Mayor's Office - Hosting a board recruiting event for all boards - March 6th

ER: We were featured in the Indy Star for our partnership with PataSchools. Shout out to Jordan Habayeb for making that connection happen. It is leading to more offers of donations to help our nutrition program. 

OEI Site Visit update: Will Street Education is the service provider to conduct the audit. They are an experienced and approved service provider. Will Street has a reputation and track record for keeping an eye on equity. 

Site visit protocol: They take a deep look under the hood. They evaluate everything from procedures and operations to classroom pedagogies. 

(Break to fix technology issues with Zoom)

Will Street evaluates a series of questions using a scoring rubric/indicators. Slide deck is attached to Board on Track.

Some of our questions experienced growth. Others experienced fluctuation. During our first evaluation year, we taught remotely and gave a lot of grace. One recommendation was to give teachers more voice when designing curriculum. Leadership used data to help update pacing guides. the main question was how do we use what we are doing well to make things even better. 

Kristy K: Was the only recommendation to use more teacher voice? 

ER: Yes, their feedback was very positive. They also recommended listening to teacher's voice about asking for more intervention time, and that has already led to a change in the middle school schedule. 

Matt M.: Is there a roadmap now to help look at those indicators and turn them into improvement? 

ER: Yes, there is. And I can send it to the board. 

Kristy: Can we see the audit and the action plan? 

ER: Yes. 

Mary: Was the main issue with the subs that were observed? 

ER: No, it was not. It was about how to turn high-quality curricula into internalized lesson plans. How can we use interventions and supports to help get students back on grade level? 

Barb B: Do the subset questions make it more clear what led to their final evaluation levels? 

ER: Yes, they do. And the student responses show what led to those as well. They students are still looking for belonging. 

Matt M: What positives did we see from the evaluation? 

ER: Yes! Our indicators for students who are part of special populations were "exceeds expectations", and that means a lot to our school. And again, these documents and presentations are in Board on Track, and the evaluation criteria can be found online. 

Kristy: Can you highlight the expecditures that are above the $10,000 threshold? 

JH: Yes! 50k to Array for executive coaching paid for by The Mind Trust. We had our staff benefits payment. Another to EM Electrical for service to the walk-in refrigerator. 

Kristy K: Any questions?

JH: At the end of the year, staff expressed the need to see a salary scale along with their internet-to-return survey. We are updating our salary scale. There is a little bit over a 6% increase from the current year to next year. We are looking to increase in line with IPS and above many surrounding townships. 

We are also looking to shift the ways that we do salary increases. In previous years, it was a set increase rate across all staff. The staff has expressed satisfaction at knowing how they are going to be evaluated each year, and now we are looking to tie their salary increase to their evaluation scores. This is in line with how IPS operates. Instead of having a single set increase each year, staff will get a set increase based on years of experience AND how they are evaluated. There will be an increase for "meeting expectations" and even more for "exceeding expectations" 

Nelson F: Do the years of experience just count for Adelante years, or other schools too? 

JH: No, it is based on all years of teaching experience? 

Nelson F: So this isn't a bonus? 

JH: No, this is a salary increase. The state does provide a pass-through bonus in the fall for. the previous year. 

Nelson F: How do we validate those number of teaching experience years? 

JH: An internal state system lets us see those years of experience. We can also use reference checks to validate those years. 

Nelson: Who is doing the evaluations? 

JH: The teacher's manager, overseen by Matthew Rooney, conduct the evaluations each year. We have a very robust rubric that we use. The rubric allows for a leader to account for growth in a teacher even if they need further coaching. 

Nelson: In order to not open us up to potential trouble, it would be great to use an evaluation that is based on quantitative metrics. 

JH: Yes, our rubric does have the managers and teacher putting in data. 

ER: Our teachers and staff are observed at least once a week, if not more. This is not a one-time evaluation. 

Matt M: Is there documentation of this. 

JH: Yes, It's all tracked online. Teachers can see where they are and where they want to move. There is also a self-evaluation. 

Rachel S: I have so much respect for this evaluation process. They can be so subjective. I love the coaching and the multiple evaluations. What about the non-teaching staff? Everybody needs the transparency. 

JH: Anyone that is academic facing has a similar rubric. Different pieces for different folks. What we are still working on is what happens to the operations team. We do have a "2x2" evaluation cycle. We have been collecting feedback on what data can be used in those roles. For now, they will have a set increase until those benchmarks are created. 

Matt M: Do we know our data on teacher retention?

JH: 90% retention year-over-year for our licensed educators. With the new model, we are also looking to add a one-time master's degree addition to the base salary. For bonuses, we are looking to add athletics coaching and clubs stipends, bonuses for advanced degrees, and for grade-level chairs. This would help build leadership within teachers who want to stay in the classroom but also want leadership opportunities. 

Kristy: I love those grade-level chair stipends. It adds career pathing. 

ER: It has been successful with our Chief Literacy Officer who started as a lab-site teacher. 

JH: When building this salary model, we looked at research that says that teachers are more likely to stay when the salary scale is transparent and rewards great work. It helps retain effective teachers and leaders. 

Barb: What is the communication for this plan like? 

JH: Like most systems, we will run this out through a Trainual, and allows them to ask more questions in person. When meeting with their manager when contracts come out, they can go over their evaluations and their offered salary. 

Kristy: Which part of this is allighed with IPS 

JH: The range is allighed. The incremental steps are higher. The gap that still exists is how to handle retirement. This is something that the finance committee will have to help solve. If a teacher is close to retirement, they currently can't transfer their state retirement account. Adelante currently does not pay into this account, but we could look at it. 

ER: A frequent critique of charter schools is that they are not transparent about their salaries. We would like to fix this. IPS is close to a fiscal cliff. If we want to support these shifts, we need to advocate for our financial ned legislative needs. 

Mary: Are those stipends school-by-school?

JH: It is schools by school. We would like to be able to offer more of them. It also offers those coaching positions to people in the community? 

Kristy? Any questions?

Jordan: New calendar: 180 instruction days, 6 staff PD days, 3 remote learning days, 13 days of summer institute. 

We decreased the number of staff PD days because we have that built in to our daily schedule. We have also changed how we run summer institute. Now that we have more returning staff each year, we are giving more days to new staff and fewer days to returning staff. Our breaks work to align with the township schools. 

Kristy: the staff will appreciate fewer days of summer institute. 

ER: Yes, that came from staff feedback. 

Matt W: A lot of our work was around the standardized testing that we use. What are the end-goals? What does the data mean? How interventions are in place? What we will not yer see is a breakdown of the demographics of the data? 

Clearsite date - It tests for mastery, not growth. Students are tested on all of the standards, even if that material has not been covered. Our results are similar to last year. Our mastery is low, but tracking about 2% points higher. 

ER: There is a lot of content on the exams, but most of the material they have not been taught yet. Mid-year testing is often very low. We are ahead of the previous year, but still low. 

Matt W: This year for clearsight, we have also opted-in to the new ILEARN exam - ILEARN Checkpoints

ER: The state will test on standards that have already been taught by those points in the year. 

Matt W: NWEA is for growth. Math results for K-2 are at 60%. It's strong because students in a classroom are from all across the spectrum. We also have a large influx of new students this year, nearly half if our population. It presents an incredible challenge when trying to teach to a standard. That could explain some of the reason why our numbers are where they are. We will be putting together a project that helps to break down the numbers even more by length of time with Adelante, demographics, etc. It's important to be mindful of those needs and how to catch them up. It's also important to make it clear what Adelante can do for students who stay year-after-year. 

Kristy: Will we be able to see the data in February? 

ER: Yes. How do you want to the data disaggregated? 

Kristy: We would like to see how the data breaks down for returning and new, like we say with ILEARN data in past years. 

Matt W: Within interventions, students will. be getting quick assessments (exit tickets) so that teachers can see immediately if students are keeping up with a standard. Those are happening now. 

No update

Barb: The Committee met over the sustainability plan. The next task is to update job descriptions and the organization chart. 

We also talked about doing a Board strategy session to look at current goals and discuss strategic initiatives. We would also like to move from a transactional to a more mature board. What skills do we need and how can we as a board grow? 

Nelson: We need to help grow our non-profit and fundraising skills. 

Barb: We welcome Matt Meer to the board. We also have another candidate in the works who comes from non-profits. 

Barb: Board education sessions proposal: Finance moves to March. Education moves to April. 

ER: The Mind Trust has also offered policy education, showing what bills are up that affect charter schools. 

Kristy: Education around open door policy would also help us. 

Barb: Next month, we will have the CEO review. We would also like to introduce the board members to our new member, Matt Meer. 

Table the work on board goals to February. 

ER: We are reaching out Donovan CPA to send their final financial documents, because it has been a long time and we are still waiting on them. 

Kristy: I would like to meet to discuss with members about what they need to feel safe and secure on the board. and what can be done to improve. We also need to work on finding a vice chair and a succession plan for the board leadership.