Hot Topics for the Regular Board of Trustees for 6/14/22
We want to help you better understand the upcoming issues the WCSD Board of Trustees will be discussing this week. Take a minute to review these agenda items so that you are prepared to submit a public comment or attend the meeting and make a public comment.
CONSENT AGENDA:
2.07 Board Policy 6600: Course of Study
Purpose:
“The Board of Trustees establishes this Policy to support WCSD Students in
graduating college and career ready, through effective instruction, an accountability
system and balanced assessment.
Definitions:
“College and Career Ready requires more than just obtaining a high school diploma. It
means that a high school graduate is ready to pursue preparation for a highly skilled
career and is admissible to and prepared to succeed in first year, credit-bearing classes
without remediation, at a 2 or 4 year college, technical or trade school or apprenticeship
program. A “Career” differs from a “job” in that a career offers the opportunity to advance
and develop professionally.”
Desired Outcomes: WAS DELETED FROM POLICY...
“ All students will graduate from high school ready to pursue college or a highly skilled
career having completed, at a minimum the recommended course study”
*We believe it was deleted because 51% of Graduates from WCSD in 2021 were NOT
College or Career Ready. Any desired outcome would hold the Trustees accountable.
Also,
In the WCSD’s Strategic Plan Goal 1.5.4: The total percentage of 8th
Grade students who are passing core credits in 20/21 school year was 87% BUT the
total number of students Meeting Standards on SBAC tests and passing Core Credits
was 21%. Obviously there is some disconnect. We MUST find out what that disconnect is
and address it.
Here is the presentation from October 26, 2021: PowerPoint Presentation (boarddocs.com)
2.08 Board Policy 6605: Academics: Curriculum and Content Standards
"Desired Outcomes": WAS DELETED FROM POLICY
“All students will graduate from high school ready to pursue college or a highly skilled
career having completed, at a minimum the recommended course study”
We believe this has been removed for the same reasons as the above policy.
"Review and Reporting": WAS DELETED FROM POLICY
“This document shall be reviewed as part of the bi annual review and reporting process, following the regular session of the Nevada Legislature. The Board of Trustees shall receive notification of any required changes to the policy as well as an audit of the accompanying governing documents.”
Our question is how/when will any changes from the State or NDOE in the Curriculum or Content Standards be reviewed by the Board?
AGENDA ITEMS (with presentation and/or discussion):
3.01 The CTE Academy High School is Now Projected WAY Over Budget
The Budget for the new Debbie Smith CTE Academy High School (old Hug High) was budgeted and approved for $112 Million in February 2022. The construction budget as of mid-May is now $147 Million, 31% increase in 3 months.
Three Options are being presented to the Board:
Go forward with the new $147 million proposed budget. Making the 2024 deadline.
Pursue a phased delivery. Hoping commodity prices come down. Delaying opening until 2025.
Pause construction indefinitely.
Here is the proposed Options: PowerPoint Presentation (boarddocs.com)
3.02 Presentation of the updated 5 year Capital Improvement plan.
Plan includes four new full time positions in the Capital Projects Department.
3.03 Presentation to approve $47 million for Capital Improvements, Includes:
$10M Carpentry - Roofing ($6M), Flooring, Painting
$4.6M IT Infrastructure Refresh
$7.5M HVAC, Plumbing
$3.8M Pavement Repairs
$1.4M Security
$900K Mobile Relocation
3.04/3.05 Presentation of the study for Improvements for Incline High School.
Funded completely by the Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation totaling $40M
3.10 Presentation and Evaluation of EESER II and ESSER III Funds Programs. ESSER stands for Emergency and Secondary School Relief Funds.
3.10 Presentation on the ongoing evaluation of ESSER II and ESSER III Funds - $111,668,866. The District’s use of ESSER funding supports activities to address the unique needs of students particularly impacted by COVID-19 with a focus on accelerated learning and social and emotional support. These funds must be spend prior to September 30, 2023 (ESSER II) and September 30, 2024 (ESSER III).
The presentations for informational purposes and does not require action on the part of the Trustees. Presented by Joe Ernst, Chief Accountability Officer; Norma Velasquez-Bryant, ESSER Program Evaluator; and Adriana Publico, ESSER Project Manager. The attached PowerPoint presentation provides data on Summer School, Tutoring Programs, Learning Facilitators, and RALLY Personnel.
This presentation, in part, describes details of ESSER programming implementation, staff perceptions of these efforts, information about which students are participating in tutoring and summer school, and preliminary data on the academic progress of students who participated in tutoring and summer school. These initial evaluation findings are informing the District’s continuous improvement cycle for these programs.
The District’s use of ESSER funding supports activities to address the unique needs of students particularly impacted by COVID-19 with a focus on accelerated learning and social and emotional support (See our latest investigation into ESSER funds being used in WCSD's Social Justice Movement). The Office of Accountability is continuously evaluating the effectiveness of these activities to drive the best possible student achievement outcomes.
4 Major Initiatives Evaluation::
Summer School 2021 Evaluation - 10,424 students participated. Some troubles were student attendance and student engagement, teacher/staff shortages and finally only 49% of high school students earned at least 1 credit, meaning 51% of the students enrolled DID NOT EARN EVEN 1 CREDIT.
K-12 Tutoring For 2021-2022 school year evaluation - Engagement of 6,467 students. Hard to evaluate the effectiveness of tutoring.
Elementary School Learning Facilitators Evaluation - Provided “direct and in-direct in K-5 reading, writing and math.Model lesson, co-teach and observe and offer feedback to teachers.” We have heard that not all of these learning facilitators have been hands-on in the classrooms helping teachers directly. Mostly they observe and provide feedback to the administrators.
Middle School and High School RALLY Program (Re-engage and Accelerated Learning for Local Youths) - There mission is to help students with academic recovery .With vague sounding goals, without any information about how said goals were achieved with the RALLY Program
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Students, parents, staff, and community surveys were used to gauge needs for the programming. The ESSER Community Stakeholder Committee also scored and gave input to department requests. The ESSER Community Stakeholder Committee is comprised of 22 members, representing the following organizations: Safe and Health Schools, Education Alliance, Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce, Reno Sparks Indian Colony, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, Nevada Department of Education Special Education Advisory Committee, Washoe County Juvenile Services, Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, School Police, University of Nevada College of Education, District high school students, teachers, and principals. This Community Stakeholder Committee convenes semi-annually to review data and inform potential revisions and improvements.
Important to Note: The presentation does not provide a Growth Guideline Chart. Below are slides #6 & 7 from the WCSD ESSER Presentation. The last image is a chart from NWEA that provides Growth Guideline Chart information for each grade level for the Fall and Spring MAP assessment periods.
District MAP Data, Slides 6 & 7:
NWEA.org Growth Guideline Chart:
The information above taken from this district presentation.