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You Good morning, we are presenting the the initial financials for the month of June. They do say drafts in all other months, we close the month, but because this is the end of our fiscal year, we go through our process with the auditors, so the month doesn't actually close until we complete the audit. So these are again preliminary, pre audited numbers. So for GPS, we received on the 13 and 18 Mills, the final reconciliation payments from the city and the county, approximately 13 point 7 million on the capital debt bonds, and another 14 million on the 18 mills. Those were in line with our projections. Excuse me, and continue to make all supplemental debt payments as scheduled, as we look at dpscd, we did continue to receive additional revenue from MD and from the county pushing up above our budget amendment to targets, federal revenue came in slightly lower again. This was because we'd recognized the money in April and May, so we were higher on those months. Expenditures was up and down in a couple areas that we'll talk about, but we're still in line to have a surplus for the year. So as I mentioned on the state revenue, we received a little over $6 million in one time. Professional Development Grant came in in May. That was after the budget was developed, so we did not know it was going to be included or received. So it wasn't forecasted on the federal side. I already said we received the Esser money. You can see the year to date is tracking on target for salaries. We pushed up the bonus payments. So you're going to see that when we're looking at the month to month. We made those bonus payments Earlier in June, so staff received them as in their final week as they were working, rather in previous years, they were paid in early July. So we have a timing issue there. Purchase services are coming in slightly below at this point, but I will say, I do expect that member to continue to increase as we process all the final invoices for goods and materials that were received by June 30, equipment and capital and supplies and textbooks. Again, slightly lower. I expect these numbers to push up as we get to the final audit, as we process all the final payments. To date, right now, we are projecting a $20 million surplus above what we had projected. But again, I expect this to fall down and be approximately about 10 million as we look at the functional level. As I said on the student instruction, that's higher because of the timing of bonus payments. Last year they were pushed into July. This year, they were paying in June. So you see the big difference there. Maintenance and Operations. We've been working closely with the operations team to process and push out their invoices in a more timely manner. So again, getting those invoices closed out faster. Pupil, you'll see that is higher, again, related to some bonus payments that we had, and then central support services related to technology being received by the june 30. So we can include included in the financials related to cash, no major changes. Continue to have available cash balance and continue to push as much as we can to our Myla investment accounts. Mylos is currently earning about five and a quarter percent, but we are anticipating that there are rate cuts on the horizon. So the district will be securing the FMP and literacy lawsuit funds in longer term securities that we can continue to earn those higher interest rates. We are projecting right now about four and three quarter percent that we will be able to lock in for the three years, anticipating interest rates will drop below that in the next couple years, and then this just shows FMP, just to note, these numbers aren't declining in June, we will be doing the final reconciliations. So we do anticipate the capital projects will continue to drop that will be fully spent by December, but as we complete the audit, there will be an adjustment to bring that down, and FMP that will come down slightly as we charge the expenses being completed to date. So, but those reconciliations haven't been done, but will be done during the audit
on school nutrition. We
have some good news. We received a one time grant from the federal government, which has pushed us from a deficit to a surplus. So we are going to end the year with a surplus, looking to be about a million dollar surplus, where we have been projecting a $2 million deficit, so a $3 million swing. So positive there, and are hopeful that the federal government will increase the reimbursement rate so we don't have to rely on these one time payments, but that the food reimbursement rate will just be enough to cover the cost. That concludes my report. Any questions,
any questions. Thank you, Melissa,
thank you.
All right, we have
lot to cover. Today.
We turn the era
earlier solution.
I was early.
Okay, we have, we have a lot to cover. Are you going to take us through the plan first. Okay,
all right, good morning. In your agenda is the high school redesign plan. I thought it would be helpful just to cover it broadly through a presentation. All the information that I'll review the presentation is in the actual plan, and a high level summary of the plan is obviously indicated on the board agenda item. So when we think about where we are as a district and where we need to go, I think one ongoing significant gap is the experience tab at scale in all of our high schools. This doesn't mean that many individual students at the high school level are not experiencing a lot of success and opportunities post high school, meaning the world of work or in college, it's really more about how do we change systems and processes for scaled impact? So the experience of being college ready and or career ready is happening with more consistency across all of our high schools, many more of our students, if you recall, when we did blueprint 2027 we focused on what would be a profile of a graduate. So what are things that? What would our students represent and be characterized by their experiences and levels of confidence. So we focused on being college and career ready, being critical thinkers and being able to adapt to change, being global thinkers, being able to engage socially, that they're leaders, they're collaborative, and that they have higher levels of social emotional intelligence and their resilience. So if we're going to do that, obviously we need to think differently about how we structure this school experience at our high schools. So always with our mission and our vision in mind and each of the four goals that we specifically named in the blueprint, I think, are directly also linked to the high school referral plan, mainly goal three students being graduate, future ready students. So, as we know, we can talk a lot about end goal of where we want students at. But you know, what does the infrastructure allow students to experience in a systemic way across application schools, exam schools and neighborhood schools. So when we look at where our high schools are, we certainly know that improvement has been made, but gaps exist. So for example, when we look at chronic absenteeism, nearly 68% of ninth through 12th graders in gpscd would be considered chronically absent, nearly double. Where the state average is running, students, our graduation rate has improved. It's now 74% but the state average is 82% when we think about students being college ready, defined by the SAT, we're about we're about half away from where the state average is in both literacy and math. And then when we look at love challenge and prepared the indicator based on the survey, are, we are seeing higher levels of students feeling love challenge, prepared at the grades three to five level as compared to the high school level. So with all that in consideration, we need to change the high school experience for our students. So this process started with a pilot and piloting some of these concepts around ninth grade cohort, cohort and teachers to better support students at East Sean's village in western that has moved into department level conversations, contracting out with ers just to do a national analysis, analysis of our data, our existing dual enrollment partners, Our schedule, in order to come up and help us define a plan on how to create a new experience for our high school students, and that's led us to this. Thank you. So the key pillars of this high school redesign plan is one focused on college and career aligned experience to be very intentional about students, especially in grades 11 and 12, moving into real college and career experiences with scalability. It also focuses on stronger advising and navigating. So we can talk a lot about, you know, students being college and career ready, but we know, on average, for many of our students, that's not naturally happening in their own home. There might be discussion of it, there might be a vision behind it, but obviously, a lot of our families are it's not easy for them to navigate through the high school experience and move into the college or career experience in that way. So again, being more intentional about that throughout the high school experience, from ninth to 12th grade, to help students plan, create the right management, discipline skills to go where they want to go, including more rigor and readiness within the schedule and then restructuring the schedule to make it happen, especially in our neighborhood schools, I would say. And the data shows this, that clearly in our exam schools and many of our application schools, this is happening, but our neighborhood schools that really needs a lot of the restructuring to be more intentional with the scheduling. So this plan at a high level was reviewed with our high school principals, with our teachers to get their initial feedback. You can see here that when you're when presenting the plan and the pillars, 74% felt that this was right as far as college ready, college and career ready? 70% felt that the advising and navigation whether the schedule makes sense and bringing more rigor and readiness to the schedule as well. And you can see some of those quotes to the right that were expressed by staff when they heard the plan. So the key of the plan is differentiating the high school diploma. So right now, as dpscd, like most high schools in Michigan, we offer what's called the Michigan Merit high school diploma. So it's a minimum set of credits 18 that define getting a high school degree. And so that would not change, that would still be sort of the foundation to the high school degree. What this plan recommends is that, through board policy, would create five different diplomas. So in a sense, enhancing the basic high school diploma that the state of Michigan offers at a minimum level. So the enhancements would focus on one being an honors diploma. So in order for a dpscd student to gain an honors diploma, they would have to take 28 credits, specifically focused on honors classes, advanced placement classes and a combination of dual enrollment classes, meaning they're taking these classes in addition to the minimum 28 so this means that you are still meeting the minimum requirements. But for example, you may be taking more science classes. You might be taking more social studies classes, and those classes are meeting the minimum requirements, but they're advanced placement classes through enrollment or honors classes. The other diploma would be a dual degree diploma, which you know that we're already moving in this direction at some of our high schools, and that would mean getting a merit, a Michigan Merit, minimum high school diploma, but all getting an associate's degree, you graduate from high school with a with a high school diploma and an associate's degree. The other type of diploma would be a career ready diploma. That would mean taking Career Ready classes, so taking nurse classes or finance classes, it would mean taking firefighter classes, police classes and then, but getting the certification linked to that. So we have students right now, for example, taking plumbing classes or some level of computer science classes, but it's not leading to a certification. So you would have to take the classes, pass the class, but more importantly, pass the certification in order to be career ready. And then lastly, arts. So this would be taking advanced classes, and the sequence of classes focused on the performing arts or the fine arts.
And so this is at a broad level, some of the Career Ready certifications that we're already offering now. So if you look at the far left, this is what we're already offering through mainly bright off Randolph, and to some extent, go lightly, and so that would be continued to be offered. And these are the Career Ready focus area, diplomas. Some of our high schools are offering this depending on how long the programs have been existing, how, if they've been able to retain their teachers? And then to the right is where the new work would start to happen mainly with Wayne County Community College as being our main partner. There's still room for Henry Ford, Wayne, State University of Michigan, maybe even Macomb Community College. But we, in thinking about this plan, we think our main partner will be Wayne County Community College. It's local. The campuses are throughout the city, so it's easier to connect with our high school, our high schools in general. So we also would, so this breaks down at a very high, broad level, that our exam schools would mainly offer the honors degree, the honors diploma and the dual degree program. There are some exam schools, obviously Renaissance Cas, that already have some of the arts programming. So they could also offer the arts program at the application schools, thinking more of the career ready, diploma, the arts diploma, and most would be offering honors as well, maybe not to small high schools, because it's just not enough teachers to do that. But we're also thinking about ways of accessing the virtual school and virtual instruction to connect students that may want the honors as well. The question is, is there enough time in the schedule to do that? But we're going to review each school schedule and understand what their teacher service looks like their schedule. And then lastly, the neighborhood schools would be the area where we're going to see the most change in reform, which is obviously necessary, needed. Those schools will offer the honors degree or honors diploma, the dual degree diploma, not all of them, some of them, and then the Career Ready option. The big change here is getting 11th and 12th graders on Wayne County community and college and campuses, so that they're moving into career ready opportunities, rather and something that we can't provide in a regular schedule because we can't hire enough teachers to offer these career areas, hard to retain them, hard to recruit them. And then the infrastructure, as far as the equipment and the Reza clearly, I've come to the conclusion where we've tried to build out career academies and high schools, the problem is teacher recruitment, teacher retention and just having an infrastructure built out that offers students a real experience. And so why replicate that when it already exists? With WC three and some of the partners, we'd also have diplomas with seals. So you'd have a seal by literacy, for example, military enlistment seal, or community service seal by completing more than 200 hours of service. So as far as advising in ninth grade, in the regular schedule, students would have a advisory class that would focus on not only social, emotional learning, trauma, informed type lessons, but also career exploration. So this is where they would start thinking about, what are their talents, what are their interests, and what pathway do they see themselves being on that would include goal setting, and then they would actually develop an educational development plan in ninth grade, which then puts them on a path to go into one of these pathways, whether it's honored career ready, the dual degree or the arts pathway, and then in 10th grade again, you're still focusing on your regular core classes, but continuing to navigate through course selection, keeping tabs on attendance. The other big change here is emphasizing in ninth grade the need to be present, because if you're not where you should be in credit by the end of 10th grade, it's nearly impossible to move in one of the pathways in 11th 12th grade. So we want all students to experience one of the enhanced diplomas, but if they get behind in credits, then it goes back to Course recovery, and then they're not going to be able to do that. They might take some electives here and there, but they won't have enough space in their schedule to move to that type of diploma. So then they would, by default, go to the Michigan Merit, which is the standard high school diploma, and the 11th grade is about monitoring the progress on the pathway. And then 12th grade is obviously thinking about post secondary planning. So this is applying to colleges, filling out the FAFSA. It's writing the Statement of Interest and or preparing for possible job interviews. So the ninth grade cohort is a point of emphasis, because we want smaller class sizes. We want students to be cohorted so that they stay together. They have only a few teachers. Those teachers are planning more, talking about student attendance, talking about student behavior, doing more outreach to families and make sure that they're on path to graduate. So think about when we were in college, you know, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Of classes, Tuesdays and Thursdays you might not or vice versa. So when students are not on the college campus, so they'll report to their high school, but those would be lab time where they can do their homework and they get assistance in their classes so they don't fall behind, and then obviously we'll still run dual credit recovery for those students that are behind.
So the big change that needs to happen in dpscd is a schedule. So right now, we're basically on a seven period day. If we stay on a seven period day, we won't be able to offer enough course options to meet the former pathway that we're talking about. So we either have to move to an A period day or an A or B schedule. So we've already started to talk to teachers about this. But obviously this year, the 2425 year, is a deep planning year to then launch in 2526 that's our first year. This will be taking place with the incoming ninth graders in 2526 so this year we're going to spend more time with teachers, more time with DFT, because this has to be bargained on what schedule we'll implement. There are pros and cons. And cons for both. And right now, I would say that we're hearing from teachers that some like the a period, some like the A and B, that will be one of the major infrastructural changes that must happen if we're going to implement this. And so that is one of the areas of focus going into next year. Can see some of the preliminary data about how people felt about the different schedules based on this, like I said, there's different viewpoints of which one we should implement. And so what I'll just do to wrap up is just go to the budget. And so,
so, no, as far as we go into next year, there's slight cost, which is continuing to plan. The major calls come when we start transitioning the with the ninth graders in 2526 to their senior year, because there's a lot of work that needs to be done on the schedule teacher time. This is later when students get into the 11th and 12th grade. We talk about the bussing. So the bussing link to this initiative is going to focus more on adding more, probably, yellow busses to this. There might be some city transportation, but more yellow busses and additional staffing. So we're probably, depending on what schedule we pick, there might be an increase in teacher salaries that we're going to have to deal with. But in addition to that, it's having someone from the high school side greet students when they get to the campus, to navigate them to class, also someone on the university side to help students navigate through this different experience. A lot of professional development. Increase in tuition costs because of dual enrollment. The positive in the cost analysis is a lot of it is one time as we move to structurally changing things. The other positive is this work is directly aligned to the Michigan growing Michigan together Task Force, work that the governor had created. The legislature generally supportive of moving into a model where elevens and 12th graders are experienced more time in colleges, and moving to more career ready schedules. And philanthropy is very interested in this as well, because they also want to see, especially regionally, more students connected to Career Ready, college ready work, because it benefits the workforce and it keeps more students in Michigan, especially higher performance students in Michigan. So some of these dollar amounts may be sticker shots, but I like I said, a lot of interest legislature and the governor's office and philanthropically to, I think, fill some of these short term one time costs as we transition schedules and work through additional staffing training and higher tuition costs. So I wanted to keep it as brief and tight as possible. On the other side, they're really more background information. So I'll just stop here. I'll answer questions now, or I don't care, we can do that through the agenda. I
next, this is gonna, does this relate to
the course catalog? Are these two items?
Not yet one day they should be, but right now, no, let's, let's
just go ahead and simply, since we just finished the discussions, you just finished
presentations
on redesign
plan. Now, for
one, I wanted to go back to one of our conversations earlier this year about how what the work that we're doing to make sure we are properly marketing and or recruiting students. There's been a lot of conversation about our skilled trade, or CTE not really reaching the level of enrollment. And just want to talk about some of those barriers. I mean, this program sounds amazing to have certification, but getting our students in the pipeline for these programs is very important. And not only that, an opportunity to get students that are outside of our district. So what plans do we have more intentionally address recruitment students accessing the program, because the numbers that I've seen previously show that they're woefully under populated.
Yeah, they continue to be in their sense of pandemic. We it is, it is improved, and by memory, they're now above post pandemic numbers. I believe at least branch off. I believe is, I don't know about Randolph, I have to double check the numbers. This plan will fully utilize both buildings, without a doubt, because students will be required to pick a pathway that will obviously lead more students to be aware of the programs that exist at the two tech centers. So this, this plan will get us there in the short term. You know, the this plan also overcome some of the challenges that we have with enrollment. One is course recovery. Two, lot of students don't want to leave their high school to then, you know, for the am or the PM, because then they feel like they're disconnected from their peers. We have tried to promote the career tech centers, especially with eighth graders moving into ninth grade with visits. I know that our team is continuing to engage our counselors in the opportunities. There are no financial penalties for a student to be enrolled in one of the tech centers that existed when I started as superintendent, meaning the high schools would lose FTE because they weren't in their main high school. So I would say short term, just continuing to promote the opportunity, be more engaged with counselors and families and parents and students about the opportunity. Long term, this plan falls for that, in fact, will definitely be at capacity in both buildings, and so we're going to have to go beyond the two buildings, and that's why the WC three partner and other partners are going to be important, because we just won't have enough seats to meet the demand with the current ready pathway.
Yeah, I have a few questions.
I can start with the three couple clarifying questions, sure. Um, so one that I just needed clarity on, on the the dual degree versus the honor or the dual diploma, diploma, diploma.
It was degree, but yeah,
so the dual diploma versus the honors diploma. It so on the
other chart would be more helpful to want to show the five different types of diplomas. Yes, thank you.
Yes. Okay, so on all of these, there are credits listed, except in the dual degree, which says 20 college courses, and I'm just trying to understand what we're talking about time wise, like, and if there's any overlap between whatever those courses and credits are, And what the honors courses and credits,
yeah. Well, you probably know the difference between the honors and the dual degree is, you're getting an
actual associate's degree. Yeah, I just mean as a student, they're going through classes, not the difference in this.
So the dual degree, the classes taken at the high school level are primarily basic level classes, but theoretically there, I don't see a reason why they couldn't be honored classes or AP classes, but I think the complication is you're probably going to be unable to take the advanced placement and college classes simultaneously. I'd have to clarify that point, but the college classes are focused on the associate's degree, which is more of a basic associate's degree. So okay, Am I answering your question? Yes, and
no, you as a part of it, and the other part, I didn't ask clearly enough, so I'm just trying to understand the kind of the math of it all. So we've got base level 18 credit, and then basically, for arts, Career Ready, or honors, you're adding another 10 credits, which I get, because that's all internal, yeah, but then under dual degree, we talk about 28 credits, and then it says including 20 college courses. And so I'm just not clear what the additional 10 credits are.
Yeah, that I think that I'm gonna, I'm gonna guess, and then I'm gonna look for help, but I think it's probably taking more science and social studies classes. I don't know,
freshmen and sophomore requirements help visual learners that they have to take those okay, there's probably just a better way to do this that will make it easier to read, because it's just it's looking like 38 instead of 28 Yeah, we're talking about courses versus credits. Yep. Okay, confusing. So that was my clarifying question, which I think I kind of get now and then I brought this up before, and I know what some of the barriers have been, but I still think that if we're talking about college readiness, however, we can activate partnerships with colleges, at least in our area, and or through like our alumni engagement, to check in with students. I think finding out about performance in the first semester or just after the first semester of college would be really meaningful to actually determining were you ready, because there's a difference between being accepted into college and then being ready to perform
at that level. Yeah.
I mean, obviously some of that is happening with the Detroit promise. And looking at that, there's nothing that prevents us from if we want to prioritize that, there is a way to get a research partner to do that, we just have to pay for it, or philanthropically try to pay for it. And I think that there's probably interest in that. So if you're, if it's your desire, as we move forward with this plan, and we engage philanthropic partners, we can add that to the component with students that graduate with that first class, because then we, I mean, it makes sense to track them when they're freshmen or they're in a workplace, so we can add that to the philanthropic ask moving forward.
Okay, yeah, if there's no objection from my colleagues, I think if we're going to talk about college readiness as an outcome, we have to evaluate that. And I also think when we think, when we consider students feeling tied back to where they graduated from, as alumni, if you go to college, you see the value in what happened in high school based on how, how well you did in college, and are very disappointed if you struggle.
You know, yeah, I think, as we talked about over the years, I think it was sort of difficult to think about investing in that, doing that, because we're doing so much internal infrastructure work, but it especially with this plan and the infrastructure change that now could possibly happen with this. It just makes sense, especially, I think, to look at success into that freshman year, yeah,
and the partnerships are stronger now too. So I also I think that maybe schools like you know Wayne, and at least Michigan State. I know Michigan can be funny about sharing information sometimes, but I imagine that through stronger relationships, they're tracking that data, yeah, because it influences where they recruit from. Well,
they Yeah, it's all about sharing the data. The data is all there. It's just someone creating the funnel right to put it there. My My instinct is going to be there is a lot of philanthropic energy around this and interest and adding that, I think only makes sense, as far as looking at results and outcomes,
would it be possible to take a beat and maybe go back to the very beginning of it? If we could go back to,
okay, I don't know if you had any more questions.
I have two more, but go because I think more appropriate later. Anyway, okay,
there was a lot of goals where I want to go there. Thank you. Okay, so I wanted just to talk. I wanted to start out with my questions,
with the goals.
Will you remind me of these? Are these three goals directly from our current strategic plan, or are these sort of refined goals so the improve attendance, push higher levels of proficiency? Yeah,
the on the far left, those are goals that we named in the strategic plan. And then there are metrics behind them. The you don't see that. You see a reference to it, but you don't see the actual like number, but there is a number. Okay, thank you.
So the,
I think the very first reaction I had once when I opened this up independently, and then as I was listening to your presentation, the very first reaction that I had both of those times was, we know that our high schools are underperforming, and I would argue that they're significantly underperforming, which probably implies that we're not doing some of the basic locking and tackling very well, and there's a whole lot of complexity that's coming into this. And it wasn't quite clear to me, like, what part of this redesign will actually, like, really get to the heart of what, what is driving the underperformance? So really, just throw out sort of a different way of looking at this data. I i have seen a report from the Chamber of Commerce, and it's a few years old now, but the report that I've seen indicates that of our, of our students that enter ninth grade, 65% of them either don't graduate, so we know that number, less than 26% now or don't go to college. And let me pause and just, let me just ask you, is that a? Is that a? Am I off on that
I don't know. I know one challenge had with that change chamber report is that it talks about Detroit, but it's actually the region. So it's not just Detroit, I believe, I think it includes not only charter schools, but it also includes suburbs. And so we've had a challenge with that. But I don't, you know. I'm not going to get into the details
I just wanted, okay, would be better than that? Though, I
don't know. I would say probably not, but I know that, for example, it reports out our graduation rate of Detroit graduation rate, and I know our our graduation rate has actually been better than what has been reported. And there's some other statistics. But generally speaking, I I
know that I don't reframe that because I don't want to get lost in the hard numbers of it all, but, but the significant majority of our students appeared to either not graduate or go to college right,
graduate from high school, from high school. I wouldn't say
that. So they're either maybe, the other way to say it is that the majority of our students are graduating either without a plan to go to college and a diploma, domestic degree, maybe, or diploma. So
I would say the majority of our school, I mean, yeah, everything from the numbers here, they're graduating from high school. I think the challenge is, after high school, they're finding challenges, getting into the work force with livable wages, or going to college. That's helpful, right? Because,
I mean, I actually think that framing is probably about what we should talk about, because ultimately the why of a diploma, or, you know, dual degree, is to find your way into some employable skills so that our kids can eventually design themselves economically.
So how
does this plan at a high level? What sort of maybe, now that I've gotten all that out, let's start with attendance, because that that is probably the same as holding our highest our students back alone. Yeah. So how does this plan at a high level address?
Yeah, because I think it's about, it's about it's about the high school experience being relevant. I think for a lot of our students, the high school experience is not relevant. I think, certainly there are students that go into high school and the first day of high school, what they're hearing from their family is, you're going to college regardless of what, whether you want to or not. The expectation is you're going to college. And we see those students for so there are groups of students in that category. The other majority of our students, our families, are starting to move away from staying on top of them, around their grades, around attendance, more up to them based on their parents life situation, on their work schedules, and because we're not intentional through the our high school experience to creating a path to college or career, it's then it's left a chance. And so the attendance, I believe, will improve because of this, because one the the advising that's going to happen in ninth grade, and the intentional small cohort of students that will just have four or five teachers. So if all of us represent students going into ninth grade at purging, all of us will have the same four or five teachers. So better connection, better support, better disengagement. And what I would say, generally, is wraparound services to make sure that we were ours where we should be at the end of ninth grade with credits. The data, national data, is clear that if you are where you should be after ninth grade and credits, you're much more likely to not only to graduate from high school, but the key here is being where you should be with credit tonight to 10th grade, so then you can take elective classes. This gets back to the other point. A lot of our high school students, so many of them, are burdened by course recovery that they're not taking elective classes. They're not taking classes that are interesting to them and our schedule, mainly in our neighborhood, high schools aren't even offering the courses that students are really interested in. They don't have the infrastructure to do that. They don't have the electives. They don't have the career type classes. So high school becomes about basic science, math, ela, English, language and math classes that are not as exciting by the time you get in 11th and 12th grade. By 11th and 12th grade, you're more interested in what is this experience mean for me post high school, and so a lot of our kids are just saying, This is not worth my time. It's not interesting. It's not what I want to do. There's more exciting things going on in life than this. So we attack the attendance issue by making the high school experience more relevant to their interests, and it gives them a springboard to college and or the world of work, and the advising is tighter from ninth to 12th grade, which leads to more follow up, more relevancy, Feeling better connected to the school and to the staff, which should improve attendance. What
data is understanding the assumption that high school students are chronically absent at the degree that they are because they're not excited about school? What's underpinning that assumption?
The survey data on Love Challenge and prayer. So, you know, we talk, I know broadly about Love Challenge prepared, but if we look at the actual questions, the questions are telling us that, on average, our students, compared to even other large urban districts, are not feeling love challenged and prepared, which means that so they're not feeling connected to their teacher. They're not feeling connected to their school. They're not feeling like they're being challenged by their teacher in the courses that they're taking. So they're telling us that through their survey data. But
is that survey data? I mean, okay, so I think we all spend a whole lot of time on this, but survey design matters, right? Yeah, what you put into it, get out of there, and, and, so what is, is the, and you can give me the survey offline, if that'll give me a fee. But is this question of, Why aren't you coming into high school more regularly? Is it framed as that direct question, where, where choices are being given for transportation, economic reasons
like, so I I'm not pushing here. Yeah, I wouldn't say no, not directly.
But the reason I'm pushing, I think you can see it, is you're there the assumption that underpins
the
the assumption that underpins the idea that our students are showing up in high school, and we've talked about this chronic absenteeism a lot, and I'll be honest when we talk about it, both privately and in this public format, there are other reasons that are usually more elevated than we're not excited about attending school that we don't think is relevant, and so I'm pushing you to help us understand the connection between high school absence, chronic absenteeism, and how this change is going to actually resolve that and it and I don't I'll look at The survey, but I don't know that I'm entirely comfortable with you know, we have some survey data that is seemingly presented in a context of how you feel about being at school, as opposed to what are the barriers to get in school? Yeah, okay, so that. So I'll move off of that
a few months ago, a couple more minutes ago, we
had a conversation about credit. I think you told me to wait for this.
So now we're here. Yeah,
we dropped our credit requirement down from
nine may 22 to
18, or 23 to 18 during the
pandemic, to the
to the to the Michigan Merit, I mean, just stand the minimum number of credits per this legislature, right? So that's where you see on the far right. Why are you keeping it there? Because it's the minimum. So we're enhancing it through the four diplomas. So, but the minimum would still be the minimum. I would not I mean, this even goes back to the conversations we've had before. We're struggling to get kids over the finish line with the Michigan Merit. I would not increase that because it's going to be even harder to get a basic high school diploma. And if we don't, if we're not finding ways to make sure that students get a basic high school diploma, we're going to hurt their life chances even more. So I'd rather see them at least get a high school diploma, if they're struggling to do that and not increase the standards there, because we're just going to see more kids not get a high school diploma, and that doesn't help them, individually or the community as a whole. I think instead, it's about through the through the different diplomas, and being intentional about them having to pick a pathway, and supporting them through the pathway, rather than increasing that, if you will, the minimum. So
another way to get at that point, and I'm curious why you take this way versus the second way. The second way to get at that point will be to
to move back
to 23 credits or 22 the 20 we read 23 right?
We went back and forth. I know we we dropped a community service requirement. Liz, you,
so we were so we dropped from 22 Okay, so another way to do this is to go back to 22 for Michigan Merit, but make integrate the career, at least the Career Ready component, as part of the kind of basic degree that everyone gets, like I'm I'm struggling to wasn't
there another thing? Because I'm looking at the asterisk here, and what I what seems to be implied, I think, is connected to what Dr B mentioned earlier about folks who's being overwhelmed with credit recovery. So what seems to be implied is that students who have to take a lot of credit recovery are the students who would end up with this. And so the I think what's missing is an opportunity, maybe across these somewhere for like you're you're on track, and the bar is still appropriately high.
I do, except here's the here's where I have a gap. Dr ziti earlier told us that if you're off track by the end of ninth grade, you're just, that's the Virgin, right? So if you're on track, you're you're one pathway to the diploma, versus being off track. And so if we, if we're, if we're thinking about this redesign, and we're standing in the in the timeframe of the first class that's going to go through this, the ninth graders, why isn't the strategy? And maybe it is, and I'm just not saying, Why isn't the strategy to keep the higher standard, which, by the way, I'm reasonably certain is the the standard for the majority of school of high schools in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb County. So we're lower than everyone else at 18, but keep the higher standards and really focus on driving course completion in ninth grade. And maybe that's what this is, and I'm just not
it's really nice. Yeah, of course completion is a is a point of emphasis in ninth grade, also 10th grade. I mean, if a student's behind in ninth grade, with combination of summer and 10th grade, you could still catch up to be where you want to be for 11th to go on the pathway. So all all hope is not lost. If things are not where they should be in ninth all hope is lost as far as a pathway or an enhanced diploma if you're not where you should be at the end of ninth grade.
Okay, I'm a credit. Okay, I
got it, yeah, so I'm so I'm looking on that. But do you, as you appreciate the point that I'm making of like, if you're, we're going to this redesign. And I think one of the things that I'm not saying is we know that that that bifurcation happens after ninth grade, and so the strategy, though, seems to add a lot of activities that occur in 11th and 12th. And I'm missing the how are we Yeah, how are we really locking down ninth graders so that course completion happens? Yeah, because I honestly the your explanation of my 18 and not 23
it goes back to answer your question. It goes back to this. It goes back to the restructuring of the schedule to allow for the advisory seminar course to work with ninth graders on creating the self management skills, the tracking skills, the educational development plan. That's what would be different. So working more intentionally with incoming ninth graders, having only a set of teachers, not multiple teachers, and those teachers just have a just ninth graders, so you're going deeper as far as relationship development, follow up, problem solving, and being intentional about making that ninth grade transition year more personal. And so by doing that, you I, you know, I think we will see, and we've seen positive feedback from the two pilot schools that those ninth graders will be more where they should be, and greater percentages from nine to 10. And then that same structure exists for 10th grade. The course itself is a little different, but there's still a structure there to be intentional around organizational skills, planning, tracking. So you're not doing this like in a one one quarter meeting with a guidance counselor, but it's every day you have this space to think about. You know where you are with credits, tracking it, where you are, what you're planning in the pathway. So then in so then in 11th grade, you're getting into that pathway which then is more relevant, more exciting, more interesting, than just taking your sort of basic literacy, math, science and social studies classes.
Okay, so if you believe, and if you believe on the left side that the strategies are going to drive right, more, more engagement, excitement and students, why not just take us back to 22 or 23 credits and just require everybody because they're going to because now all of our students are going to have this enhanced, deep engagement in ninth grade and 10th grade, and so theoretically, we should have more of our early warning symbol signals for course completion. So why not just make everybody, yeah, get to 23 and require like, career readiness or CTC to get from 18 to 23
Yeah, I have to follow up on on your point that we're, we're lower as far as minimum requirements than other surrounding districts. I don't, I don't know if we are, but I'll double check that, because I But to answer your question, it's just, honestly, just the trying to be practical with the challenge that's in front of us. I think the goal is to get the goal here is to get more kids on on one of those enhanced diploma pathways, not add yet another hurdle for them and schools for those that get behind in credits. I mean, I see your logic. I agree with your logic that well, you know, ninth and 10th grade and the intentionality around this course will lead fewer kids to need course recovery and adding the credit adding basically doesn't, it'll be, it'll be part of the process of getting them more on track. I don't I don't see how adding those credits transforms their readiness for college or career. I don't think it matters much. I just think it's another hoop that kids will have to jump that are behind. I I wouldn't say that it leads them to be more college or career. Rather, I think the pathways do that.
Okay, it was almost like you anticipated my next question, which was going to be, what would you What do colleges care about with respect to the minimum amount of credit? Like, what is? What? Actually, it
all depends on what university you're going to go to. I mean, the more competitive academic universities will want, you know, the four years of science still want the foreign language. You know that you're more competitive now when you move into your community colleges, when you move into some of the state schools that are not as academically competitive, that's less relevant,
that's probably a good place to pause.
And so the thinking here is that the honors diploma and the dual degree diploma are the students that are definitely going to be obviously more competitive for the for the competitive four year universities, and so by getting the honors diploma, by getting to dual degree diploma, their applications are more competitive to get into those schools and get scholarships, because they've taken the more rigorous courses to do that. So the other other students on the Michigan Merit side, just by nature of their courses and probably their skills, they're looking at community colleges and less competitive state schools, but they would be eligible to go to those schools.
Okay? I've been sitting here trying to decide if I was going to say or not. I really, it really makes me uncomfortable. So in my back, I'm always doing these basketball analogies, like, you know, one way you can get somebody to be a better shooter is you can lower the room. And it just always makes me nervous. If what we're really doing is just trying to lower the bar success and achievement,
instead of
getting to the root of why the achievement is just I just need to say I am uncomfortable in that space. Nonetheless,
she wants the 1983 point line.
I mean, I think so. I have some other questions. But just on this point, I think part of what's missing when we think about this from a strategy is what whatever the baseline credits are, what do they represent and like in a meaningful way for life after high school, but that kind of is what all this discussion leads me back To. But,
um,
so, okay, so the art
diploma,
I am hearing the logic that we get to high school, and a lot of our students are in a position where they kind of have to have operate with a certain level of autonomy with our art stuff, because of our limited capacity. That actually reflects much earlier decisions. Since you're only going to have access to that if you were kind of in the pathway already,
not necessarily, but I would say it does limit your high school options, because we can't scale an art program in all high schools. So, so Right? And going into ninth grade, you would have to know, for the most part, that you want you're going down that pathway. So it's probably DSA or one of the exam schools, right? And maybe a couple neighborhood high schools have the infrastructure and we enhance it, but not many,
right? And like for DSA in particular, since you have to audition, you have to submit things to be accepted, I guess what I'm saying is, if you're coming through dpscd, you have to have already been at Ellington, at what you know, like your family has made some decisions. Yeah,
maybe. But there are students, obviously, that are going to DSA outside of the district. But yeah. I mean, generally speaking, most students that are going, that are going to obtain the arts diploma. Would be making that decision earlier on, right? Yeah.
And what's the, what does the arts diploma is called out? What is it meant to lead to? Like I said, it just has generic secondary plan, yeah, behind that? What is it? Well, it's
just behind the fact that we have students that are taking a sequence of high of scaffolding classes that lead to higher levels of proficiency when it comes to performing arts or fine arts. So you know, theater, dance, jazz, ensembles,
right? But then to go where, like you graduated, where do you go
to college? Yeah, you
could go for your college. It could go to a performing arts college. I mean, it depends on the individual student. You don't have to do that, obviously, but because you're taking those advanced, if you will, high school classes focused on that sign out or performing arts. It makes your your college application stronger, or your your application to a performing arts university more competitive.
So if most of
our students have to in eighth grade probably decide that they want to be on the arts track in order to function effectively. Why is that different than just an honor? What's the why Wouldn't that just be honoring those honors for students or ideas? Yeah,
because honors are, are the core academic classes that you take, English, language arts, math, science and social studies that are advanced placement. So those are just core content classes to arts classes that you're taking are your enhancement of the regular diploma is more focused on the the additional classes and sequence of classes in your performing or fine arts area.
Okay, it's
not linked to the academic classes.
I think it's a more practical question of, like, I can take honors. Kim, am I taking honors graphic design? Is it right? I think what Sonia is asking is, like, when you're trained, when you're doing this training in the art, are they not honors classes you are taking? Oh,
not necessarily. No, they're the differentiation is you're you're not just taking a standard. You know, dance class you're taking. You know dance 1234, about it that way, where you're taking, you're in jazz, 1234, which is not offered at all high schools, and most students are not taking that now you can go to CAS. You always want to go to CAS, and you're taking those extra classes because you're going to CAS, and the program is offered. So your arts diploma is not an arts diploma because of what you're doing in the core subject areas. It's because of the extra classes that you're taking in that in the art
not linked to academics, traditional scaffolding. Oh, no,
I get it. I'm just, I'm still trying to make a sense. I'm really, you know, let me just say what I'm struggling with. I'm struggling with the five diploma. This is a level of complexity that I'm just really struggling with, given where we are and how we're defined, and what the real challenges and that I think I just may be offline, because you can get me comfortable with the connecting the dots between the data that we have on graduation rates and academic proficiency at the high
school level, yeah, and the other the Invert. The opposite of it is, if we don't do anything as far as the courses that we're offering and being more intentional about students being college and career ready, the data is going to stay the same. And so, I mean, that's an extreme like counter, but that's also what I'm also saying as superintendent, is if sort of, we stay in the status quo, and we don't change the schedule, we don't add university partners to this, we're not going to see a difference in the data because we're yes, certainly we can do a little better attendance and outreach and engagement. But fundamentally, what's wrong is the experience from most kids like the experience for the average CAS kid, the average Renaissance kid, the average GSA kid, is positive because of the strong programming that exists at those schools, what we don't. We don't have that in our neighborhood high schools. We just have basic academic high school courses, and that's one of, I mean, there's a lot of under things underneath that to your point, but the experience itself is not really one that is a springboard to college and career at scale, individual kids, sure, but we're talking about, how do we scale the experience, okay, and the diploma and the diplomas, by enhancing the diplomas, by enhancing the diplomas that give Students an incentive to take those courses and to achieve something different than a standard high school diploma. So the that incentive, I think, is important for recognition and colleges, acceptance and college scholarships. If not, you might take some AP classes, but you're not going to take as many. You might take some arts classes, but not all of them. You may take some dual enrollment, but not try to get the actual associate's degree. So that's why the differentiation on diplomas lead to recognition and incentive, which we don't have in our structure right now.
I just so the arts thing, my issue is that, compared with the others, it just it seems a little inauthentic to me, like much like advanced chemistry, you're not going to start that in eighth or ninth grade and be ready for MIT by 12, like you're going to have been doing science at a high level, like Building the skill, right? And so you don't start dancing in eighth or ninth grade, and then, like, you go to Juilliard, usually in the art stuff, families are doing a lot outside of the school day. They started them, or, like, this kind of thing. So whereas the other, like, I get why it's like, you know, rising ninth grade, come in, make these decisions, it makes sense the art thing, especially since we can't offer Arts at scale rigorously right now, it kind of feels like it's built for DSA and for maybe, you know, for choirs, or, you know, our choirs at certain exam Schools. It doesn't, it doesn't seem as connected in an accessibility way to a student, you know, really trying to figure out what they're doing with their careers. And so I don't did,
I mean, I think it is accessible. No, I think it is built to recognize the program setting.
Yeah, right, right. But so I think if you if, if we land with these five, and then the strategies that are connected to it, I think the arts one is going to require some different strategic moves that so that it, you know, again, it's being authentically offered, yeah, to students, because, like I said, otherwise, kind of like, if you're in dpscd and your family's already chosen our arts pathway, or you're coming from outside the district, you know, or for some reason, your family has just already really been into the arts and been training you. So I don't have to even react to it in this moment, but I just think it, I don't see in here, recognition of that in terms of like, strategic approach to building out,
no comment on and I agree with what member start with, shared With respect to art, but and the not lowering the bar and maybe even revisiting community service being reincorporated. But I do, I do like that we're providing pathways and choices and something new for a student population that is really over it in a lot of sense, with the status quo. And I think creating this new level of pathways creates and sparks interest based on the interests of our students. And I know at one point, we were looking at and discussing potential apps, beta testing some of these ideas. So where have our student population? Have they been introduced to a concept of this and give provided feedback?
Yes. Now I wouldn't say every single student I know, not every single but the the leadership, the Student Leadership Council, has been engaged. So that's representative of every high school. I think that's where the most engagement at this point has happened. Obviously, with next year being a deep planning year, we can go deeper with high school students, beyond just the leaders of those high schools to get more feedback on the actual plan itself. That would be the next step, going into next year, the apps will be ready when we do this. And that goes back to that educational development plan and students using that as a way to set their pathway to one of the diplomas, and also building off of their interests and talents
well, just as a follow up, mcan and or any other kind of college readiness organization, or where else is this being done, across across the country, and what kind of feedback in diversifying kind of a path and portfolio for students to kind of follow, I think it gives students in the mindset of orienting them towards making choices and having a plan of work for college. But where else is this kind of being done? And,
yeah, I know that there are other districts, but I'd have to give you like specific ones, and then examples,
national, special, integrated business all,
yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I agree. Nashville is a great example on the Career Ready side. For sure, they're, they're a model I had a chance to visit there and see that. Yeah, they're definitely a model in the career ready I don't know if they do all of the diplomas here, but they're definitely the model on the Career Ready side.
And so let's just say if a student is in one particular diploma path and then decide, yes, yeah,
it depends, you know, because some might build off of another, like, theoretically, you probably could start dual degree and maybe go honors. It depends, but it'll be difficult to answer your question directly, just because of the constraints of the schedule. And time definitely changes from ninth and 10th grade. I think once you get into 11th grade, and maybe the second semester in 11th grade, that becomes more difficult facetime when you have to take classes, so there won't be a lot of opportunity to be flexible, yeah,
so that's one area where I have concerns. I mean, colleges look at transcripts students, you know, if we're not kind of priming the pump even in middle school to start thinking about this, I mean, like, even when you're a freshman in high school, I mean freshman in college. You know, I went from pre med to math teacher to ultimately science teacher.
Yeah, the good. So there will be more thoughtfulness in middle school and how to get ninth graders ready for this. But I would say to that point in concern there, there's just natural restrictions in the schedule, because you're only you know when you got four years and you've got requirements at the state level, I think at the remember we're based on where we are now and where we would be going here is if a Student shifted or wasn't interested in that pathway anymore. They're still getting a high school diploma, and they can still even take some other elective classes. They just wouldn't be able to get a diploma, an enhanced diploma, enhanced Okay, so they're still getting a high school
so they still have just like the baseline, yeah. So, so
if you, let's say you started doing honors, and you thought that was the path you wanted to and then you just got to a point where, now I don't want, you know, all these AP classes aren't working for me, but you're still then instead of taking the AP classes, you would take the regular core classes, and then you might have in your schedule more time for elective classes, or you might take some more dual enrollment classes, so you're so that just reverts to where we are. Now you're still getting a high school diploma and you have more flexible in your schedule. That's the only change. But it doesn't mean you're not going to graduate with a high school diploma, and it doesn't mean you can't go on to college.
So I'm looking at the time. Is this okay? I want to bring us back around to the agenda item. Dr Deedee, I think it's, I want to take a beat and just and thank you and your team for this work. I think we all, all seven of us, are highly supportive of transforming the high school experience. I think we're just digging into, you know, the tactical elements of this and so. So I just want to acknowledge the innovation that's here for me, what I'd like to see to get more comfortable with this, are three things I'd like to better understand the connection between what's being proposed here and how your team understands what's driving chronic absenteeism at the high school level, I would like to have the answer to where does the district stand with respect to Wayne McComb, the rest of Wayne McConnell and Oakland County on core credits required for graduate, minimum, required for graduation, and and then I'd like to know, and I think probably good place to anchor are the schools that participate in The School the colleges and universities that participate in the Detroit Promise program, I'd like for your team to take those minimum admission requirements and see how they map to our diploma requirements. And so I spent a while since I was in undergrad, but I remember that. What I think I remember is that what was important were the courses that were taken for college admissions, and not that you had a check the box on an 18 number of credits. And so what I'd like to I think you're getting it. What I'd like to see is for that cohort of schools that participate in the promise, how does our basic diploma requirements in the Michigan Merit option line up and you know, and I'll wait to see where the data comes in. But I think personally, as an individual board member, it'll be hard for me to to accept the lower 18 credit standards. If that, if the way we're structuring, it doesn't allow for admissions in most of those, I
think it does. But I'll double check. I think it does. I got to follow up, obviously, on the first two questions and the third, the last one, I do believe that you're eligible for the Detroit promise based on the Michigan Merit credits that you see that. But let me double check. I
think that, yeah, we should know, yeah.
I think, I think it is.
I mean,
it would make sense that it would be. I think that the issue is the differentiation among the universities that accept the Detroit promise, meaning the Michigan Merit, and let's say you just did what the Michigan Merit asked you to do. I don't think you would be competitive for University of Michigan, you know, or Hope College you know there's there. Then that's when you start to differentiate among the universities. So you're eligible for the for the promise, but it doesn't mean that then you would be eligible for certain universities that accept the promise. Yeah?
And I'd like to know which ones, because I university mission, but I'm pretty confident there's there gonna be some other
ones, yeah, well, yeah, like there's probably some other,
any other follow up on this that would be helpful to get comfortable or never?
Yeah. I mean, I think from our overall discussion, it seems like there's just some questions about the five diplomas in general, where there's overlap, and I already mentioned with the arts one in particular,
some of that is explained a little bit our piece in the plan, but maybe it just needs to be a little
bit more. And then I also just wanted to say, like the overall concept, I'm supportive of the cohorting, the support throughout the school year, which I think it I think my would also probably assist with kind of some of our staffing challenges that we just went through in terms of who helped with the college and career and what places right? And I shared with member maze that actually, that structure is what led to my parents choosing a school outside the district for me because it was available somewhere else. So I think there's something to that in the overall wraparound we think about enrollment marketing, but of course, doesn't matter if you're enrolled, if you're not coming. So we got to figure out the agenda. So
okay, so we have assessment
calendar. Actually give us a brief overview. This is what we see earlier, the notable change up here, yeah,
the noble notable changes is shifting. The the college ready assessment, to a college board assessment, and not using the horizon assessments. Also the incorporation of end of course exams in ninth and 12th grade for the core subject areas, and then more flexibility with MDE on state testing dates. We put the AP and the IB test dates on the calendar, and then remove the end of year science and social studies benchmarks in five, eight and 11, just because, based on feedback, there's some redundancy and testing, and we have the end of year test, so there's other ways through the EOC to get access to the 11th grade data.
Great, any objections or questions on this action item? 401, not hearing any concerns about it. So I'll consider that approved for inclusion on the
agenda is
this is another one that we see periodically, maybe just a very brief overview, yeah,
no. See no major significant changes, as we saw a year ago, in a code of comics. These are just what we've heard from staff. Is just slight changes. You want me to review what the slight changes are?
Oh, they're, yeah, they're aboard that, yeah. And these, these are, this is in the public Yeah? This in the public version, yeah. No, we don't have to go through though. Okay, any questions or concerns number
I just had a question as it relates to the feedback from our principals, where, how, how did they participate in this? I know there was some ongoing concerns about in school suspension.
Yeah, so, so a lot of the concerns we heard from principals mainly led to the changes last year to the code of conduct, which gave them more flexibility, basically, to suspend and not use in school suspension. So that's why this year, it's really about refinement. So the there was a survey that was sent to all stakeholders about what they would want to see changed. There were also meetings held with principals, with attendance, agents with deans, about the current code of conduct. What do they like? What did they not like? What did they want to change all that was sort of funneled through to make these revisions which were not significant. So I think most principals would tell you that they feel like there's much more flexibility and opportunity for ownership at the school level regarding how to deal with major infractions, but that was changed Last year. Good. Thank you.
Okay, thanks. Sure
so the I didn't have any questions on the changes, just process the it was noted that it was, there was a survey on the student hub. And I think previously, we've done more in person engagement for student feedback, right?
So we did the we did the survey, like just complete the survey, but we also did separate engagement sessions with different stakeholder groups. And it was my understanding that students were separately engaged, probably the leadership team, Leadership Council, if you will, the students who are engaged on the current code of conduct and any recommended changes for it. Okay,
that's not mentioned here the in person component, and so that's fine. That where my concern was making sure students were, you know, equipped to to give feedback on the document if it was just a survey. But if
they had, I believe the Leadership Council let me, I'll clarify that as a follow up, though.
Okay, that was my only question. I didn't have an issue with any of the changes
themselves, okay, all right, great. So we'll get that information, but the document itself is approved to go to the consent agenda, the high school redesign plan.
Oh, wait, you did the evaluation tool that quick? Oh, no, I
didn't. I'm sorry. Thank you small text. Thank you evaluation tool, and our chair is back, thank goodness.
Okay, we do this every year. Dr Beatty, high level overview, please. Yeah.
So again, the structure is the same. What is different is the naming of the projects in each of the different areas. So those projects were named through a combination of the initiatives that administration has named, moving into 2425 but also based on the initiatives and areas that I've heard from the board that need to be improved for the 2425 year. So you'll notice there's a lot of discussion and examples of climate culture, mainly within the document. So the other change is the alignment with the state statute changes around the distribution of points, similar to as far as performance and the other non performance areas aligned to what is happening with teachers and other administrators.
Okay, because we have some confusion with this a couple meetings ago, I just want to clarify So this tool is going to be the evaluation criteria for the forward looking school year. When is do you have a scheduled date for your evaluation, for this, for this recently concluded academic year?
So the chair and I have spoken, she has said that it's best to wait until this official M step data is released, and then immediately after that, sit down and do my evaluation for 2324 September, so September, probably possibly late August. But late August, early September, okay,
and so the criteria for that review, for this Pat, this recently concluded academic year has already been approved for Yeah. Any questions on the content here? Any concerns, yes.
So some of the I think overall, it would be helpful to indicate which projects will be connected to plans that the board will see and have input on the gap I'm identifying is there are some projects where it's hard to determine how the board would evaluate quality, because it's not clear kind of what the overall objective is, or, you know what You know, that kind of thing. And then the other similarly, some of the projects,
I would say, if it's not connected to a plan that the board would have input on, then the project, the language itself, needs to indicate the objective so that folks can evaluate quality. So, you know, expand access to mental health services for staff. Is it enough that it's just out there, or are we looking at utilizing like, how do you evaluate quality, other than, yes, it was done, right? So I think just kind of doing a scan through and seeing
where that can be dropped will be helpful.
I Sorry, I had to step out of the room for a call. Did we move the high school redevelopment? The high school design plan is next we have so the you had at least one thing in here that's related to that, it's their reason for us to hold off, because we seem to have a lot of questions and concerns about the high school redesign plan. Like, I think one of your metrics in here. It's about securing,
yes, yeah. It's more getting into Yeah. It's anticipating. So the, if I remember right, the 2324 superintendent evaluation includes, basically the redesign plan being approved by the board. And then when we moved to 2425 which this document represented more getting into the implementation, which includes the philanthropic dollars and the change of the schedule. So it's more moving into implementation for 2425
okay, this may be minor. It may not be minor. You don't actually show the university partnership as a as a discrete milestone in the planning. I see Phil and brought
the partner, but not the university,
any other questions or concerns. I'll consider that approved for for the consent agenda at the next board meeting, we're up to 404 which is the high school redesign plan. What is the we just we talked about it for an hour, so I'm not going to ask for a summary. What is the, what is the pleasure of the Committee with this? Would you like to go to move it forward? Or, I think,
I think, I mean, I personally think we can move it forward. I think superintendent incorporating some of the ideas I think we have, we can have more dialog about this, but some of the ideas and things that we talked about already, but I think I'm comfortable with moving forward.
I'm probably at the opposite end on the spectrum of youth. So member West, where I guess we're voting.
I was thinking we take it off of consent. In that way, we have an opportunity to go through some of the questions and just ironing out that we wanted to do.
So key mark that approved, but now consent, please.
Course Catalog, 505,
sorry, 405, there's an attachment in here. Dr vidy, Could you, could you go over this please, and whoever worked on this document? Very nicely done. I nicely
done nothing significant is adding some CCT classes, mainly related to Drew and then virtual classes and some pathway class, but no major changes in this year of course catalog.
Great any questions or concerns that's approved for the consent agenda at the next board meeting. Let's see I
please should be able second separate 406, is ELL tutoring services.
Any Could you give us an LLC on this?
Yeah, this is building off of the literacy Lawsuit Funding. So this is providing more tutoring services to English language learners, a separate online program, so students will mainly use this after school in order to improve student achievement for and support for English language learners.
Madam Chair, in fact, if
I may, we, we, this is brainchester. This we've used them, or we have been using them. Mike, am I correct? Yeah,
this contract looks like it's for something that ends in 2024, which was going to be one of my questions. Yeah.
Yeah. So I'm interested in knowing, like, the kind of, like, some report or idea of the effectiveness of utilizing this so far. I mean, having a resource that is virtual or literacy for students after school. Like, like, what's the success rate of using this already? Yeah,
I don't, I don't believe this is, this is new. Yeah, this was part of some of the broad conversation that we had with the literacy lawsuit. Funding is providing more academic support for English language learners, but and specifically for English language learners, rather than, you know, something more holistically. So this is after a bid and a review, this is what was identified to provide that specifically for English language learners.
Madam Chair, if I may. I just think especially, we have to be very strategic and selecting vendors and so especially when it comes to the space of of literacy. And I just want to, like who with our within our departments, I want to I'm always interested in knowing if boots on the ground were able to kick the tires, if this is something that they looked at fully and had buy in from staff that would see this as an effective resource.
Mr. Bodido, you were going to say something I don't know, but it was, yeah,
I was just gonna say there's a typo on board the contract against, as you said, it's a new RFP that was just in March. The contract is through June 30, 24 524, and we do incorporate participants to the principal. Angel Garcia was a member of the evaluation committee, as well as the multilingual team, so we had participants who evaluated all the responses.
The last question is this, so it'd probably be helpful, and I know that we've seen some of them before, but just going to kind of look again at a number of the vendors that and projects that we've incorporated as it relates to the literacy law initiative, are there also in person programs that are addressing English language learners, yeah,
mainly through the expansion of the AI. So if you remember, right, not only talking about hiring more AI's across the district, but specifically for English language learners, so we reduce the ratio so that we'd be hiring more AI specifically for English language learners during the day. So that's the during the day or in person strategy. This is the after the school day strategy, knowing that it's just hard to scale consistency with teachers willing to work after school in person at buildings. And so this is why the virtual option will be expanded, not only for but for non learners as well, through the literacy laws of funding. So not the sole strategy, just another strategy in addition to the in person intensification of one on one small group through AI.
So last question, based on the students, the ELL student population number, like, if we were to quantify the cost per student, what would that be?
I'd have to follow up and give that to you. I'm just curious to know, like
kids going home and using online platform to help with literacy.
Yeah, again, it's not a sole strategy. So it's not like we're putting all our eggs in this basket. It's just one more resource for students to have and families to have. But it's not our our main strategy is obviously the core instruction that we provide to English family learners. But then the tier two and tier three is going to come from hiring more AIS, which we were not doing at the scale that we're going to now do with the literature. That's where the major intervention comes in. This is just an add on to that based on the funding that we have.
I know I said last question, just one more thing. So I guess for me, what I would envision in like Southwest Detroit community, and I know that's not the only English language learner, but just thinking about a number of the organizations that are anchored there, and how we might utilize them to have a resource for after school. I know when we were doing even
the
parents student recruitment that video that sharilanda did, that community was very engaged. I mean, I'm just it always helpful to me to see investment and actually live after school resources, and I know this is only one piece, but certainly like access or not just access, but not another organization, organizations that are esthetics, I should say, in southwest Detroit and other communities, that can provide real time after school support.
Yeah, again, just as a reminder, all schools will still have tutoring money to do after school in person. So that's an additional resource. So we're not abandoning any of that. This is really just, should. We should think about this as just one more resource that we're providing to students, not the sole one, and that opportunity exists because it's a literacy Lawsuit Funding.
Thank you. I'm okay, I think with branch trust, but there's a, there's a fairly negative article, fairly negative article about paper that I'd like to talk to you about. It looks like the Columbus school district actually gave them a big contract a few years ago, and to overday that they pulled a contract because less than 10% of students had, like, logged into it, which is not a really good use of money. And I get that we need to have multiple strategies. But if there's nothing I'd like to know, if there's something in particular about the I don't know, the user experience, or the way that was being deployed, that that Columbus, Ohio, pulled out of it all together. Yeah, I don't know if you're aware, if you're aware that maybe we can talk about it now. Otherwise we can talk about it
offline. Yeah, we can talk offline. I mean, it's that's, that's not surprising, knowing that, you know, for the virtual there was a lot of energy around virtual tutoring because of the pandemic. And you know, some of it, it's all remember, these structures are also we pay based on services. That's that's our that's our protection is that you have to actually serve kids to get paid, not a general fee where you're not getting paid. So this is where we ensure you know financial discipline and accountability on that, so there's not these large contracts, and then those services are provided. Yeah?
No, I appreciate that. It's just also like, if you pick a vendor that that has a lower than average participation, right? Yeah, then, then you just, you lost the time. So even though you're not wasting money, that could have been an intervention that is now missed, and the time is important, so I'd like to know a little bit more about that. I'll go ahead, just call the question, though, all those in favor of moving this contract forward to the consent agenda,
please say, aye.
Well, I can that was an eye,
because they're together. So
okay, I
mean, okay, sorry, let me, let me, let me, let me rephrase
the question,
and I won't do it all. I won't do it formally. Would you like to see this move forward to the board,
off consent.
Off consent. Yeah.
Okay,
orchestrating work seven it contracts. Dr Beatty, this is a cooperative purchasing agreement,
yeah. So nothing new here. So this is just the various ways that we're addressing, the network, cybersecurity, the server and just cloud solutions overall, in some of the core IT areas
any objections or further questions about technology at the next board meeting, let's do city contracting services on the standalone
Yeah, so this is a contract for construction services to occur at komen, a young And Flix last year in the budget dollars were provided just for the schools to do additional contracted work. So this is the vendor that was selected to complete that work.
Any objection, questions that goes to confess agenda 409 is a contract increase. Gilbane. Gilbane building, company,
Dr Beatty.
So this is to begin the construction work with the CTE building that will be added to southeastern This is associated with the facility master plan.
Any questions
that goes to the consent agenda at the next board meeting the collaborative our next is our next contract. Versus for architectural FDA, Dr Beatty, please
so in partnership with Wayne resa that oversees our active team, our more specialized and unique services that we provide to special needs students, we had identified that there's growing facility challenges that drew chidin And Moses field, and we've continued to advocate for one time money from their budget to support that so that we're not continuing to drain more of our general fund, which We don't have to do this work, and they agreed. So these dollars are being used specifically for chidin Drew and Moses field to upgrade and renovate roofs, windows, doors, HVAC systems and parking lot repair
any questions or concerns that goes to consent agenda last these are the city of Detroit. DCC, could you give us an overview please?
So as you know, there are certain things that need to be done through the city, like fire inspections, boiler inspections, swimming pool inspections, elevator inspections, and continuing here there to place pay for blight violations. So this is an all encompassing agenda item to anticipate the annual calls that are provided to the city to complete these different areas inspections that are required by law.
Thank you.
I have one question for Ms Jackson, this is unrelated to this item that says BC is on the agenda. And ask it, how have they been with part with permitting and plan review so far
pretty good.
We just had a PPR on yesterday
location, okay, so
they're meeting your timing expectations. They
they are. Okay, great, fantastic. I'll call
for some questions or concerns about this last action item that goes to consent as well as Drake, we are ready for public comment.
Members of the public are welcome to address the board during public comments, Individuals wishing to address the board must raise your hand to be acknowledged. Virtual public comment will be facilitated through a zoom webinar to register, you must raise your hand. Use the Raise Your Hand feature to indicate that you would like to participate in virtual public comment via the computer, select the Raise Your Hand option on the screen. Via the telephone, select star nine to raise your hand. The meeting administrator will select the individuals in the order receipt you will remain muted until it is your time to tweet. All comments will be limited to three minutes. The superintendent will request the questions and or concerns raised today that do not violate ethical or legal standards, confidentiality, privacy of others or requires additional information to respond. If you would like a direct response to your question andor concerns, please forward an email to the secretary of the board they and more at vanion dot Moore at Detroit K twelve.org. Okay. Thank you.
Hi,
Mama Redmond, please go ahead with your public comment.
Mama Redman, please go ahead with your public comment.
Hello. Can you guys hear me?
Yes, ma'am,
good morning all. My first question is thank you for having this meeting today. For one, I have a question to touch bases on, what the diplomas, what like i Because, what will this benefit after school is over, everything that our children are learning today in the different curriculums. Will this help them with everyday life moving forward? Another thing I hear you saying, I understand that it's i It's a great ideal in a certain aspect, but also, we also need to think about the kids like that won't go to college, that may go to trade school, and what are we doing for the ESC students will be one, and I didn't hear any discussion about K through eight unless I missed that part. I understand that we're we need to make because this is a whole new curriculum. So now this is something that our children has to accolade their minds to, especially our ninth graders coming in when they've been used to doing something else. Of course, it's going to be a change, because they're in high school. But I'm just want to know is, will we be able to use this? Will our children be able to use this for the real world, everything that they're learning, maybe we need to think about putting some things in place that will carry them through life. Is one of the things that I would like to see. And another thing again, are y'all going to constantly hear me say this? Can we put back certain things in school? Woodshop, drivers, training, parents, some parents don't have the means to pay for different things. If we can find teachers for everything else and find funding for everything else, I'm sure we can find funding for things like that. People learn to cook in school. So is that something that we can think about as well? I yield my time. Thank you.
Madam Chair, that is the only virtual public comment.
Okay, great. Thank you. I Dr, Beatty, I'll let you respond
to mama rim, and I did just want to clarify for everyone, that whole discussion we had earlier was about a high school redevelopment plan, so by design, it was not meant to include K through eight curriculum or discussion. So that's why that part was missing. But
it's Yeah,
so the our k8 work is around our core curriculum and old child investments that we've made on art, music and PE and our academic data, our challenge prepared data, is definitely moving in a faster, better direction than at scale, some of our high school data, so k is more about the foundation of learning and the experience in high school is, is we're trying To move the high school experience more to college and career, and so when we think about woodchop and things like that, it's not woodchop that we're bringing back. It's more about carpentry. It's plumbing, where a student could go on that pathway with their career ready diploma through Randolph brightoff or Wayne County Community College. So I would say we are trying to bring some of that back with this plan, maybe not called the same way, even when we say Home Ec, it's not Home Ec, it's Culinary Arts, where they can take at one of our career tech centers or the Wayne County Community College. The advantage of taking Culinary Arts would be that you can actually get a certification and serve, serve, I think it's called a version of that, but then you can be even be more employable after high school in that area, if that's what you're interested in. And so I think that answered yes, thank you. Ese students. So nothing precludes ESC students from participating in this. So obviously we have most of our special needs students would be considered LD students or learning disabled, unfortunately, by the Ministry Department of Education. And those are students on a regular high school diploma, and so they could access any of these diplomas. There's nothing that prevents that from happening. It would be the students that again, MD, Michigan Department of Education, name that would be mildly cognitively impaired, or that would be having a lower IQ that are not on a regular track diploma, those students would be more challenging obtaining one of these diplomas. And so there's probably a possibility of incorporating maybe the career ready and most of the like group, for example, has work ready opportunities for students that are linked to their impairments. That's probably that is already happening, and there's a separate process for that. So when you think of most students and our schools that are special needs. They're on a regular high school diploma. So they're accept any of these diplomas are accessible to them. Thank you.