Instructional Council Agenda and Notes

October 10, 2022

In attendance: Ron Twitchell, Judy Rose, Clay Bingham, Todd McKee, Suzy Cox, Jason Cox, Anne-Marie Harrison, Michelle Eldredge, Alex Judd, and Kerry Crockett

Not present: Doug Finch, Jason Garrison, Karen Brock, Keith Rittel, and Suraj Syal

1. PD Course Credit Requests – Karen Brock n/a
2. Secondary Course Credit Requests – Todd McKee n/a
3. Academic Initiative List Discussions: Review and Update Standards-based Grading-DISC – Todd McKee: Going into the pandemic we did quite a bit of work trying to standardize and create methodology. We developed the Nine Components. We put together a rubric for teachers. We started to develop expectations for teachers who were piloting at each of the schools. We had to come up with a formula of how to translate back into a grade. We developed a glossary of terms to formulate common vocabulary. We developed timelines. After the pandemic, we have not done anything to move this further. Suzy: We have teachers asking how and when to use it. Todd: We shifted our energies to other things at the moment. We have a foundation for when the time is right to move forward. We are looking at how to support pulling out the behavior portion from the standard based grading. If teachers have questions, I can walk them through the critical learning we’ve been through. It starts with clearly identifying your essentials.
   • Standards-based Grading-DISC – Alex Judd: We are also working on the Nine Components targeting the elementary schools. As part of clarifying the essentials, we worked with Karen Brock using the Teacher Clarity Playbook. We are trying to help people understand this is about mastery. The committees haven’t met for a few months.
   • Utah Early Learning Plan – Anne-Marie Harrison: There has been a national movement to get students reading on-level by third grade. Utah used ESSER funding to move ahead with this. The requirements from the state on early literacy have increased over the last five years. It’s more likely than not that full-day kindergartens and preschools are coming in the near future. The stakes of UELP are quite high. It requires a few stakeholders in the district to participate in summer training days. Tier 1 instructional materials that the district buys have to be evidence-informed. We have a commitment to use certain curriculum, diagnostic assessment, and progress monitoring. For math, we are using Into Math using learning targets, teacher clarity, mathematical language, and strategic and adaptive mathematical thinking. This is really that we know the science of reading now, and we are now obliged to use effective-based evidence practices. Michele: This isn’t new for Provo, and my concern is that we aren’t seeing the gaps close. I think that teachers having the LETRS training now have the “why” they need to do this. How do we ensure teachers are doing this? Anne-Marie: I’m concerned about new teachers having to do this. We have spent a lot of time talking about this with principals that this comes down to clinical supervision. This is the right moral thing to do. Alex: We came through a pandemic where we lost a ton of instructional time and face-to-face time with teachers. We have still made some huge gains because we’ve had this in place. Anne-Marie: We didn’t meet our goals with this last year. We are making some pretty serious commitments, and my concern is that we need to help teachers know this. I think schools are flooded with initiatives, and I think we need to simplify to meet these goals. Jason: These requirements are honing our craft. We can help teachers by removing things that aren’t necessary and removing stresses we’ve had in the last couple of years to help teachers feel success. Anne-Marie: Let’s refer to this, as appropriate, frequently so our principals and teachers hone back to our goal. Michelle: This could be used for individual elementary school goals to make things more efficient and help them be more aware.
4. Review: Library Books Policy – Anne-Marie Harrison This policy is now in the 4000s series. The Library Books Policy is 4021. The first form parents can complete to prevent their children from using specific library books. The second form is for students, parents, or employees to remove books from the library. There is a third form for public input. The input from these forms go to committees. The principals go to school community councils and PTA to form these committees. The first meeting led by Anne-Marie and Todd is set for October 20, 2022.
5. School Report Cards – Ron Twitchell Ron: I emailed a spreadsheet, and I’ll direct you as to what is important for you to look at. The scores will go public tomorrow. Ron shared the data used in calculating scores. Ron shared our district scores as well as comparisons with neighboring districts.
6.  Items for next Meeting on October 31, 2022 – Anne-Marie Harrison Academic Initiative List Discussions: DLI: Anne-Marie EL: Michelle