact, was staff turnover in Title I schools specifically.

[00:41:07] And if that is a limiting factor or has been a limiting factor. And then the other thing I wanted to ask was, I saw one of the data points around at the high school level. It transitioned a little bit away from that instructional facilitator to school counselors.

[00:41:27] And I've heard from school principals, whether at middle school or high school, around the increased need for some of these positions. appreciation for for example assistant the additional assistant principal for title one schools and just kind of the focus around the supports around the school community versus the in maybe some of the instructional positions so that's something that I have in my in my mind and and then I'm also curious about how we deploy centralized resources so looking at the different

[00:42:06] categories of um the central admin groups that go to the schools which ones are utilized the most versus which ones are utilized the least or by which types of schools whether that's title one um that you know or i that's an area of curiosity for me i haven't asked this question in the one year that i've been here is you know where do we from central admin from the different groups that provide resources to the schools which ones are the most utilized versus the least so that was

[00:42:36] a bunch of stuff? No. The one question was a concrete one was staff turnover. Yeah. So I will say anecdotally, and then I'll let Mr. Schaefer chime in because he mentioned this. Anecdotally from Title I principles, yes, turnover is a concern. Very much so. And I know that HRTD has had conversations with the leadership at Title I schools, you know, trying to strategize about retention of staff but yes it is definitely a challenge and then from

[00:43:16] experience I don't know mr. Schaefer if you have anything to add to that yeah every school is different right so speaking from a school in Sterling we know that a lot of people love to live out west it's a little bit cheaper specific to Riverbend so every year we have less than 10% turnover so it's not a lot but when you consider a staff of you know 160 170 new teachers like we need support onboarding those staff especially if it's the middle of the year if there's long-term subs and so having that school-based facilitator has

[00:43:50] been able to support especially mid-year hires on that you would ask also about centralized support and I will say that is something that schools and central office work very closely together we're fortunate that we not only have I keep saying school-based instructional facilitator it's now an instructional coach that's school-based but we also have a division instructional coach and they are a tremendous team and we work directly with the professional learning office to align our work with the SIP but I think that there's you know when

[00:44:28] when there is that connection it's it's just extremely beneficial from the principal standpoint there's been some great changes to like even today we found out that our current division instructional facilitator is coming back next year and that motto is not changing so to know the middle of February that really helps with planning and all of that so we've done great work moving with that I don't know if mrs. Smith wants to add to anything the only thing that I would say is that the school instructional facilitator provides those supports to the teachers with resources with planning and really helps the the

[00:45:08] teachers and alleviates a lot of extras I think a lot of times which provides them opportunity to be teaching and working with the students so the school based instructional facilitator is not that interventionist they're not the one who is hands-on with the students but that's okay for us because it's the teachers that we want working with the students a dream would be if we could have in every school we have our reading teachers we have them as interventionists but what would be great is to have our reading interventionists to have our math interventionists and then have our school-based instructional facilitator that to me

[00:45:46] would be golden because then we could because right now we have the reading teacher who can work with those intervention groups when need be but our math is where we need to go next so that's a wish list sorry I thought I would just put it put it put a plug in if I could okay we did price it out but we'll get there chair mansfield did you have anything so i had i've

[00:46:20] been to both of your schools and i loved my visits at both of them um one thing and i just went to mr shaffer's just recently like this last week but one it's fresh so so one thing that struck me was uh that relationship between the division uh facility uh instructional facilitator a coach and the school-based coach and that they provided a safe space for the teachers to come in

[00:46:52] and even down to the down to the they had sweet and salty snacks here you know I mean they really thought about environment and it was like a nice kind of cool down room for the teachers and what strikes me is that relationship and that building of trust that for the teachers that they need it just as much as the students need it and um and that environment too that safe environment um

[00:47:25] so i think that that was one thing that i thought well that would be a really great way to keep our teachers and help coach them why do you think that they need so much coaching and support right now I think our goal is always to build capacity, right?

[00:47:52] So we talked about the CLT structure, the CLT leads, and you need constant coaching. When you were at Riverbend, you spoke to our different coaches. As leaders, instructional leaders, we need coaching too. This is my 11th year at Riverbend as a principal, but things are always changing.

[00:48:11] New people are always coming in. I just think that having that thought partner is huge. So whether it's a first-year teacher, a veteran teacher, a veteran administrator, like, we just, we need that to build capacity. The hardest part is when we don't have enough teachers, and then we're making them instructional facilitators, and so you take the people out of the classroom.

[00:48:35] That's so hard for me. I mean, can you speak to that at all? I mean, what do you think is the, where's the balance? That is a challenge. I mean, it really is. In reference to your previous question, I think the sustainability, too, when we have a lot of transitions back and forth in the schools, having somebody there to help with the sustainability of programs that have been implemented.

[00:48:58] So because what will happen is we will have somebody who's been in two years, someone who's been in five years, in seven years, and having to make sure that we have sustainability of implementation of PD and practices with programs. So that's been very helpful. We have not been impacted that much by teachers leaving for those positions.

[00:49:18] But I'm sure we could be very creative in looking how we might be able to implement that to benefit all of the schools. I think right now we just have a plethora of facilitators right now. So if we're creative, maybe we can look at how it could impact each school in a positive way.

[00:49:38] Could you tell me a little bit about what you mean by personalized learning? Yes. So we as a division, or did you want to address it, Dr. Ellis? No, you can go ahead. So personalized learning was actually something that we implemented division-wide, and we implemented it in math and in reading, and there were four components of it.

[00:50:05] We looked at targeted instruction. We looked at reflection and goal setting. We looked at creativity and collaboration, and I'm missing one component. Yes. No, I hit targeted instruction. it's in this slide I think there's one other so there was yes there's one other one other area and basically you focus on those four areas and really differentiating for every child's need whether it be their academic their social need their learning style and really focusing on the individual needs

[00:50:40] of the child in your classroom and so we spent the first year focusing on personalized learning with math we continued that for two years and then we We shifted that for those four pillars and moved that to reading. So I feel like slowly but surely we did it and it made a difference with all of our achievement groups.

[00:51:01] That makes me feel better because when I was hearing personalized learning, like it was, I don't know, 10 years ago or maybe 7 or 8, it was all about the blended learning and the computers. And so that's why I was like, what do you mean by personalized learning?

[00:51:16] You mean just good instruction. good instruction okay thank you thank you thank you so much for being here this is exciting I think in terms of meeting needs for students I have a couple of questions for you all and then I do have a couple follow-up questions from the presentation for staff I was wondering if you could speak and I really do echo what you're saying about the coach and I feel like that that's been so responsive and now that certain schools have a coach and others don't that's

[00:51:50] creating a gap and a desire for everyone to have one I happen to be one of those ELA ones that bumped around school to school for many many years so it was hard on us too you know it was really challenging to feel like you were very effective in one place and to build that relationship and trust it took longer so I think that that's amazing something that we've talked a lot about here is just the this idea of increased need for intervention especially as it relates to MTSS and I know Mr. Schaefer you mentioned the math lab so I'm going to kind of ask this question in an elementary and a middle lens we are really seeing that our like I'll take my daughter for

[00:52:29] example she was in third grade when COVID hit right so one of those foundational years and now she's sitting in middle school right so those kids have moved up with some of those you know foundational gaps and now they're sitting in your lap so intervention is hitting middle school at an unprecedented level I would say at least the middle schools that I've been out to have definitely mentioned that and then also what we've seen is with the modules and all of that coming down through the MTSS process you know we have schools that not even I mean our title one schools for sure but even schools that have just high needs and unique populations have these

[00:53:05] inverted pyramids where there's not five percent at tier three there's a lot more than that and so when you do a power-up window or wind time or whatever the intervention block you just don't have the bodies to keep the groups at three per group which is best practice so then we start fudging the groups right making them a little bigger just to make it work but then that's not really giving the fidelity so i was wondering if you take how that plays into your school improvement process and if you could reflect on if those have been needs for you and then how that

[00:53:36] drives how you communicate a need for more staffing or if it does uh the middle school level a standard answer is people will say just do it in a resource and do it resource the issue is we have three resource teachers per school so you take Blue Ridge I don't know exact enrollment seven eight hundred and you got Willard seventeen hundred and everybody gets three resource teachers and these are not teachers these are universal non-exam classified employees and so we we're

[00:54:13] not staffed we're not staffed to have math teachers or trained reading teachers in there and so we have to think creatively and we have to use staffing like differentiated staffing to create structures so like you saw a reading strategies course where a reading specialist are supporting kids with particular needs if you heard the Scott Phillips at Eagle Ridge on the podcast he was talking about their model that they use there's many other schools that use different models with math and a half or everyday math those are structures again like they're good for kids we know our kids on a

[00:54:52] block schedule need math some kind of math every day and so this differentiated staffing that does enable us to do it but the answer in middle school is not just we'll just do it in resource we just have to think differently about that so there definitely are challenges one of the things that has worked well for us is actually our master schedule, the way that we have built out our elementary master schedule, and making sure that each grade level is not doing English or math really at the same time.

[00:55:30] We're trying to do that, and we build our intervention times into that master schedule so that they're not overlapping. So all the interventionists in our building who would be the reading teachers, the EL teachers, they are not overlapping, and that was huge because if they're overlapping, they can't be in two places at one time.

[00:55:49] So it's really, that is very delicate when you build that schedule. It drives everything. So you will have your pals tutors, you'll have your reading teachers. Even when you have a .5 reading teacher, you make sure that they are there for the majority, you know, of your language arts, as much as you can.

[00:56:08] The challenge, I think, is really more so with the math, but the way that the EL program is structured now too, They're providing intervention in the math time as well. So it's working out nicely. But we still could always use additional supports for intervention because the groups, you're right, are getting larger.

[00:56:30] Yeah, I appreciate that. And I'm going to bring it up because it's my thing. But I know a lot of discussion that we're having in the curriculum and instruction committee is around sort of middle school structures. We've been talking a lot about schedules, so stay tuned. And I know we have a visit soon. But we've also been talking a lot about what these intervention numbers have done to the school.

[00:56:52] So I know you're using Lexia for all. And so thinking about those kind of, it never really occurred to me the lack of specific reading teachers. Like in elementary, you can hold on to those positions or you could use your differentiated staffing.

[00:57:07] I think someone mentioned that's something that if you were around the bubble, you could keep it, right? But in middle school, it's like one for all. And so are you seeing the impact of some of those foundational skills in word study and grammar and comprehension that is being illuminated by these Lexia platforms?

[00:57:24] Are you seeing that? And then how are you applying that in-person, face-to-face instruction or ensuring that that's happening? Because we know that that's then what really meets the need. How do you grapple with that without having the staff? Yeah, you had all the middle school English teachers here.

[00:57:43] they would tell you, we're just not sure how we can do it all in one block, right? So, like many schools, we use Lexia, and the kids do that up to 60 minutes per week. They do that in resource. So we actually have trained our resource teachers to help with that.

[00:58:00] So the online component of that. And then the teacher-led component, what we're doing is we're doing that in our English language arts classes. So it's just, again, it's trying to figure out, like, how is this all going to work? Within our current middle school model and it's it's a challenge, but that said like we're seeing tremendous growth with Specifically comprehension and word study. So our grammar we are actually not doing the grammar strand We're doing that through no red ink, but we're seeing great strides with that It's just a matter of like how do you do 60 minutes per week online plus teacher?

[00:58:37] You we have to use resource as part of that I appreciate that. And I wrote down what you said, staffing to create structures. I think that that's where you really can be creative with what you have. So thank you both for being here. I wanted to ask a couple of questions about contingency staffing. I noticed in the presentation it talks about actual meeting what was projected. Does that apply for over enrollment and under enrollment?

[00:59:04] So does that create a buffer? I know there's been situations where people find out, like, you're a projected enrollment, you're a dean, you're going to get de-staffed, right? I know we have some unique situations going on with Brambleton Middle and their arts programs that they're really concerned about because they're going to only have eighth grade for three years.

[00:59:26] And they've built these music programs that don't just happen overnight. And so, yes, they're going to drop in enrollment. They're losing two grade levels. So that's going to happen, but they also are going to get those kids back eventually. So is that something that is based off contingency staffing, or would that be something that flexible staffing could be applied to?

[00:59:45] Because I know you're talking about that relationship is sort of intertwined. So in general, there's also a provision within the staffing standards that's called hold harmless. And what that looks at is when we do the staffing standard calculations, we have the CIP enrollment, which you approve in December.

[01:00:01] We take that, and that's what we base our staffing standard calculations on. If a school looks like they're going to lose any of the tier-based positions, we actually look out the next three years and see if at any point they're going to pick back up. And if they do, it's considered a hold harmless.

[01:00:18] They keep that position, and that position remains, and it's really there to provide continuity and stability. There are unique circumstances. The reading teacher I spoke about earlier, Bramble to Middle, and on those, it's more of a whole of division support. And that's where you'll have Department of Academics, Department of School Leadership, Business and Financial Services, HRTD.

[01:00:41] Look at a school's unique situation and figure out what we have at our disposal from a resource perspective to make sure that school can maintain what they need. Okay, that's good perspective. I appreciate that. I was actually speaking with a group of music teachers today in elementary who are, a couple of them are worried about losing their full-time music positions.

[01:01:01] and they're going to maybe go from a 0.8 at one school to a 0.2 at another school. And when I think about how we're taking care of our people and I think about morale, because I'm glad you brought that up, I think that that's another piece that we could use this flexible staffing to think a little bit more outside of the box on is what is this doing to the school culture and what is this doing to a – because a lot of those people, if they're going to be a 0.8 and a 0.2 somewhere else, They're going to go look for a 1.0 that opens up, right?

[01:01:32] I mean, I would, instead of being in two different places and only being in one place for a little bit. So some of that right sizing, I think, could be bigger conversations around flexible staffing. I noticed there was physical education in your charts, but I didn't necessarily see music in there.

[01:01:48] But it kind of ties back to our elementary master schedule conversation. So we're coming full circle. But that's something that also moves the needle for kids, right? happy teachers like what they do that influences the classroom environment and people that feel secure in their positions are less likely to be shaky in that and so I know that this is like that time of year where we're finding all that out with the budget and enrollment so it's probably a little heightened but I just thought that I'd add that because I've been thinking a lot about how we could make allowances for some of that and maybe flexible

[01:02:25] staffing is the answer i don't know sure enough um so we were talking uh at a high school and to be to have a class in high school is 15 students i think and so that's what's happening a lot time in for music and theater and not necessarily art but that they don't have enough in their classes for some things and so then they have to teach english or they have to teach something else and then you lose them um and that's you know the principals are doing what

[01:03:01] they can to give them a full FTE but I totally get what you're saying and I appreciate that because I think that's something to think about is the other thing when you do that especially with the arts is then you're stopping the arts and you're stopping that progression and the program and possibly those kids coping skills later too so um I think that's something that we should think of as well I appreciate you bringing that up we've we've addressed this in curriculum and instruction and I think we're going to address the staffing piece going forward

[01:03:36] as we continue throughout the year but I you know I sort of feel like if it's and if you build it they will come kind of thing with the arts so if you can't get the kids but then you don't have the teacher well you're it's like a perpetual cycle of you're not going to be able to build the program but that's sort of off brand here but I I do think that moving in this direction of allowing you all to be able to have the authority to really analyze what's going on in your building and know what's in your building and be able to advocate for those needs and then to express how that has changed has been really really enlightening so thank you guys and thank you so you said you

[01:04:12] want instructional facilitators yeah coaches math and reading is there anything else that if you had the world and all the money three school board members who are listening to you like what would be your your thought for your school you know how would well how much time do you have no I so I would say this about the school-based facilitator instructional coach when you look at slide 20 that is the number one position so if you were at any principal that's what they would

[01:04:49] say I think at the middle school level in particular there are positions such as like an SSA position that the high schools have full-time we know that middle school it's a desperate need you can't really do that as a stipend position so something like that whether it's you know testing coordinators or um you know more in counseling i mean there's there's so many needs and i think what's what's difficult is from a division standpoint to have 100 instructional coaches at schools like it may not be feasible but we're moving in that right direction so a couple more

[01:05:28] every year looking at schools with particular needs i think that's important well any other questions or discussion so we will move on to the next item thank you guys very much multiple acts multiple accessible pathways and I'll pass it over to dr.

[01:05:51] Ellis thank you and before we start I'll just let mrs. Smith and mr. Schaefer know you are welcome to leave and and mr. Jones you're welcome to stay too but don't feel like you have to thank you so much for being here all right so our Our last topic this evening, we have with us Dr. Paige Carter, Director of Special Education.

[01:06:20] And we will be sharing some information around Goal 1.2, Multiple Accessible Pathways, specifically focused on special education transition programs. So just as a reminder in our strategic plan, here is Goal 1 -- oh, no, it's on my screen.

[01:06:38] we go here is goal 1 and then action 1.2 specifies that we will expand student access to participate in specialized educational opportunities which is quite broad and so we're really focusing on enhanced transition programming for students with disabilities we had a question from the committee I think it's been a couple of months at this point around this topic so we are excited to share this information with you, and I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Carter.

[01:07:10] Well, good evening, and thank you for having us here tonight. We love talking about transition, and I'm coming to you on behalf of Jenna Arndt and her transition team. The programming data that you see on the screen really outlines where our students with transition goals and associated activities in their IEPs are, beginning in sixth grade all the way to 12th. It's important to note that it's not required until a student is 14 or turning 14 during the duration of the IEP that these transition goals would be required. But there are students who are younger who have

[01:07:48] goals in their IEP. The largest number of them, obviously, as students go up in grade, the goals get more intense and more specific as students identify some transition goals of their own, as well as those softer job skills that we begin to work on in different ways. So the number of students that have the goals increases, but also the number of goals that each student has can increase as well. We also wanted to review the transition services that we have in the division,

[01:08:22] both every high school has a transition teacher and a job coach. In addition, we have special programs, Project SEARCH. There's one program that currently has six students. Project SEARCH is a program that was originally grant-funded from outside of the school division, and that students work in a hospital setting for Project SEARCH. I was able to shadow a student the first year I was here, and it was really exciting to see how they acclimated in the hospital environment and really became part of the staff.

[01:08:57] Everyone knew who they were. They were performing job duties that were solidly what you would be doing in competitive employment. So it was exciting to see. Likewise, our CAST programs, there are seven programs throughout the division, 42 students in those programs.

[01:09:15] We are getting ready to hold interviews and take applications for next year in the coming weeks. So, but those programs are at various locations. We have, for example, at Lansdowne Resort is one.

[01:09:30] There are some based out of high schools as well. And then we have one SOS program serving seven students, and that's a very similar transition program with different levels of students. So, my computer's moving very slowly, I apologize.

[01:09:55] Another transition activity that we do throughout the, Throughout the years, elementary all the way through high school, are community-independent instructional experiences. So far this year, 3,437 trips have been taken at the elementary level, where it's encouraged but not as required, 25 trips so far.

[01:10:15] At middle school, 66 and high school are the bulk of the trips at 3,346 trips out of the school building into the community for various reasons. There are 35 community locations that have been visited, which sounds like to me we go to the same place a lot of times.

[01:10:36] But, for example, a community trip may be going to the grocery store to purchase items for the activity that the students have planned in order to carry that out within their transition classroom would be an example of a community experience.

[01:10:56] And the top five readiness skills are on the screen there that you see. And what I love about these skills are that they can be applied in any work setting. So work ethic, showing up on time to the experience, completing all of the tasks that are part of what you've planned for today.

[01:11:17] Also teamwork, working together, obviously, listening, speaking, workplace safety, and efficiency and productivity. So regardless of what job field you choose, those are all skills that would be important. And then the last slide, looking at our transition center, I know I'm very excited about it.

[01:11:38] We have been meeting on the regular once every couple of weeks I participate. And we are beginning to do some really intense planning for what that transition center might need. everything from what staffing would be required to what students would participate and how often we would go out into the community versus do things in the center.

[01:12:00] All kinds of activities are taking place in and around that idea already. So we are very excited about that. But that is the data I have for you that's related to the strategic plan. but I also just wanted to say that our transition team is very grateful to the school board for their support of the transition center.

[01:12:26] What questions might you have? Thank you very much, board members. Questions, comments? So thank you for being here and for your presentation.

[01:12:44] I'm super excited about the transition center. In looking at these items, especially like the getting out in the community, And I'm wondering, it's not required for elementary school, but is there any way to bump up some of those things at all?

[01:13:05] A lot of the elementary trips, it's teacher by teacher. And so it is their preference. And we can absolutely encourage more trips. And that is something that we can do. We haven't imposed any restrictions on those from our office as far as funding and things like that.

[01:13:27] So now if suddenly there were 6,000 trips instead of 3,000, that might be a concern. But we certainly can continue to encourage that. And I know a lot of our transition activity is focused at the secondary level, and that is something that we're talking about even in the discussions about the transition center.

[01:13:47] So, and that's a good point, is you kind of start transition in elementary school, right? Yeah, begin with the end in mind, absolutely. So what are, what kinds of different, so I know that LCPS is going to be, you know, on the cutting edge of everything, and so what are the new things that you guys are thinking about for the transition center that are different than something, than Fairfax or other places?

[01:14:16] Well, to be honest, we have, we are throwing every idea that we can think of, and sort of seeing what sticks at this point because we really want to be mindful that sort of the sky's the limit but we also have to be judicious in what we decide because it's it's not infinite space nor infinite dollars right so we are looking at technology as and the jobs that are in and around technology and 3D printing and all of the technology behind even screen printing vinyl

[01:14:50] printing those kinds of things and having even retail opportunities for the things that are made because you can spread across so many different job fields by having a maker space and then go from there so that's been a lot of the discussion in our meetings we've also talked about really looking at the student interests across and what kinds of things can be housed in high schools and thinking about what could be what's already there and doing something completely different.

[01:15:23] So to answer your question, I really can't yet because we're still in the planning phases, but technology and makerspaces have been a huge part of the discussion so far, at least the discussions that I've been involved in. Technology is very current here in this area for sure.

[01:15:42] Absolutely. And gaming is the other thing, And there's a lot of accessible gaming out there right now, e-sports teams, those kinds of things to think about. Anyway, I'm done. Thank you for your presentation.

[01:15:59] I had a question about you mentioned on slide four that transition plans are not required until the student is 14, but sometimes that can happen earlier. So would those conversations begin with the parent, with the teacher, maybe both, and is part of their annual IEP and then my second part of that question is what is the education process for parents to understand what goes into a transition goal and when does when do those conversations begin how do they know that that's part of their process sure well I think it begins

[01:16:36] in elementary school in a lot of IEP meetings simply because that's part of the process of the iep but um mostly sixth grade is when we really start talking about that but there's such an emphasis in elementary school now on career planning and with all of our you know with all of our new applications that all of the students are using there is more conversation about student interests about what kind of jobs you might be interested in so that i think that's part of the reason it's moving down below age 14 is because it's just a natural outcome of some of our other

[01:17:13] initiatives. But to answer your question about how parents know, it is our job as case managers to talk about that within the school setting, obviously, within the IEP process. And it's baked in there for secondary. But we also have an annual event called When the Bus Stops Coming, where a lot of parents can learn a lot about transition.

[01:17:37] There's also a lot of community resources, but it is our job as case managers to point parents in that direction. And transition is a lot of times something people think of as so far away. You know, even I used to talk to parents about the impact even of retention early on in a student's career, because a lot of students who are with us until they age out at 22, you have to really think about, Is it important to have that time now because we're learning language or because we're doing these kinds of things?

[01:18:08] Or do we want to spend that time on the other end really working on very specific transition things? So it really is student-dependent when you start having those conversations. But it is our job as case managers in the IEP setting to inform parents about that and to share with them about community resources that can be part of the IEP planning and part of the IEP team as we get closer and closer to transition.

[01:18:34] Does that answer your question? It does. I love that. Thank you so much. That was really enlightening. Thank you, Dr. Carter. I wanted to also ask, where or how does job shadowing fit into the data that you presented? And could you elaborate on that?

[01:18:55] Sure. And job shadowing is a natural part of our CAST programs, project search, part of as they develop the jobs that they're working on at the different sites. shadowing is part of that process. As far as at the high school level, sometimes job shadowing is built in when the transition or job coaches support students in internships and other things like that. And I can tell you just by observation here with our cast cart and the students that are here that are selling the snacks and things to staff here, there is absolute shadowing going on

[01:19:34] with the job coach. They work them through the machine that they use that we scan for all of those different things. So I think it's just built into job skills, but as far as an official job shadowing program or opportunities for rotating internships or anything like that, that really isn't something that is system-wide, but maybe more isolated for what students are interested in doing and might be different at every school. But I think it is a very important part of the instructional process. Modeling is a evidence-based practice that starts in preschool. So I think it

[01:20:12] just continues on with the transition process. Thank you for that. I was seeing the transition services that we have and the number of students participating. Is there any data around students who have transition goals and their ability to have participated in job shadowing across the board related to the goals that they have that they've identified is that what you mean um i can ask jenna i don't have that um i don't have that knowledge tonight but i can get it for you and um i know that we do track the transition data but i'm not sure we track it at that level

[01:20:50] but that would be interesting even to do a spot check of of a set number of ieps to see how many students are getting specific job shadowing i know they're getting instruction and opportunities and exposure but job shadowing I'm not sure but I'll find out because we do pretty well as a division you know offering lots of opportunities for job shadowing we have lots of community partners business partners just wanted to see how accessible those opportunities are for students who might have transition goals or an IEP yeah and I know it's definitely a part of the transition planning but I'm curious to know how often that's offered specific to the goal that the student has identified.

[01:21:30] Thank you. - Any other comments or discussion? Thank you very much, Dr. Carter. I will move us to new business. Board members, do we have any new business for the committee?

[01:21:49] Seeing none, I'll now adjourn this February 18th meeting of the Performance Monitoring Committee. Thank you all very much.

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