Board-Meeting-11-05-18-Segment-1
[00:00:00] We are beginning the West Linn Wilsonville School Board.  Regular meeting for November 5th, Miss Douglas. Will you please call the roll Chelsea King Martin Here, Eddie Reynolds here. Check Fitch here Reagan Molitor here Dylan hide your.
Technology, please.
Hello, good evening, and I want to introduce our speaker this evening. Our regular speakers not able to attend tonight. So I'd like to introduce a Grace Martin Grace is a sophomore at Art Tech and she is our first year at our Tech Last Summer. She worked at the crest to farm [00:01:00] as an on an internship and was also a counselor at.
She is very enamored with animals and all things outdoors, and we're really thrilled that she's here tonight to speak about what's going on at our school. So welcome Grace welcome.  Good evening. My name is Grace Moore and I'm glad to be representing Arts and Technology High School where I am a sophomore last week marked the start of quarter to at our check.
Each quarter class is an award credit. So the start of a quarter means a fresh start for everyone. It also means that we welcome new students to our ranks with new students attending our enrollment enrollment is up to 93. We have had a very busy month last weekend 19 students and for teachers attended The Phoenix Program, which is a retreat led by synagogue Camp Collins out on the river Sandy River activities such as challenge courses goal settings in group discussions to help students build on their previous successes [00:02:00] gain self-confidence and plan for their future the report from students and adults alike was that there are a lot of great learning learning has occurred.
Our Tech has been participating in The Phoenix Program for many years and it continuously comes up as one of the favorite activities for our graduates. Some of the positive results have been better attendance goal setting for future successes and increase connection connections to other students of facility one part of the program at our Tech is something which we call crew but operates like an advisory class.
We meet with our crew leaders Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Thursday sorry, each certified staff member has a crew of seven to eight students that they work with for the year. Each family has a conference with their crew leader mid-october to review their progress and success for this year. On Tuesdays, we have an all school meeting for students and staff.
We call Community [00:03:00] meetings over the past month. We have led we have had three excellent guest speakers that have talked about their lives and how they got to where they were going. We had Emily gstaad grass who firefighter from Gresham Nick Spencer who talked about travel and seeing the world and will lie one of our own teachers who talked about his time in the Peace Corps.
This week. We are lucky enough to have Laura flossie scheduled speak on a her time in Africa and elsewhere.  If anyone here has an interest in sharing a bit of your journey with us 15 to 20 minutes tops. Feel free to contact. Saskia our check.
We also had our first rock concert of the year on October 26 at the youth music project in West Linn. It has well attended the crowd and the crowd definitely loves it. We have one rock concert at the end of each quarter mark your calendars because we would like to invite all [00:04:00] of you to the next one that will be on January 25th at 7 p.m.
Thank you.
West Linn High School.
Good evening. My name is Ashley hater and I am the ASB president at Weston High School. And it's wonderful to see all of you again, October 19th was our homecoming celebration. We welcome back our alumni and celebrated our school spirit and lion pride the whole community and West Linn students of all ages were invited to our new and improved homecoming Carnival our homecoming king and queen were crowned at halftime.
And even though we lost. Game, the dance afterwards was still a lot of fun. It was a very successful celebration. The week of October 22nd was teen driver safety week. We hung posters around the school with facts about the dangers of distracted driving and showed a video about it on our weekly live or broadcast to additionally we had a [00:05:00] pledge wall for students to sign and hand out blue ribbons.
Symbolizing students pledges our leadership ASB is doing work this year that focuses on acknowledging and supporting our student body struggles with mental health. It's an issue at Weston High School that is starting to cause students staff and parents a lot of concern. We helped develop a lesson on Stress Management that was taught to all students in our October academic seminar classes and we are planning what our next steps will be in helping our students to feel more supported and safe.
I have a stress line for each of you.
[00:06:00] So we made the hose and we're giving those out to students for free just to kind of help support them. It's cute. But it's also a tool to help remind our students that we care and to relieve their stress for a little our annual canned food drive starts this Wednesday kicking off with the boys powder tough volleyball tournament that evening the drive will conclude on November 15th.
We are eager to help out our community and loved working with the Oregon City Elks and the West Linn food pantry our musical the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee opens this Thursday night and will run through November 17th. There will also be a middle school matinee on November 14th. It is the hilarious touching and realistic story of six middle school kids competing at the County Spelling Bee and will feature the spelling talents of audience members to [00:07:00] email Miss Kaiser if you would like to attend and she will set up tickets for you.
On November 13th will be hosting the TRL Jazzman competition again this year and our amazing band will be playing at 2:30 if you want to drop by so November 13th at 2:30 fall sports are concluding their very successful Seasons boys soccer ended in the state quarterfinals unified soccer played in a big tournament last weekend and the girls soccer State semifinal game is Wednesday cross-country sent 14 Runners to.
Last weekend and volleyball placed third in State this year football will be playing their second round playoff game this Friday against Lake Ridge at home. We're really proud of all of our student athletes. We are already preparing for our annual Miss term is West Linn competition, which will happen the week after Thanksgiving and are starting plans for the 10 days of Joy surprises better leadership ASB class creates for our student body every year in [00:08:00] December.
Thank you for your time, and I'll see you next month.
And thank you for repeating and speaking slowly on those dates because I was writing them down. Come on up, Wilsonville.
Nice to see you. All again. My name is Marc Herrera. And so Legally Blond is our play. And I would recommend for you guys all see it. We have three more shows this week and so far. It's been a great turnout. We've had a lot of great reviews.  We also had an amazing turnout for the day the dead last week.
I know I saw a couple of you guys there froze in the band and choir getting ready for a busy, November and December.  In athletics girls cross country finish second and stay on Saturday. We've won five League titles and a second place. And the next Monday all of our winter sports [00:09:00] will have their first practice.
We host a quarter final quarterfinal. I'm football game on this Friday against the Creator comments. You guys are more than welcome to join also on, you know on Saturday. We had a unified tournament that we hosted and we won third place in the a bracket. Students and teachers are working hard to make the most of our limited days since November and December are kind of short on school days.
Badly, November 2nd was the deadline for early admission for colleges. You will have more deadlines that are going to start coming in and then in activities we have a game night on Friday from 3:30 to 5:30, and our next school assembly is in December. Thank you all have a great evening. See you on next.
[00:10:00] Dr. Reynolds.
We're reporting on our school visits and as background. I wanted to mention that I noted in doctor Ludwig's through line presented. September September 10th when she's first talked about school visits. She identified the board's responsibilities as goals and policies and so because the pertinent goal in this case is to grow student achievement and close the achievement Gap.
I asked to meet with principles after the student achievement data became available availability. Dr. Ludwig agreed. And so the first one of the three for me was completed last Friday after that data was available. So I visited three. Mmm Creak primary with principal Jim Mangan instructional coordinator tape Kate Donegan and assistant superintendent, David Pryor.
[00:11:00] Mr. Mangan described the leadership cycle in a nutshell as improving education opportunities and outcomes through data analysis cycles for Reading Writing and math. He also described his Equity stance, which is to close the existing learning gaps and student outcomes.  And grounded in the belief that all students can learn.
And accomplished by providing all students access to challenging curriculum monitoring student progress and making accommodations and adjustments as indicated by those outcomes and his commitment to equity was just very evident throughout the entire visit.  So a structure for accomplishing this is through grade level professional learning team.
Beating into an overt and overlying structure of four teams equity and climate. Sorry Equity climate and [00:12:00] culture math English language arts and a steering committee. So the professional leading teams meet and feed into those for over structural teams. A highlight of the visit was a student panel of fifth graders.
They provided their thoughts regarding the district's Mission question of creating learning communities and thoughtful people and there are reflections were very refreshing. They showed an appreciation for Teacher feedback strategies for analytical thinking and they also showed knowledge of evaluating resources.
You know regarding thought leaders for the world. They showed a remarkable capacity for and understanding of empathy inclusion respect and kindness. So they were just absolutely a great testimonial to do the work that mr. Mannion and and the entire staff of Educators [00:13:00] and staff is doing at Trillium Creek.
We also discussed the school report card. I'm we noted and outstanding increase in math scores by ten percent from last year and mr. Meighan attributed it to a focus in math for that day that you're in again testimony to the success of those professional learning cycle to professional learning teams and the feedback cycle.
He also reiterated a commitment to equity and he noted room for improvement in other areas particularly in the areas of the disaggregation subgroups. We talk about alignment of their Cycles with the district goals and outcomes and with State results and he did indicate that state data as well as their own interim tools inform Sims informs them and he also communicates with dr.
Pryor on the success of the successful strategies. Now comes like this outstanding results and math. So I just [00:14:00] wanted to close by saying noting again the board's responsibility for the goal of closing the achievement Gap and that longitudinal data is now available on both the district report cards at least three years and data beyond that is available.
And so it's my hope that the board can review the out the data on the new report cards or use the very powerful. Forecast 5 analytics to own our decision-making which Aggregates that data that data for us and virtually any other set of variables that we choose.
All right, my approach to these learning walks a little bit different than Betty's I had volunteered to visit for schools. But as luck would have it. I had the chance to visit five so. I am I visited Beckman Creek [00:15:00] Primary Lowry primary bulton primary Rosemont Ridge Middle School and the Three Rivers charter school with regards to Three Rivers.
I actually will talk about it. Separately and I have some additional information just to provide this Ford with regards to the Charter renewal process for three rumors. I was warmly welcomed and greeted at each and every school and I was asked you know, is there something in particular you want to know and the reality is is I didn't walk into a single school with an agenda.
I was really there to learn from our school leaders and just. Have them show their schools to me show their cycles of inquiry their leadership moves and for me to have that pain just to learn it why and how they thought that those moves will make a difference in the academic achievement of our students and I definitely learned a lot.
[00:16:00] Just keeping in in line with cutting your guidelines that you suggested. At both Beckman and Lowry and it's interesting to have all of our wonderful principles here at the back of the room. But now I'm being accountable. I'm really hoping that what I heard was what you said, so we'll see so Beckman and Lori I there was each had more than one cycle of inquiry that they wanted to.
Invest in over the course of their school year one that they had in common was both looking into a cycle button Curry query around writing to deepen students understanding and writing and each school is working to develop stronger writers with increased stamina Lowry. I believe was undertaking that cycle of inquiry currently whereas Beckman was going to have that be as a subsequent cycle of inquiry.
Bolton was [00:17:00] focusing a cycle around further developing their professional learning communities in an effort to further develop their instructional practices with the intent that would deepen student learning and self-efficacy. And then Rosemont had a cycle that was focused on instruction and assessment with an eye towards ensuring alignment between learning targets and.
State standards.  one through line in a cycle of inquiry that was currently being engaged in by all schools that I visited was around restorative practices and or Community culture and or community and culture in relation to social emotional success and I have to say that this was an area where I personally.
Did a lot of learning and it this process really helped me understand the value in restorative practices. And I know Chelsea you have over the [00:18:00] course of being a board member with me often expressed you're valuing of restorative practices, and it wasn't that I didn't value it. I just don't think I fully understood and this was a great learning opportunity for me to finally understand.
So this is my understanding this is where hopefully I heard it correctly and this okay. This experience allowed me to understand the academic value of this practice. I've come to understand that restorative practices Encompass Community Building. We want our students to feel a part of their school and classroom Community to feel comfortable speaking around their peers sharing their thoughts ideas and needs in a safe and welcoming environment.
This practice often includes students gathering in a literal Circle to add structure then sharing with each other. [00:19:00] To build a sense of community within their Circle. So how does feeling part of a classroom community and feeling comfortable with sharing sharing with that Community relate to learning?
And what I learned was that if a student feels like they are part of a community. Where their input is valued and they feel supported in sharing their thinking they are more likely to show up to class everyday to meaningfully participate in the learning targets for the day and to collaborate or wrestle with problem solving with their peers.
If a student does not feel a part of the community, they are not likely to want to join in group discussions group problem-solving or share their thinking aloud to their class. If a student's not participating in these activities, it will adversely impact their academic. That for me was a huge linking all those pieces together to understand the parts in the impact.
So that was my huge. Take away. [00:20:00] The workaround restorative practices would be a direct response to board goals. Number one and two in my opinion. It is a practice that emphasizes inclusive practices accountability increases confidence encourages Equitable outcomes, and it would raise rigor for all.
I wouldn't visiting the primary schools. I said work around restorative practices taking place. I saw some work around conflict resolution and the desire of a student to be included and let back into the classroom Community. I saw students actively sitting in circles and being encouraged to share on a topic of conversation where they felt comfortable doing.
So at the middle school level this would be at Rosemont. I was able to engage in a Roundtable discussion with students who reflected on the use of circles in their classrooms for sharing the students each wanted the opportunity to engage in this type of [00:21:00] sharing more often. They felt that they weren't getting as many opportunities to do so is they would like and they wanted to implement and this I thought was interesting.
They would like to implement controls that prevented their peers from being able to pass. And sharing because the idea is that if you don't feel comfortable speaking, you're not ever being forced to do so, but they were a little concerned that maybe their middle school aged peers were passing because they were too comfortable passing.
It was the easy thing to do and that they would love to hear more from their students and have them participate and so they would like to live maybe limit your opportunity to pass. I overall. When we decided to kind of embark on this going directly into the schools and having learning experiences.
I was you know, I was happy to do it but I was a little sad and because I as a board member have thoroughly enjoyed like my to me some of the most valuable board sessions. I've had are the [00:22:00] kind of the to trial by fire where we get to hear everything from each and every school. However, after having partaken in this experience, I would gladly.
Do this again overall? I appreciated the opportunity to have conversations with the principles that smaller group setting also and having additional time allowed me to ask questions that I may have chosen for time purposes to have maybe not asked and I appreciated to actually see learning in action in the classrooms to see students engaging in the work.
It was fun to be able to walk in those classrooms and identify some of the leadership moves with around cycles of inquiry and was great to talk with the students. I was given an excellent explanation of the life cycle of a salmon and a third grade classroom at Bolton. And I feel [00:23:00] overall this method providing a greater opportunity for quality of information and interaction.
Whereas the other method provided a greater quantity of information. I would welcome again, like I said the opportunity to do this again next year.
if your report on. Yes. Oh my gosh. Thank you for not letting me forget that again. So with regards to Three Rivers we also with dr. Ludwig and Nick Chapin the principal invited us in to come visit the school. We had the opportunity to actually wander and see students at work. They happen to be engaging in a.
I think the turkey more of a steampunk, but it was a stem activity where they were linking their science to also a time period that they were studying with their literature and was just a neat interactive Hands-On activity for the students. So that was you know, [00:24:00] some of the learning I got to do while I was actually in their building.
However, it is a charter renewal here under our contract. I believe it comes up for Renewal every. For five years and I at the moment. I can't remember exactly which but nonetheless, it's just it's perfunctory. It's a process and so we had asked mr. Chapin just to send us kind of his proposed outline of how that process would go this year.
It is described within the charter agreement and so roughly in January this board will end up receiving a letter. From Three Rivers stating its intent to renew its Charter the board then typically.
There's team. Yeah, so then we will Three Rivers will have a negotiation team that it sends in or works with and this. Our boards designated [00:25:00] negotiation individual is dr. Ludwig. So she will be responsible for should there be any requests or changes or just comments or anything about the existing Charter those will go through dr.
Ludwig and then I is board liaison will be present sitting and observing that that process and then in March. They might be anyways, I'm sorry that Three Rivers will meet and discuss what it wants to do then in March. It will essentially come to the board and the board will vote on whether or not it's going to renew the charter the terms of that though isn't necessarily disgusting that time then in the month of April May we will discuss the terms if there is any changes in terms then that will be brought to.
To the board for final approval and decision. So by June that process should be wrapped up [00:26:00] and it may not even take that long. Who knows. So that's something to look forward to.
Dr. King Martin. Hello may I don't know that this has been said but for anybody who's in the audience or watching at home typically in the fall, we have had a much more formal setting where all of the board members in the principal's sit around a table and and here. From all the principles reports on what happens in their schools and this year.
We took a different approach and we all divvied up the schools and toward them. I'm not sure if that was clarified for anybody who's watching. Here, but I had the honor of push that away. I saw I think I'm really loud. I had the honor of visiting Sunset Primary Willamette primary and would middle school and I'm completely sincere when I say it was an honor.
I was really impressed by. Our schools and [00:27:00] I share the sentiment that it was really special to be in there and to be on the ground. So to speak in amongst the learning and in the classroom, so we were given a framework by which we were encouraged to report back on this process which included sharing about cycles of inquiry themes that we observed something we learned.
I waited this experience helped us link the work that you all are doing in your school's you all being the principals who are here to the district goals and feedback about the process. So I'll Follow That approach. There was a very clear theme across all the schools and that was learning targets and every school.
I went to I was shown learning targets and how teachers are using learning Targets in their classrooms. So I think every if not almost every classroom. I went into a learning Target was clearly [00:28:00] posted. On the wall somewhere or you know on a big piece of paper, but there was a posting of the learning Target and it was very clear what the students were supposed to be learning and it was really fun also to be encouraged to interact with the students.
And so we weren't told, you know, we didn't stay distant, but we got down on the students level and asked what are you supposed to be learning? How will you know if you've learned it and why is it important for you to know this and it was very clear very evident that our students are used to this process that they were able to answer these questions and I'll offer to stem some examples because I think sometimes it's a little story or an example brings this to life.
And so there was a classroom. I went into our primary student was working on writing a letter and I asked him what the learning Target was and he stated he was learning how to structure, you know, correctly structure and write a [00:29:00] letter and then when I asked him why he needed to know that he let me know he would be writing letters and his personal life and in his professional life, and so this would be important.
And I asked him how he would know if he was doing it correctly. And this was a fourth grader and he told me well because there's a model of how to do it up on the wall and I can look at my work and I can check it on this model. So that was you know, that was very good and there was another child. I think it was a second grader it would they were working on math.
And this child I asked why was it or what were they learning? They were learning? I think subtraction and why was it important tool? Because I'm going to go to third grade and I'm going to need to know how to do this. And so there was even the sense of you know, I need to know how to do this to be successful in school all the way to I need to know how to do this to, you know, operate in the world out there.
And so that was just neat to have that ongoing discussion. I imagined all of you probably [00:30:00] experienced something like that. Let's see the other theme I observed was active classrooms. So there were not very many classrooms. If anywhere I walked in and the students were just sitting individually quietly doing a worksheet.
I did not observe classrooms like that. What I observed was a very active classrooms with a lot of interaction and stimulation occurring. So for example in one classroom there this was again a primary school. They were listening to a podcast with the instructor moving about the classroom and they were looking at the piece of paper and listening to the podcast and identifying science word.
So they were really learning science and literacy at the same time talking about the words of they were learning and then I even observe the teacher occasionally saying yes, remember that this material I was learning alongside of them what these things were this was like what we observed when we turned over the wood on our nature walk.
[00:31:00] And so the teacher was linking a back to a field trip that they had talked. So there was a lot of classrooms where there was just many layers of teaching and learning occurring at the same time. So the active classroom teacher students interacting with each other and with the teacher one classroom at would the science teacher had created a game with the periodic table of elements and the students were rolling die and moving their figures around and interacting with the table of elements in that way.
So very active classrooms. And yes, so I would say those were themes learning targets active classrooms. And in the third theme that I observed was this idea of shared leadership. So that in all the schools where its principal is working very closely with the teachers to kind of tap into the expertise that's in the school and helped design what they're doing in their professional learning communities and you know, I heard about schools that were [00:32:00] during their meetings really breaking off into teams and just using that expertise so, you know, there might be.
Reading a book together and talking about it or looking at data together and talking about it or even observing that one another's classrooms. And so the whole notion of shared leadership was very strong.  Let's see. I could keep going on and on by Miss talk there with the themes. I will say a couple other things about.
What I learned definitely interacting with the students was a highlight got to do that every school and that would in fact we sat in a room with the middle schoolers and interacted with them one of the things I think that this one of the ways is deepened. My understanding is that we talked a lot about how important it is that our students are known and seen that some adults at least one, [00:33:00] but preferably more than one in our schools knows our students and what I saw was.
And intentional moves that our administrators are making to know each student and also to see that connection when I talk to the students and to hear them talk about their sense of being known and that they had adults that they connected with so that was a neat deepening of my understanding of that.
I'm going to I'll just say one more thing and then I'll stop I could go on and on about this for a really long time. This is a really cool process. Yes. I like this process. I preferred this to what we have done in the past. I did much prefer the deeper connection and seeing the teachers in the classroom and getting to know the principles and the assistant superintendents in a much deeper way that was really valuable.
I would love to do. Again, I would love to do more of these really just brought to life what we do [00:34:00] here sitting around this table. So I appreciated that greatly. The one feedback I have for our leadership would be the these questions were really great. I would have and I know I already told this to our chair, but I would have loved to have seen these prior to going in to the walkthroughs because it would have helped guide my observations and prepared me to speak to this.
Thank you for listening for so long. Director Heights, so I had the opportunity to visit Stafford primary wounds very primary and arts and Tech High School. I'll start with Stafford. I was greeted by principal Sarah McCarney and Meg Leonard. And dr. Cryer was there and this is the first thing that within the first couple minutes what you learn about Miss McCarney and her team is that there's really a fire under them, too.
To come up with the best ideas and incorporate the latest research and and they're really they're really proud of what they're doing and they should be proud because they're doing great work. [00:35:00] One of the things that they focused on in our discussion was and collaborative Based Teaching and they said they recognized this was what the research has shown us what we've learned in these meetings.
Perhaps the greatest way to move the dial. So they said what can we do to build a better culture of Collaborative Learning? It's something really important. It's also something that's really easy to do badly. And so they said rather than just jumping into it. Let's build a strong foundation for how we're going to do this.
So they start out by looking at other schools outside the district that have that really have a strong collaborative Based Teaching program looked at that they recognize that there is an Institutional and personal inertia and not moving there for some people and so they said let's bring the teachers in not only to.
Extract from the greatest ideas because we don't have all the ideas. Let's see what all the ideas that are out there. But also making sure that the staff didn't feel like this is a top-down mandate but really something a bottom-up approach and so they put together a really strong process and now their next goal is to figure out how do we keep this going?
We're at a really good place right now. [00:36:00] The recently done a staff Equity audit through a 95 question exam that they gave to their teachers and they're still talking about the next steps on how to use that but they said if nothing else these 95 questions really help show this the teachers just how broad we say Equity how broad that is.
It really touches a lot of different different things. And then one of the highlights of visiting Stafford was visiting the classroom of John Schechter who gets everyone Only Knows is kind of a rock star in that school and District. He had Circle time in the classroom where all the kids on the floor sitting in a circle of 24 25 kids and they were talking about incident of bullying and bullying that it happened and every child had the opportunity to talk about what was going on and the teacher only would speak when Mike Trout we need to refocus the group and I was in there for maybe 15 minutes.
And the entire time the students really in the conversation every student who didn't want to speak could pass, but I noted that. Every student did speak at some point [00:37:00] and what there was one girl know that that touched me more than any other they the question that was asking them is how do you feel about this and all of them had pretty similar responses?
It's not right. You know, I wish that hadn't happened and one girl said I wish I did. That was so powerful to hear her say that and then here the other breast students here that and what we talked about Meg and Sarah and Dave and I talked about is that this is going to what kind of Reagan talked about which is that you know for kids to learn they've got to feel safe and physically safe emotionally safe and when we have conversations like this kids are going to thrive and when I saw his 25 kids who were at least in that moment thriving so that was really exciting.
Went to Doonesbury saw Miss Freeman and her team and we talked a long time before we were in the classrooms about their heavy emphasis on inclusive practices and access to opportunity and it was clear from talking to miss Freeman that she hasn't built in that [00:38:00] school a culture of high expectations of her staff like it is clear that you know, we're here I want us to be here next year and you here after that and it was inspiring to see somebody who who says recognized.
Staff was amazing and said I want you to be as amazing as you are and working towards that this is it was about focusing on quality of about student engagement. So quality of questioning and student talk, which is another dial mover that we've talked about. We went into the fourth grade classroom of care and Christensen.
And I just I tell you I love seeing people who are experts at what they do. It's just it I love seeing whether it's a teacher or a plumber or whatever Miss Kristin was in there through student teacher and it was like I was watching a play everything was just so sharp and crisp and transition and it was a math.
Discussion where the seamlessly would go from harassing them students to them asking hers and then they would go together in their group of four or five students and talk about the the subject with each other and one as I walked around them. What I saw is [00:39:00] every student was engaged. There wasn't a single student who wasn't paying attention who wasn't active in the conversation.
I saw it again. It wasn't just a culture of high expectations for teachers but also for students as well. And then when your second grade classroom with Miss Douglas and another fantastic classroom super high energy and just kind of feeling and you walk in a real warmth. This is a teacher who really cared for the kids and they were talking about what a protagonist was.
How do you identify the protagonist and even with second graders you saw that same kind of communication where she'd ask questions. You know bunch of them raise your hand for you know verbal answers or hands in the air then they would ask questions and they talk to each other about questions and you'll that type of high-level activity only works when you've got really great classroom management, and she absolutely had that with second graders and you could tell that it wasn't just like a one-time thing that in both classes.
I went to the kids even by middle of October. So comfortable doing those things that it was clear. Those patterns have been set really early on so that was really neat to see. [00:40:00] And so we just kind of pattern I saw Boons Ferry is that student engagement is clearly emphasized. I saw in the classroom.
And today I'll move her so it was really exciting to see and then lastly I was aren't that High School actually twice. I got to visit them in the last several weeks one visit was was on learning targets and this Dressler and I and her team got to go to Every classroom every classroom and saw it very clearly posted learning targets for the students to see.
Five out of five in the classrooms. I was I was in we had the idea. We also talked about the importance of getting kids involved a lot of the kids going to Arts that high school had kind of up to that point had received more of a passive education who had fallen in these habits of not really being active in class were starts with a high school smaller class sizes greater teacher student contact the there was a much greater emphasis placed on you got to be an active learner and an independent learner not independent.
Guy guy sit down with dr. Downs and mr. Dressler got [00:41:00] kind of a history of artistic High School how it got to be here its current student body makeup and then arsenic high school has the benefit of every Wednesday afternoon they have. The early release of that every Wednesday unlike other secondary schools, they get to have that collaborative time which they emphasize on maximizing the utility of that as well.
And then I ended arsenic high school with the opportunity to sit down with kind of a it was a student focus group where they got to kind of tell me what they thought about their experience and some of them were very very powerful some of the things I heard from the students was that they felt confident that they were going to have a if they didn't already they were going to have a plan at graduation of what they were going to do.
Next they felt that a dart and Tech High School. They had ways of expressing their creativity that they didn't have in their other schools. They felt connected to their schools and ways, they never felt before not only to their teachers but also to have to a peer group and they didn't always have and they felt like they could access their teachers when they're other schools.
They thought they were kind of being lost in the shuffle arts and Tech High School, they felt connected and [00:42:00] so all three schools really positive experiences really great to see teachers in action, and I would highly. Recommend we do this again rather than the rapid fire principles talking to us. So thank you and thank you to the three principles and their staffs for making me feel very welcome.
I would just start off with saying this was a process I think was invaluable and I'm hearing that among the board and it was. Valuable because I think that the connections for me were broader. I have the same structure at all three of the schools. I went to I sat down with the principal and. The principles team and received information about what the school is working on.
I also had an opportunity all three schools to sit down with a group of students [00:43:00] and hear what they want to say. Ask them questions. They could ask me questions and and and then had opportunities to go into multiple classrooms at all three schools. I think what I'm hearing as I am so proud of this forward.
I'm so proud of your engagement at your schools and what you've brought back and it's it's almost overwhelming for me to hear the level of your excitement of going to the schools and. We're going to do it again. I mean and I mean we're looking forward to hearing what the principles thought. But from our end.
It was it was it was great. So I have lots of information at all of the schools. I tried to take notes and again in terms of [00:44:00] process one of the questions I. I was asking myself for asking out loud is okay for you to do the work that you want to do what resources do you need from the board and I was asking that question not just the principle and the principles team but asking that if students as well and.
No one failed to provide that information to me. So I'm going to try to touch on some of that as I go through because a lot of what you touched on or similar to my experiences. I'm going to start with Meridian Creek where I met with. Dr. Olson as a principal. And their focus area is emerging bilingual students and increasing their access to curriculum and increasing opportunity gaps again right in line with Ford goal number one.
So using more staff time to collaborate they're having grade level meetings every Tuesday and they're using their half days [00:45:00] and protecting those for Content discussions there co-teaching they're planning. They're using feedback on the professional learning committees their cash their resources are using our incredible.
The english-language learning instructor is is their full-time and that's impacting them and really positive ways. They're using workshops here at the district offices. Which are outside of the school days we using early release days the using resources to refresh their learning for emergent bilingual students.
They're doing staff meeting times just using all sorts of opportunities and just to again connect that to what we do as a board. You know, we're providing those resources were thinking about it in our budget. We're supporting the efforts by dr. Ludwig and her staff to provide those opportunities here.
So I just heard keep up the good work [00:46:00] of what we're providing for those opportunities to allow this to happen. And I think one of the other things I highlighted was this belief that the practices for some will help.
And so I want to go to example we're going to classroom and.  again second every school. I went to the students were very familiar with people coming in and asking them. What are you learning while you're learning it, you know and how do you know that you've learned what you're supposed to learn? No question that students are used to that that our principles and our their team is going into the classrooms and and dr.
Pryor and dr. Downs are very familiar with those students and with those teachers and the principals. So this is just part of what we do as a school district. And again that was affirming for [00:47:00] me and in one of the classrooms that the conversation afterwards was. Well, I couldn't identify which students were emerging language learners.
But this is how the student interactive the teacher interact with students to continue to draw out questions and the next level and so that work was being done as we were in a classroom.  I would know in terms of my conversation with the students at Meridian Creek.
They were asking for more after school resources and more before school resources. What do you want? And those were the kinds of things that were bubbling up and that was exciting to hear that part of they want there is more. And we again that's in connection with some of the work being done with dr.
Ludwig and the other superintendents in our County to divide Middle School opportunities middle school students [00:48:00] opportunities After School Cedar Oak Park Primary School. Principal Miller and her staff are working on a number of things. But again part of it was writing connecting it with a district work plan that all students will improve their writing by one or more years is measured by pre and post assessments from the units of study professional learning is their vehicle to get that done.
And one of the highlights of that I want to just explain is they're using exit tickets for each time that their teachers are in professional learning. So they know what their teachers are getting out of those that connects with part of the questions in the tell surveys and they're also doing a separate teacher study which also informs the work that they're doing.
They're both tools that they're using to grow student achievement and and [00:49:00] to make sure that their professional growth and assessment is aligned with that. That's both cold one and two. There's just a lot of things are going on there too. But that was a highlight and one of the things that I observed in one of the classrooms was they were sitting in a circle and they were talking about.
Something that was personal experience relating it to their learning from perspective for literacy. But again that these students were willing to speak up about some personal experience. They had among their peers and to feel comfortable in doing that and and to not pull back from that experience and then for.
Dr. Miller to I mean principal Miller to point out that that [00:50:00] would not have happened with some of those children even the year prior. And so just the own growth that they're observing.  And the students are at Cedar Oak certainly reflect the kinds of values that we would want as they met with me.
You know, what makes her school special. We're all the kinds of things we would have wanted to hear. I also am at with principal Newman and his staff at West Linn High School and.  would note that principal Newman does not seem new to his staff nor to the students nor to the facility very comfortably fit in and and provided leadership throughout the time I was there.
The what they're working on is.  focusing on the dimension of purpose through the lens of equity in these each classroom again the use of learning targets [00:51:00] but communicating it in multiple ways both visually and verbally and I saw examples of that where they were using. I'm not going to perhaps use the right word but teacher student teacher helpers in the classroom and I suck kids sitting at each table and they were trying to ask each of the goal was to ask each other second level questions, and I couldn't tell that there were any.
Language Learners in there any kinds of barriers to communication? So every table I saw everybody was talking everybody was asking questions and they seemed really comfortable in that the kinds of things that they were wanting to promote.
I can't similar things in terms of resources the continued alignment and time [00:52:00] to collaborate and what I observed at West Linn High School was the ability of staff.  To be creative in how they were looking forward to that collaborative time and how they were using their collaboration. There was a lot of ownership.
It sounded like and flexibility and some shared leadership in their professional learning committee communities. In terms of resources.  I think one of the resources we have as a board is to continue to recognize student work and activities Beyond academics and to take the time to recognize students who are achieving in different areas.
I would encourage us to celebrate dual-credit participation. So let's move Beyond AP and some other things and recognize some of the work that is going on that also is advancing our students, too.  [00:53:00] Have a kind of outcome that we would want for them as they move out of high school again related to goal one.
Profound conversation. I felt with the leader of the student leaders who came to speak with me there. They identified some of the same things that we heard from our student who was on a board safety advisory committee and that there is stress and students need to learn a culture of balance in the high schools because we offer so many.
Opportunities and involvement. How do we help our students? Balance intensity and involvement in those things. And then again the student leaders encouraging us to be thinking about breaking down perceived barriers to entry into the advanced classes in those extracurricular activities. It was very pleasing to see that these leaders were thinking about all [00:54:00] students.