thank you all for coming this is the education committee meeting or may we have a number of signing things and i'm so thrilled to see so many of the teachers here to talk to us about some of our programs so if you would please join in the pledge of i just wanted to make a comment unfortunately we're missing several of the board members board members who could come and i just wanted to say thank you to rebecca bowman for calling me over the weekend and giving me her comments on what we're going to discuss tonight she is in millersville judging the pennsylvania history day competition so she couldn't be here with us and i haven't heard from the rest of the board members are not exactly sure why they're not here but we are and so we're going to move on without further ado ok because thank you so i do everyone should have to have the gender and there is a copy of the powerpoint so we're going to start right on with our pilot of  invision smout program and before i get started i do want to have a guest in the audience i want to introduce i'm scott walker and he is our pearson representative and he's our go to person for all of our materials and supplies so we just want to thank scott for coming today and later on we have any questions we can refer them to scott's i do want to thank you very much for attending the meeting thank you so you're the guy we go remembers last month we had david come in and he did and overview of the components of the invasion program so this month we actually are bringing in teachers who are working with our students to talk about the program it is a program it's aligned to common or it is based on real life experiences really trying to encourage the number sense in with the students and so i just want to give just a little bit of a background of the invision program on the implementation we do have to pilot classes per grade and third and second grade at p v we have two and then one of our girls and second grade we actually have three classes we have trying to get some type of feedback and this past friday we did send a parent survey home that this was for a few reasons we wanted to ensure that we are cutting down and also next year we're planning parent meetings and so we needed some feedback on how to move forward with those parent meetings and knowing the emphasis is it and vision program is that the climate or is it the components of the program so where do we need  a national presenter and we're going to and also we're starting next week in may as an over you are the program for all of the staff and that's includes also the gifted and the special education teachers in june we're going to do some special program so that when we started school and obviously will be ready ready for the program so we're very excited about it professional development and again that you have that additional training on the climbing or in differentiated instruction so this is just a little slide for the components of the invision program but i'm just going to briefly go over because we're going to have some of our wonderful teachers really explain and give some feedback of how the children interact when they go over the components but basically there's four parts of every lesson they always start with a daily review of a common core and then we go over the development of the concepts so they get over real life situation problem base  set up the purpose pose the problem and then we go into a visual concept and we have what's called the bridge angriest and explain a little bit about our bridge when she comes out but you know we do guided practice and independent practice and then we have what's called a quick check that we really want to focus on to see what the students have learned and if they're going to meet a little bit of remediation or if they really have the concept or if they're going to be  rich so this will be explained by the teachers a little bit more because they can't have that real life experiences and they can tell you how those students are reacting to the different parts because when i go in and watch i have to tell you the  quick text and so it was really good so i'm getting a lot of feedback and i've been trying to get it to all of the classrooms and i again you know just have to thank the teachers always saying accolades all night and this is some of the differentiation with the visions of i want to emphasize the differentiation and the end richmond is for all students and so as i mentioned in the past in the previous life every day there is that differentiation within the lesson  with if they're doing games if they're doing their homework there's always high richmond and differentiation and we're going to talk a little bit more also so without further ado here is our teachers that have been in the pilot i know that sometimes they get bombarded by e mails from me i would never if i ever asked them for anything and they were so willing and it's really been a two year process with our whole research and so we have  think blondin and i really appreciate that everything that they do they're welcoming into their classrooms this is just a pleasure working with each and every one so without further ado if you want to start with power hill in riyadh and christian thank you for letting us pilot this and thank you for giving us the opportunity to have the freedom in our classrooms to use the materials and and to dive into everything because that's been very helpful and for those of us that have to explain to new people using it and even the teachers that are coming aboard on the new program we'll kind of have a good idea really how to use every part of it of the program to piggyback on what crystal is saying i think it was that the vocabulary and we repeat it every day so even in just this two or three week time period that i've been on that topic as it does take two or three weeks in kindergarten sometimes longer i just i just couldn't believe it so it they really will i think with we're all talking the same math language so to speak by the time my students get to third grade and even to first grade they'll have that idea of the math valarie so to speak at the centers well we're kind of we're we're learning them along the way because there's a lot and there's a lot of vailable so we have to take the time and make it user friendly for the kids and user friendly for us but i will say that it differentiates to the needs of every student in the classroom there's when we talk about centers and games that it might be a problem solving activity it might be just counting cubes in kindergarten from the very beginning so they give you even even though those activities are different she added to the needs of the students so we can pretty much meet every learner as best we can and their strengths and help them grow and one thing i don't know if they mention there's also reteaching aspect of this oh yes we talked about practice we talked about enrichment but we do have a reteaching piece to every day that if we do have some of those kids that struggle we can i mean everything is there everything is there at first you know i was i was i was a little overwhelmed myself it's a new way of thinking for me as long as we've been  but to have everything right there for you ready to go it's it's it's nice and it's good for the kids and that's really our you know what we're here for so it's good for them to have these hands on materials we can the math assessment where everybody does not get the same answer they have to go through the problem solving procedures but it's not always the exact same way and everybody when i come up with a different answer in that piece which is more difficult for teachers  want if it's going to be a challenge it's a different way of thinking and i just you know i just read a quote about it change comes chaos sometimes so i think once we get everybody on board and we have the opportunities to sue in service our staff and our parents and we communicate that i really think it will be very beneficial to everyone because it is it's a change but it's a positive change it's definitely a some days i cannot get to everything but if we have the freedom in our schedule and in our professional opinion kind of carry over what we don't get to maybe the next day we can do that because i know the order grates the a you know that might be a set schedule with everything but yes is it going to be a challenge for me if i had a lot of children to do the quick check skin and the check that before i sign the homework yes but there's a ways around that too that you can maybe do the homework as a as our calendar activity for work kindergarten you know not necessarily get to it that day so yes it will be a challenge but i think if we're given that freedom as well in our classroom to use our take in we have a meeting of all of the teacher of myself in the administrators and the end of may twenty eighth so we're going to get that feedback from all of their experiences so that we really you know then we would have some of the feedback from the new was just thinking to put teachers and their dissipate and just stop identifying and recognizing that we did not make it all that easy on you and i do appreciate all the hard work that you put in and by that i mean there was a twenty twelve addition started the year twenty fifteen was coming out was rolling out and unfortunately we missed some availability dates so in some cases it impacted how much they could be working with the program and some of them i know are starting very late in the game but again wonderful job as far as you know getting to know the program it was like falling in love with it but as far as the technology is concerned that's really also something that we're very excited about the twenty fifteen as which was mentioned is not available yet it's not live totally it is live as far as demos concerned and it's going to be our new realized platform and the realized form is going to do a few major things for you the first one being that it is we're calling hard right gnostic so i don't know if any of your kids are walking around with one of these handy dandy or if they're using a desktop computer or if they're using any tablet for that matter the great news is you don't have to worry about compatibility issues any longer gossip means it doesn't matter a device as long as you can access the internet and then access the full program and all the detroit sets so that's number one number two the other really cool thing is that it's completely customizable and everything is assignable so even if there was like a video  teachers decided that you know this group of students should see a worksheet and a particular remediation piece those specific pieces could all be directly assigned for the students to be able to work with and the third aspect is that this is going to have really data analysis tools that are out the i mean it's just going to allow the teachers to really make that a driven decisions in their room rather easily and there's also going to be a matter of personal zation aspect to it simply just assigning some of the diagnostic parents could access and there were multiple problems so my question to you is who is our point person if we have parents who are saying they're sitting with the kid in the can't access what they need to at home they're go tell the teacher the teacher comes to dr carter because whatever it doesn't ultimately come down to you or how does that process so alternately on your point person for your district so any problems that you're having whether big curriculum related whether student from nation systems professional development sustenance you name it the whole realm of the educational model and the issues that i can help you with go directly to me and then i put together the right team to come in and address those concerns so i'm the central person that would go through  i can tell you that they realized from i think it's going to eliminate a lot of those issues as far as a man excess because you know it's one thing to walk into a school and say ok we'll make sure that the school meets the specifications of this particular program but then when you have you know three hundred kids to go and they're all using different devices with different operating systems that's where the problems really start to originate realize it's going to take care of many of those if not all of those issues as long as you can access the internet it'll all the right resources to make all when the item sampler came out for fifth grade that was provided to us that of the test is going to be given next year i took it home and i took it and it literally brought me to my knees i literally cried i could do it and i'm pretty mathy of a person i could do it but i had to rely on things i'd learned in high school in middle school in order to solve the problems are going to be expected of fifth graders next year so that raised the level of concern  and so on a positive note because that's quite a quite a bummer of information looking at this program that's what we have found is that the rigor is there so if i had to say one thing or we had to say one thing as far as a very positive note on this or our grade level on the needs of our school mcmurry school this program is aligned with the common core the bar is higher on everything from the daily practice to the we are your home they're calling it a quick check we call it like a daily quiz operating in the same manner that the rigor is there the challenge is there on the tests that we have so across across it it's multiple step life  real life applications we are finding the challenge side of the homework to be extremely beneficial to a lot of our students it's not something that just has to be the top one percent we have most of our kids doing a double sided homework in order to get what they need so so we're finding that the enrichment needs are met the bar is higher and we are for the most part going to be relatively ok as we head towards this higher bar of test scores so that's one thing a second thing that we particularly like at mcnairy are the technology aspects and then i'll address some specific things that just i am doing but are going to be available for everybody next year the things that everyone is doing that are available text for home use is a great thing the video daily presentations can be shown at home children have been able to access that and at school so even with absences things like that are serving a lot of purposes that's the learning bridge again we're calling them slightly different things but the visual learning bridge is a video sort video for us the virtual manipulativeness weren't available but we were able to get in through back doors and side doors at least to look so it looks like that a great opportunity for things and then we like that there were actually three versions of every test so there was an online version it was all multiple choice but it was fairly rigorous and then in the book version practice tests that can be used as a research actual test we could be used as a practice test and the paper version so we definitely felt that between the technology and the materials that were provided we have what we need to run this program the the first one was we like this rigor second thing technology the third one i have to kind of call miscellaneous consist sort of a bunch of loose and things but we were asked to address the kind of things that we liked about it there are enough examples in various formats to provide thorough practice on the skills that we're working on a lot of spiral review built into the program we like to the daily quizzes that are there provided in the past week some of us have done daily quizzes but we had to make them all so this is provided for us ready to go the level of homework is not overwhelming in quantity a little concern when you're assigning a double sided homework that parents and kids will balk at that but the number of problems per page is half of what one page used to be so it ends up being about the same amount but it's more targeted to exactly what those kids need a quick differentiation with we are not calling them the learning centers at the end that the kids want to call games then after a week of doing them they said please stop you know throwing the word we're going to go to game centers now got them all excited fairly there's cooperate of learning every day i don't know the name mentioned that but but that's a nice feature so every sing all day the kids are working cooperatively it's built it's built into the program and then to address what dr carter bekah said i am using a combination of two technology pieces that i believe are going to be provided to everyone next year that's my understanding so  about it one that is now what is it called reflector ok reflector allows me to have an i pad with the movie or the book or any kind of instruction that i want on it and to be untethered to the computer so i can walk around the room with the i pad it is shining through the projector what is on the i pad so with that by itself darlene has been able to shine up on the screen and right on her chalkboard to to reflect what's going on but this way you can actually untether yourself walk around it and it to a child a child  able to write on it so he and i worked i told him i wanted to try notability i already had it it's my own laptop and i mean my own i pad and my own apps that we're using right now but but they're coming for everybody so now i can shine on the screen and write directly on it or have a child write directly on it and it goes and projects up there we are looking at trying to put those on the cloud so that what other teachers will be able to do once they're creat do them i want to do them for my class it will have it for every fifth grade once they're produced and out there as long as no one has right on capabilities they would be able to pull it down clean write on it and leave it alone thing is if we have to address a changing world the world is changing to change we have to address that and so this program seems as if it will better than what we have used in the past get us closer to that so that  textbooks there are parents who will go through make sure their child is all solid so that if that's the real test they're going to do well so we technically shouldn't use that one probably as the actual graded test perfect though for a practice so you assign that the night before the real test it would be perfect suited it matches very similarly in content to what the real test they could take the next day would be the next day it would be different problems slightly different format so there's there's two versions the third version is an online version and at first when we started looking at it we thought well this is not enough because it's all multiple choice the real the other two versions of the test are about fifty fifty about fifty percent multiple choice fifty percent written response to an open prompt and but we were we were surprised that some of the questions on there were still pretty intense even though it was a multiple choice answer provided so we don't we don't know exactly how we're going to use all of these things but at least there are three three options to get started so what we've been what fifth grades been doing so far darlin at least age maybe you can address this if you use it at all we put her kids on individually right and i put mine on as a group so we just kind of went through it to kind of see things now one issue we have is the font is too small so we need font help to to project it like that but other than that it's the way it is prescribe i don't want to go in the negatives of the program so i didn't go there but the way the way it is the way it is yeah the way it is pushed a darling and i didn't feel and i don't believe the people teaching fifth grade would feel that the homework is sufficient say you are a remedial type student on how this works in the primary level but if you are a remediated every day you would be prescribed to reteach only if you were  every day and did the reteach homework only when you get to the test you probably won't pass it it's just not enough so we have gone to the double sided so those are the children at the very very low end we're doing reteach and practice but the majority in my class it's all but one in your pos two are doing a different thing they are doing practice and enrichment that is not prescribed by pearson that's just what we feel kids need in order to be at the end of the month and then meeting with the principals because we're making like all the walk through the must be good to keep the ideology of the program so you know these are all going to be topics you know that as the pilot team and  you can make that decision either because people could people could have different feelings about homework but but once you actually get to the test or say what do i need what you're going to be successful i don't know there would be a teacher out there who didn't want that so i think i think education and states has changed we have to change it doesn't matter whether we like the change or not we have to change i am satisfied with this program happy with us i don't know th clomid and they're going to do a little presentation talk to you about the book and what they've done but before we get started i do want to let you know that i'm again collecting data this week in class in january picked the books and then all the board members received the book read the book voted on it and so we want to thank the two middle school teachers and pursuing the book and i know that i've and we thought it was time to look at something fresh something to reenergize the reader and so we started reading and reading and reading and reading and starting a discard pile this one's no good in this one so good and we came across in car serrano and  really enjoyed piloting it's a steampunk novel which is a science fiction fantasy hybrid that the kids really enjoy and the book has multiple points of view and interloping chapters were found between a female and a male protagonist which is nice because a lot of times with the books that we've been reading previously in the literature class you had male protagonists and it was difficult to hold the female readers attention or vice versa so we wanted a bar that catered to everybody and this book as you know we're finishing the book we finished the book this week the kids are taking their final test on it on thursday and they have been very excited about the bo i actually had to stop my kids from reading at and the fourteen years i've been in you know i've never had kids finish the book and they're like i have the book i'm done this happens and this happens i'm like enjoying the book so much they don't seem to mind that the book is four hundred forty pages and they're ok with that and they're signing up on a sheet on my doubts because i only have one copy of the sequel and everybody wants and i have it a that the kids are very energized by the some of the prose of the plot of the ball like i said it doesn't it appeals to boys and girls alike there's no love story or sexual component in it which i like because in eighth grade it's it's so hard to be the middle child of education because you can't read something that is so do you have an aisle that you can't make them at all and you don't want to touch on the things that are frankly just too mature for them so i love that there is no love story in this book and that we can just focus on the action and the conflict and the drama of the story and be just the nature of the plot really does a let's say tremendous discussion because you're dealing with the utopia dystopia and so many other issues that the kids are very interest and another reason why this is a great refreshing read is that you know it's a popular genre but none of the children have read so it's fresh it's new and not mainstream it's not a virgin it's not the hunger games it's not the book that every kid is carrying under their armor a now it's interesting and fresh and new enough that it does capture their interest that same  i want to finish this off the vocabulary and this novel is amazing we have been able to extract over one hundred words for these and you know we actually had to like stop ourselves and say ok we have to get like last words because we could teach vocabulary every single day or you know thirty out of the forty one minutes so we've had to like you know come up with activities where they're so engaged in the vocabulary but we're not actually teaching at because the first like every three chapters one through three of four through say seven through night and there was like twenty vocabulary words so we had to like at the beginning of the novel it was very heavy and then a lot of the words start repeating themselves that the students actually knew the and and some of the words of course like we already had this one of like but it's a multiple meaning word so i've been really focusing on getting the students interest in the vocabulary and bringing that up because it's not you know classical literature you think so you might think that the vocabulary dictionary look up the words and kind of leaving them to it we are incorporating daily focus activity similar to this one where i'm trying to hit on some of the scales because i do you teach five language arts classes so i say to me you know these are the problems they're having in writing these are the problems th having in language arts they might know you know that they that we are giving them the words prefabrication but they can apply the word they can't take the word and put it in their writing they can't use the word and they can't articulate when they're speaking so we have them do these conjugation charts where they have to try and think their way through it and say ok if prefabricated is the verb what is the noun or if situation is the noun what's the adjective and they struggle with it is we had passages from the novel and what i noticed on the new p s a part of the tax was that it wasn't a b c or d it was like you could choose to or three choices on that's how what we did  we had you know right from the passage gerry you are like a god and then we were talking is that imagery is it essentially is that metaphor could be more than y so you know some have won some had to some had three so they were able to see that figurative language isn't just one correct answer it could be all that activity along with the conflict lesson that we did and imagery lesson that we did i was able to go through and just pole pieces of every day we've been doing little mini quicker a focus activities little five point comprehension checks when you're dealing with a thirty five thirty five chapter novel you really have to make sure that they're staying on top of it and that they're reading every single night and it's a lot of responsibility and while we do read together every day in class we are still doing these little comprehension chakras doing these little quick writes doing our projections to make sure that they're staying on top of it and comprehending it because it is a book it's a challenge to teach the literature and retched class for two years and i remember teaching frankenstein and the kids went in with this preconceived notion that oh it's frankenstein i'm going to like it so because they couldn't understand it so you have to walk very carefully with both hands there's the high interest but then you also have to help them deconstruct it or they don't easily get lost because we don't have the these aren't the higher readers these are the middle of the road readers and it is a rigorous curriculum is something that we are going to be teaching i mean we've been talking about it throughout the entire book but actually teaching the actual lesson of they were going to be doing this we are to find all just survive all utopia dystopia you know out some of the benefits of teaching and partially because you know it's easy to say well why don't we teach the kids another classic you know because the classics are rich and they have great value by between seventh and twelfth grade the children will read one fantasy novel in six years in the sense that it is the only one and they're going to read it twenty four classics so when you're teaching a literature class you also have to foster that love of reading and energize them and get them excited about all different kinds of books and it is nice that next year hopefully we we'll be teaching tuesdays with morrie so that we're getting that nonfiction component and we can hit those scales and then also the fantasy books that they can you know use their imagination and get lost a little bit because when they get to high school it is classics down the line and seven to twelve there are twenty three novels out of twenty four that are written by male officers this  contemporary female author tammy has been in contact with she's been e mailing with us and she's very open to corresponding with the cat she will not skype car while she and the time difference and her accent so she won't but she will take any written correspondence from all of our and the kids are excited about that we told them last week you know you're going to be speaking with katherine fisher we want you to start thinking about the questions you have and the things that you'd like to say to her and so that's one of the closing book activities that we have planned and actually that is in this power this power pack as well as the activity or corresponding with katherine and it'll be nice for the kids to be able to write an author and get real response so that they feel like they can build a relationship with the person who has written this book they've spent so much time on and they created one for a political group that was in the novel the coat of arms criteria is in the packet that you received that's one of the lines and then here's another coat of arms one of the kids  the book is very academically appropriate is what i mean over the course of piloting the book that was obviously one of our main concerns can the kids handle a four hundred forty two age off this is only a sixty day rotation course and we have to teach to box and we're teaching too and it was hard to do it this rotation because we lost days for the p s to save the last days for the keystones we're going to loose move up day the great picnic i mean we lose about fifteen days of instruction in the last rotation it's always the hardest rotation to teach a novel and we were still able to pull it off the test scores of the kids have been successful with the book and because the book is likely going to replace the iron ring which is the eighth grade literature book that's been taught us far for as long the last there is the entire vocabulary unit that's been created a sample of the chapter open ended questions that we provide the children for every chapter the coat of arms activity we completed the figur language activity the theme lesson we're going to be teaching this week the conflict five paragraph essay that the children wrote last week the imagery partner activity that they did last month a letter that they're going to be writing to katherine fisher tammy did extract quotes from the novel all that we're going to be analyzing is part of our in our review and then the student survey that the children are going to get tomorrow they could not get it on friday because of the german field trip and today they had keystone so they will be getting we didn't want to just get a sampling we wanted to make sure we did it when we had all the kids in the classroom and so that will be one of the final things coming up  adoption list will come to the in june i mean the two of them a school board morning meeting at the initial presentation and then the final present vote who come in june because we need to have it for weeks on display i'm going to kind of give you a little preview of the tax law that we are going to have and they are on display tonight the first one i'm going to go by building that ok with you and then there they are just like it down the table we do have art history that was one of our new courses it's called gardeners arts through the ages and it's a twenty thirteen edition now if you remember again that's a new force at the high school so far we we have the on line the academic global studies if you know this it's funny fifteen edition it's like literally hot off the press we were just able to see it last week so it's up on the table so it you know i did it teachers are finally very excited about the book now the honors global study we're looking at two books we may go to use the same book because of all the resources that geography the human in the physical world so they are it's called to help in the afternoon and they are like a module or so we're going to have a classroom set of those and a six year subscription and actually with those a right we have actually eight years something that we heard and wanted to make sure that we wanted to do that and then american history we're still working on that tradition of our social studies curriculum this coming year we're going to have the tenth eleventh missions but they will have to do online so that's how we work that so i just want to just to let you know and then also something a little different i have some healthy to free resources was on the board except the audience and watch the same chartier after here where there was a dip and it was always noted that no one ever came time at least that i knew of to try and understand why and to involve the teachers in have been removed from the elementary school quite a waltz or having children there but i did not during all this process i was not so much aware of how many children have been taken out of academics  question for mr stork dr frank had said that when it began this process back in november after the education committee meeting with the test results were presented to the board can you talk just a little bit about the process about how you and the mcmurr teachers went through figuring out how to move forward for  so it's going to be an ongoing process you're still going to have the steering committee meeting through the course of next year reviewing the changes and how every it's affecting everyone any other board question to you any other questions and so i'm learning a lot when i found out that it was being brought to this committee i was little bit taken by surprise because i didn't know as committee member i did not know that about you know are we going to reconvene to discuss the pilot and after i had even thought her out that she does set out a date or reconvening there's a conflict with my schedule with a date or with the time it's at two fifteen and there's a power hill mother's presentation for third graders at two forty five so in addition the policy states that committee meetings are not to be held until three forty five so that everyone has an opportunity to be there and i had sent dr french the links to get to that so i wanted to see if that could be addressed as well but that's  right my main concerns that i want to discuss tonight as a pair well we talked a lot about change tonight the world has changed quite a bit and i understand to try to keep up with change as a parent sending my children off to school i want to send them knowing that they're in a good environment they're in a safe environment and that they're also getting literature that doesn't conflict with my morals and values which are nowadays and does seem to be containing a lot more violence and sex and profanity i'm conservative i do not want my children you know swearing and i use them not to do that nor do i want them reading books with a lot of violence we don't go see those kind of movies are our t v s are set to not have you know certain shows or not it not certain things about p g or not anything about p g is actually  locked my point is that as a parent i would want to know what objectionable content is in a book a front that's something that i would like to see be discussed or at le committee meetings i would like to see when a teacher brings a book in that they have to fill out a book analysis form present to the committee upfront so that we know upfront what objectionable content is in the book so that we can discuss it rather then you all or myself or any of the other parent have to find that themselves because there's time constraints with everyone's lives so for especially a book with her former pages that's a lot to read and i did get it on audio and the first i don't know four chapters i could even follow it it was it was difficult for me after that it seemed to get a little bit easier i do out of my four children auditory processing disorder and she's getting therapy for that starting soon so basically what i'm saying is from from an academic standpoint i have some concerns because the book is so lengthy and there's only sixty days not doing to book so that's a concern my other concern is that by the book i heard a lot of good things about it but the other things about it too are that has a very dark theme there is some profanity in it i got the common sense because of the violence that was a big concern so this book has the same ratings for violence as divergent and the language and sex so same ratings it does have a lower rating and diversion for drinking drugs and smoking diversions age is for thirteen year olds and karsh ront is for a fourteen year old so it has even a higher age recommendation than divergent which was thrown out says a curriculum that she would be the one to make sure it's filled out one hundred percent and accurately so that as a committee meeting committee member we can we can know what objectionable content is in the book up front and they could also list the page numbers so we don't have to have the house or as well as you or not have to have the hassle of of going through the whole entire book of the page numbers listed with all the objectional content and if the majority novelist i'd like to see that be put on the core body of knowledge so that parents have access to that that's very important i know for me i look at the books and look at the books next year so i can know what they're reading and if there's something that has a red flag in my opinion i need to contact the teachers now and not wait till next year so you know everyone's standards and morals and values are different and i think they need to be respected so that  know as a parent we know upfront what's in a book and choose whether or not we want our child child to read that book and i think the best way of doing that is to have a book analysis form filled out by the teachers that are introduced in the book and have clearly you know all the objectionable content front with the page numbers so that's what i'm proposing there's a lot of things i want to say but i know it's late and i'll do that another time so the district and i think that does the difference between our hill and p v scores being so high is that we as parents did fight to keep many teachers there to keep the class size twenty to twenty two you get up to mcmurry  class sizes bigger and i do think that with one teacher and twenty six thirty kids that you're going to focus on the kids that need the help the kids that don't need the help that aren't celebrated or can do it on their own  find kids in the middle are the ones that are losing it so you can do all that you want to do take the music and the course the end of the day you can add all the minutes you want to ask but it's not an increased tests for us if you have such a big class the school board my wonderful friends and those that i respect so much in our schools at the elementary level because that's where my daughters are housekeeping note at the last regular board meeting offered the opportunity for the public to comment on each topic i've been very helpful to be able to do that tonight because i have questions kind of on all topics which i will do at this point i just have a couple comments and then maybe one question specifically on the changes that macmurray and as you look at the p s a debt i really appreciate the fact that there is so much analysis and study put being put into and thought and your sons are going about it all the right way it's to understand what is causing the depths i'm just kind of listening out several things and maybe have a few comments on this first the scheduling i personally support it i'm so happy to see anything happening and it just makes common sense to say don't pull our kids out of their core subjects it will be a disappointment because my daughters you know will have to make choices in what they do they do what my fourth grader doesn't implement this year i expect my third grader to do an instrument next year they both know my fourth grader does corin's i would love to keep her in chorus more because that was my thing growing up so we'll have to make some choices and see offered that i'm personally fine with that because to focus on iraq academics i think is the number one pair worthy the rager i know there has been discussion i was at area council as well as tonight i'm hearing the talk about the ambitions program seems to be adding and a level of rigor to our mouth program i think that's a fabulous addition to help increase the rigor and preparedness of our students in the upper elementary level class sizes and interest and i have stood here probably ten times in the last five years to talk about class size but you know when i accept that we all agreed having smaller classes would be wonderful we have higher class sizes at the elementary level than many of our comparative districts but i accept the fact that keeping our current number of teachers are staffing costs are about three million dollars next year if there's not an opportunity to add teachers i will say the fifth grade class that met and talked about it has the highest level of students across the entire grade the current fourth grade class has less students per grade but higher in the middle class sizes that fifth grade class at p v at least a couple of years ago warranted an extra teacher because they had enough to do that had  about twenty twenty one kids per class about her grade class when my daughter was in third grade last year she had twenty seven kids in her class last year and she is twenty seven kids in her fourth grade class but it's nice to see the p s a rankings of that are great us where we had twenty seven and twenty six across the board they came in fifth and p s they were so well i can complain about it didn't seem to be a factor in driving them for a minute so i can't say much about the staff development i was happy to hear you address that a little bit tonight dr french and talked about that area council as well so we can get more growth for our teachers ensure that those who need development recognize it and get the skills and the support that they need i would hope that if there are teachers that have specific developed me as you just like i said you give them that support whether it be pulling in other teachers to learn from and mentoring situation or so teaching situations or something ensure because if my child gets that one teacher that maybe needs help in a certain area i can't afford to have my child suffer in that year and the last thing is really around individualized instruction and again just keeping that on your radar as you have twenty seven kids in a class to ensure that my daughter gets what she needs and their son and his their side so just please keep that on the radar i had one question and mom here my question about a certain teacher's pop out so i glad to hear they were saying it's not just certain teachers where in the growth curves are we seeing the dips is it kids at all levels average kids high performing kids lower achieving kids very very i mean samuel he's over three or four buffalo ridge road and your friend was kind enough to allow me to come tonight i'm actually going to do something a little unorthodox to get t now what's going to happen is going to say open your eyes actually do it right the you're going to open your eyes and when i say open your eyes keep tapping your finger but now looking at and it seems like a little thing that's not it wasn't my idea to do that over two neuroscientists at the university of florida we did a very open ended experiment in the open experiment was let's see if there's any pat human interaction very open so let's just gather as much research as we can to human interaction and see if there's any if any patterns develop in the more they did this the more they realize that every bit of interaction that we have is musical we are in mate we born with the desire to synchronize and make music with one  it doesn't just happen in experiments like this that happens in conversations where somebody's whispering whisper back and it is something that needs to be fostered or else it stars every i'll tell you why i'm here every tax dollar that i ever paid to peters township has been earned composing music for music ensembles so when i heard that music ensembles were going to going to be moved to after school got my attention because i have seen that in the past not necessarily its school districts like interest township city of chicago it  it's rare that it happens in places like this so i heard it and dr french was extremely kind to spend over two hours with me of your time and discuss what what we could possibly do to fix this situation so that music doesn't have to be what bears the brunt of this  addition to all of the studies the whole music makes you smarter by the way that's i compare that to taking vitamins you don't think vitamins are doing you well when you get sick and you go those vitamins and they didn't work well they hemisphere brain activity working together is the only activity that actually requires both hemispheres of the brain to work simultaneously but the biggest thing that it does that has immediate results is open awareness of self emotion and awareness of emotion in others so in other words ensemble music playing together builds an awareness of compassion builds compassion why you're not breaking up fights in the orchestra pretty rare you get a fight breaks out in the band after i met with dr french and i've talked with people since eating with it is possible to make this work the root cause of the problem i have to say by the way this  happening here's in years and years and years beyond when mr store started their years and years of band aids to fix issues scheduling issues in the best we're going to do is to remove the little band aids and hopefully put one bigger band aid on help the root cause is number one it's a or through six school which is so rare dr french alluded to it earlier you have your first grade in that school is an upper primary and your last grade is a is it the beginning of a middle or junior high school to go to that philosophy and fourth graders to me would sixth graders need in sixth graders need interdisciplinary units and ensemble time and larger groups and things that a school like that is it war with itself just based on construction the other thing is there are two schedules laid on top of one another and music schedule and an academic schedule shouldn't exist in each other's absence and over time they have just been laid on top of one another if you have ninety nine percent of the student body involved in an activity that should be the first thing that goes on that board but instead in some classes it gets pulled out of staying silent reading other classes pulled out a map and other classes would have another subject and  umanly bandaids over too much time i hate to say that music ensemble's what's going to suffer in this because it's not the cause there are two paradoxes in this by the way number one way that the statistics are shown it's the more students who are involved in music the lower the test scores it's a scheduling issue it's not a music issue but the way presents itself is the more the kids are involved in music the lower the test scores that would make peters township an outlier of epic proportions this would be the only place on earth where involvement of music would mean lower test scores it's a schedule the other thing is mrs gregg brought up about attrition if there's a concern about attrition putting the ensembles after school is going to further attrition the goal has to be getting them back in the curriculum back in the curricular day if for no other reason the appearance that they are equal to other curricular classes and it can be done it's just going to be tough to do and it's and people are go have to bend and some people are going to have to break in and put themselves but together again but it can be done reason one of the top  is to ask for your promise that after this one year there is an effort and support to get using that in the curricular day when it comes to music ensembles if there is not you are asking music teachers to go on the ground against their human nature if they make it work then they will have said you can cut my big class out of the school day and it won't make a difference but it will make a difference the other thing is we have to remember in academic subjects we create through what we learn and in a music ensemble we learn from what we create it's the highest level of thinking emoting processing in the school day has to stay in the school that it is as important is every other class there had my school district which by the way neighbors this school district put music ensemble after school i would not be standing here right now because i don't know what i would have done i know i didn't have a rock i would've been in every accomplishment that i've been blessed to have would never have happened somewhere in this school district or someone like that or two people or three people who ten twenty years from now you will look you'll say they went to peter's township and music is their gift we don't want to leave children behind we have to show them the same concern all i'm asking is for your support to keep that back in the school day i'm willing to work on it and want to work with dr french mr store with parents with all these who are musicians and music educators but there has to be a carrot at the end of this it can't be it's going to stay at the after school time as that will destroy this program and even though one year it's going to be done it's going to have a six year effect to all those kids graduate in that one year so thank you for your time and i really hope that we have that s we did for all the changes that made the issue here i commend all of you for doing this you guys do that and task job and you are open minded and i hope music teachers next year will be open minded because we may have to make some more adaptations for next year and if we go in with a closed mind and think that we're going to have an all out out and this is the way it's going to be i think we're going to have some problems because we we do not want to have to cut anything we've got some tremendous music teachers and we want to keep part art our program intact and we want to do what's best for our children we may have to make that a patients for next year