we had a fair amount of students that were getting below a two point zero and even there their algebra one math course in ninth grade in fact the death rate was extremely high and a good number of students that  were ninth grade geometry particularly african american students that were getting d's and f s and certainly below the sea so when you're saying ninth grade students i'm a little concerned that i don't see the i don't think that ninth grade math proficiency is quite the same is what you take in ninth grade because we have students that already are now taking us into a ninth grade math as tenth graders because of their lack of profit because of how they did in ninth grade and so i would like to see something that specifically addresses these students as well students that you know were not successful in ninth grade so it's tenth graders and rolled in ninth grade math yes i'd like to see specifically a goal for those kids because if they don't if they don't pass it in tenth grade i mean i've been the opportunity for them to even to to pass a three g is a very distant possibility so i would like to see so i guess the challenge that i'm feeling is that we have kids at all the grade levels who aren't reaching where they're supposed to be and that i thought when i now disagree with you that that's a huge  issue but in the sense of these goals i think we were looking at third grade reading and ninth grade math because those are specific benchmarks are gateways to success we've got fourth and fifth graders who aren't reading at third grade level also some but we're not highlighting that as a goal not in the sense of these kinds of goals so i'm just wondering we've got kids throughout the district who are not grade level with what they're supposed to be doing so why would we pick out the tenth graders who are taking ninth grade math and because i think we're still looking at data overall in the district and we're not eliminating the high needs of kids throughout the district but we're measuring and kind of a hyper way three is four years of taking algebra so one of the targets could be you know how can we reduce the number of kids repeating over and over and so one way to address it is to make it a target so that we can actually look at it and do something about it and int that they're not taking algebra over and over over and and i would say that in addition to what director a lady cutler said about that there's kind of time is running out for the for the for the students that are in now tenth grade but  o this has been an issue that kind of predates your appointment to the board in which when there was a movement at some of the middle schools to reinstate pre algebra in eighth grade we first heard about it because we were asked to approve a textbook for pre algebra and i was appalled when you mean a pre algebra textbook for eighth grade i thought we were doing algebra one district wide and there were math teachers you know who made a convincing case that  that the foundations were not necessarily there for students and that there was a role for algebra one not being taught until ninth grade for some students and my reaction and the reaction i think for a lot of the board then was if we do if we can continue to do the same thing the same way to expect a different result you know what that's the definition of and we have had a very poor record in this district of students who took algebra one in ninth grade  and then pass it in one grade and i know that the math teachers did take that to heart and we're looking at doing something differently but we still got the same so that for me is why this rate th  rises to something that is that is a vital sign i think this idea of the no repeaters i think that's a good goal kind of is not to repeat which you should not be repeating it's a c or better  think it's also in my opinion great recovery getting students up to see so they're ready to go on to the next and it's also doing something for those students now find themselves in tenth grade in algebra one or equivalent  is rising raising the passage rate of the math portion of cassie that also has been very problematic particularly for african american students and if you are passing your ninth grade in math you should be ready to getting a c or better you're not going to repeat the class i think if we're going to look at ten to eleven to twelve graders who are still taking ninth grade math that becomes a separate category i wouldn't include those with the ninth graders i think you know i understand the need to look at that group and i think it's valuable but i think to lump them in is very very different i think the vital sign you want to measure is how our ninth grader is doing and then if they didn't succeed are we following up with them in grades ten eleven and twelve i can do this as a separate item it's just to me it's absolutely critical that we do something about the tenth graders this year and not doing another year without doing something about the tenth graders are still taking a great man so are we adding a metric are we not i would feel much more comfortable adding a new metric around the tenth grade repeaters versus include in and here i think that is a little better i think that's a really good idea so what's the metric we're looking at students who are just on all in all three areas i think it it it they are focused but but not solely focus you can kind of get around it right if you if you hit these metrics that would be fantastic i think in a couple  places i would actually encourage us and you to be less ambitious so on the assessment one one hundred percent will take a common form of assessment what if a student's absent i mean i mean i just just i mean you would like ninety nine percent i mean just just it's seems like you know even the c s t accepts ninety five percent so you know i would be happy with ninety five percent to take take t second question still on assessments seventy five percent of students will score at or above proficient couple questions were related to that what is the percentage  ok it may be that we don't have a percentage of that and that's just the that's the baseline goal or shooting for but if that's basing or shooting for that i think we should have a you know make sure that's actually realistic so the intent was to go back to a time a few years ago when we did minister the p s a t during school time and gave it to every student and gave everyone the idea of this would be a college entrance exam so i think it serves multiple purposes it's  fourteen dollar cost per pupil so you know for eleven or twelve thousand dollars we'd be able to administer to all sophomores and i think that was the intent and then look at that data and see how are we doing i think that's a really interesting and i think that's actually a pretty positive i think that's a fast a good idea and i think that part of the challenge there that i just want to be aware of that i want every kind of particularly i want everyone to be aware of is that we do have to then work out accommodations for the kids i have i you know i will say like my kid didn't take it this year because working out the accommodations and get you have to the whole process to get the p s a t folks to to give you accommodations for your kid it's not the same as just the school doing it so it's there's a lot of steps involved for families to do that and you know we chose not to we could have i think for a lot of families that would actually be you know a fairly significant area but and if the school can support that it's great because then you're set up you're kind of then you're on the track for further accommodations for the s a t s and so it's a great idea to make it happen although for most kids you have to get tested again at sixteen so you kind of have to do it twice so it doesn't but anyway i know that's a specific but i do think  particularly because we know there's a higher percentage of identified african american students if they are eligible for accommodations we're going to be we should help them get them really interesting when  when this maybe three four years ago for about three years i think it was there was an anonymous donor who paid for all students to be able to take the p s a t it was really interesting because one of the things that for me is not just scoring above but it's uppin the percentage of students that take the test because even though it was free and then during the school day it was a little it was like one hundred percent of white students took the p s a tees under those under that gift but the number of african american students that the school has done it it's school wide so all of those issues you know have been addressed in the past because we did it for about three years i think we had that anonymous donation so i just want to charge really well i would add actually i mean i agree i think it should stay in here for says tenth grade students who score above the state or national score doesn't say the percentage doesn't either so i would i would then average so i would just say why don't we just let's have let's go in an easy metric let's just look at participation rates let's just forget how much how higher scores let's just say that you know ninety five percent of all students should take the p t and fourteen fifteen and we should include in the breakdown not just after american and english language learners and disadvantage although we could but we should definitely include special ed students or students with five of four i mean basically students who are commendations because it seems like that's going to be a group that will be left behind because of the challenge of the you know getting it accommodations is that where you're seeing that is what i'm saying i don't know whether we are in agreement with that but that is what i mean i prefer to take it all together but i i feel like that's not to all the board so i guess one of the questions i have is if we're putting this in here are we then i'll be more comfortable just taking it and it's also one that actually occurs in fourteen fifteen so this actually is something that would be within anelka i'm totally i think it's a great idea so i don't i'm not suggesting we take it out i just i'm saying if i were going to pass this as a whole so we can keep it in for participation rates and the reason is that if we set it as a goal for next year then we're setting kids up this year with the expectation that they're going to take it next year and i think the more we start promoting the college going culture and p s a t is not only a gateway to college but it's really the direction they want to go with whatever careers they develop is if they know the expectation is they're going to take it next year then you know it's all the teachers talk about it this year you know you guys you're in your algebra one or whatever and you're going to be taken the p s a t next year so i think if we focus on participation rates and average scores i think it would be a big improvement in this district if we could increase the participation rate in the p i support keeping it and i just i want to make sure that we're making sure that i think it's keeping it in and then of course all of the efforts that way to really help kids and it does have budget i like keeping it and it does have budget consequences but twelve thousand or that we're all students to some extent on the enrolment in appropriate grade level doesn't that isn't that there is a demand by how many eighth graders are enrolled in the appropriate level so for example let's let's take af american students if fifty five percent of current eighth graders are rolled in the eighth grade appropriate math course or above how do people possible the ninth grade to get fifty nine percent  eighth grade course that is not doing very well and so there's a question about whether or not they would be retained or advanced to basically algebra one the ninth grade right because we have a lot of kids who are not borderline ok so we do would need intervention they would need support ok ok so i guess the me realize i should phrase it as there are at least fifty nine percent of eighth graders who are taking pre algebra an eighth grade start move it refers that there are at least fifty nine percent of african american eighth graders in b u s d who are taking pre algebra eighth grade because otherwise have you you know we're taking algebra an eighth grade the standard eighth grade course now this year is still algebra so th change ok so then let me go to grades sorry to my mistake on that one why would we be including algebra one there are some students still in eighth grade now with karen brought up before who are not taking the grade level course in eighth grade they are taking pre algebra an eighth grade so they do take algebra and ninth grade but it seems to not mixing apples and oranges but it seems like if you already have a student who's behind you know we're not at grade level in math that their grades may or may not that by i'm not trying to try to say this it just seems like it it those students are already behind and you're comparing and you're including them in a in a pool of students who are at or above grade level and math and so for looking at how those students are doing grouping all those students together seems to would seem to obscure how well the students at grade level are doing and how well the students below grade level are doing does that make sense and  of the gateway measures for success in college and career is completion of algebra one by one grade is not berkeley unified school district standards on how we've pushed algebra one down to eighth grade and so everyone should be passing geometry and one thing that might be the districts but in the sense of the national research is if you don't complete again not based on common core changes but if you don't complete algebra one by the end of ninth grade it is a sign that you will not be college ready or said benchmark for college ready so that's where i think at least when the twenty twenty vision was doing it continue and when the eight ways was doing its college to career continuum the ninth grade algebra was the gateway to potential success drop with just a what if i understand the question and i think i do this doesn't just say algebra one it's algebra one geometry algebra two you know it's puts them together so are you suggesting to so i'm because i want to first echo i i really appreciate the specificity of these benchmarks and that there are so that there are so many i'm so i want to add to that because i never got to say the positive part that this was a step i just i mean i think that that's an interesting question because i think i'm wondering if we actually because of that we want to pull algebra out and ask that question because it's a benchmark because this does combine them all together so that's going to combine kids who are you know are it at because it might be interesting to look at that because that will give us that college ready quest that will answer that question so i think we might wan i don't know if that was your i don't know if that was your question but i do that made sense to me based on what you know it's ready to sign i said i would say it is a more focused  goal and i think there is a lot to be and i think it may be more consistent with where we're going with common core when you won't be taking the higher math until i don't either so these issues of taking away geometry and all that are a little different than they will be in the future and it's a it's a different goal that i was thinking but i think as long as that that i think constant concentration of algebra one i think makes a certain amount of sense but then i would like to have discussions i mean we really try to limit the number of priorities that we have but i would be concerned that we're not also doing things to to increase the number of students that we have that are college like so you're saying that i'll go out so then so then because the sixty five percent number for comparing it to last year i would isn't that it's that all of them combined or is that that's an average between all of them so they're going to maybe the goal is to compare last year and this year with them all combined this was all of them combined so the ninety percent of all them combined this result is a sixty seventy five and i would say that i think we have i think a stronger goal algebra one is being that entry level or that you know that kind of a gateway course and maybe not quite as intense for the students that are in geometry though i think that's import i don't want to lose those students but i think in terms of focusing on the most critical goals i think it's that algebra one completion so now are you proposing that we goal for algebra one that's a stream way high and a goal for geometry which is maybe not as high because there still are too many for those students to be on track so there's a difference between someone who doesn't pass grade that it's you know it's not looking good so can i make a recommendation just that i mean i think you guys are probably hearing what we're saying is the impact the algebra one and seems like for ninth grade we don't really need to monitor the algebra two right now because that's next vance level so you could come back with us with what's the new measures would be for that and could i just threw out a suggestion just so when i look at the very first one the course and well meant maybe instead of the course in roll meant we could have a real focus on the successful completion of algebra one by the end of ninth grade counting everybody who's done it in eighth grade successfully and successfully by the end of ninth grade that would be a real measurable vital sign and i look i appreciate the link and twenty because it seems like that is what the intent was when two thousand and twenty set this out and so i think that i also heard from karen though that the desire because if we can have both i think it would be helpful because i well i heard you benchmark would be successful completion of algebra one which is much easier to measure frankly and to see how how are we doing there will still look at grades are placing enrollment correct so then we can we then go back to the grades one so are we looking of all the students in ninth grade and the algebra one tree were true and i am p two what they are the percentage of those students all combined are so you're better algebra and a percentage of students with c are better for geometry i mean we're talking like ten metric which is my opinion crazy so although i don't like the combination that's why i just want to get rid of algebra one i am happy to keep it in as is i would well i can appreciate that the desire and the value of breaking it out i think it creates too many metrics for this tool every and we need to try to come back to what are the key the vital signs not all the time to care about but the vital sides so you know right now we have five i don't think we should go but five so i would with with the change that neil made for roman and the change you made i would just urge us to keep those five in and you know take it and leave it at that send this back i mean i think you guys would get a general sense of where we're going really is the huge amount of work and putting getting us to have benchmarks is great so why do we count this is discussion and you'll take it back and doing it here  is probably not the most efficient or it's or stomach so i would definitely help go to the next because it's really it's you know it's a i think sure you expect that there piece of refinement and so that's where he has i don't and i also would say i think the next page is secondary african americans by greater than ten percent and less than two hundred eighty ok and so so we're looking at total suspensions and we're looking at the infractions which include fighting and disruption of defiance and also reducing the number of infractions for drugs and alcohol and you can see what we're doing trying to do with all of those those infractions and w to doctor well you know this is going to be a little we can is this is way high but i think it's going to be you're also changing some behaviors and some some expectations and there's a lot of things that go into to this because beliefs that people have and then we also need beliefs about you know about kids and what's acceptable and what's not acceptable and in changing those beliefs because of the reasons you said superintendent evans that because it's all on the at you yeah i think that we're talking about suspensions where disruption and defiance is the primary behavior and i  think we can get that ultimately not this year but ultimately we should be able to get that down to close to zero but i think that we can be more ambitious a lot more ambitious than ten percent and i'd also agree with dr evans that we earth so i'm glad you mentioned that i think it's a it's great to be more create higher expectations on this i appreciate you saying that we can do better just one minor thing we were not including at this time in school suspensions so we should take out in our love at some point consider that but first things first i would like to take out this and with with with with a goal in mind of focusing our efforts i'd like to take out fighting i don't think it's not a bit of an issue with fighting for on the basis that create suspensions but i would say that our issues around defiance in a section on drugs and alcohol feel to me to be more of a pressing issue than fighting and so in the interest of focusing our efforts i would i would take those two out on the in and out at the high school are these all out of school suspensions yes e principal scary made major dents their suspension and their disciplinary actions last year and if this is based on last year data i just want to confirm is it in school or out of school or so  this number include some of the on campus suspension it's i actually don't know so yes all this all for me and so the other week ok with taking the fighting out if you they were going to all three more power to you i just i would i would love to see a substantial decrease in defiance of destruction and drugs and alcohol and if that means we get to fighting later i be in agreement to that if we could substitute with something else and that would be the alternative to suspensions that we measure in terms of alternate you know whether before it's not just o c i but it's something else suspension becomes much better i think it's a mistake to think that we will be tallying that with the same exactitude that we tally our suspensions so if you're really looking to follow number the number we don't have previous years we couldn't compare you know we can give you a list these are alternatives but some schools are much better at keeping track of that than others and i feel like those schools publicly with and be penalized looking as if they have more discipline incidents when really what they're doing is tracking their incidents more closely so i would then our challenge to ourselves is looking at those schools that are doing it and then how we can make that from a smaller one school to school to a larger so that would be our challenge in this coming year so that we can trash i don't think if schools are doing it we have schools that are going to zero suspensions and we need to be looking at that so  write good or take out fighting and i want to keep it in so as your peer is your purpose to take up fighting just to decrease the number of things we're measuring yeah and you know fighting fighting can result in some pretty serious incidents and i don't want to minimize the importance of this issue at all what i think about when does it least make sense to suspend fighting is not high on my list this find some disruption  medalist and drugs and alcohol harmless when you're fighting you're actually physically hurting someone you may need to spend a kid i think i think it's a check your situation but i just think that in certain situations it may make more sense with fighting majority but i don't know because i i i don't i feel like i don't know enough about the kind of how we would do fighting prevent and preventing fighting in this year whereas i would love to be able to really focus on the other two it's not that i don't think it's important this if we're talking about two thousand and twelve two thousand and thirteen if we could have some laser focus on these other areas that would be really amazing because i think it's the disproportionality is across the board and those are areas where we see it  i don't know so i can i support taking fighting out not because i don't i just i think it's if there again there's a lot of matrix there's a lot of matrices here a lot of data points and if we can really focus our intervention efforts around those two areas and be successful in two thousand and twelve twenty thirteen i feel like we'll have made this huge headway in what we're trying to address and so i'm that's but again i'll defer if you think if you think that it's really a we can do it and we can do all of it principals i think our middle schools are doing restored of justice and i think i really do see it as a silence prevention and that it's in evidence not that we sent them all the on campus suspension but that the fighting has reduced and i think in the when i look at the numbers at the middle school compared to the high school proportionately well yeah so i guess i'm not ready i mean i understand some  value in eliminating it from this list but i'm not i'm not feeling ready to because of the violence prevention component to it so i would be welcoming of feedback from the principals and from you dr cragg  is this valuable for us as a board to really track it you know or is it something that you know you guys will track internally anyway going back to the biggest concern of we've had  i here's the thing like maybe part of it is looking forward because i do think looking at fighting and violence prevention and what we're going to implement is critical to the work and i do see it as a very much key to the cap working where i'm hoping will w this will be next i meant twenty thirteen twenty fourteen right thank you for this year this year that we're currently in that we're halfway through and so i i just you know want to make sure that we're i want to make sure that we're doing prevention type work and we're implementing a sort of justice i don't know if we can do that midstream i guess that again that sense that back to you guys around the road drugs and alcohol particularly in this is after my conversation with you i would particularly be interested in looking at the possession suspensions based on possession more than i mean i think use also but possession particulars like it's problematic and so i was curious to know if this is all drugs and alcohol or this one zero two was all that says it says currently there are hundred two incidents of fighting in high school i think that's probably supposed to be drugs and alcohol the last year or so is that is that possession and use or is it that just the yes because as i see and use of all forms of i'm assuming that not i mean what is that saying are we measuring different things for the same number of the so president hempel can i oh i'm sorry did you make a basically a motion or an effort to restrict this item or i wanted to bring up the point i don't feel i feel like maybe people are committed to what we have here i don't want to make suggest changes i if if if people feel confident about this i just i was  compelled by that i think we would there are certain things we can do for kids who are caught just in possession that we can then our immediate response is we can take right away and that they can happen this year so if we can focus on that that seems to me like it seems like leaving fighting in suggestions them go ahead so i would suggest we strike the all students category unlike the other ones african american students make up sixty to sixty five in some cases seventy percent so they are basically the vast majority of students we're talking about so if we were to reduce for example the after american numbers at any of these by twenty five percent you'd see basically a fifteen percent decrease overall and so in terms of focusing our efforts i would just say if you were to focus on african students you would see a reduction in all students but you wouldn't be basically dividing our efforts and with multiple metrics it would simplify our metrics that focus our efforts  about fighting as i understand you yes i think there are some i think i think i heard a request to go back to staff to hear some and then you guys can can come back with another proposal that's it felt like there are at least three members of the board who are asking for that so and the thirteen fourteen year through may fifteenth and the reason is this i can see i can see it like it already in the last month of the year if we haven't made progress up to that point the last month is not going to make is not going to see a future change and by having it finish may fifteenth we use a board to get that data before basically the end of june if we wait until the end of the school year we're not going to get that data in time for ours basically until august because of the summer and so not only do i think it's important for us to get the data for this year but it's not i would be surprised if the may fifteenth data is that different than the june and if it's not different then there's really no reason to wait and not be able to include it in the evaluation but i see you miss with you hesitated so i don't want to know we do it you know we actually do this data pretty regularly it might be easier for us to give you by spring break the end of the third quarter so if that works because that is a regular report that we do issue for principles if we suddenly take a day like may fifteenth suddenly we're creating another report that we don't know almost and i just want to pick a date to disciplinary issues in cutting and so i would be a little hesitant about a lemonade in that from the data analysis again i again i would refer folks back but i think that's a pretty keep period of time for data you know we could actually if we you know the school year ends fourteen days ago thirteen and then it may take the administrators a couple more days beyond that to finish entering their final suspensions so we could pull a report maybe one week a week and a half after school and so we could have it i would say for the end of june so that you would have it over the summer if you wanted to prepare an evaluation in august we would be able to have an end of the year and we could give you the third quarter as well ahead of time so you could monitor it all the way through i mean i don't think we need that we need the middle i would need the middle we give it to principals anyway so that's rival's management so we could send it to you on a friday note so i just i would ask this since we're coming going to come back on some things if you're sure that staffer has the capability to get us something before by our last meeting in june not the end of june  our last meeting in june then i'm good but if you think that staff can't do that then i wouldn't be interested in you in picking and earlier today is that are we comfortable with that as latino students because if i were the disproportionality in special ed so for special ed latino i want to add those two as well as african americans to who are tracking those with the three categories so latino was not disproportionate suspensions it's right on its percentage of population in the district it's not a disproportionate number in terms of suspension that because of the city but is that because but ok i know why it's because the change isn't definitions that wasn't the case i can remember when i was a problem we started looking at it was surprising to us but it is not ben an issue i mean you know it's so it's not ok so i think staff has direction and i think will will bring this back and then i would suggest that  well it sounds it sounds like there's a little bit of work for staff to do and perhaps we can get this back in friday notes and if there is a need and religion dies it we can do so but it may be just from our direction we get it and friday notes and lists you know obviously if anyone has an issue then you can contact the superintendent and we can speak board priorities but what what what back what is in a tail so so we we have superintendent to drill down on and give us specifics but in terms of the board priorities what would it what would we be focusing on it and i think we need to decide we need to finalize them because we talked about them with the retreat and we said we're going to take on a responsibility we haven't publicized that what those are and i think we just need each of us are identified as being a lead i think it's very important i really like our new tradition of working in teams of two i think it deepens the contribution i think you know it's good to have someone to play off of i think it's good for us not to pair off the same way and i think it really builds a governing board to do that and so we've not discussed who would be the second on these different issues so i think that's part of it and i think in this really may feed into a discussion on and governance that i know we're going to be getting to with a treat and i guess in january is that to some degree and there's got to be primaries around what does it need to take this on you mean you don't you know it's still majority rules it's still in there is there still  parameters around what it means for a board member to be taking the lead or working with staff i mean it's at a board level so i think it is worthwhile talking a little bit about that and it might be that  that's done as part of our retreat when governance  is going to do the local control and accountability local control and accountability plan incorporating the african american players achieve acceleration achievement together for us and i feel like this is a level of accountability that you know really excited to see how we how we move forward in committing to to reach these goals  so we can go in the back or we can