Board Meeting Dates

Additional Details

Special Board of Education Meeting

AGENDA

Revised
The Special Board of Education meeting will begin at 7:45 or immediately following the Audit Committee meeting,

Friday, June 13, 2014

7:45 AM

DeLayo Martin Community Room, Alice and Bruce King Educational Complex, 6400 Uptown Blvd. NE

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Minutes of Special Board of Education Meeting

Albuquerque Public Schools

A Special Board of Education meeting of Albuquerque Public Schools was held Friday, June 13, 2014, beginning at 7:45 a.m. in the DeLayo Martin Community Room, Alice and Bruce King Educational Complex, 6400 Uptown Blvd. NE.

I.        Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 7:30 a.m.

1. A. Roll Call

Present: Dr. Analee Maestas, Lorenzo Garcia (by phone), Steven Michael Quezada, Dr. Don Duran, Dr. David Peercy

Absent: Kathy Korte, Martin Esquivel

1. B. Adoption of the June 13, 2014, Special Board of Education Meeting Agenda and Approval of the May 30, 2014, Special Board of Education Meeting Minutes (Discussion/Action)

Dr. Duran motioned to adopt the agenda and approve the minutes. Mr. Quezada seconded the motion.  Board members unanimously adopted the June 13, 2014, Special Board of Education meeting agenda and approved the May 30, 2014, Special Board of Education meeting minutes.

II.      Special Issues

A.       Engage Albuquerque/Dropout Initiative (Discussion)

Superintendent Winston Brooks explained that a small task force has been assigned to work on a dropout initiative called Engage Albuquerque.  The members of the task force include:  Joseph Escobedo, chief of staff; Shelly Green, chief academic officer; Kata Sandoval, executive director of Innovation; Todd Resch, associate superintendent for high schools; and Dr. Kristine Meurer, executive director of Student, Family and Community Supports.  The group is working collaboratively with Santa Fe Public Schools on a dropout re-engagement initiative.

Information about the program will be disseminated using volunteers to canvass and distribute information based on the last known address of 15-18 year old students. Collaborative creation of a manual has begun for a re-engagement plan implementation including training modules, virtual school opportunities, wrap-around support services, transportation, personalized graduation plans (PGP), and connecting students to higher education. Potential funding sources to support the program are being researched.  This program potentially will provide services for 300-500 students per year.

Discussion regarding this agenda item included:

• Request for expansion of the task force to include people and organizations already working with these students
• Request that the engagement plan include listening to youth to find what will be best to help them become successful
• Review of other age groups that could benefit from a re-engagement plan to obtain a diploma
• Potential to support students on short or long term suspension and keep students in school
• Support for the opportunity the program provides to improve cultural proficiency

B.       Consideration for Approval of Option A: Approve the Reads to Lead Grant Funding and use the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) at all elementary schools; Option B: Approve the Reads to Lead Grant Funding and do not use the DRA, use only the DIBELS at all elementary schools; or C: Not approve the Reads to Lead Funding (Discussion/Action)

Shelly Green-chief academic officer, RoseAnn McKernan-executive director of Instructional Accountability, and Sheila Hyde-director of Professional Learning, explained the decisions pending about testing.  Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) has submitted and been approved for $1,060,500.00 (below the line) funding to support implementation of New Mexico Reads to Lead! for:

• eight state-funded reading coaches/interventionists who will provide interventions directly to students, provide job-embedded professional learning, and collaborate with teachers and administrators to improve instruction in reading and support increased student achievement at eight targeted APS elementary schools;
• a district lead reading coach and a data coach who will oversee implementation in the targeted schools and assure alignment with the District Comprehensive Reading Plan as documented in the APS Web Educational Plan for Student Success (EPSS); and,
• instructional materials and professional development that support reading intervention

Key Points for Consideration:

• This will be the third year of Reads to Lead funding focused on reform strategies and implementation. APS has invested significant resources in the funding, recruitment, and training of current reading coaches and aligned their work with instructional coaches, reading interventionists, and other resource teachers to leverage all these critical resources to drive change and close the achievement gap.
• In addition to the request for funds to implement the Reads to Lead program in this Request for Applications (RFA), APS also funds 10 additional reading coaches in 10 additional targeted schools. The district can use the new funds for instructional materials and professional development to support the other 10 schools.
• Districts/charters receiving New Mexico Reads to Lead! funds must use DIBELS testing
• As the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) provided K–3 assessment in all K-3 schools Reads to Lead is available at no cost to districts/charters and NMPED will provide professional development. The district currently uses DIBELS in 52 schools that are receiving funds for K-3 Plus; this would require that the remaining 37 K-3 schools to use DIBELS as well. Currently, all APS elementary schools use the Developmental Reading Assessment 2 (DRA2).
• APS has used the DRA2 for several years.  The DRA2 has been shown by statistical studies to have better validity and reliability than the DIBELS.

Ms. Green reviewed the following options with board members:

• Option A: Approve the Reads to Lead Grant funding and use the DIBELS testing and the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) at all elementary schools
• Option B: Approve the Reads to Lead Grant Funding and do not use the DRA, use only the DIBELS at all elementary schools
• Option C: Do not approve acceptance of the Reads to Lead Funding

Discussion regarding this agenda item included:

• APS has been the recipient of the Reads to Lead grant in the past
• New requirement of the grant stipulates that every elementary school administer the DIBELS test
• Request to NMPED for a waiver to use the DRA instead of the DIBELS test was denied
• Concern that adding additional testing is burdensome to teachers and students
• APS administration agrees that the DRA is a better evaluation tool because early reading skills are very difficult to measure
• Listening to a child read is the best evaluation of proficiency and it is reliable in guiding the instruction for each student
• Request for information regarding whether the grant covers the cost of testing supplies and scoring

Board members did not vote on this issue, but deferred to Superintendent Brooks to make the decision about the choice for testing and acceptance of the Reads to Lead program funding.

C.       Update on Teacher Evaluation (Discussion)

Shelly Green, chief academic officer, and Carla Greene, special projects director, presented the current status on teacher evaluations. Summative reports were made available by NMPED and distributed to teachers by principals the week of May 19, 2014.  These summative reports bring all of the evaluation components together for a final teacher ranking.  The various components of the teacher evaluation system have been reviewed and discussed throughout the year.  This is the first opportunity to see how the parts come together to complete the evaluation.

The NMTEACH Educator Effectiveness System Summative Report includes the following information: district name, school name, teacher’s name, group, grade level, graduated consideration tag, overall score, effectiveness rating, and scores in student achievement, observation and multiple measures.

Errors on the summative reports are reflected in other districts:

• Some summative reports not in the correct district/school
• Some VAS identified by PED as insufficient data were used to calculate student achievement measure
• Possible incorrect reassignment of points based on graduated considerations

The timeline of receiving the NMTEACH Educator Effectiveness System Summative Report results is as follows:

December 2013          NMPED advised that an interpretive guide would be available on value-added model, but no documentation was provided.

April 15                      Preliminary Value Added Scores (VAS) based on New Mexico Standards Based Assessment (SBA) scores were released to the district but were not released publicly.  APS reviewed and submitted concerns, but reports continue to show discrepancies.  There was no determination of which type of test scores were used to create the VAS, and when APS requested this information, NMPED advised there would be a delay in delivering this information.

April 30                      APS uploaded attendance to STARS. APS self- identified that attendance uploaded to STARS was incorrect.

May 1                         NMPED informed APS that summative reports would not available until May 15. Principals were informed that NMPED summative reports would not be used because they would be received too late to have constructive discussion with teachers before the end of the year.

May 6                         Based on an inaccurate report, APS requested and was granted by NMPED an extension to resubmit attendance data May 8.

May 8                         APS submitted corrected attendance uploaded to STARS.

May 15, 5:00 p.m.      Superintendent was given access to teacher evaluation summative reports from NMPED.

May 16, 3:30 p.m.      Principals were given access to school staff teacher evaluation summative report.  Errors were discovered with the reports including incorrect school locations listed on the report. In many cases the report was sent to the school that the teacher taught at last year.

May 19                       An email was sent from APS to principals detailing the process to be followed when releasing summative reports to teachers.

May 19                      APS discovered that FMLA absence coding had been included in attendance report.

May 20                       FMLA absence corrections were uploaded to STARS. A phone message and email was sent to each of the teachers who had attendance recalculated due to FMLA approved absences.

May 22                       Last Day of School

May 25                       Inquiry log mentioned in May 15 email was not made available, so APS sent spread sheets to NMPED for review of possible errors.

May 26                       Official queries submissions were allowed to be sent to NMPED.

May 27                       APS submitted concerns to NMPED regarding insufficient data for VAS and Student Achievement Measures (STAM).

May 30                       First of two official deadlines for all data additions and updates to be submitted to the NMPED

June 2                         Second of two official deadlines for Official queries submissions allowed to NMPED

June 3                         The end of course (EoC) VAS were made available, but the report does not indicate which tests were assigned to each teacher.

June 3                         Approximately 800 teachers identified with possible tag problems based on a mismatch between years of data on 4/15 teacher VAS results and “tag” indicated on summative reports sent to NMPED.

June 10                       Errors regarding teacher locations on the summative reports have not been corrected by NMPED.

Board members expressed concern about receiving documentation for all APS teachers and clearly stating what information APS contributed and can control.

III.     Superintendent Report

Superintendent Brooks spoke about the anticipated trip to Washington D.C. to celebrate the support for improving achievement for students of color.

IV.     Board Reports

Board members expressed gratitude for the highly professional efforts of APS administration to prepare for the ratings meeting and anticipation of the rating results.

V.       Announcement of Upcoming Board Meetings

President Maestas announced that the next Board of Education meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 18, 2014, at 5:00 p.m., in the John Milne Community Board room, and the next Special Board of Education meeting will be held on Friday, June 27, 2014, at 7:30 a.m., in the DeLayo Martin Community Room.

VI.     Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 9:15 a.m.