Good afternoon everyone welcome to today's session of the Education and Culture Committee. Our second session of the day so we're going for that gold star. Really appreciate everyone coming today. This afternoon is a really important discussion on a key pillar of student success attendance and engagement in our schools. And we know, we've talked about this in previous sessions that absenteeism has long been an issue but it's gotten worse over the years. COVID obviously had a huge impact on student attendance and disrupted learning. And we know that this is not hitting everyone the same. We know it's hitting our low income students, our multilingual learners, and our students receiving special education services the hardest. Students facing economic hardship who are balancing school with work or caregiving responsibilities at home, make attendance a challenge for many of our students. And for others, unfortunately, this is something that has been happening more recently. Fears around immigration and enforcement actions have created anxiety for some. And we'll hear, thankfully, we haven't been hit as hard as others in that department, but it's still an issue for a lot of families. And we also know that schools with fewer extracurricular opportunities have higher rates of absenteeism. So something that we have to make sure we're addressing and keeping front of mind. And I don't have to say this. I know our panel from MCPS will, who can come up now, will know that if a student's not in school, they're not learning. And we can't have access to our resources. We had a session this morning about all of the Health and Human Services, the wellness centers. If you're not in school, you don't get access to those either. So we're excited to hear an action plan update or an update from MCPS on the attendance action plan That they put in place and whether the strategies are moving the needle in the right direction And also look at where there's gaps and interventions and what the data is telling us so With that I will Turn to Mr. Proudi Let's see cover I missed and then introduce our panel. Thank you very much. Council Vice President Chawondo and Council Member Albornes and Council Member Mink in Abstention. I'm Doug Proudi, Senior Legislative Analyst. The committee most recently heard an update on and discussed attendance and urgency in a joint meeting with the Public Safety Committee on November 13th, 2023. The Board of Education had presentations on July 29th, 2019 and December 9th, 2021. These meetings set the stage for the development of the attendance action plan that's previously mentioned. It was released in July of 2023. This plan is found on on Circle 50, 6 to 61 in the packet. And then in addition, a guide to help schools implement the action plan according to the needs of their students and community is found on circles 158 through 162. There's additional item I won in the packet, which I wanted to highlight, which is the Office of Legislative Oversight. the issue of comprehensive report less than a month ago, as previously mentioned. Also, which examines the and evaluates the breadth and quality of extra-curricular activities across the county. It provides data to support the positive effect participation in extra-curricular is going to have an attendance. And also a caution that opportunity gaps in extra-curricular offerings and high schools in particular by race, ethnicity, and income still exist. The panel will provide more current information on attendance, factors that affect attendance rates, data on a specific subgroups in terms of attendance and strategies being used. I want to thank the MCF's MCPS team here, and those who helped you prepare for our today's work session. Council staff appreciate your collaboration and hard work on this issue. And many others affecting our students. I'll turn it over to you. Thank you. Before you go, Mr. Mountain, I just want to make it clear that Councilmember Mink is here. She's been here. She's just virtual. And we don't have the technology to show both the presentation and her but You councilmember make do you would just want to say hi real quick so we Alright, well, so welcome, so we're glad you're here So I will turn it oh and Laura Stewart like board members to it Who's normally here texted me that she's watching as well? So hello to all the board members watching the millions at home mr. Monti and on it's she it's to you. Yes, sir. Thank you for having us, council members. So I'm Damon Montelloni, Associate Superintendent in the Office of Wellbeing Student Services. And we're really happy to have what five or four or half, four eighths, right, of our team and well-being student services, really all about student engagements. We'll go down the line and introduce ourselves. Hi everyone, good afternoon. My name is Shana Gage-Jorby. I'm the Director of Student Engagement and Behavioral Health. Good afternoon, Shela Cherry. I'm the Director of Student Leadership and Extra Curriculars, also supervising student service learning and our parent community volunteers. Good afternoon, Steve and the Director of Pupil Personnel and Attendant Services. Good afternoon, Jeff Sullivan, Director of Systemwide Athletics. So I'll kick us off and we'll go through this presentation. We were really happy to be here. I think it was about a year, maybe a little over a year ago, to speak about the work that we were doing around chronic absenteeism. And as we will discuss today, this has been a problem since prior to the pandemic. And if you go back to the early 21st century, actually, we had implemented as a district a series of really punitive measures tied to academic performance in the form of a loss or credit policy. then that was Modified slightly what they would call an E3 policy, right? And we recognize it in the current environment some are calling for the return to measures such as that I will say up front that as we go through this work that is not where we are right now And I'm not sure that that is something that we see moving forward We don't really have data from that period that would indicate that that was successful and it certainly occurred in a highly variable way across our schools within our schools and fell most dramatically upon the student groups that you mentioned at the top of this program. Black, African-American, Hispanic, Special Education, 504, EML, so on and so forth. And so what we're going to see today is really the work that we have done in the absence of that over the last several years. We have seen progress, and Steve will get into that. We saw a 3% decrease in the district, which is up there with all LEAs in the state, if not leading. We know there's a long way to go. I will say we have struggled a little bit this year, as you'll see when we get into the data, recently with the weather, and certainly with some of the rhetoric and policies that are coming out of our federal government. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Mr. Smith. So good afternoon again. I often consider this the most difficult, non-complex problem of their experience. And what I mean by that is we know nationally and locally what we need to do. It's not rocket science. It is, but implementing it, the multiple strategies, again and again, across 211 schools, while facing so many barriers is the challenge. But again we know what we want to do. It's always important to start out the discussion with just the key definitions of what we're talking about. And I think I'll start with truancy which is 20% or more unexcused. And I'm starting with truancy because I want to spend the rest of the time, we're going to spend the rest of the time today talking about chronically absent or chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is 10% or more of the days enrolled being missed. So it is literally 18 days in a school year and two or two days per month. And we really focus on chronic absenteeism because more importantly to us is our students in school or are they not in school. It doesn't mean we don't care about the why behind it, but we really just want to know are they in or are they not in. And so that chronic absenteeism data point is one that we really look at. So I had mentioned the many challenge. You can go to in the next slide. These are kind of pre, during, and post pandemic. The first is we did too good of a job during the pandemic of making academics accessible exclusively virtually to the point where we inadvertently kind of devalued the importance of everyday in-person attendance, because students understood and understand I can access my learning, I can complete work, I can be successful academically from the confines of my home on my computer. And so we're really working hard to emphasize, you know, to redirect that to think about the discourse and the interactions and other things you're missing when you're not, when you'll have the opportunity to be in the classroom. We continue to be in the midst of a youth mental health crisis that is not abating. And we've seen through our anti-racist audit and through other data points that, and you mentioned, Mr. DeWanda, not everybody experiences it the same way. And so same thing, not everybody experiences their time in Montgomery County public schools as a student or as a parent in the same way in terms of do they feel seen, do they feel welcome, do they feel like they belong, do they feel valued. And so we know that that is a reason that is contributing to attendance issues. We still, especially at the high school level, students are taking classes in the same way that many of us did decades ago when we were in high school. That is not evolved. And we'll talk a little bit about the end of ways we're trying to get around that both creatively within MCPS and through some lobbying measures in Annapolis. But just what we're asking our high school students to do really doesn't mirror anything, I don't think any of us do in college or in the work world. And then families very simply have challenges needing to work, needing to watch siblings. And so in any given day for all of our students, but especially our older students, it is like a business decision. Am I able to go to school today? Or do I need to meet some other responsibilities that will help to new support and contribute to my family? So the next slide, and as if that is not enough, we are faced with very recent new challenges. And this has already been mentioned, because of what's happening out of Washington and in our communities, there are immigrant families who are fearful for their safety and well-being as well as that of their children. And I'll show some data towards the end that shows the difference that has occurred in the last month or month and a half. We also have many families who have one or more parents who work for the federal government. And we understand the stress and the chaos and uncertainty that is happening around their ongoing employment and then what's happening within their employment. And just the assault on equity related strategies so that all of our populations that formally felt more protected, more valued, they are experiencing more vulnerability based on things that they are seeing and hearing nationally and it's trickling into communities and schools. So what are we trying to do about this? Well, if there was ever a single strategy that you could consider like a universal prevention strategy, it is school connected. And we going to be talking about this probably for the next, you know, 10 minutes in the presentation. If a student is connected to their school community, they are going to come more often. When it is time for that business decision, do I go or do I not go? When it's time for that parent to make a decision, do I send or do I not send? You know, school connectedness matters. You know, do I have a trusted adult in the building? Do I have peer relationships that are supportive? Am I involved in school activities simply beyond the classes that I take, the academics that I take? And then am I feeling welcomed for who I am for what I bring to the table? So that is like a universal prevention strategy. And then I mentioned all of the different things that we are trying to do. And we're doing them over and over and over again on a daily basis. And that's the next slide. It starts out with positive messaging around the importance of daily school attendance. And we don't have time for that. One more slide please. That's okay. We don't have time for this, but shella and her team had many of her student members create PSA announcements that why do you come to school? And so they're hearing from other 15, 16, 17-year-olds about why they come to school versus people much older than that, like me, saying you should come to school. So just messaging around that, messaging around the two days before Thanksgiving are important. Half days are important, the days before and after, holidays are important. Every single day is important. And we shouldn't say that with a straight face unless we are looking at when they do come to school, what is their experience? And so if I'm saying come to school every day, it is important and then you come there, you feel unseen, unwelcome, unsuccessful, my message is lost, it falls flat. And so we're asking schools and asking ourselves, what is the culture and climate of our school buildings? What is the culture and climate of individual classrooms? Because each of those directly impacts student attendance. Damon mentioned we're not interested in being punitive in any way, but are interested in being communicative and so we have early outreach to families built in automatically through our student information system and there are messages that are triggered at certain absence amounts, certain absence thresholds in the quarter and they're designed to be positive and and how can we help? And so they start with, did you know? And this includes excused and unexcused absences. And if you are in need of any support, how can we do that? I'll show it in the next slide in a minute. I'll show just a screenshot. We've had a chronic absenteeism data dashboard built, and it allows us on a real-time basis to look at district-wide level by subgroups, and each school can look at data by their subgroups, drilled all the way down to individual students, and how are they're trending over the last 30 school days. So that's been somewhat of a game changer, it allows our teams to not only problem solve families that are having chronic absentee as a misuse, but let's look at our school in general and is it going on with our kindergarten students or something going on with this particular apartment complex or grade level or service group and think of proactive strategies, group strategies, tier two strategies that can be used to address that. And then I was here in a different iteration talking about student wellbeing teams last week. And we lean into our student wellbeing teams quite a bit around helping families with attendance and engagement concerns because there are many people around the, inevitably someone knows the student and the family, and they have a sense of what's going on, and they can dig into the root cause, because there are many, many attendance interventions, but picking the right one based on what you think the root causes will lead to a better opportunity for success. So the next slide is just an example of what our data dashboard looks like. And I'd be happy at a later time to sort of run the group through it in terms of just all the different functionality of what it can do. And what the true beauty of it, in my opinion, is it can tell you how you are doing compared to the same time last year. So today I think is the 116th day of school and so when I look at the data dashboard this morning it tells me how was I doing compared to the 115th day of school last year this year and then I can drill down by my Latino students and my high school students and my pre-K students and all of those different things so we can compare and contrast. And I'll show some data after my colleagues speak to that sort of shows some of the data that it's revealing. And selfishly, I wish I was here right before winter break sharing that that data, because the gaps between last year and this year were pretty phenomenal. And you'll see some data that shows they really have shrunk quite a bit since January 20th. So I'm going to turn it over to colleagues to talk about, again, to elaborate on the culture and climate piece that I spoke to. So in addition to some of the items that Mr. Neff shared, we wanted to share that student engagement, which includes participating in school, attending in school, really focuses on a couple of big areas. One of them is ensuring that there is an equitable and responsive, safe, belonging school culture, so through culture and climate. Another is through instruction. Instruction is a huge part of engagement. And then the other one is making sure that our students have opportunities to engage in leadership opportunities, as well as extracurriculars and athletics. Next slide please. So my slides are pretty easy. They're a quick reminder that there are a couple of core strategies that we use in MCPS to ensure that students have strong and positive cultures and climates. These include consistent application of restorative practices within schools, which includes preventative strategies, such as sense of belonging, fostering relationships, self-care for our students and staff, measures to make sure that we were able to resolve conflicts and how to reintegrate students back into environments when they've left it, right? So that school connectedness that Mr. Neuf spoke about. We also want to ensure that every student in a building has a trusted adult and that our buildings have well-equipped support structures and support staff for when students need it. We want to make sure that there is structured time, think our advisory periods, morning meetings at our elementary schools, right, to make sure that there's time and focus to discuss, learn about student emotional learning, as well as strategies for what we've talked about more frequently, which is emotional regulation. And then we also want to make sure that our staff is empowered, as well as our families to have their voices heard, and feel like they're a part of the decision-making in what happens within our schools. So when we ensure that all of our stakeholders, all of those parties are taken care of, and are part of that fluid and encouraging environment, our students are more encouraged to come to a place where they feel connected to and where they belong. Next slide, please. This is just a reminder of our annual climate survey, which talks about some of those key areas that I talked about, and they're found in specific questions, right? So they're not always sectioned in just this one area, which is school environment for elementary school or school friends and relationships for our kiddos, for staff. Again, that belonging section. If you look at some of those questions, I feel connected to other students at my school. Those really give us insight school by school about how students are connecting into those environments. We also have other surveys like the restorative approaches, communities, evaluation that's done each year. But these are other measures that we can look at to see what the environment, the culture and climate looks like at each of our individual schools. The data on the screen represents the system response. and you can see there's some areas where we're really doing well in and other areas where we have to examine a little bit further. I matter to other students, how do students matter to students? It's one of those things that we have to look at more than how do students matter to adults. Let's pause there for just one second because I- Did you lose a- No, no, I didn't lose anything I want to ask you questions. Probably lost something but on the last slide you don't have to go there but it just you said are you have a trusted adult in the building yeah okay so the some of these get to that but do we ask that question directly. We do andally, we do. And so what's the response on that? So we did a huge survey of over 60,000 kids about two years ago. And in most spaces, over 80% of our kids do say they have a trusted adult. And really loving that, because it's something we've been building over the years. I think one thing that we've examined a little bit further is how kids feel about each other. And I think that varies when you look at the different levels. But I think it's a conversation that we're going to have to continue to have, right? Yeah. And one of the things I'm constantly trying to encourage us to do and everything we do is have the baseline and then look for improvement. I know we do it in most areas, like attendance overall. But on metrics like this, or like, Do I have a in 80% sounds great, that's still 20% that don't. It's a big number. And are we tracking, what are we specifically doing? If that's a core strategy, which it absolutely is, you said it was, what are we doing to make sure that number goes up and how are we tracking success on that? That's a really important. A lot of these are important, but I think that's a core one. It absolutely is. And so most schools, actually, I would posit that every school does its own student voice data collection, quarterly or twice a year, semester and of the year. And that question is usually on there. I wanted to state, these questions came from through Pearson, right? And they are tested and they are validated, right? And so we also had to go through a process with the force, our legal team and our mental health team, our division psychological services to ensure the questions were appropriate and so on and so forth. But you are absolutely correct. And the only thing I wanted to say, because you brought the idea of measuring and then growth and keep performance or accountability measure. Every single school for the last two years and then has had a well-being and a climate goal. The climate goal on their school improvement plan, along with math and lit. And the school improvement plan is the accountability framework for all principals and all schools. So we're elevating this work into that space. So the climate goals are based off this climate data. Every single school has one. They have to have a climate, the cults are climate improvement plan. They work with their SEIU and MCEA partners in developing that, and then the well-being goals, I'd say, two-thirds of them are focused on attendance, right? So we've taken both of these things and it's have some quantitative measures to them, to have some level of accountability, and to also be able to check, you know, in real time how students are doing, but your point is well taken about that specific question. And these, the ones that are formal and official that happen annually are available on the website and one of the features that it has is a year-to-year comparison. So there's a button that just says, 21, 22, 22, 23 and it looks at it within that specific question. So the one that I just said, do I feel connected to others at my school, do I have a trusted adult? It looks at that line by line. The other piece of this is, too, publicly, it also looks at it by demo. So it actually, you can click it, and it breaks it down into our different groups. And it'll say how different groups in the same building answer that same question. And that actually gives us a lot of information to create those sit plans. Because if you do have a group in your building, that's not responding as well as other groups in your building, it does indicate that there is some work that may need to happen in some areas related to culture and not just climate. Appreciate it. Council Member Alvin, ask a question. Around the student. Thank you. And normally we wait until after the presentation. But this is pretty it or. Oh sure. Sure. There's 221 pages. So good job, Doug. I guess school safety, we discussed that at length in our last session with regards to this very important topic. I don't see there are specific questions regarding school safety just in the slides presented before us. Obviously that has a lot to do with school connectedness. Could you just elaborate on where things stand there now? Sure, so that's another section. So this is just a, we try to limit our slides, but this is just a clip of overall climate. There's a second session that says school safety. I don't know if you can see the comments. I don't know if you can see the comments. I don't know if you can see the comments. I don't know if you can see the comments. I don't know if you can see the comments. I don for the county are pretty decent results. But again, schools build their sip plans based on some of this data. And so you do have schools that experience more interruptions than others. You do have schools where staff feel more or less safe. And so while that is an overall part of climate, we really wanted to focus on this part that talked about the overall environment. And so that data is also available on our websites as well, school by school. Okay, yeah, I definitely love to follow up on that. Yeah. Cause obviously there's been a lot going on. And I shared this in our last session. I have a, you know, just, there've been two lockdowns at PCC High School in the last two weeks. One of my neighbor's kids was in a closet for an hour and 45 minutes. And this student is headed to an Ivy League school. They are a senior thriving and just the pull back just in the last two weeks that the parents have seen is pretty heartbreaking. And this student no longer safe going to her school and she is a high high high high achiever. And so you know there's things we can and can't control. We followed all the reasonable protocols and safety measures communication has improved with parents we're doing we're controlling what we can control but there are sadly so many things out of our control at this point that are undeniably impacting attendance and overall mental health and safety just continues to be such a huge issue. So that's why I wanted to follow up. The thing I would just touch so I won't go down a deep road into BCC, but we do have a Comprehensive team. I'll leave it that is coming is is going to roll out on Monday and it includes our social workers, our sort of approaches folks, myself, we will all be on site and have a team to really take a deep dive. One thing that we've done through the student well-being team structure and get take it off this bird walk, but there is clearly right That it's almost like a scale between well-being and safety and security. Can't necessarily have one without the other. As we put in a protocol, so anytime a student is suspended, part of that intake process is a referral of that student well-being team to get to the root cause of whatever may have been. So we don't want to just keep suspending. It doesn't necessarily change the behavior, right? and we want to meet the kids and find out what it is that's actually going on, and so we don't have repeat offenders. So we are integrating this space and there is much more work to do clearly but again point taken. Thank you. Appreciate that. We can jump back in. All right. So the next slide and this is just a quick overview. It's just a reminder and this is really important because we're in academic serving institution. I know we talk about well being quite a bit and it's because it's a part of the impact of what happens on the school culture and climate but also on serving the whole child. However, one of the best strategies for engagement is quality instruction. If you are interested in what you are learning about, if it is relevant to you, if it is meaningful to you, if you find value in it, if it draws you in, you are going to want to be at school. I think about those teachers that you had for me, it was Mr. Ishmael, who would stand on the table and talk about Ed Grail and Poe, and I would never want to miss that class, right? And so we cannot downplay the value and the importance of quality academics in terms of being a core engagement strategy. So I just wanted to remind everyone that the MCPS equitable teaching and learning framework is the core driver of those strategies, which which includes many components, curriculum, professional learning, school administrative leadership. But most importantly is that red box that's circled and it's what happens in the classroom. So I know our curriculum folks aren't here with us today, but again, when we talk about engagement, outside of intervention and environment and extra curricular, what happens in the classroom is one of the largest drivers. One of the things I know you'll talk about it later and you mentioned it, Mr. Neff. I'd love to come back to this idea of antiquated teaching and learning, which is connected to this bucket. There are some very innovative things happening, but there's a lot of some of them happening in isolation. It's in teacher-led, principal-led. And so I don't know if we can't do it today in whatever you have to say about it now great, but I think it would be appropriate at some point, post-budget to come and dig dig into Like what is how are we changing that hundred-year-old system? Because I've found it harder as I have you know two teenagers now and others to justify the age old parent question Like why am I doing this? Why am I going to? Is it relevant? It's hard for me as chair of the education committee to say other than that you have to And or point to other things on this chart like no you got practice today or you've got Band and orchestra today you've got you know you've got dungeons and dragons you know whatever whatever it is You know that my kids are into but so I just think we need to And I know there are constraints there's constraints at the state level there's constraints that there's funding constraints There's time But so I just think we need to, and I know there are constraints. There's constraints at the state level. There's constraints that there's funding constraints. There's time constraints, but I think we need, we owe it to ourselves to dig into that in a deeper way. So just want to flag that for you Doug. And it sounds like whoever the right people are to do that. So that's a really good follow up to come back to, but again, engagement in the classroom And so it's been a deep focus of our system-wide professional learning team And they've spoken a few times about it at the board, but Once again making our instruction meaningful relevant rigorous right are going to be important components of keeping our kids in the seats of having them come on in. Next slide please. So I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Shellicherry to talk to you a little bit more about student engagement through leadership. Yes, perfect segue. And while I'm often times in space with you around our student leaders, it's a pleasure to be able to highlight the extracurricular activity program from Montgomery County Public Schools. Myself and two others, certainly joined by my colleague, Dr. Sullivan and Dr. Randy Rump from the Fine Arts Department. The three of us kind of triangulate the extracurricular activity space. Any of those activities that our students are participating beyond the bell. We know we find that while some of our students are very excited about that favorite English teacher, it is often times what happens after school beyond the bell that excites them, that brings them to school, that might be their intention and the purpose for being there on that Monday through Friday and in that game time or whatever band experience. It may be extra curricular activities in particular are not just any particular singular activity, right? They expand beyond just our athletics programs and our fine arts, but to your point with Dungeons and Dragons, we have students who participate in our stereotypical student government or debate in band. We also have students who create their own student experiences within their schools. So whether it be the crochet club or dungeons and dragons, anything far in between. So in some of our schools, what we may have 20 and 30 clubs and extra criteria activities, some of our schools have a high club culture numbering more than 120, 130, even up to 140 clubs or experiences during this school day, maybe during a non-instructional time like lunch or beyond the day. Those activities allow our students to be able to engage and create relationships with their peers, centered around common areas of interest, certainly with adult sponsors that help to be their mentors in those areas of interest. And so it is through those that in terms of MCPS, extra curriculars have actually taking a strong foothold in the most recent years. Just last year with a pathway, so college career and community readiness, it was identified as extra curriculars being a core component or rather the core competencies identified in those pathways. That extra curricular activities has a strong connection to each and every one of those core competencies. And those experiences identified and related to extracurricular service learning and beyond, and athletics are all connected to our students in their rounding out the experiences that our students have as they enter into the school and before they leave. As such, our staff, certainly in central office, just took over extra-curricular activities to kind of create a central office structure to be able to see and identify what is happening in our schools, who's participating, who's not participating, how can we evaluate our programs to ensure that we grow programs in the spaces for our underserved students through extraracurricular activities. And so in doing so, and certainly as a growth from the pandemic, as a practice that we still have today, we identified creating a certificate of student engagement. None of our students were getting any kind of acknowledgments or awards unless it was given directly by their coach, excuse me. So in doing so, I'm in knowing that the national data states that our students participating in extra curricular activities have better grades tend to do better on their assessments. We wanted to be able to create a data point to measure what is the engagement of our students, looking at them through the lenses of our different demographics and being able to see, are we able to then program differently now that we have that baseline data. So we're kind of in that space where we're creating the foundation, creating that baseline data, and hoping to see measurable changes and results in the coming years as a reflection of what we see and understand now. While we know that the national data about student participation and extracurriculars aligns with their grades. We wanted to look at our own MCPS data. And so our data through school year 24 does certainly align with that national data that is trending for our students. The more they participate in those extracurricular activities, the higher their GPAs are. What you'll see in terms of the data points in front of you is that's a certificate of student engagement and remember this initiated during COVID we created three different levels, bronze if you participated in one, a silver tour three and a gold award for four or more just trying to engage students in finding more opportunities of interest for them as an entry point to the schoolhouse. And so that's why you see those different levels there, but not only is it just their participation leads to greater achievement in the classroom, but the more activities that they're participating in is leading to greater achievement as evidenced by our data point here. On our next slide, we also acknowledge that the participation in our extracurricular activity program certainly also aligns with the national averages about student attendance, the decline or the decrease can you go back one for me please that's right. Just the the same results for our MCPS students looking at that same data of participation, lining it up with their attendance rates, and our students who are participating in activities and certainly more activities are missing less days of school than their non-participating counterparts. So just on the x-axis here, so that's average school days missed, like on the number side. Correct, by the subgroup demographics demographics lined up with their participation in extra cricketers. Alright, so the blue line, the first blue line is African Americans who don't participate, students that don't participate in anything have missed the most days. Correct. And students that are gold and silver have missed the least days. And that's what trend you see in every population. Correct, yes sir. Got it. Okay, that's great. And that's our, that see in every population. Correct, yes sir. Got it. Okay, that's great. And that's our, that's MCPS, our data. This is our students, our data. Again, we're just, you know, and that foundational level to create that baseline. You know, I will share that we gave all of our school data back to our schools. Not only our extracurricular activities, directors and leaders in the school, but our administrators. And one of our, one school this summer inviting me to come to participate in their summer instructional leadership team meeting. And in that time, they talked about student engagement, they talked about what it looks like in terms of their classroom instruction. And then I was very pleased to see that they also pulled up their own data that we share back to them about their extracurricular activity participation and what that looks like. and they had a long conversation about, okay, so if we don't have, we have a large percentage of Hispanic and African-American students not participating let's look at what our programs are what can we create what can we pull our pull our students to see what they're interested in doing and create experiences based on that so we're looking forward to going back to that same school again this summer to see if there's been instrumental change as a result of that data. That data point and then the reflection and work since then what's the end is this every all students this right here is all students across the school district secondary so the certificate is only a water for six grade through 12. This is all middle and high school students aggregated. And just another question because I've seen this multi-racial category. It's come up in a couple of other things. How big is that population now? Does anyone know that? I know that's not really your belly wig. I think it's, I could pull it up in just a second. I think it's about 8% max. But it's growing though. It's growing. That's self-identified. Yeah, right, right. It is. Just curious. Thank you. So certainly, all of this data is reflective of those extracurricular activities programs that I mentioned, but certainly inclusive of our athletics programs. So I'm going to pass it over to my wonderful colleague. It does include athletics as well. Yes. Good afternoon, Jeff Sullivan, Director of Athletics. And I want to be additive to Woodmiss Cherry presented. First, I want to talk about how we work together as well as Dr. Randy Rampon Fine Arts. The three of us, one of the benefits of going through the COVID and pandemic experience and returning to in-person activities. Our offices really work together during that time and in the wake of that, we've just been stronger each year in trying to deliver a cohesive experience in the extracurricular activity space. So it's not athletics here, fine arts here. And so we've been working collaboratively together. So I want to definitely emphasize that in terms of the data, but also how we have been operating as a school district to align what we deliver to the extent possible. Transitioning to MCPS athletics, we own the role that we play in the school building, not just for our student athletes, but all of the students in the building and our communities. We believe that athletics define in many respects the culture of a school and bring our school communities together. Not just at our events, but at our pep rallies in the hallways. We want our student athletes to be leaders. We empower our coaches to own Mr. Jwano, you mentioned that the trusted adult and that one person in the bill, our coaches assume that role. Not just for the players and their team, but oftentimes when you look at schools, they're the kid magnets. They're the classroom at lunch where students are coming in, not just for a film breakdown, but also a safe space. So we own that want to create that culture consistent with our raised core values. That connection brings our students obviously into school and then we hold those student athletes accountable. So coming to school being there, you have to be in all of your classes to be eligible to practice and play. And so creating that culture of accountability where our student athletes are assuming those leadership roles in the school building. And that engagement speaks volumes across not just the athletic space but also the academic space. I do want to talk about the eligibility policy briefly. your Board of Education, four years ago, revised our eligibility policy to allow all students to be eligible that ninth grade year. Previously, just our fall athletes got an opportunity, so a student athlete that got off to a slow start that first year may not ever get the opportunity to participate in the winter or spring season. And so by opening the door to our program, we now provide that access point for all of our students to get engaged. And we're really excited about that to allow our ninth graders, our students in their first year to have access to the athletic program across everything that they do. And so that we monitor that academic progress, not just during the season, but out of season as well. Through some of our technology, our grade monitoring tools, and coaching now is not just an in-season thing. It is very much a year-round profession, a year-round engagement. So once we establish that coach, student-athlete relationship, it's something that carries on well beyond the season. It's a year-round and you oftentimes, when you have those positive relationships, that's a lifelong relationship that exists. So we own that and want Elf close with just the notion of within MCPS athletics, we want to bring the program to our students, not wait for the students to come to the program. And that is something we empower our coaches and our athletic directors to think when you look at a team in your school and look at the faces on that roster, what are the student groups that are not represented and what are the things that you can do to ensure that students all students feel engaged and have a space in our respective teams and across our program. So again, that student engagement is critical and MCPS athletics we own and love the role that we play and contribute into the overall mission and the school building. I appreciate that. My daughter, as you probably know, just wrapped up middle school basketball and we had the last game was at Park was at Parkland which has like an amazing like cheer squad like I had a I had it when her godfather came to the game and he was like he thought he was at a high school like game I mean it was packed there were no seats like you know this is like for a middle school basketball game in MCPS so it was so it's a test of it too, like how even the people who aren't playing, it creates a school culture of engagement, kids are making signs, like you know, just it's a, it's a, one of the many things that I think is going right. So thank you for that, continue. Okay, so I wanna just close out by sharing some data with you. You can go to the next slide, please. So in this data slide, if orange is smaller than blue, it is a good thing. So the blue bar indicates that the day of, well, first of all, let me say this data was pulled on Friday, so February 28th, which was 112th day of school. So the blue bar represents where we were last year on the 112th day of school. I wanted to point out a couple things on this slide. One is at the high school level, we are still making about 2 percentage points growth, and that's notable because last year we did not make growth. Last year we were a little over 1,5% worse than we were the year before. So we're pleased by that yet still a lot of work to do. The one that's concerning is the K to 5 number. And that is extremely recent, really from January 20th, where we've seen a lot of parents scared to send their children to school. I think in their case they're worried about will they have someone to come home to if some kind of adverse action happens towards them. So we really are concerned about that and I'll share some of the things that we're doing related to that. And on the next slide it shows our racial and service groups and I want to start out by saying that none of these are monoliths, so you cannot assume that all Hispanic students are emergent multi-lingual learners or vice versa. But these are the data points that we capture. And what is really concerning, and I'll show you why in the next two slides, is our emergent multi-lingual learners are basically at the same, a little bit worse than they were and that is Data pulled last Friday. I will tell you though that It really depends on when you pull the data because just looking at it this week We are gradually starting to reclaim some of those gains. So I'm hoping that the gaps will continue to widen, you know, as we continue to demonstrate our schools and communities to be safer. Give us just before we leave this slide, I always like to give people a little context of, these seem like small changes, but this is all students. Yes. So, you know, so a percentage or two point is significant numbers of students. Right. A significant significant number of students. Yes. So, yes. So, 2% like if 2% of all high school students are not chronically absent compared to those who were, we're talking hundreds of students, hundreds, thousands of students. So, yeah, no, it is- Yeah, if you go back to the student. It's probably easier on the last slide because I don't know the number. Go back. So this is this is by school. This is by so there's like 50,000 high school students, right? Low less, maybe 48, 49,000. Right. So a 2% drop is I'm doing my math. That's like a thousand. Right. Right. Is that right? I think I got that right. Right. So a thousand fewer students that are cranking in the form of teachers. Yeah. I just add some context to this. So to Steve's point, we pulled this data. Our high point, I believe, was in November. Yeah. Are you going to get to that? The other thing I just wanted to remind folks is at the end of the 23 school year, 2223, MCPS was almost at 27% chronically absent. So even though we made a 3% gain last year and we're leveled off of the last couple months, we're still trending down in the right direction. So the next slide. Two forward. Yeah, one more. So here is our Latino students and these are the chronic absenteeism rates that were pulled throughout different points in time during the school year. And again, blue is last year, orange is this year, the larger the gap the better. So if you look about like half to two thirds of the way through on December 18th, our Our Latina students were 6 percentage points lower than they were at that same time last school year. And you can see since quarter two, it was the very end of January and then February 4th and then the end of the month, you can see that gap has almost. And if you go to the final data slide for our emergent multilingual learners, again, mid-December, about a 5% each point gap between where they were this year and where they were last year, and that gap has closed as of the end of last month. And just to be clear, closed is not a good thing. Right, exactly. Yeah. I should be very clear about that that because we always talk about closing the gap. This is crazy. Yeah, we want to be increasing the gap between last year and this year. And yeah, so we were in December 18th, 5 percentage points better with our emerging multi-lingual learner students. And then that gap has been eliminated since and so that is a concern. And so as we sort of bring things to closure and I'll turn it over to Mr. Montellioni, we need to continue to just emphasize our schools and our communities where we're welcoming, we're safe, we're warm and that's for all families. They may talk a little bit more about we need flexibility and course offerings for our newcomers. They're coming to us 16, 17, 18-year-old, 18-years-old with no credits. We've got them for maybe three years. What's one of the most important things we can pour into them in the three years we have them so that they can be productive adults. And then for all high schools in general. So there are some things that we're trying to advocate for at the state level in terms of flexibility. And Dave wants to talk a little bit about what we're looking to do internally in terms of some of our processes that may inadvertently disincentivize our high school students to attend every day. Yeah, just in reality. As a former high school principal, and if you talk to any high school principal out there today, you have a 15, 16, 17 year old newcomer to this country that has experienced untold trauma getting here, may have been coming from a place of interrupted education, may not have had consistent education since they were nine or ten and have had to work to support their family or what have you. They come to the United States, they come to the State of Maryland, and while we do have a lot of resources that we can provide them, we take their unique perspective and then box them into what the State of Maryland says they must do by the age of twenty-twenty-one to graduate. It's the only option. So it's just in reality, and I'm not lowering an expectation or a standard, but the idea that we are going to have students become fully proficient in English and meet all of those graduation requirements, many of which, as you said, Mr. Joando, you have trouble making the case your child that is even necessary. Now, let's extrapolate that to the seven-year-old kid who just got here who's living perhaps multiple other people in a basement without their parents. Right? So again this goes back to those game data decisions on am I working today or am I going to school? And if you talk to the students many times they will say look I want to learn a trade right? I want some sort of certification. I want an internship. I want some sort of ability to provide. I want you to learn English, right? And I want to build a social network. And so we have, we've engaged in advocacy with the state. And I know there are groups of folks to look at the models that are in California and in Texas about how we can provide meaningful pathways to post high school life for our newcomers, that is not forcing them into a system that was designed for naturally born citizens who have come up through that system. So that is one piece there. Internally here, with the high school we are, we do have a team in curriculum that is looking at a flexible pathway system. Right? So if you look at some urban districts, there some urban districts that are on the cutting edge are looking at rotations of school. Right? You might have a 8 to 11 rotation, you may have a 12 to 4 and then a night school rotation. And this allows the school to be ready for students whether it is virtual, hybrid or in person. And so these are things that we could potentially look at. We are starting to look at as a district this year. It has been something that is top of mind for Dr. Taylor, and he has given that charge to that team. So how do we make this flexible? How do we allow for students that need to make that decision to work, but then also get those credits. forcing them into that them into that industrial seven period day that Mr. Neff spoke about earlier. The other thing I would just add to this and touch upon it at the beginning of the presentation is we are currently in the process of revising the secondary grading reporting policy while I do not anticipate that kind of zero tolerance. You missed 10 days on excuse, you fail policy, I don't see us returning to that. We are getting back to some firmer expectations around when work needs to be submitted, right? What that zero to 50% looks like, how grades are calculated, and things of that nature. Because as Mr. Neuf indicated, there was some scaling back of all of that during the pandemic and it's time to get back to where we were prior to the pandemic so thank you for your time. Thank you very much all really important and helpful information and no other presentation at this time okay great so I will ask a couple questions and I'll turn to my colleague. Some sure this is something we could talk a lot about. So I'll go with the question at some top of my mind right now. The OLO report that we have referenced. It was referenced by Mr. Proudi and by in the packet shows that obviously schools that have fewer extracurricular activities you have higher absentee rates, right? So we all know that that's a high correlation and more truancy and more dropouts, right? So not just absenteeism, but obviously all those are connected. So given that strong correlation, are you how are you using or using extra curricular availability as a formal metric and measuring and correcting for attendance and engagement? So do we do that? And if not, can we do that? Or should we do? Yeah. So as shared previously, you know, this is the first, these are the first years that we've initiated collecting data on extra curricular activities. Oh, so just as of last year in this year? Yes. So Dr. Sullivan, while he had rosters, he has rosters for his athletes on his teams, he had some of that data already when it comes to the non-athletic extracurricular activities. We never rostered data in particular. Maybe it was led by a school principal, but that was not as an expectation or culture of the school system to be monitoring extracurricular activities until that responsibility fell to the central office for the first time. And so taking over that space, that's why we created that certificate of student engagement to be able to look and see who's participating and getting rosters from our staff and schools to be able to initiate that data and create that baseline data. So now that we have that, we are going to continue to monitor that, and as I stated, go into schools and talk with them about the data that is reflective of their school and their student participation. In addition to that, we're also looking at the number of opportunities that are offered to your point. You know, and I mentioned earlier, some schools have a very large club culture. Some of our students create their own experiences in MCPS and was outlined also in the OLO report. We have some standardized experiences that are provided a stipend for a sponsor at their school. It's outlined in the MCA contract for extracurricular activities. So that could be coaches, band directors, and other unique experiences. And then there are other opportunities where they have what's, we call an ECA-3 where an ECA-, where they get an opportunity to have principles, have a number of hours that they can allocate to staff that are interested in advising, or sponsoring a club, and be compensated. And those hours are gonna be unique to their schools. So that Dungeon and Dragons Club, they may say, okay, you can have 15 hours, whereas in another school, they may not have a Dungeon & Dragons Club at all. So at least the principals are able to do so. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I want to be more clear. Yeah, and I'm glad I threw out D&D, because I didn't want to, you know, I think often time we say sports and music. And we don't think about it. There's a ton of other things, right? And one of my kids is in Dungeons and Dragons. But so there's a couple things you can measure. And the goal to certificate is great, because those are kids who are participating, and who are participating and who aren't. So it shows us that it kind of emphasize, it just is another way of proving the point we already know that if you are engaged, you're gonna have be less absent. But what I'm trying to get at, and I think you've said something about it is, and I understand we've only been measuring it for two years, but what I'm suggesting is that the availability piece be dug into more and be a metric itself, you know, in a school improvement plan or for example, like, you know, if you don't have those, and if you don't have the money, like then it gets to the, we don't have the resources, the PTA, then that money, whatever the things are, we try to address, but that it be a metric in and of itself. So, I appreciate that, and that's why I wanted to show to speak to the details, the data collection, and I was gonna take the baton and speak to the, connecting it to attendance. So this is in process, right? We are in the process of revamping, right? Our school improvement approach and plans in alignment with the state of Maryland report card, right? And if you remember the budget presentation from Dr. Taylor in December, he made a direct correlation between what we're doing in schools in the state report cards. And so because those school improvement plans are aligned directly to the state report card, one of the key measures around school quality is chronic absenteeism. That is it. And in fact, it is all of our high schools are in need of improving their chronic absenteeism rate. So when we, I know I'm getting the weeds here, but to speak to your point, how you develop a school improvement plan goal into a data informed goal, where at this percentage, in order to get here, when you do X, Y, and Z, we will monitor it quarterly like this. You look at a variety of data points and to get to that goal. So when you're looking at chronic absenteeism, not only are we looking at that dashboard, right, and looking at that data, you're also looking at the climate data, and what your kids are saying. You're looking at your engagement data from extracurriculars. And so these are all data points as we build, like we were calling a SIP playbook, like a guide, like for how to step the schools are to take, the data they are to use to develop those goals. This is certainly going to be a part of that. So that's happening like as we speak, that team is building it. I will have to appreciate that. I have to come back. I ask one more question, then I'll turn to colleagues. So can you walk us through? So you have a student that's identified as chronically absent. And walk me through the timeline of what happens. I know some of this, but just so that people can understand. So when done procedurally correctly, the... The caveat there. Right. The outreach would have occurred between the teacher and the family or a teacher to student, depending on the age of the student. Notice that you've missed some time. You know, is there anything going on I can help with? Any barriers that we need to be aware of that kind of thing? So there's one call or end or email from teacher after, yeah, within what time period of the chronic absenteeism? Well, it would be good to standardize that more. Many schools have an expectation that, if a student is absent two consecutive days and there hasn't sort of previously been an explanation of where away or the flu or whatever, then there is that outreach at the school level. And so there is definitely an expectation that the outreach happens at the classroom level first because research also shows that parents want to hear from their teachers. So I don't know how you feel. But if you were to hear from a P.P.W. or an administrator, probably would have a different impact than if your child's teacher reached out and said, hey, what's going on? Things like that. Well, I'll, so just pause there because I think this is super important for a parent, you know, right now. So you said that we already identified a one-potential of improvement, more standardization about when that teacher reaches out. Right. And I think it would, and I think it makes sense also at the, there's probably differentiation across the levels as well, because, you know, middle of high school, we're talking six or seven different periods and how they add up. But yeah, so absolutely, some standardization around what are the, because there are, right now there are broad expectations for classroom teacher, you are the number one, you're the first line of defense, you are to reach out when there is an attendance concern, there is not a threshold by which, in the expect, that's clear, that's true. So that is definitely room for improvement. And then from there, that teacher can consult with colleagues, school counselor, pupil personnel workers, social worker if they have one, school psychologists, and just, you know, grade level to your colleagues. This is what I'm seeing. This is new. You know, do you have any ideas? And they start to bounce ideas around. And why don't you try this outreach? Why don't you try the strategy. And so these lower level strategies are happening simultaneously. And if things do not get better, every staff member in every school has access to a referral to the student well-being team. And the student well-being team is a more formalized, collaborative problem solving process that includes all of the student services staff members at the school administrators. And so problems are presented with, you know, here is what we're seeing. This is what we've learned so far. And then there is root cause analysis and brainstorming of, well, let me call in the parent for a conference, see what's going on. Or let's go do a home visit and see if there's anything we can do to help. So there's, again, initial, probably one or two time interventions to see if that will address the problem. And if those do not get better, then escalates maybe into something that is more formalized and delivered over time. So maybe let's put them into an attendance group with other six graders and let's meet with them 30 minutes, you know, once a week and let's set goals on each Friday or Viole desire you did this week. And then we have other, you know, we have other avenues attendance matters meetings, you know, we have other avenues to try to provide. We're really trying to figure out what the barrier is and then what we can do to try to address the barrier. So, okay, go ahead. And one thing, and I know this is important, and we probably didn't mention it because it's so baseline. When you talked about standardization, and I know this is not everybody's favorite, it's not always my favorite, or the standard robo calls that go out. So even if a student doesn't miss a whole day, even if they miss a period, you get the standard robo call. Your child was absent from second period today. And I think those are important as a pre-measure, they're not as effective as your teacher calling, but those are standard measures that happen automated. They happen no matter what. And then the other thing that's more standardized too includes the attendance letters that gets sent out. Steve, they went on my favorite to sign as a principal. They come, they're packaged, and they come at intervals. The student has missed five percent in school year, ten percent in school year, twenty percent in school year. And you get a stack of them. You assign them, and you register, you're sending them out. So they're not effective in terms of relationship or in terms of like building. However, some of those technical aspects are also important in terms of just informing. So I did wanna highlight those of them. I appreciate that and I think you're right. So we've got the notification and I've gotten these when we have appointment or something or you get in text email I get a text email and call oftentimes and then sometimes they're wrong that's the other thing but you know but then you got to call the school or and check you know sometimes the if the person who reports reports and correctness you know which is human error you got to call and correct it. But yeah, that's important, the automated part, and then a parent, then a teachers of next line of defense, it seems a little squishy on when we get to student well-being team. And that's okay. I just, you know, it's just kind of, if you get a response, not, yeah. There's an expectation for consultation and outreach intervention in between a teacher level and between the teacher level and referral to the student well-being team. And that is the less formal collaboration between grade level teams or the teacher and the counselor discuss the student and then they decide we're gonna do this level of outreach or this level of support. So we're trying not to overwhelm our student well-being teams with situations that could be resolved at earlier junctions. And so all this was building to my, and I'll let you answer your responses, was my main question on on this part of this question is, so how are we measuring the effectiveness of this process? In the sense that obviously we're looking at the large data, if we're trying to get to root causes, it's going to be different for, you know, it's going to be different reasons for different students. What is our, so how are we looking at measuring effectiveness of changing these numbers? And is that the outreach we're doing is working? So I'm going to answer that and I also wanted to speak to the piece. So how does it get to the student well being team? Right? And so Steve kind of talked about some of the preliminary interventions for the teacher, the counsel, the teacher, the parent before it gets elevated to the student wellbeing team. Part of the role of the student wellbeing team is to monitor that attendance dashboard that Steve showed internally, routinely, weekly or biweekly. And in some schools, such as Gathersburg, where they have really put a premium, Gathersburg high High School or they put a premium on chronic absenteeism. They've developed a separate attendance team to pull that out of the student well-being team. And so, yes, you have the teachers referring to the student well-being team through the referral form, but you also have these teams in every school that are just looking at that. And yes, they can look at trends, but they're looking at individual students. And so when they see a student, right, that is at the, at the, that has hit 3% or 5% or it's inching. And yes, they can look at trends, but they're looking at individual students. And so when they see a student, right, that is at the, that the, that has had 3% or 5% or it's inching up towards 10%, they're gonna intervene. And we have put that, that structure, district-wide into place. So how are we measuring impact? So there are those, these real-time, like formative data polls that we're doing to look at groups but also to look at individual students. But again, this is you're looking, those schools are looking at this data, like they're looking at their literacy scores and they're looking at their math scores on a quarterly basis at the semester and at the end of the year. And so we in their attendance plan and their SIP, they have specific strategies they're taking. They have specific student groups that they are identifying that they want to see an increase in, and they are implementing that, just like they are with all of their strategies, and it's just like this plan-do study act, right? We're gonna see how we're doing. Is it working? We're gonna adjust, recalibrate, change our strategies. We may change it with an individual student tomorrow. We may change it with a group of students next quarter, or we may change it as an entire school, right, at a quarter semester or annual rate. I know I must have said this is one of the most simple but most complicated. Because there's so many factors and it can be very individualized. Why students are missing. I want to welcome a student member of board, Suvrna, who joined us, not skipping school, by the way, but he's just here. So we don't, there's an attendance session, so we want to make sure. I'm going to turn to my colleagues, Council Member Auernauz. Thank you. So obviously we're not alone in dealing with this issue. Most other jurisdictions across the country are dealing with this issue too. Do we know how our data compares to our colleagues in neighboring jurisdictions, particularly? Compared to national data, it's very well. It's very good. So national data shows this is all of the United States. Chronic absenteeism was about 31%. When we were exiting the pandemic, it's decreased. It's about 28% on the last, like long term shared measure, 22, 23. And so looking at that at 28%, and looking at where we are now, Steve, you can clarify for me closer to about 21%. I think that's a significant gap in terms of where we are versus the rest of the United States. However, we tend to do better than the national average, so that's not enough. And so I think a better comparison is where we are compared to where we were. And then I can't speak to the other LEAs, but I'm going to never just leave to talk about that. So yeah, we compare favorably to the other LEAs, Frederick County, Howard County in terms of, I think we're both, we're seeing similar data. And then of course, Baltimore County, some of the jurisdictions around the Baltimore City, Princeton or just county, they are struggling with the data, you know, at a higher rate that we are. But I think, you know, what Shana Kay said, I think is important, comparing ourselves now to last year and even within, you know, within MCPS because we have quite the variance within our schools. So, you know, even our schools with the very low chronic absenteeism rates, how are they doing compared to last year? So, because we want everybody to be moving in the right direction. I appreciate that. We've touched on the parent engagement. We've been talking about that a lot in multiple sessions recently. But can we just elaborate a little bit more in that specifically around, you know, we do have a disproportionate number of ESL learners who are chronically absent? So how are we on the ground engaging with parents who may, you know, have language access challenges and beyond just the language access, sort of the cultural competency aspect of this. So all of our newcomer families who enroll in MCPS receive an orientation through an ETC. And so in that, they are welcomed to the county and welcomed them to the school system. And also important, the most important components about what it means to be a student and what it means to be a parent of a student are shared at that time including the importance of daily school attendance. Also, there is a handoff to staff members at the school where they are going to be rolling to make sure that services continue. We also have partnered with identity and other agencies to try and do parent outreach specifically with our very youngest learners because a lot of times it may be their first child in school and their their experience about when and how often they went to school back in their home country might have been different. Their experience in what kindergarten is in their home country may be different and so a lot of it is supportive education at kindergarten orientations and back to school nights around how every single day at school matters. You know, it's like the pre-K data that I showed earlier, we're making, it's still our highest by far, but we're making the most gains there because pre-K is not compulsory, but we very much communicate this is not free day care when you need it, but you know when you don't, that's okay. So we're just, we're just impressing upon all of our families and especially the families of our youngest learners, you know, the importance of everyday attendance. Because if you look at the seventh eighth ninth grader who has really, really big attendance challenges, it is more likely than not those started early in their elementary career. This is, you may not have the data for this, but I'd be curious as to, I know we piloted over the last couple of years different cell phone policies at schools and you know, when you talk about connectedness anecdotally what we've heard back from the schools that implemented those policies on a pilot basis that there was much more connectivity happening during the lunch room cafeteria lot more interaction between the students themselves among themselves with the faculty and staff so I'd be curious as to as we're implementing that policy system wide, how or if that in any way impacts the child's feeling connected to a school which obviously is a key issue to whether or not they feel comfortable and want to show up every day. Last two points and then I may get back in the queue but obviously the athletics is near and dear to my heart talk about it all the time and it was a significant carrot for me when I was in school in a lot of different ways and provided just such a great social outlet in addition to the health and the wellness and the team building all of it but you know I it's tough to make a school team There are only so many positions available and we do have a number of clubs and recreational opportunities but what I'd love to see more of and I know you all agree is how can we connect to some of these outside organizations who are providing extracurricular activities maybe not in the school but in the community and that are accessible for folks. And there's one degree removed. There's only so much of schools. We already ask you to do so much for goodness sake. But I do think, you know, through the sports committee, we're looking at different angles and opportunities. That's also true of arts and humanities as well, and our steam-based programs too. But that additional layer I think is another way of us connecting to students and making these types of programs and services accessible to families beyond just the school walls themselves I think is going to be important. Comments on that. Yeah, so I want to say thank you so much for that because that really highlights some of our programs like Excel Beyond the Bell, which I know you're super familiar with, that are in 26 of our schools that provide some of those programming that you might not expect. So while it does provide a great deal of athletics in an intramural way, but also things like cooking classes, karate classes, things like that. Also, I wanna highlight community schools through the blueprint that has mandate to provide 13 core wraparound services. Many of those include extracurricular and summer opportunities, like one of our biggest partners being the Maryland Youth Soccer Association. So as we continue to grow those programs, as you've heard, we're moving from 53 community schools to now 77. And I remember days at this table when we were at 19. As those programs expand, as those monies come into our schools, those external programs and partnerships also expand through those initiatives. And they're at our neediest schools. So that was a great highlight because as those new schools come into the cohort those are some of the things that we're looking at right when they're doing their needs assessment. What do the communities already have and what do they need and how do we keep our students connected through some of those services and supports? I want to jump briefly back to the role of the International Admissions and the education of Inter-Skullastic Athletics. That is in many ways unique to the US and how the sports culture and the teams and the inter-scholastic model. So one of the things we did two years ago was partner with the International Admissions Team to develop a resource that upon enrollment into MCPS, you get an overview of athletics in a short one-pager that's translated into all of our enrollment languages that provides an overview of the opportunities and the structure of the program. And so that's a critical piece right off the bat is educating that we have these opportunities in our schools, in our high schools, in our middle schools, in the inter-scholastic space, as well as the inter-murals that provide open access, where there is no team selection. And briefly, the current structure, the sixth grade year is that inter- is that inter-mural model, right? So that big transition into middle school, we have the inter-murals for sixth graders, which is the open door come in and participate Learn a skill and then the seventh and eighth grade year we transition into that middle school athletics program where You know students are trying out All right and getting that first taste of that try out and being putting a uniform one and representing your team and then into the high school The junior varsity and varsity experience. So that pipeline if you will, speaking more broadly beyond MCPS, we've been partnering a lot with Montgomery County Rec. We actually met with them too. We've been having recurring meetings about using girls flag football. We're just very excited about in the wake of the first year of that at the high school level and the potential expansion to adding junior varsity and looking at our middle school to expand that experience but also with that with the access points everyone starting the same level across all of our schools and looking at our recreation programs and providing free and and cost efficient access to that sport and identifying that. So that pipeline of sports, if you will, starting from three or four years old, all the way through college, we are providing a consistent pathway for our families across all of our demographic areas and all parts of the county. And we know there are pockets of success. So how do we replicate and fill those gaps? So Girls Flag is one pickleball, where the first district in the country to have pickleballs of our city sport. It's been fantastic. We started two years ago with 11 schools. We had it at all 25. But not just offering that at the high school level, looking at our physical education programs, right? And in teaching those skills in the classroom, as well as partnering with Montgomery Rec, because again, the partnerships with our agencies in looking at our Batchee program and our Pickleball program, targeting opportunities for students with disabilities, right? And in a dark raise core values, making sure that every student has a home in our program. So those are just two recent examples of how we're pushing the program forward. And then to your point, Mr. Albinaw is about looking at a sport like soccer, right? Where there are various, you know, private groups where there's money, there's travel, there's this culture that exists, where there's highly competitive play, but also for students that are coming in, whether international students or students that are here that just have not had that opportunity, where are we filling those gaps prior to the time they get to us, right? And that's not something we can solve, but we're part of the solution. And we own that in MCPS athletics, and we want to be part of that. And I think the Sports Advisory Committee that's meeting and looking at sports more broadly work there at those meetings and represent it to be part of that conversation. But that's something we look forward to working collaboratively with our public and private sports organizations to push programming forward. It's going to take a unified front to do that and to be able to fill the gaps in our participation opportunities. Appreciate that. I'll give back to you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, thank you. And we're working to get, I know we've talked about getting some of these champions including our Clarksburg the first ever champions For Flag football and some others to the council to recognize their accomplishments. So we're working on that Council member makes has been patiently waiting Appreciate it. Yeah, I'm really excited about the data that you all have been collecting on the extracurriculars. Being able to really show and demonstrate that correlation is so helpful and it lets us, you know, leads into all these other conversations about how we can, you know, leverage that further and it's just so, so, so helpful. And I know last time, I think it was the last time that we worked together talking about this, which was like the end of 2023, and my ask was for comparative data for different programs that impact absenteeism. So this is great to see, and I really appreciate that, and hearing about how you're overlaying that data with the numbers that are coming up at different schools. I did want to ask about students who, about the eligibility question, and I appreciate the reference Mr. Sullivan to the ninth graders and recognizing the importance of those students being able to participate and to take advantage of the benefits in multiple ways that that Converse, including to their, you know, attendance of schools. For students who have been on home and hospital teaching, this came up at a recent session and about mental health, I think it was. And so for those students, when they come back from home and hospital teaching and they've been out for those who aren't familiar with the H.H.E. Burger and they've been out due to serious health issues. When they come back, they're not always, we can expect that they're not always going to have the same academic record that they would have had had they not had that serious medical condition. Are we taking steps to change the policy so that when those students come back, they're not held to the same academic eligibility policy as all other students so that they, like ninth graders, are able to come in and have an opportunity to start fresh? We can look at those specifics. I'd need to collect some more information and data on the specific scenario that you're referring to, but I want to make sure that if we have certain barriers that are in place that we look at individual student success in applying that academic eligibility policy. So this is very specifically not about an individual student. This is about a policy, right? Currently the policy is when a student comes back from a very severe medical situation, so much so that they were unable to continue their typical academic schooling and they were on a home and hospital teaching, right? When they returned to school, their academic record from that time that they were out is still judged against, you know, the H-H-T standards, but they are still run through like an academic eligibility screening at that point, which, you know, as we were noting in the last session that we taught, and you weren't here for this, but we were noting in a recent committee session kind of defies common sense, Right? If that student returns from this medical episode and their grades are not great, it would make sense to attribute that to the medical situation that they have been in. Right? They've been in the hospital, they've been, etc. Right? As opposed to, you know, let's, let's say, as opposed to that they were slacking, right? So, or that they need some additional encouragement in the form of these academic eligibility standards. But that's not the policy currently. There's nothing at the state level that precludes us, that precludes NCPS from updating the policy to say that when students return from H-HT, they are exempt from those academic eligibility requirements in the same way that an incoming freshman would be, you know, give the must semester or a couple of semesters or whatever makes sense to the board and to you all to then, you know, demonstrate that they're able to bring themselves back up to where they want to be and where where they need to be. Councilmember MacMask, a clarifying question? Kind of run a scenario by you in this case. So yes, you're correct, right? So when a student is on home in hospital, the grades that they get are part of their academic record. They count, they go into their cumulative GPA, 100%. And that absolutely would need to continue. There's no way around that academically. But I think what I'm hearing you ask is, so let's say a student ends first marking period. They have a 3.3 GPA. Something occurs a week or two into the second marking period. They're on home in hospital. They're coming back towards in February, and they want to play a spring sport, right? So in that second marking period if they had gone from like a 3.3 to like whatever a 1.7 And again, I'm trying to to try to restate the so we could look at the specifics So then are you saying something long lines that we would need to look at it would be good if we looked at that 3.3 three that the student had the last time they were fully present in school as the GPA threshold. Am I? Sure. That seems like one option. Okay. Essentially what I'd be looking for is a way to ensure that their academic performance during the time that they're on age H.T. is not a barrier to them returning to extracurriculars or starting extracurriculars when they return because those students, you know, more than many others probably. They have just been through a very traumatic and difficult time. And the last thing that they need is to come back and say, hey, while you were fighting leukemia, your grades are also going down and now you can't be back on your team. And that is what's happening right now with students, including students who have had very severe medical problems. That is happening right now. And you know, Mr. Sullivan, I think you're aware of one particular case you went back and forth quite a bit on that. So I really think that rather than, and it's not even a straightforward path for parents to try to have the where we're held to do so, to try to figure out how to make the appeals at the various levels, which takes so long that they never get a final answer until the season's already over anyway. So I think it's really important that I'm going to ask again for this policy to be changed so that students just don't have to worry about this. When they come back, they should to just be to start fresh, or I think the idea of looking back a semester, if you have that record depending on the age, would be good. But I think if you're able to say that an incoming freshman is eligible, you should be able to say that an incoming student from HHT is eligible, and there's nothing in the state code that precludes us from being able to do that. In fact, other jurisdictions have their own various forms of waivers. I did also, if I may, just wanted to share while we're speaking through the lens of athletic, or non-ethnic extracurricular activities do not have a GPA requirement for participation. And that's to allow for our students to engage in programming at the school base level and any area of their interest. With the exception of maybe an honor society that might have some particular standards for participation. So aside from that, the non-ethnic extracurriculars are not held to the same standard. Yeah, and can we just, I just, if I may, Councilor McMake, I just, can we get it? Who's the person that needs to make the, is the superintendent, I just, it seems like to me it sounds like a straightforward question like we could just say yes or I'll get back to you or I need to run it up the chain or like who makes that decision Who's the person that needs to make the, is it the super into, it seems like a fair, to me it sounds like a straightforward question Like we could just say yes or I'll get back to you or I need to run it up the chain or like who makes that decision? Because if you can change the eligibility for All ninth graders, you seem to you could say if you're coming off with a severe medical you could just do it So it's a board thing. Okay, so we have a board we have two board members watching at least I'm going to ask that we formally communicate to the board that this request has been brought up and made and it seems pretty straightforward to me. So, in fact, do you have councilmember? Right, I appreciate that. And I've not talked to any board members who have seemed to be opposed to this change. So I appreciate if we could, yes, move this along. Okay, shifting gears. So I love the data that we have here. It is so useful. It's useful as we are able to, and as a community is able to see how you're making decisions. It's useful for encouraging expansions of programming and expanding access to programming. It's useful for budget considerations, all of those things. And so I would love to see this strategy, this data analysis strategy, expanded to cover more causes of absenteeism and also more strategies for mitigating those causes. So we focused a lot on engagement and on climate, which is huge and connection, huge, obviously, really And athletics and extracurriculars being one of the sort of justice, being ways to impact that. What about suspensions, for example, that's another cause of absentees and would love to see us talking about that in a similar way, within this conversation, but yeah, please. So appreciate that mentioned that suspensions do count towards chronic absenteeism. And that's really important to note because it really reinforces the importance of, again, it's the cycle that those not connected to school are more likely to be suspended and then those who are suspended are more likely to be chronically absent. So again, you've got this vicious circle that's happening. One great thing about MCPS is while we still have a lot of work to do in reducing the gaps in disproportionality within suspension, MCPS has come a long way in reducing overall suspensions in general. So we do along with Garrett County maintain the lowest suspension rates in the state by far. Only about 1.4% of our students are suspended, 1.4% in every 100. Again, national rates are about five, and then you have other states, North Carolina, it comes to mind that are a lot higher. And so we're really proud of those numbers, but in order to maintain those numbers, we have to work on continuing to make sure our kids are safe, continuing to make sure that expectations are reinforced, continuing to make sure that our policies and practices, more than policies, around the approaches that we take with students are in place. So again, connected, we feel like we talk about this topic quite often embedded in other topics, embedded in safety, embedded in well-being, embedded in attendance. But I do thank you for highlighting it because suspensions do account for part of our chronic absenteeism. Again, not as much as they used to. We're coming from the years of 9,000 to about 3,000 suspensions now. And I don't know how it gets any lower to be honest with you. The work is in the disproportionality, not so much the overall number. But those are important conversations for school admin teams as they work on that school improvement plan. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah go ahead. I just wanted to say to give to give Sean a K. Dr. Mr. Rambe, like to add to her the work that she has done. And I can't pull it up right now, but we can have a whole session just on that. Yeah, we absolutely. It's on suspension. We do run weekly reports on chronic absenteeism and suspensions by school and share those with the chief of schools, the associates and the school supervisory directors and we highlight schools where we've seen a direct jump and then they work with our team to go into the school. And in those reports, I love that you brought this up. We have, I'm not sure that we have this past Friday, but we look at the total number of suspensions and look at the days and then let them know. This is how many, wow, impact, stronic absenteeism, right? If you have a school that's gone from 30 suspensions to 90 in one year and you had the total number of days that were suspending students go from whatever, 45 to 130, right? You're shooting yourself in the foot. The suspensions don't work as a means to changing student behavior. I mean, there's a litany of research on that. And you're also continuing, as Sean O'Kee said, to dis-further disengage the student from school environment. So we do run those numbers. I don't know that we run them in such a way that the correlation can be done kind of in real time for action. But I appreciate you bringing it up. It is something that Sean O'Kee's team monitors. Yeah, and certainly, I didn't mean to throw any doubt on that you are running those numbers. I did want to highlight that you're doing that work and we're seeing progress and that that's an important part of this conversation. Because then as we look at where we want to expand programming, the programming that we do that has reduced those, and the policy and practice strategies that do reduce those suspensions, it's important that we do that has reduced those, and the policy and practice strategies that do reduce those suspensions, it's important that we lift those up and give credit there as well because we are making decisions about expansion, about funding, all of those things. And then the one kind of last variable that I would ask would be, that we make sure that we include when we talk about absenteeism as another cause would be health illness. And so that's highlighted in the packet that's attached at the end of our packet, the really long booklet from Future Ed as one of the major issues there as well. We've mentioned COVID a lot and it's not a lot of talk about it, but I will just say that there is very good compelling mountains and mountains of evidence that once you get COVID and the more times you have COVID, it impacts your immune system. And so that's one that we can expect kids to be getting sick more often. NCPS has taken strides to improve air quality, it's continuing to do that. And I think that is part of this project as well. There are also buildings that are older than other buildings. There are air quality issues that are more prevalent in some buildings than others. And then there are also, and this was alluded to, I think with the reference to apartment complexes, there are complexes outside the building with far, far worse infrastructure, mold issues, really old appliances, stovies that are causing, that we're hearing from families that there are patterns of severe health problems parents having to keep their kids home from school in large large numbers, like having whole meetings with community members, being like, I keep having to keep my kid home from school because they're sick, because the building infrastructure here is bad. And so it would be great if we can be looking at the data of illness-related absences so that we can help to drill down is there a school infrastructure thing that we can do? Do we need to be looking at housing complexes and we can use that data to push them? Are there correlations that we can draw around access to health and wellness services? If this is a school that doesn't have a full wellness center, do we need to do more in terms of helping those families get to the neighboring elementary school that does have one, you know, things like that. And so is that something that you are looking at? I do not believe that we are looking at say either frankly medical illness or a something and related to mental health over long-term, like, no, the answer is no, but I think it would be worth looking at the number of students who have been out for three consecutive days or more due to a documented physical or mental health reason and seeing what that that looks like and tracking that by school. We certainly could, we just have not thus far. I don't far. Mr. Nathaphy. Okay, yeah. It would be if we could get some of that data, that seems wow. I had something really weird to happen on the screen for me. Okay. If we could get that data, that would be great. It seems like a really important piece of the story here. Three or more days, certainly. But even if you have a kid who's missing a day or here every once in a while, this is that is a pattern that we're seeing. And I guess I won't name specific apartment conferences, but I have three of them, where it's like, these kids are having respiratory issues. And And it's like they have a day or two here and a day or two there and it piles up. And so I would include those as well. So the other thing, just because, so there's another way to cut that data, right? So if we were to collaborate with you or specific schools and look at zip codes, right? Yeah, addresses. We could literally pull data for all the students that live within a certain zip code, within a certain address, if it's building somewhere, and look at it that way over time. Yeah, that would be great. I I would love, as noted, I have particular interest in a few of those, but I think that this would be really useful data to include. And so I would just suggest that as a matter of course, that this becomes part of it as well. A lot of these absences out there just realistically are due to illness or sickness of some kind, whether it's a long term or just a day or two they're dealing with lice or whatever the case may be, but like you don't need to get, we don't need to be looking at those numbers and including them in terms of a lot of the type of infrastructure that we were talking about today. Those aren't kids who need another extracurricular, those are kids who need other interventions entirely. So I would just suggest that that kind of becomes part of the body of work. Oh and this is I'm just going to also double check that the extracurricular work is being done in collaboration with the Out of School Time office. And if not, then would suggest that. So it currently is not. This is again, foundational work that we're just initiated these past two years. So it has not expanded to out of school time. We have really just been getting a scope of understanding of what our programs are for the MCPS lens directly. Okay, great. Well, MCPS is out of school time office is pretty much brand new also so this is the perfect time you know they may be able to take guidance from you all and then the data that you're pulling to think about where to prioritize different schools that they're bringing in new programs and that sort of thing so that's great you're doing wonderful work appreciate it. Thank you guys remember Mick yes I agree like this is exciting we it's nice to see progress from our last time where we talked about. And just to really bring us back to 30,000 feet, we're talking about attendance because it's a main driver of academic success, of student well-being, of participation and connectedness, all these things. So we are systematically trying to go through these markers that are most important for our students to do well. And this is obviously a big one. And progress has been made, which is really, really good. And we've covered a lot. I did just want to mention it was kind of mentioned before our guidance from MCPS around the immigration work has been some of the best in the country. And I'm assuming, but I'll ask that the student will be team. To the extent that we are in finding out that, when the PPW or the teacher calls or that we're getting that, we are kind of reinforcing our with using that information and talking about how safe that, how we're not going along with any of this craziness. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Steve could speak to further details, but schools are having community events, right? In this fashion, all of the materials that we have produced and our team did collaborate with the Equity and Strategic Initiative team to develop that work. You all know Margaret Abortquez and the Office of International Emissions and Enrollment. This was an all hands on deck effort to get those resources and that package together. And as well as with our community partners, especially at the elementary schools and the community schools as well. So yeah, these materials are wide. And to your point, I believe that there's a litany of very good information that we are sharing. In terms of the specificity around the student wellbeing teams, when we do that root cause analysis, and if we find that is indeed the case, then the PPPW would reach out individually to that family, and with whom they have a good connection. And the other group of people that I want to include in this are the parent community coordinators, right? Because that is a team that speaks all, every single official language in the school system is accounted for on that team. And we leverage their expertise as well. Appreciate that, yes, Mr. Chair. If I could just also mention, I know he's also in the audience. Our student member, the board, Mr. Savarna, has also been a staple in the community, making sure to connect student to student to share that voice and to share that perspective on behalf of the board and certainly of MCPS. In these past two days, we've had general assemblies with students from across all of our middle schools and high schools and that message, he's sent directly to those students. And so I appreciate him in his messaging and certainly representing that student to student perspective. Last thing I'll mention and then we'll wrap up going forward and if you have this today great but if not you can follow up. I'd like us to focus in on capacity in all of these areas. We didn't talk much about, you know, okay, there's 30,000 or 42,000 chronically absent in 22, 23. Our baseline pre-pandemic was around, you know, 19, something percent. Now we're up in the 27. So we're high and it's, and it's, that gap is closing, which we, in this case, is a thing, because it's going higher, year over year. So, but what does that mean? And all those people I'd asked you earlier, Mr. Neff, about the teachers, the, and you just mentioned the people, the P.P.W.s, PCC's. You know, I've been on the receiving end of a call. We had a, one of my kids was sick and then I had some school visits and it was a comedy, so you can get to that 10% number pretty quick. And I was pleased that someone called, one of the PCC's called me. One of my kids was sick and then had some school visits and it was a comedy so you can get to that 10% number pretty quick And I was pleased that someone called one of the PCC's called me And and asked it was everything okay, and I explained the situation and I'm assuming I got checked off some list and And so I was happy that it's happening But I would be curious to know what is those rosters look like? How we asked our we ask our teachers and staff to do a lot. What is the capacity of, and given the numbers rising 42,000 students, and I'm sure it varies by school, by cluster even. I think that information is just as important as what we're doing, because if we don't have capacity, the right training, the right interventions, and enough people to do it and time to do it, it's not gonna work. So I would just maybe you can come back to us in some way to get a sense of, I'm thinking the PCC's, or I don't know, maybe it's the SWA, I don't know what's the best way to quantify that, But do you get the question I'm asking of like, are we able to get to everybody and how often? And... making the PCC's or I don't know, maybe it's the swap. I don't know what's the best way to quantify that, but do you get the question I'm asking of like, are we able to get to everybody and how often? And you know, so the P.B.W.s, the PCC's, the social workers, all these teams do keep data logs, right, on who they're serving, the problem that they're serving them around, right, the interventions that they're doing and the success of that. We also have that, we have that by school and our student-welfening team data. I think, but like, I'm going to be honest with you, right? So at a high school specifically, it's a little bit easier at an elementary school because it's just the smaller number of students, right? But if you're looking at a high school and you're looking at, oh, I don't know, let's just say 40 kids or 50 kids at a grade level, right? And sometimes we instruct our folks who say, we don't have the capacity, right? How are we supposed to track all these kids down? We can't make all these home visits. I've got one P.B.W. that I share with the school, one PCC, so and so forth. The truth is, we are oftentimes, we're looking at the kids on the cusp, right? We're looking at the kids who are just over being chronically absent, or those that are inching towards. And when we aren't getting a response from a parent, and when we continue to knock on that door, or call that parent or reach out to that student at some point and with the state of Maryland if you're absent 10 days consecutively The state of Maryland is requiring us to remove them from from the roles So that is a piece that we're putting into place. So I'm gonna be straight with you We don't have the capacity to get every single student in this district who is chronically absent the same level of direct service. So we have to triangulate our services to try to be impactful. A couple things I'll say related to that. One is our capacity is built through our collaboration. So five staff members working in isolation have far less capacity than five staff members who are working together with each other. And then as Mr. Mott said, if given the volume of chronically absent students we have, it doesn't make sense from any standpoint to try to individually work with each and every one of them. So that's where we look at our data more at the aggregate and say, wow, so our kindergarten, Hispanic students, are not coming at the same rate as all of our other students. How are we going to support that community? So a lot of it is in the tier two interventions that we do in a larger group so that there are fewer families who need that really intense individual root cause. Okay. I appreciate the answer. I understand it. I don't know if I'm satisfied with it, but I understand it. Okay. This is great. Thank you for all the work that you're doing and really appreciate it. With that, we are adjourned.