GRADUATION TASK FORCE MEETING MINUTES Wednesday, May 28, 2014 10:00 AM – 1 PM Education Building 301 N. Wilmington Street Raleigh, NC 27601 Conference Room 504 Attendees: DPI Staff: Steve Brechbiel, Quintiles Julien AlHour Dorothy Crowe, NC Commission on Indian Affairs Faye Brown Eric Hall, CISNC Helena Coston John Hayes, FTPC Cynthia Floyd Ogletree Richardson, Chief, Haliwai-­‐Saponi Indian Tribe Rhonda Layman Rosemary Stein, International Family Clinic Mike McLaughlin Randy Williams, Elon University Nadja Trez Tina Wilson, IBM Debora William Marco Zarate, NC Society of Hispanic Professionals Purpose: The purpose of the Superintendent’s Task Force Meeting is to discuss, review and recommend practice, policy and legislation to increase the number of students obtaining a high school diploma in North Carolina. Agenda Topic 1 -­‐ Changing the Picture for North Carolina’s Youth – Presentation by: Eric Hall, CEO/President Communities in Schools of North Carolina http://www.cisnc.org/documents/CISNC-­‐DataBrief_Feb24_20142-­‐1.pdf Discussion: Through established partnerships CISNC has an open window of resources for at-­‐risk students. Partnerships with Superintendents and school administrators are needed as a point of contact to get services going in the districts throughout NC. There are currently 441 sites in 40 counties throughout NC. The positive effect of CIS programs across the board has improved student attendance and by design both mitigate and creates some roadblocks that discourage negative trends. CISNC Student Support Specialists provide direct and hands on experiences with at risk populations. Community Support Program is designed to serve our local communities with 90% of the population being general population of students (level 1) and the remaining 10% being those to be most at risk of dropping out of school (level 2). Although CISNC has had a history of looking at data, the organization decided for the first time to enlist the support of an outside entity, RTI International (RTI International: About RTI), to both collect and review data from the affiliate level. The “Changing the Picture for North Carolina’s Youth” data brief provides of summary of the findings. Question 1 – What about Tier 1 counties? Graduation Task Force Meeting Minutes May 29, 2014 1 GRADUATION TASK FORCE MEETING MINUTES Answer: CSNC is not currently functioning or “in” Warren or Halifax counties, however, the goal is to offer programs in northeastern NC counties within the next 45 days. Question 2 – Where does initial funding come from? Answer: Local programs often are funded by local education agencies, city/county/state governments, and foundations. Increases in government funding evidences support of a good investment. According to RTI findings, CIS programs are making an impact. Question 3 -­‐ What are the problems northeastern counties? Answer: Sustainability. Question 4 – Knowing that the lack of modern technological supports is an issue in these counties, what can be done? Answer: IBM has information about several social media nonprofit grants to build knowledge base of the teachers so that they can get better at utilizing technology as a positive tool, if obtained. Question 5 – So who are you serving right now? Answer: Most urban communities in NC, Charlotte, Durham and Wake counties. There are local affiliates in 44 counties in North Carolina. Most students served qualify for receive free or reduced lunch. Comment: CISNC is not a behavioral modification program, but when you are fixing other socio-­‐
economic and life altering and related factors, it can become corrective to those behaviors that were a direct result of those unresolved circumstances and situations. This factor contributes to success in schools. Question 6 – What is your approach? Answer: Our approach is the level 1 approach; this allows us to build relationships at the site level (schools). Question 7 – What is your timeline? Answer: Through direct services the turnaround was fairly quick resulting in 30 students per Student Support Specialist caseload within a two month time period. Question 8 – Is your data comparative? Answer: State Level Data (improving fidelity) is comparative data, (refer to data brief handout). Comment: This program is having a positive impact on the community, as evidenced by a group of 100 alumni who formed a support group in one of the counties served. They are also starting a pilot at the community college. NC DPI INFORMING THE WORK Nadja Trez, ESL Consultant Nadja started with an explanation of current terminology used in the data collected and her work with Limited English Proficient (LEP) or the English Learner. Graduation Task Force Meeting Minutes May 29, 2014 2 GRADUATION TASK FORCE MEETING MINUTES Each October, the number of LEP is counted to calculate the allocation of state and federal program funds to local education agencies. The most recent count determined there are approximately 100,000 Limited English Learners throughout the state of North Carolina. The WIDA-­‐ACCESS Placement Test (WAPT) is used to determine whether or not an individual falls into the LEP category. As students progress in learning English, they exit LEP status and the number of students classified as English Learners decreases. There are currently 301 languages spoken across the state of North Carolina. Our state ranks sixth in language diversity. Listed below are the top 5 languages spoken in the state of NC. Language Current Speakers Spanish 85,572 Arabic 1,911 Vietnamese 1,406 Chinese 1,403 Hmong 1,201 North Carolina’s 2012-­‐2013 4-­‐year cohort graduation rate is 82.5. Increases in the number of African American and Hispanic graduates attributes to improvements to this percentile. Each state calculates the graduation rate; currently NC does not consider exiting LEP rates in the graduation rate. Efforts are underway to reconfigure the process for calculating graduation rate so as to include LEP students. Unfortunately NCDPI will not be able to implement plan changes for inclusion of LEP (currently 57.2%) students in the calculation of graduation rates for the 2013-­‐2014 academic year. There should be two numbers considered in this calculation, measuring the beginning of the year and recalculation following graduation. Question 1 – Where is this data included? Answers: The PowerPoint will be shared with GTF members. Comment: The ideal approach to impact this population would be for all teachers to be able to provide English Language services. That in itself presents a challenge because it would require all teachers to take an additional 30 hours of training depending on how much service the individual teacher would provide. Rhonda Layman – Exceptional Children Consultant How these students are currently factored into the graduation rate, makes up on 1% of the population. There are currently 13 disability categories and all of them are calculated when giving the overall rate. Learning disabilities affect 60% of all North Carolina Students. Though this population would take regular EOG’s it does not count against their final grade. Question 1 – Can NCDPI quantify the level of grade work for these kids? Graduation Task Force Meeting Minutes May 29, 2014 3 GRADUATION TASK FORCE MEETING MINUTES Answer: That information or data is on the NCDPI website and Debora Williams will send the link to that information to all board members. NCDPI is now trying to get research based programs to monitor report and improve graduation success. Bill Hussey pulled out severe cases and rates were as follows: 31% of EC student graduates went on to higher education 57% to Supported Employment 63% to Regular employability Reading was a huge factor in this circumstance. END RHONDA LAYMAN PRESENTATION NCDPI Staff Presentations III W/ Updates: Cynthia Floyd – K-­‐12 Curriculum and Instruction – Informing the Work More education, greater earning and less unemployment and decreasing the incarceration rate are the goal. When forecasting the number of prisons deemed necessary futuristically speaking, it’s alarming that those responsible for doing that work look at 3 grade attendance rates to make those calculations Transportation has become a factor and now common trend driving poor graduation rates; with its major impact in the rural counties. Some of the commons supports are: Community Involvement Early Intervention Teaching of Life Skills/Character Education Safe Caring School Environment Supportive Caring Schools Region, relevance and relationship are important we have to address barrios and strength the whole child; supports must be in place. END CYNTHIA FLOYD PRESENTATION NCDPI Staff Presentations III W/ Updates: Rob Hines – Director, LEA Projects – Informing the Work Graduation Task Force Meeting Minutes May 29, 2014 4 GRADUATION TASK FORCE MEETING MINUTES Change Mechanism requested that can change how we define dropouts in NC this proposal cha be reviewed on the SBE website policy manual GCSQ0000. Under this newly proposed mechanism any student who goes from High School to and Adult program for a high school education will be counted as a transfer and not a dropout. They recruit those children that drop out in time to get them into this alternative program. There are mechanisms in place that show that the student is showing up in the adult program. Recommendation -­‐ turned into requirement. The Problems – Wait times which vary by community college, a student can be out anywhere from 3-­‐6 months because they are waiting to enter the adult program. Most of these programs utilize federal funds and depending on the guidelines for each individual program the wait times can vary. With the new change while they are in transition they will be considered transfer students and not drop outs. Haywood County High School being used as a probable model to this change initiated this process having had a relationship with the local community college they were able to utilize federal funds to pay the instructors but the candidates (students) graduate from the facility yet still be under there prospective school districts. The facility made attendance doable by offering varied program hours for student attendance. Designed entirely as recovery program, they would find kids that had dropped out previously and bring them in. Having established a relationship with the local community college these recruits did not have to experience the 3-­‐6 month waiting periods and once agreeing to the terms of the program (with only one warning only before being terminated from the program and considered a dropout) would resume completing the high school education. This resulted in 400 students in Haywood County graduating in a six year time period. Following the success of this program in Haywood County, county officials wanted recognition for this accomplishment and brought these results to officials at the state level so that the title of Transfer instead of drop out could become a requirement. Adult high school programs are in partnership with the school district. There district must follow-­‐up with the child throughout the entire time and process in this transition. The SBE is now being encouraged to adopt what Haywood County has been able to accomplish. Comment from Task Force Members: We need someone from the district to talk about this: Transfer Ø Student comes out of your denomination so dropout rate goes down. Dropout The concerns relating to this new process, what happens if relationships with the community college change? In Haywood County where they had a prior relationship with the President of the community college and that relationship closed the gap and help make that effort a success because the children coming into the program did not experience wait times. The community college now has a new president who is not concerned about the prior agreement it is not his priority and this has presented a challenge to success of the program. Graduation Task Force Meeting Minutes May 29, 2014 5 GRADUATION TASK FORCE MEETING MINUTES Action Item #1 – Task Force members are encouraged to send their ideas via email to Debora Williams or Rob Hines related to this new change, while changes to the policy are being considered, so that they can be reviewed. Question 1 – Can Scott join us in an upcoming meeting to address this issue? Answer: Debora Williams will see what can be arranged. END ROB HINES PRESENTATION Small Group Session – Discussed: Goal: Determine what broad areas you would like to address as a task force for 2014/2015. What should be the scope of work of the task force going forward? Group Two (2) -­‐ Good idea implemented across the board – the ideas share focused on the idea behind read to achieve, third grade is too late. It was expressed that inconsistencies with this idea are causing labels, etc. We feel that they need to get back to phonics which will bring back the ability to sound works out. We would like to know when reading and comprehension started slipping and showing this downward spiral. Point made: lack of focus on both reading and writing combined can be attributed to the lack of reading comprehension. English Language Learners (ELL) is the lowest subgroup having the lowest success rate. Question 1 – Is a study or review needed to have something to present to the legislature? Answer: Yes, there is some research needing to be done on the success of those knowing English, parent/child and those that do not. NC is the only English Only Testing State; other states give the test in Spanish. This could be an issue as well (task force was not aware of this fact until Nadja shared). Task force suggestions for comprehensive update of K-­‐3 Literacy Group one’s response to group two – k-­‐2 reading support could be the better idea. Question 2 – Can we get Carolyn Guthrie to attend a future task force meeting so that she can help the task force understand K-­‐3 progress and challenges? Answer: Yes, she can be invited to speak to this task force at a future meeting. Action Item #2: Create a survey and rank action items to go before the legislature next year, seeing as how this year it is too late; keep in mind that it must go through the SBE. Group One (1) Broaden what CIS is doing; Device Management Technology grades 6-­‐12. This is problematic; it needs to be brought down to K-­‐5 grade levels as well in spite of the assumption that they may be too young for that level of exposure. Graduation Task Force Meeting Minutes May 29, 2014 6 GRADUATION TASK FORCE MEETING MINUTES There needs to be inclusion of all counties when considering the problems that need to be address Action Item #3 -­‐ The need for blending of meetings; Debora Williams and Tina Wilson will work at getting task force members and regional round table meeting. Action Item #4 – Task Force Members would like contact information for all members, Debora Williams will post this information on June’s website, all member were fine with this option. Future Task Force Meetings: Would members like for these meetings to be in person or virtual going forward? All team members replied that it should be both in person and virtual going forward. Graduation Task Force Meeting Minutes May 29, 2014 7