FRSC Parent and Community Outreach Subcommittee 2 1 23

meeting of the parent committee today is Wednesday February 1st um can we call the rule Please Mr Bailey Mr Hart here Ms Rogers here I pledge allegations to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty through justice as well pursuant to the open meeting law and the person may make an audio or video

recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are there for advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are attained acknowledge and permissible as part from what I understand we don't have any citizens okay and so we will Jump Right In into item number one which is our parent

engagement by parents fair and Powerful assets good evening everyone um first we'll talk about parent Square which is the packet that you have in front of you Karen square has been a phenomenal tool for us in the district these are current numbers at the halfway point we have 12 407 parents actively using the system we have 10 217 that are contactable via either text or email 131

in the complete District right now that are non-com uncontactable and the buildings are again working on those as we go and there are 264 that have no contact info however some of that is from the initial data done from X2 into the system so we are cleaning that up daily um a big stat that stands out eight thousand six hundred and forty parents are using the system for emails um 69 of those people opted to receive

just emails The Staggering number is 98 of parents that have cell phones 12 144 of them are receiving their messages via texts um so that's a staggering number and the app itself 5234 parents 42 percent of our district are using the app um so what we're planning on doing now is getting more people to use the app so there'll be an ad campaign going out into the buildings with the Sims team and the buildings

um some videos in three different languages some links so that we can get more people using the app um and we're hoping that this time next year we're at 85 to 90 this tool has been phenomenal um the thing that I like about this vendor is they're constantly asking us for suggestions on how to make their product better um something that we've never had with school messenger in the past

um and we are in the process right now of polling the internal staff employees to see what we can do to make parents wear better because there are still a few people that want to go back to that remind software that we were using um the biggest consensus there was they just like some basic PV on how to understand how to use parent Square um and it's more on the power level and

the elementary school level the high school and middle school levels are using this tool phenomenally and there are a few elementary schools that are just there's one in particular letourne who uses it quite a bit on they're the highest used usage of schools the data is pretty self-explanatory I don't know if there are any specific questions um the tool is excellent we love it and we look forward to continue using it

next year if I can just add those videos are complete interview languages so they read partnered with by TV recorded them and they've been edited we were just going to look at a final view of them and they're good to go anybody have any questions um just Scott real quick I know in the beginning of the year because it was a rough start with this and um now we're in February and I know what sometimes

did you know complained to me and but I'm sure the other members of the school committee it's a superintendent how's it how's been how's been no response so far with the parents have they is this PowerSchool account I'm sorry yeah I haven't yeah being able to go on there and look at all the uh so so parent Square it does not have access to public school they're two separate systems so parent square is

our communication platform some of the schools are using parent Square to send out grades because you can attach the grades to parent square but most of the schools are just using PowerSchool and that was my next okay that's fine but I'm just one curious about how did they how are they doing now with it I mean both systems are talking now right I mean the biggest lift was PowerSchool

was new to us and we had to get those two systems to talk they talk now nightly so as there are updates in the main office hey could you please take this email off this email it's being done nightly now because it just seems like PowerSchool wise the parents are really been you know embraced it they happen and that it seems to be working out really really well they are so in the

beginning it didn't in the beginning it was really wrong and again 20 years of her product it went to a new product but I can if you look at the next page we can go right into the you know the PowerSchool um we only rolled out the app to Middle High and uh RPA and stone to stock we have not done that to the elementary schools yet we're in the process of

starting that because remember we use standard based report cards they didn't talk very well with parent Square so we had to basically design that so now that we've designed that we've gotten some feedback from the elementary schools we're going to stop to roll out that after the elementary parents in the coming weeks but something that I just think is staggering um I mean today alone average average parents a day

just over you know 83 parents a day at Durfee 5208 sign-ins December 1st to February 1st Talbot 2000 plus more and almost 4 000. so you see the bigger schools are using it and now the the catch on to Lord because it's starting to go up you know Lotus RPA and stone it's much lower but our enrollment there is much lower um I was actually impressed to see that there are more parents using the app

than they are the web portal however there are still parents that want to use the web portal so if you look at it 418 parents per day if they're sitting at their desk at work or are logging into PowerSchool to check on their students you know attendance grading we've actually had some calls here at the central office I checked my students grades every day hey this one's wrong

what do we do we send them to the office the office works with them the buy-in has been much better it is so nice to have a product where parents can check their students information daily because the next two we didn't have that type of app there have been hiccups from PowerSchool but we're getting to the point where we're getting more comfortable with it the parents are getting more comfortable

with it the staff are getting more comfortable with it now we're going into you know the second half of the year so I anticipate Elementary grading gets a little bit easier progress reports get a little bit easier but Mr Michael Isaac and his team will get an email hey you think we could change this about it we're not making major changes to the structure but little tweaks here and there on the um

the progress reports for example we were able to figure out a way to take those progress reports dump them into parent square and send them out via parent Square so now people had it right on their phone instantaneously they got an email that said your sons or daughters progress report is ready to view so we're using those tools effectively together and the hope is as we get used

to powerschools moving forward we'll be able to do that much more and leverage the software that much more you know in the future we've also translated for cloud School in PowerSchool the progress reports in three languages so that's complete and that's and that's another thing that Mr Michaels Isaac and his team are working on we're working on now translating a lot of the common documents because it was such a lift

from January to June to get us live for September now we're able to say okay this form here we really want this in three languages so we're going back working with pace and We're translating those forms and up though you know uploading them into Apollo school so we're getting it and like I have said to all the committee through the months that we've been doing this it's a slow process but we're finally getting to a

point where a lot of our stuff is in there our team is more comfortable with the end user more comfortable with it and again there are going to be hiccups you know yeah we had an outage this week it was an outage in Massachusetts we unfortunately have to roll with those punches um that actually we were sitting here talking before the meeting and something I never thought of is if we needed to

get communication to people we have parents where we get all that data dumped into parent square and they never thought about it so now we have some options um stuff that we can plan for disaster you know disaster planning if one system or the other were to temporarily go down so that's something that I have to work on with my team in the future yes no that's good I just want to make

sure the PowerSchool was getting really getting used okay any other questions no this is this is really good I would just really like to see how it goes throughout the year and uh updates as you said I know this takes time especially when you're you know doing anything that is supposed to when it comes to technology great job thank you do we plan on moving it to the elementary school parents we're working

on that process as we speak we needed to get through that standard-based report card piece now that we have now we're going to look at pushing it out to everyone else anything else on that so we will thank you thank you Scott we will look at our item number two our community engagement plans okay so we continue to work with our families outside yeah with our community facilitators so

we meet with them monthly and we have rolling agendas with um documents attached to it so resources for families and really creating these positions so that everything they do at the core of everything they do is feeling engaging so they're helping out with phone calls to families for attendance they're engaging these families and offering them different opportunities to come into the school

um you know and really engage in the students education they're also having the communications about PowerSchool and parents where just to make sure that they're connected if they need any help with that and talking them through that so we have these little step-by-step sheets in in Native languages so they're helping them through that so we've really gotten a lot of families that were not connected

previously and just watching those numbers rise so we do at our monthly meetings we do look at the stats for each school to make sure that we're seeing an increase in engagement in those in those communication apps um we've we also continue to plan different events we we've had quite a bit of family workshops that are district-wide with finding that we're not getting a lot of engagement at those we're getting

a lot more engagement when schools do school-based events so um you know that's what we're encouraging more and more of for example a couple weeks ago um spent award and did a little workshop around helping students with their homework and then we came in Pace came in and we did Bingo for books with the kids we provided dinner for the families and we had you know the cafeteria cafeteria was filled so it was a great

success so just building off that and really providing those opportunities for any other events that schools are doing we have quite a few planned so we started to just keep track we had a tracking system for what schools doing and then all the community facilitators if they need translation services at these events they put it out there so it's sort of just whoever's available will come in

from other schools so Community facilitators are helping each other at their event so we have more language capacity we've also did uh last week or the week before we did Corey's cause at Durfee and we had translation services through so we had people there to translate and then we had capability through earphones A system that we have so we were able to for any family that needed

translation whatever the presenter was presenting we were able to translate into other languages talking to the headphones and the families could hear it so that was of course the time doing that yeah how was that received so somebody so I would I would have a transmitter and families who were listening in Portuguese would have a receiver so it's a headphone with the receiver and they

talk to each other so Spanish would be like on channel one Portuguese on channel two yeah pretty cool that was kind of cool yeah so we're hoping to use that more uh district-wide and offering that for more where has that been used I mean what schools or what um so we just so it's been used uh before in lpac meetings Okay um so we've asked uh the MLL department for permission to use that equipment

um at our meetings so you know they gladly off you know said yes so we tested it out um it's important to know also that one of the things that the community facility it's nice to have the community facilities and buildings but one of the things that they've done is piggybacked with so um you know parent-teacher conferences or open house they also have a workshop going or an activity or an event

happening at the same time so that people are already there they can take advantage of of whatever it is that that's being offered so they're working with the school to kind of give people more than one reason to go to the school to do um something because I think sometimes nobody wants to go in for a half hour meeting right you have a worthy Workshop or something they're going to be more likely to do that so

the community facilitators have been that bridge which is it really has been a good you know Cindy really has been what that's done is build a community within the community facilitators I love that they're working together helping each other out oh I have this going on in my school oh I'll go and help you translate so it's really created a team so that they're collaborating together

to build some Community engagement and then the success is that one school they'll now bring it to other schools so they're not Reinventing the wheel they're you know just sharing ideas and they're so excited with you know rolling out you know different ideas for example I think it's green is doing a family photo shoot night how exciting is that right that's a great idea you know

so it's just it's things like that that I think are gonna go a long way um you know the more and more comfortable we get with each other and work together and um you know run through events so now have you like you did the book being a lot Spencer board and you said and the place that you cafeteria was crowded yeah so we've done those for years yeah it's a big draw but uh can

you try that in other schools as well yes and it's it's always successful but we really wanted to we knew that would draw in families but we wanted to add that educational component for families so while they're going for Bingo for books they're getting you know some education as well on how they can better support their students um during you know homework um so just really trying to be very

thoughtful about all those events that we are providing you know double um how are we with Staffing with the community facilitators so we still have some openings um a couple of schools yeah so I think it's two positions yeah two schools yeah and then that stuff which is very good yeah it's actually three because Watson and they share yeah and fancy shoes they share one yeah so the places where you don't have a

good Community facilitated the others help out in the other so yeah so what we've done is just kind of reached out to the school and let them know um you know if there's any events that you know you want to run week and peace will support them okay um so I know that we were trying we were working with TNT to um to do a bingo for books with with the workshop as well

um so my staff will go there we'll go to any school but you know just offering that and um and then being more thoughtful when we do some of our district-wide events as well just inviting them in she's a tansy and walks in but that's one position so it's really three of our schools we have any other questions on that piece do you have a thought though because I always have thought right

so we've done some of those district-wide things and we really haven't had great attendance I know that a lot of times those topics are more generalized right they're important for everybody could we do just the thought some kind of rotation so at cuss they're going to have so it'll be a cuss just for cuss where we'll present that topic and then the next month we'll take that same topic and go to the next school

with it so for some of those bigger kind of more General let's talk about the entire school so that way people are getting the message so that is what we offer to the school okay so we did tell them you know what we live in Lauren how can we make this better right so uh now we've told our community facilitators go back to the school if these are we still have a menu

of topics that we've come up with as a group Collective group that we thought you know just Gathering from parent feedback and school feedback what are topics that are hot that we feel families are looking for what can we do um but let's offer them at a smaller scale and maybe double up and offer something else so maybe that might be the Bingo for books or it could be something else one of the schools is

doing a dance so the kids will be in the auditorium gem dancing and there's going to be some workshops for families or some education for families families can join them so just really try and there's a lot of cultural nights throughout from looking through you know the schools which is something that we really wanted to push um so that that's all in the in the works and they just bouncing ideas off

each other and using some of the same resources so it works smarter or smart enough it was a good investment yeah those positions you know I was talking to a family the other day and they actually mentioned the community facilitator at their school and it was just sort of like oh yeah I'm gonna call so-and-so because you know they're gonna I'll just call someone so they'll be able to get me

that information so it's nice to know that the families are feeling connected to those moves as well so it's not just we're putting on events because we know that that's just not that's not what the parent engagement looks like across the world right sometimes families are not going to be able to come and they know that they can call this person right and building that capacity and the

position what it looks like in one school should should be very similar to all schools so really defining what their lows are and what they're doing so whatever they're doing how can they connect that um you know with family engagement how can that task also engage the family so it's also partnered with there are tenant officers in school adjustment councils so doing homework business so

that's a good segue does anybody have any other question on the community facilitator part specifically all right cool so we will jump right into attendance yeah so partnering with the um a time of officers as well doing those home visits um you know I think you know a lot of the work that we want to do you know in the next couple of months is on that team approach right we're looking at

um you know within our districts we've met as an attendance task force Within um and what we decided that before we take it out we're going to really do a deep dive into what we're doing at a district in all of our schools and really comparing what the best practice is what what teams are really bringing back the best results and sharing that throughout all of our schools so that you know

where this united front and what's happening in one school is happening in another school um you know and just really building off the successes of you um once we do that our next steps are going to be to implement this in all of our schools and then bringing our Community Partners in but in a different way than what we had before so for example one month we'll invite our state

agency so our DCF and court system and really being very targeted around how do we work as a unit to support each other in this work looking at systems you know what happens when we send a student um you know to court what does that look like what do you need from us so that you when you do your stuff at the core it's impactful and meaningful so that we results so really being targeted in that

way for example another month might be meeting with all of our pediatricians you know that's a partnership that we value a lot and we have a great partnership with our pediatrician offices but we can always improve on that so really having those targeted conversations on you know who the point people might be that if we need something from a pediatrician's office we have that point person we can call

them and they can call us and we can you know really work together to better support the student to get them in school um so I would say our big takeaway we know that attendance certainly our attendance has improved from last year to this year and it continues to improve I mean last week of the month we had our average attendance was probably in the mid 80s we are creeping up we're at 90 to 89 90

and the goal is to be at 93 by the end of the year we hope um and we're not using excuses but last month we also saw huge surges in flu yeah I was just going to say there's different reasons right so when we look at those numbers I just I don't want people to hear that and hear oh gosh like nobody was coming to school it's I mean it was bad and it wasn't just here

it was across the state oh I I will totally agree with that because I was going to say there are many different reasons why kids don't come swipe we also had you know a large stretch of rainy rainy days like we're not talking about just drizzling but we talked about storms right so that impacts kids coming to school too when we have you know a storm we always know that a tennis is going to suffer

we still tell people if you're sick you need to stay home we have to retrain people what how sick exactly you're kind of sick or whatever we certainly want people to take care of themselves but if they feel like they're going to be they're sick to the point where they're just going to be passing it around then parents we have to trust parents to make a good judgment right because ultimately they are the thing of

their child better than us but um certainly and we have to develop good habits again right consistent habits kids got in you know out of the habit of school consistently um Etc so we're working on all of that and we're doing our due diligence as schools to reach out to families and figure out why that child's home how we can help what what our piece is in it but I think

that when we met as a team we had some attendance officers at the table at the task force we had some principals in District staff Etc and we were looking at okay so I think that one of the big takeaways was we had to reflect and say the first step everybody agree that we need to involve the community have a task force but said needs to look different right we're not going to meet

monthly just for the sake of meeting and say we have a task force we need to have a purpose right and in order for us to have that purpose first of all we have to do a data dive we have to look at our practices across the board what are we doing what's working what hasn't worked and see what shifts need to be made and then invite to the table the people with

a purpose at when they need to be there instead of just saying I'm just going to have a meeting for an hour and say okay we're going to report out that's not what a what collaboration is right so we're trying to be thoughtful about how we resurrect the task force and how we utilize it to support our kids and support our families in getting kids to school so um you know I would say we're headed in

the right direction but this work that we need to do in the meantime to get to where we need to be you know just set a goal meet it without doing all the lead work because that doesn't that's not going to be sustainable right we just need to make sure we put the the systems in place that are going to support goal and helps to meet it and exceed it and

move on to the next level of the work so I think that we 've done good work and I'm excited about the work that you know will continue to do our attendance officers have been working closely with principals I did make that decision because they were kind of and not I'll say like they were they initially had been supported by the SEL person as you know that position is not filled yet um

uh I can't do that Justice they needed to work closely with people and really they should be working with people that they're closest with right so if we have an attendance officer that works in two schools those two principles are the the point people and they're part of that school-based team the support team Etc so um we met with the principals talked about that and really talked about the

pros of that so the tennis officers are working closely at each School level with the principles and principals will collaborate and support those attendance officers and hopefully what we do we come away with is consistent practices across the board and a tiered approach right because everybody has a role in it but my role is going to be different than the attendance office's role or the

principal's role or the community facility is wrong right because everybody jumps in when they're supposed to right right so it's hopefully a an intentional um you know uh system that we're going to be a place that is going to yield in positive results I think it's the only way that change happens is when we're approaching it with some kind of intentionality as opposed to just putting things in place for the sake of

putting things right in place right anybody have questions on attendance right now um are there like Maria are there any um Gateway cities that have a very good absenteeism rate throughout the state here um say that we've looked at our um sister schools that are have similar populations and they're all around the same where we are and they all suffer the same uh pains that we do

um I think that it's although we we have we do reach out I know the high school they reach out to they reached out to New Bedford to rock them they're looking comparing the high schools Etc so it's not unique to us um I think there are different factors that weigh in we do have at times the transient population that lends itself to it we also you know we know that I said before that

um when it's bad weather we're gonna like I'm anticipating Friday will be a difficult day right it's going to be cold more Saturday than what others are changing right so I think that if you're going to have a storm we expect it we know that that's going to happen but we need to keep at it and we learn from each other I'm part of the urban superintendent's Network so we talk about the stuff together

um I I this is not unique you know I think it'd be a good I mean that's good that you're talking to you I think that's important because we're very similar yeah in size and diversity and culture and everything so I think that's good and I'm glad you're doing that and I mean I think you know that's good that you're you've you've started discussions with it and what how many meetings have you had so far

we have another one schedules um yeah so I think it's like I know that it took longer to get it up and running than we anticipated but as we all know stuff happens no I mean you want to do it like right yeah yeah so I think by taking the time and doing what you're doing now is a very very good big step so yeah you know where purposeful in our

full day PD so yeah we're bringing in you know some of our goals in this work into that PD so we're doing that work and it's going to be consistent throughout so um I think sometimes you know that pre-work before um before you launch something is so critical right so we're excited about that I think it's easy in a district this size yeah to sort of just put things in place without

really planning and being intentional and purposeful about how that's going to look because we have challenges but you know it's not we have challenges because we're a very large district and that that kind of comes with the territory just our population in general so we have to be mindful of that and so I think the more that we can be intentional and a lot of that was really reflecting

pre-covered that year we were in such a good place with attendance we had done so much work so really diving back into that and thinking back at that time what were we doing that was working really well and what wasn't what could we improve upon so that was a lot of the work we did pretty these meetings so that when we started back up we're very purposeful and you know not Reinventing

the wheel right just really looking at our systems because we had more consistent systems in place um so looking at assistance systems and then building off those it's just one other thing on that I know we have the attendance cars um I don't know if anyone else has noticed but you know I live in the city obviously and I work in the community I've seen them and maybe it's the same

one I don't know but I've seen them out and about way more often now than I have before I would say I agree um they're used a lot more probably Talbot and Henry Lord probably and Morton also uses it a lot but but I will say that they're the Front Runners that they use mostly um they think nothing of getting a car pick up a student dropping off a student to think

if need be obviously it doesn't take place of you know we're not going to do every day but emergencies exactly so it's emergencies arise somebody oh well they missed the bus so they couldn't get there okay tell them to be right we'll be right there so they are used a lot more I think that if you look if you really like our people who make a lot more home visits than people realize

from any school they are there it it many years ago you wouldn't even think twice like if you talk to a Cape Cod and she'll tell you she makes she herself with her Sack or whatever will think nothing would go into homes that probably didn't happen years ago right but people are um you know connecting with families and trying to support families we just need to make sure we work with our families

right because it's not our job to judge why or why not kids aren't in school because we know there's always a reason why right our job is to say okay how do we help you clear that you know obstacle so that we can get your child to school because we know if they're not in school they're missing out learning so that's our job to to do so I think that people

are doing a lot more of that I bring that up about the cars because I know that that was a concern a while back that people we had paid for them and they weren't being used and they weren't interested in parking lots um but I can only speak anecdotally obviously I don't have members or anything but I've seen them driving around way more frequently and it's funny because it has been in the Flint

and in the South End of the city of them around right initially you're absolutely right we weren't utilizing them like we should have so um we we have moved them put one in the North End one on the south end one of the so there's one that if you drive by more and it's always parked outside Morton one that's in the south end at Henry Ward that is left there the principals know where the cars

are we have a Google sheet that if they need to use it they'll go and they'll sign up the card they'll say oh I have a sackle over there to pick up the car so we have a system where they pick up the car and do whatever they need to do but we strategically try to place them in different areas in the city so that they were accessible to people because they

used to be right at Durfee and it's it was easy to just say hey I'm at Letourneau I need the car I'm gonna go to you know to Henry Ward and pick it up right so we've got one at the north south east and we have three cars so they're in different places yeah but I would say you know uh the Morton Talbot and um Henry Lord is where they're stationed or or they're sometimes Durfee forever

so all of that is helping which is good yeah we're not where we want to be but we're still we're we're inching that way I I don't think that's unique even to even to districts that didn't have the the numbers that we have everybody's trying to recoup yeah right so I would say all districts are trying to recoup and get themselves to um with the way they were before this Interruption were occurred and

superintendent I know you look at it every day there's a really attendance is it like for the past maybe I don't know um four months is trending yeah it's trending upwards I mean I have the December and for instance the December we have a spreadsheet that we keep track of so in December we do it daily and then the weekly average and as I said before the December um average was hovered around 85 mid 80s

and we are at 89.90 average now so um you know I think that that the weather or you know if you have a half day or something will impact but um we are turning upward um and we do have a couple schools that are consistently low that we need to get those numbers up and obviously the average it all out yeah and that impacts our numbers but for the most part most

schools are hovering around 90 or above with the exception at once you know at least two schools that are not and I was I would assume too that the schools that are sometimes maybe consistently well we are yeah we're going to concentrate on every school kind of putting an emphasis on obviously yes yep so I mean and it's no secret you know we struggle with RPA with their attendance Etc so

um that's something that needs to be a focus area to to get those numbers up and get those kids in school any other questions on that um all right then our last agenda item is just to revisit what our goals were from earlier in the year

so you know when we talk about family engagement you know our goals were to um you know we really wanted to do a district-wide event monthly we've done that that's this far but again um I think like at our last one you know when we came back together as a unit we really decided that we really need to do more school-based um change in that approach we're still going to do some district-wide events

like when we did the trunk or treat that was so successful so we want to do a couple of events like that where it's district-wide really bringing in the Community Partners and doing that together with the community so next year that event is going to be way bigger than even this year but we want to do another one in the sun uh in the spring so um we also want to continue to do our

welcome to K events throughout the summer that's that's always that's a goal that we're going to continue to do and really beef up every year so you know building up these Community facilitators was a huge goal of buying as well um and that's you know it's been we're growing you know as as a district but really taking the time to um to dedicate with each one and what it looks like at each school because each

school has different needs so we want to be respectful of those needs and we want them to use those facilitators in those positions as they need but still having that marrying the two right so having that core at the center of everything that they do of you know engaging families while still supporting the schools and what they Envision these these goals to be so definitely you know having a lot of

conversations with principals going out to schools to really you know how can I better support them in your vision of what your school needs because they're really the experts of their schools and I need to be very respectful of that right I might have a vision of what you know I want they might have a little bit of a different uh you know vision of what they need right now so we might get there someday

but right now it's you know initially it was getting as many families as possible with parent Square because that's the number one um you know goal is to have that communication that ability every single day without doing is to really get them to uh you know the easy way to communicate with them in their native language being very thoughtful about that in every event that we have to provide

resources so that we can communicate with every single family um training people on language to to start using language more and more actually just today we were playing with them with our iPads at the Peace Center so that we're ready for high registration season so we're using those iPads now to uh with poor language although I have language capacity there are days that we have you know during

those busy season more of parents that speak different languages than language capacity you can use Library so now we can use lionbridge and we're setting up our iPads to do that you know in real time right there so we can do everything on their kiosks so we literally can take the kiosk with us you know whatever the family is they want to be outside so the kids can play out in the grass while

we're registering we can do that too so really trying to be um thoughtful and planning for those busy Seasons too so not just waiting for the busy season to implement stuff we're planning so we've gotten better with taking notes during those busy seasons of what's Happening that's not good or that we can improve upon and coming up as a collective unit to plan for those times what we can improve upon this we

can make that more efficient we maybe can eliminate this you know piece of paper that's going to take more time to fill out we'll do it electronically so stuff like that that we're really trying to um you know get the feedback from families you know there was one form that families would get aggravated when they'd fill out sometimes and they'd complain to my to my staff so let's eliminate that form and put it into

the enrollment so it's quick um so just Little Steps like that um I mean SEL is a huge huge Hope was a huge goal of ours so um I think there's been some great great growth in what we've done and I think Claudia has done so do you want to talk a little bit about what you brought into schools this year that's been poor so um one of the things just to start on that

we we've had a partnership with family services and part of that partnership is that they are providing groups to all of our schools where they're they're going to be providing each School get three three three sets of different groups the first group so it's already started already throughout our schools so the first set of groups are on um if it's on um just just self-regulation type skills

and then the other two groups at the schools will be what the school needs so we started in every school it's about self-regulation um it's clinicians from family services are going to be running those groups and then again when it's time to sit down and talk about what's the next group's going to look at like at each school if the schools will have the autonomy to say this is what we need from you these

are what uh we're looking for the groups in addition to that this group's happening throughout all of our schools over excited one one of the meetings I had this morning was with all of our scle leading signs that we have as a district which I'm super excited about and what and really checking in to see what's it looking like at all of the buildings um and they're all running groups

um mindfulness groups self-regulation groups um conflict resolution groups um and social skills groups um so a lot of that preventative work is happening in addition to just triaging some of those some of those calls that they're getting in from schools which is what we intend with those positions which is nice to see the best investments we've made oh I'm so happy to thank our facilitators those were two

two of the best investments we've made and I and I'd like to say as well too that's the response I'm getting from the school adjustment councils as well too where we have them in the middle school they're like like they've noticed such a difference where the these Liaisons are doing a lot of the triaging and pre-work and tracking um some of the students that they've identified where the stacks are able to

do some of some of that other work that was a huge tremendous support is what I'm I'm getting and the principles are being so thoughtful about how to use them yeah um so it is relieving some of that pressure off the sack so they can provide the tier three support which exactly what we wanted to happen so that was a good suggestion and it's it has been nothing short of a good thing for schools

so you know the more we can have so at the elementary they'll be asking for more right after this meeting are we fully staffed almost so more in is currently has an opening for this we I'm part of the interview with them as well too so we've been interviewing so we're waiting for you do we have any or is this they have two thirds and I think that's really nice so when the Middle School's onboarded three

per so it's it's in essence one attached to each grade which makes it so wonderful so it's teared and it's targeted as well too or working as a team so for let's say if there's a kiddo that has a support plan or Behavior Support plan on either extra supports that are identified in working with the school adjustment councils of babies they are able to do a lot of that work

now for the kids as well too so they've seen a huge um improvement with that so I'm really excited that we're getting at the middle schools and yeah how about at the elementary level well we have funny you should ask in some schools and and that um we do have um I did have spoken to some principals who also want to add um I think in particular when you have a

school that has a large cluster of um uh special populations or if they're in a larger school where they need that additional support um the good part is that's what they're going to right and asking for that position um so I do think that that's growing and we're seeing some requests come in so I do think that we'll see um some especially some of the larger schools more yeah after tonight I'm sure

and I think the more that the schools that are using them well can talk hey I'm all for the SEL yeah look at the looks right because it's working that's the feedback that we're getting it's helpful it is the feedback has been great and we've been able to onboard really talented people to do that work as well too and I think the fact that we were able to say look this is the

criteria this is what we're like it to be a pipeline and people who eventually want to be a school adjustment counselor um and some of them are on track to get their licenses and I've been doing that um but we meet as a group as well too so it's like okay what groups are you running how you know how's it would it give us some of those topics let's share resources let's share ideas so that is

happening as well too which is really nice to see um within the schools at the elementary school again we don't have as many as there's a nice system in place with our middle schools where these STL Liaisons and the school adjustment councils work in collaboratively at the elementary school about checking in with there you know she's running the zones of Regulation with the little kiddos during

lunch Bunch groups and just just in any capacity that you can which is really nice to see so I'm really huge support and we're seeing the difference um um at the high school level as well to all of our school adjustment councils our running groups now as well too which I'm super excited about we have we have anxiety groups happening during the day we have we have um young men's Empowerment Group run during the day we

have I'm trying to think of all the other social skills newcomers newcomers so we have we have we're really fortunate at the high school we have school adjustment counselors who speak different languages so we have two separate groups going on right in the sense of um newcomer for students who are Spanish food in Puerto Rican or other languages as well too and it's just hearing how it's going

um sounds amazing as well too explaining a parent component to having schools by one of the school adjustment counselors and at the elementary level I mean they are they are they are running groups on a regular basis or pushing in as well too so there's a lot of good question which I I love seeing that um the pushing into the classrooms um and helping with teaching some of those lessons

um whether it's bullying lessons or any SEL lesson or any uptick that a teacher might be noticing is happening in the classroom having that supportive person coming in and doing a whole group lesson which is amazing um we had all of our schools again we had done the mark bullying teams at um the middle and high school they're also doing our new leadership program right which is going really well in our

advisory programs at middle and high school it's sequenced in the way that I had it up here um so the sequence of okay so the way we had it sequence the scope and sequence for the leadership program right um it's we we have it so that way February there's a lot of con Conflict Management type of lessons and then we go into social responsibility in March um and then April upstander which is

that bullying again too because you know when we we mindful of like when the days get longer the weather gets nicer our kids are hanging out some of that some of the hanging out outside brings in some conflict into the buildings and making sure that those lessons are really tied into what we've seen historically with upticks in our buildings as well too foreign

you're talking about this because I don't think people get how important it is sometimes um we won't discussing um because I just just a few suggestions and a few things um like with a lot of the events and the groups and stuff we do the way to provide um like any data on the outcomes of some of the stuff that we're doing just so we can make sure um that for one where we're growing

right for two um just to make sure um when we collaborate with them in the Community Partners that we can actually educate them as well because obviously there are students and there are kids and how do we um you know just get it out to the public to train because we're doing a lot of great work um and we talk about this all the time and I I can say I'm blue in the face I

don't think people realize how important it is some of the work that we're doing so if we had that testimonials and stuff like that for some of the principals so when we're going out and we have our community Liaisons and they go into places that could into a teaching moment for them where they're you know actually teaching some of these parents so they're bringing some of their parents in and doing some

of these things but this is all great work everything that I'm hearing and I've seen it so I know that it's transformative and I have to say I I'm always really really proud to tell people we have 58 School adjustment councils so that speaks volumes to the fact that we are really working and supporting our kids um our whole kid right so I always tell people when like I'm like I'm so proud

that I can say we have 58 School adjustment counselors throughout our 16 schools which is which is a great number but it's great support that's happening but now we're getting these different layers as well too that supporting our kids in editing capacity and then speaking to home visits uh I mean I know our school adjustment counselors they love doing our home visits I'm always offering to

go with them as well too because I love it that's how you learn about the family and the student you meet them where they're at as well too I think it's such an important thing to do when you're connecting with the family and the barriers are gone when you're doing those home visits so that's a lot of the work school adjustment counselors are doing is meeting families and doing those home visits we've I've driven in

the cars before to go pick up a family or or to go do whatever I needed to do um because that work is super important and having those additional supports has lend it so that more of that work can happen as well too but we talk a lot about getting families into the school but I don't think we always recognize that part of that work is also us getting out to the families right where

families are actually at as opposed to them always is having to come into the building well parent engagement doesn't mean that they have to be in the building right but sometimes accepting here isn't an engagement Apparently that is willing to accept you into their homes so that's the point that a lot of people Miss yeah is that they they're expecting exactly which you said so the parent

that's checking their grades in PowerSchool and saying hey this looks different from what I thought it was and so who do I connect with that's parent engagement I think people sometimes forget that it's not just about the community events which are important right they're necessary and I think we need to do more of them but it's not just about them I I do agree that we probably I mean

that's something we can walk away from tonight is to set a goal on how we can quantify some of this work right we actually had a meeting um this afternoon with the tech department as well honestly set an example of the report that they uh the data report that uh you know after talking with her and what we're envisioning um she sent me a sample is this what you're looking for so we tweaking it a

little bit because it's not exactly what I want yeah but we are putting together packets for every single school on data comparing last year to this year and really celebrating what we've done different from last year to this year so really looking at did this make an impact and I have to say although the report that I seen was not exactly how I wanted to look it was exciting to see so we're so

hopeful about that and you know hopefully you know by the end of the week we're going to have you know a really great like um presentation of what what this looks like from you know last year to this year that's why that's why I also said testimonials because it's the qualitative no yes absolutely I love that no we can't measure yeah exactly you know what I mean right yeah I think we I love to

figure out how to survey and get some um some I mean I would like to like we we should be have regularly or whatever A lot of people don't realize how important the work really is um you know and I've seen people in the trenches I've seen people work and I don't think people get enough credit for it's empowering for them yeah it truly is yeah some some of the groups

and it's not consistent so something we need to get back with is that pre and post test but I but I think like Cindy was saying one of the things we were looking at was where's our bullying data compared to last year's with our attendance compared to last year what is our conflicts our fights compared to last year and and just really comparing and looking at that because you know

we're looking at there's been a lot of groundwork that's been done last year into this year but we've also added staff to do that work we've purchased an SEL curriculum that was specific to help address some of our concerns as well too and we're being you know there's always room to grow right so essentially as perfect across all areas but it will we're seeing growth cap and that makes me excited to

see it happen and you know again there's room to grow in certain areas and I think being mindful of that and really looking at how do we make that how do we how do we share all of that across the school so that that growth is happening everywhere as well too we're kind of in a positive direction about quantifying media always have to just look at the bullying investigations or just look at the

conflicts or the attendance you can also look at you know individual kids how often is that individual kid you know redacted we don't need anybody's theme but if you have a kid that's constantly being pulled out of the classroom because those behavior issues or disruptions or whatnot did those things go down right so is that kid actually able now to regulate in the classroom versus outside of the

classroom that's a huge win and I don't think people always hear that kind of stuff either that that's equally as important as getting our overall numbers right if it made a difference for I'm assuming that they're running groups with like small targeted groups of kids and not whole classrooms they're doing both right so they're doing small groups targeted kids and they're doing

sometimes push in whole classrooms yeah push it but like when we're getting the Community Partners oh yes those are targeted groups so what did that look like for that group of kids right did we see a difference in how many you know how many times they were sent to the office did we see a difference in how many um detentions they got I'm just making stuff like what are our metrics to look

at some of that stuff because I think when we can put that out there then we can people can see we know how important the work is but I don't think everybody else always realizes that so people like hard numbers can we combine that with some good you know hey this helped Johnny it's always Johnny right this helped Johnny in the classroom and this is in his words what was helpful for him I love that

it's a goal yeah I'm gonna do a whole thing and have like our friend TV kids help film some of that let's go for it any other questions on that we're moving along we're moving along to our goals all right any new business um