Emporia board reviews first reading of 9–12 math action plan; discussion focuses on teacher training, staffing and data tracking

Dr. Ryan Kargilow, presenting for district administration, gave a first reading of a draft 9–12 math action plan and described it as a framework to "support the teachers with their integration of the other resource." The plan focuses on vertical alignment between middle and high school, teacher professional development, classroom monitoring and data collection tied to specified success measures.

The plan centers on a new curriculum-alignment artifact the district purchased from KSTE and on district access to IXL (provided through the KSTE materials). Kargilow said the alignment spreadsheet lets teachers mark standards as taught, needing work, or taught well and includes references to locations in the adopted resources. "The nice thing about this document is what it allowed us to do is it allowed us to improve our vertical alignment conversations between the middle school and the high school," he said.

Board members pressed administrators on implementation details. "What, if any, additional training or support will be provided to teachers to help them reach the goals in the plan?" Board member Jamie asked. Kargilow described three training options he had discussed with the HMH representative: a planning hour plus up to six coaching sessions tailored to district needs; a series targeted at new teachers; and optional on-site coaching sessions (the latter noted as relatively expensive).

Board members also raised classroom monitoring and staffing. Jamie said weekly principal walk-throughs are important; Kargilow said weekly visits were included as a placeholder and that administrators (including Mr. Fisher and Ms. Leeds) would develop a rotation and an artifact documenting the monitoring schedule. When asked whether algebra 2 labs had been removed, Kargilow confirmed the district had eliminated those labs "because of staffing." Dr. Erica Mickelson, who addressed district vacancies, said the administration is "trying to actively, just see creatively what we can do," including buying back planning time and other stopgap measures; she added the district has a fallback plan but would prefer to hire full-time teachers.

Kargilow described planned data collection: teacher and student usage reports from IXL (sessions, skills mastered), walk-through evidence recorded with a modified observation tool, weekly grade exports for student-level tracking and use of HMH diagnostic assessments as appropriate. He said the district expects usage to vary across the year and that quarterly reports to the board will evolve after initial feedback.

Clarifying details included: the algebra alignment spreadsheet was purchased in 2020–21 and launched in 2022–23; IXL is provided to the district at no cost via the KSTE package and is intended primarily for Tier 2/3 intervention rather than core instruction; the district intends to form a secondary implementation team (Kargilow, Mr. Fisher, Ms. Leeds and math teachers) to determine the weekly metrics and reporting artifacts; and the algebra 2 lab was removed this year because of staffing shortages (the high school currently has one FTE math teacher in a cited position).

This item was presented as a first reading; no vote was taken. Administrators said they will return with refined monitoring proposals, PD sign-ups and sample weekly/quarterly metrics for board review at a later meeting.

The presentation included demonstration artifacts and a timeline for PD, monitoring, data-talks and quarterly reporting; administrators described the plan as a living draft that may be adjusted after board feedback and additional teacher input.