Okay. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to uh school committee uh subcommittee curriculum subcommittee part two. So we did part one on Monday. We heard from five schools. We're looking at school improvement plans and we have another five tonight. Um I know it's going to
feel rushed. It's just kind of how we do it. Um so we can ask one or two questions, but we're not going to ask a lot. Doesn't mean we're not really interested. It just means in this format we don't have a lot of a lot of extra time. So um I think we're going to start with Lawrence and thank you so much. It
was nice to see you all. Um I'm excited to share about the progress. This is um we're moving into year two of our school improvement plan. So I will gloss over some of the goals. Those of you that were on school committee last year heard heard me present about that. And so I
actually decided to focus more on those adjustments that we're making in terms of what I'll share today. Um, and also where we are in some of the progress in terms of the data, what the data is showing us and how that makes us sort of change our pathways or make adjustments.
Um, I'd like to give a shout out as my colleagues did for our amazing school council. I have a great school council over at Lawrence. So we are entering our second year together. And in addition to amazing thoughtful caregivers who help me keep track of all of our data and
keep me task oriented and making sure I bring that data to them at our meetings. I also have a diver diverse group of teachers. Jill Dempsey is a literacy specialist K3 Charles By is our sometimes seventh and always eighth grade math teacher and Kirsten Alber is
our educational um technology specialist. So a nice diverse of educators that work and collaborate with all of us. >> Like my colleagues, I put the school improvement plan here. The one on the website is last year. So what I have done and you will see if you happen to
look through the entire document is I right now it's in red the revisions. Um and so I will change that before I put it on the website. But for your knowledge and for our sake as I share it with the educators, the places where I've made adjustments are in red right
now. Okay. So in terms of budgetary impact, I think you know each of our schools is so unique and different in Brooklyn and one of the things I like to highlight which I do think is a budgetary impact is talking about our English learners. So
at Lawrence we are the um highest percentage of L's in the district. We are close to 20%, we hover around that number. Some years a little higher, this year a little below, but we are very close to 20% of our students as English learners. And that really does drive a
lot of our conversations. As you know, last year um we had put in our budget initially to have a fifth um e teacher and it was cut through the process. I will say that, you know, we have similar needs in terms of service delivery
minutes by the state, you know, in terms of an IEP versus our English learner service delivery minutes. So, 45 for a transitional EL and 90 minutes a day for a foundational L. So, when you take those service delivery minutes with our
average special education student, it's about the same. However, our case loads for our L teachers are easily three times what our special education teachers are. So, that to me is a budget driver for Lawrence in an area that I'd like to bring to light. We are close to
40% of our students as first language, not English. So, we have an amazingly diverse community, which is at the heart of and joy of our building for sure, the languages that are spoken there. Um, but it really does tie into the work that we're doing with MTSS and thinking about
especially a new literacy curriculum and how we make sure all of our students are solid in their reading and writing in English. That is certainly a driver. Also, as we are rolling out MTSS, and this is one of the things I'd like to highlight both with special education
and EL, we are exploring and working on some co-eing opportunities to really benefit from the opportunities for our English learner educators who with their expertise are special educators to collaborate and co-e literacy and mathematics. Um, in terms of special ed,
but in terms of literacy, our EL teachers as well. And so um those are budget drivers for sure. The other area in terms of budget drive is we are really looking at developing this MTSS model and that requires us to really think strategically about both
interventions and enrichment. And when we get to Matt I'll talk more about the enrichment side of it. But in order to do that we need to be exploring and piloting different opportunities that comes with my money needs. So those are sort of the budgetary implications I
would say of the SIP that I'm putting before you today. So our first goal like last year is still around improved achievement and growth for literacy. And so we have increasing numbers of assessments available to us that we are
looking at for students. I like to think about both achievement and growth. I think those are important and the measures that we use give us that ability to do so. Um, so as I go through this, you'll see I like to focus on the idea of us trying to reach that goal of
85% of our students meeting or exceeding. That's a great benchmark to set for ourselves. It's a lofty one, but one that I'd like to see us achieve. And so that is my ultimate goal both for math and for ELA literacy that us that
we are able to reach that 85% of our students meeting or exceeding the standards. Um, and then in terms of growth, we're really looking the average growth would be a 40 to 60 band. So, I would like us to see us in that range.
In both my math and ELA literacy goals, you'll see that I talk about disproportionality. So, we really have to push that growth for our under um repres under underrepresented populations that are not performing where we want them to be in order to
close those gaps. So you will see that as you look through those goals. So as I said the goals themselves have stayed the same. It's sort of our um strategic objectives where we're going our initiatives and this next second year of
this work for these first two goals. So I'm not going to go through these goals too much. Again for those of you that were on last year these are the same. But you will see that we are looking at the measures and I have the different assessments the common assessments that we use. So K3 looking at MCL class
that's the dibbles to look at foundational literacy skills and then we have our star and our MCCAST of course for the older students that we are looking at. Now why we need data because data helps us drive decision- making with limited resources. It also helps us
make decision both for our struggling students for our students who are typical how are they progressing and also for our students who are at the other end of the spectrum. What do we do? how can we adjust and expand and enrich their experience as well that's very important you know when you look at
our data in a minute okay so I have my goals and as you can see the last goal both for math and literacy again I mentioned this in terms of growth us really pushing those boundaries so if we're saying 40 to 60 is an average band really saying we want to be at least at
55 for our disproportional subgroups black and African-American students Latina um e said. Okay. So, in terms of our work, one of the big focuses for us at Lawrence and across the district, I'm part of the
district MTSS team, is really to roll out a multi-tered system of support. I know you've heard about this. Um, I've shared that these are the key areas of focus as we're rolling this out. When I'm thinking about it from a building principles lens about what do I have to
do, these are the pieces. And so these threads are woven throughout my math goals and my literacy goals. So you will see in terms of aligning a strategic plan with school improvement plan and educator goals, thinking about developing a school-based MTSS team, we
have done that this year. Thinking about strategic scheduling, articulating tier one, that means the instruction all kids get and that is a big theme um of where we're going this next year and have been going. and then thinking about interventions and instruction for tier 2
and three. So, um, all right. So, in terms of our strategic initiatives, a lot of this is a really focused this year on teachers being able to take in fishtake, our new literacy curriculum. You've heard my colleagues talking some about that. That's where a lot of our
work, especially K5 and our middle school ELA teachers right now, is wrapping their heads around a new curriculum. Um, but while that's going on, we still have a responsibility to be examining the data and see what that story is telling us and then how we adjust for the students in front of a
teacher. So, um, in terms of that, what are we working on? Tier one, our strategic initiatives are making sure, and this was started last year, really focusing on with fidelity implementing integrity and foundations. Um, and that also
includes we've built in really strong wind blocks at our school, 45 minutes a day at every single grade level, which is common time. And so that scheduling has been really essential. But then K through eight, that universal fish tank. we are doing that with integrity, making
sure that we're implementing that and that is also weaving in and moving into the next school year. This idea of extending and differentiating opportunities um bringing in choice and voice. We heard that through our middle school review. It's really really
important that we still find ways to embed that in to the literacy experiences for our students. In terms of tier two and three, the other piece that Lawrence is really focused on is we have been and I put some of these examples up here, some of the programs we've been weaving into our tier 2 and
tier three. So these are students who are struggling trying to match the intervention that they need. Is this a decoding problem? Is this a writing problem? Is it a fluency problem? And what level of intervention do we need to give? And that is really what we're working on the heart of our work in
literacy this year. these areas. Okay. So, how are we doing? I mentioned that for Lawrence's story, what makes us unique in my opinion are incredible diversity. So, how are we doing? We did start, as I said, this is year two of
this plan. And so, we um we had already made some shifts to really make sure that our L's were all being exposed to that high quality tier one instruction. We really focused on Hegerty and foundations last year saying we were not going to pull our elves from those
programs last year. So what you can see here is that last year compared to the year before where we were doing a lot more pull out, we actually are seeing pretty significant growth already with this initiative. The one that I would
really like to highlight and you can't see this so well but um certainly you can see from 57% up to 72% of our K3 students in terms of the dibbles K3 it really has been transformative the more we can keep the students getting that quality tier one instruction the bigger
difference it'll make one of the biggest areas it's hard to see in this graph but phmic awareness he is a very short intervention but you can see that went from 9% in the previous year all of the sudden when we were saying kids need to be in there for it. It went up to 42% of our L's making those. So, it's really
tremendous. So, I think this is all great data to show. The top one shows in terms of progressing towards English proficiency. So, very excited about that as well in terms of our our students making progress as L's as we have done
more co-eing and making sure that they're exposed to tier one instruction. Um, we saw great and again I'm not going to go through all of this. This is our overall dibbles data. You saw me say 85%. You can see at the end of last year we actually reached that for our
foundational reading skills day three at Lawrence which is pretty tremendous given 20% of our students are L's plus all of our students with disabilities. So um I think we're on the right track. Feeling very good about that. Our ELA data we had a lot to celebrate as well.
As you can see um we had 84% of our students by 8th grade. We had the fifth highest eighth grade math lea scores in the state which is really tremendous. So a huge highlight there as well. Um I'm going to switch into math but I can see
the time in terms of math. Again the the the overall goals are the same as last year but the we're further along in our adoption. We're year five into using investigations K5 and using um Desmos 6 through 8. And our teachers are really
good at using it. And when you look at our data, which I'll show and highlight, um, we're really at a point where we have to talk about extension and expanding, differentiating, and we've been working on that for two years at Lawrence already. When I came in, it was the first thing the math specialist told me, we want a schedule that includes 60
minutes. We want all our kids in the classroom, and we've already seen that be transformative. And then within that, in the K5 model, making sure we're really utilizing a workshop model to extend and enrich for the need that. and focus on reteing for students who need
that skills work. Um, at 6 through8 it looks a little bit different. Desmos builds a lot of it into the math curriculum and then you have your math discourse, phenomenal math teacher. In terms of our how are we doing, we are seeing tremendous progress. So, we are
the number one math scores in eighth grade. So, our students are getting there and you can see we hit 91% of our students needing and exceeding 10th grade in the state of Massachusetts. So incredibly exciting to see. But just as exciting to me is that trajectory of our
SGPS um three through eight. You can see we hit 65 SGP, which means we're doing phenomenally well at moving all of our students to higher levels. Really exciting given that the last two years is where this work has happened and
we've made some transitions. We are seeing that we are on the right path with those adjustments we've made to how we instructs and it is just as exciting in our subgroups. Again, I talked about disproportionality. It's important to think about this, but you look at this
in terms of our um students. These are SGPS for students um in subgroups. I mentioned we have to push that bar even more. As you can see, our high needs math from last year, our SGP was 63 for those students as well. that
includes elves, special education students, and low-inccome students. So, that to me tells us we are on a good path in terms of math of closing those gaps. All right, the last goal, and I know I'm out of time, is our belonging goal. And
this is one we did have to make some shifts for, so I just want to highlight those. A lot of the work at our middle school level was um collaborating with the office of educational equity. And that work will continue through our um meeting structures in terms of advisory
work 6 through 8. We're continuing that work, but we've had to shift away from that. Um but the other big piece I have my spotted tickets there and Lori the leopard is we do finally have a mascot. And in terms of belonging, overall
student belonging, we had a um competition my first year. The leopard was chosen. You can see it is everywhere on our stuff, but we have spotted tickets. We have adopted over two years of PBIS model and the big focus has been
we want to move this into our middle schools at this time. And so um we are rolling out a principal's advisory council pack, the leopard pack as it will be called and that will be sort of a student council but is going to be
based on students nominated to serve for a third of the year with service being a priority service project a spirit project that we will do and then their opportunity to um counsel us about needs across the school. So I'm very excited
that we are rolling our PBIS has been building to the point where now we're really going to incorporate our middle school into this sense of Milwaukee. So how are we doing? Um there's a lot of great data here. So again, if you look over these last two years, we we've
really moved our numbers in terms of student belonging hitting a much higher level and closer to what we wanted to get to. But even as exciting as our overall data looking at our panoramic data for um some of our subgroups which
again is something that I put in here and it's an area we need to focus on that's super exciting. My last highlights and we do have an attendance goal. This will show you um this is from Desi in terms of our chronic absenteeism and this has been a
huge focus for my um admin clinical team. We talk about this. I know some of my colleagues said that every single week. The nursing team is involved. All of our counselors, our MECO advisor, our steps to success advisor. And so when you look at this and you can see that
the efforts we've made to close the gap and get students to school, you don't feel like you belong if you're not here. And so, um, really, this is probably the data I'm most proud of is kids are coming to school so much more. And when
you look at some of those vulnerable populations, our low income to go from 23% to 12% I think is phenomenal. I'm really excited. That means kids want to come to Lawrence. This is one of those first indicators that belonging is
happening to me. So with that, there are some of our spotted ticket winners saying thank you to you all and thank you enough. Uh any quick comments or questions or anything? Sarah,
>> I love the use that you're making of when you said that kind of quickly. Your win throughout all grades. >> Yes. Well, all the way K through um K through five has one look to it. Sixth grade, we've been very intentional with a a model um that evolved with our
schedule when I came in and me working with teachers. But the win model at sixth grade, we're really excited about how that is looking as well. Seventh and eighth grade, it's very limited. They only have one win a week. So, it's a little bit different um because of they need world language. So, that sort of
takes the place. It's a very important thing. Um but yes, our K through six win, we're really excited and that really is the work of this year, helping teachers figure out how do we use it, but it's protected time. So, if an L needs to be out to get that foundational work or a special education students
needs above and beyond like a Wilson program, they still get all of the core curriculum and then above and beyond during that win time. That wind time for our students who need enrichment can be book clubs, literature circles. We have days that we've worked with the specialists. These are going to be math
focused days. So we could be doing math games or extension math projects while other kids are working in a small group with a teacher to reinforce skills. So that's that's the fundamental purpose of a win. It's protected time but allows intervention. And the obvious hope in a
school like ours where you see those great high math scores is we're enriching our students as well. >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> A+ beautiful focus on all the kids. I love it. I have a question. >> Um that's not really having to do but we
talk about belonging all the time. It's hugely important. Um the kid every kid's every school kid's job is their schoolwork. So my question this is kind again it's a big question how much what's the relationship between kids who
do well at their work at their school and belonging very high and I mean you can see our disproportionality in terms of students who are not feeling safe or secure at school or feel like a member of our community they don't come and then they're missing buses so it's it's
integral to everything we do which is why it's a focus of our meetings every single week it It's challenging. I will say FR and Lawrence in particular have very transient populations. We have 65 new students since September 5th at our
school. So about 15 usually about 15% of our students outside of kindergarten are changing. So how do you bring those students in? So we've made some decisions like we did an international family welcome separate from our new family welcome.
We've done really a lot of focus working with our EL teachers talking about that because you don't speak the language. You come in as a newcomer. How are you going to feel part of this? And this is I mean why I think PBIS is so important and building the sense of belonging and community. So being a leopard be means
something like that's what I want. >> Thanks. >> Yeah. So I'll just say that I so what I one of the things I heard Vanessa is that you you focus on tier one for everybody. You don't pull the students out because they need that and then they
get their additional tier two or three. >> Yes. >> Either during win or some other way. >> Yep. It's tricky. Our days are short. >> Yeah. >> Um and but as I've said when I was hired, I love scheduling and I think that that's one of the most important jobs other than hiring of a building
principal is working with our educators and then troubleshooting. And it's all year long. It's not a oneandone. And I'll be meeting with Joelle and Robin and our literacy specialists and we'll be doing this over and over again. It's not a one-time thing. Scheduling has to be done constantly to evolve with our
needs. >> Okay, thank you very much. We're going to move quickly off. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for having us. >> I think it's next. >> Yes. Hello. Um Betsy, I may need you to share
the presentation if you wouldn't mind. Thank you. >> Sorry. >> She's the principal. >> I don't I'm not sure you know us, Sarah. >> Do you? >> Uh, no. I we have not yet had the pleasure of meeting. So, uh, I apologize I wasn't able to make it in person
today, but I'm excited you and the new principal at Flora Ruffen Ridley School. Uh, and it's a pleasure to be with you all today this afternoon. Thank you for having me. >> Yeah. And this this is quick work for you because you're new. So >> yes, absolutely.
>> Yes. And it's my pleasure to share um the presentation on behalf of uh Florida Ruffen Redley and our school site council. I will just begin with some short framing that um you may be aware that we're in year three of a three-year
cycle which was started by my predecessor Candace Whitmore who's now with us at Pierce School. Um, so we did make some revisions to our school improvement plan for this third year of the three-year cycle um, based on the strategic priorities outlined by the
district in the strategic plan and um, reiterated by our superintendent Bella Wong at the beginning of the year. Um, so before we dive into that, I do like my colleagues want to take a moment, I think it's really critically important for me to acknowledge our phenomenal
school site council members. some of whom I know are watching with me today. Thank you for being here. Um, so for our caregiver representatives, we have Ray Bronner, Sarah Chosner, Aaron Mayor, and Sivan Chimoni. And I'm so grateful for
all of their uh expertise and passion and investment in our school and in this process. In my short tenure so far, I feel like I've learned a wealth of information um from our caregivers, including these folks. And um additionally our teacher representatives
and one of our vice principles new vice principal also joined the school site council. So for teachers we have Daniel Lipton and Yael Neiman Schubert who have both went been with our school for a number of years many many years. Um and again just a wealth of information and
knowledge that they hold uh about our building and about public schools of Brooklyn. They're both incredibly actively involved in our community. It's um really humbling um to learn from them and to get to partner with them every day. So I'm grateful uh for their
participation and active engagement in this process of um formulating the revisions to the plan for this year. Um and also as I mentioned, Mary Galant is uh one of our new vice principles. She's the new vice principal for grades three through five who joined us this year uh
most recently having been a vice principal in the Winchester public schools and prior to that having been an educator and coach in Cambridge public schools. So she brings great experience um to this role and to our school council as well. Thank you Betsy. We can
keep going. All right. Right. So, budgetary impact. Um, a lot of what I heard Vanessa Bolo share just now resonated deeply and is applicable in the context of Florida Reverend Ridley School as well. Um, so I think the the component that she really
zoomed in on was um the work of supporting our English learners um and students with disabilities. As I'm sure you are aware, this is a population that has grown um at our school over the past few years. And I also think it's
important to name in this context that um Flurry Ruff and Ridley being the largest of the K to8 schools in Brooklyn and being a title one school as well um we also actually have um according to Mindy Paulo the largest case loads for
our EL teachers. So our uh school has about um just under 18% of our students are English learners and um we have almost 900 students. I think we are currently up to 873 if I'm not mistaken.
Um and so the case loads for our ELEL teachers are fairly significant. Um we're also very fortunate to have the Hebrew language program and to have multiple EL teachers who are fluent in Hebrew. that's a huge asset for our school and our community and um it's
tricky when they are you know working with the case laws that they have and being de very diligent and dedicated to the work. So that's just a piece that I think is important to highlight in terms of budgetary impacts as we consider our goals and the work that lies ahead. Can
keep going Betsy. Thank you. Um so as some overall framing the large uh strategic objective and goals have not changed from last year and we did that intentionally because again we want to honor the great work
that the school site council um my predecessors in administration and our teachers, our educators have done over the last couple of years and want to carry that forward again with an emphasis on making the strategic shifts um in alignment with our district
priorities. So, our district goal is increasing achievement for all students by establishing, implementing, and regularly assessing a consistent highquality challenging curriculum delivered by evidence-based practices. As you are all well aware, we're in the middle of the first year of full
implementation of fish tank. At FRR, we are doing the full implementation in K to 5, but our middle school ELA teachers have also opted in, all of them have opted in to pilot at the six through eight level. So, we are one of the
schools that's full implementation for K28 um for fish tank. So, our strategic objective focuses on the new literacy curriculum implementation with professional development, datadriven instruction, and monitoring to boost
student achievement. So, again, that's a continuation, but we'll dive into how some of our monitoring has shifted a little bit in the next slide if you can move forward, Betsy. Thank you. Um so this is where we've made some adjustments um as a council and our our
rationale here was you know pretty straightforward because we are focused on implementing fish tank and our school is in full implementation and our data also uh tells us a story that literacy
is really the area that we should be placing our focus. we wanted to zoom in more specifically, more heavily into literacy, but also we wanted to be um precise with what component of literacy we're going to focus in on this year.
Um, as you're all aware, literacy, especially early literacy, has so many components. You're thinking about um, you know, all of the threads in Scarboro's rope. You're thinking about those structured literacy pieces, the phonics, the phmic awareness, the oral
reading fluency. um as well as the language acquisition piece and language development vocabulary all of those pieces. So we took a hard look at our data which I am going to share in a coming slide. Um and we looked at what are the components within literacy
instruction that we need to pay more attention to and and give more focus to. And for our school in particular, it was pretty clear that um reading and comprehending complex grade level text is the place to zoom in. Now, the great
news is that that is exactly what Fish Tank is designed for. Um it's designed and intended to support students in developing their comprehension of complex grade level text. Um so you'll see that that's written into the
strategic initiative. So the first bullet there highlighting that we want our PD this year to focus on reading comprehension specifically that component of literacy instruction using the newly adopted fish pink curriculum. Um and we also made some adjustments to
the goals and benchmarks again to be reflective of the adjustments we made in the strategic initiatives. So for the goals and benchmarks, we were thinking about how do we capture um how we are implementing the new
curriculum and how effective that is. And so in partnership with the site council, we thought about um measuring using some school survey data and really assessing how teachers are feeling, how they are self assessing their own um
comfort and efficacy in using Fish Tank. because we know that when there's a roll out of a new curriculum, there is an adoption curve. There is a learning curve. We have wonderful, wonderful teachers that I'm so grateful to partner with every day. And they are working
really hard and working together and collaborating at unpacking the curriculum and working with folks like Joelle and Kristen Gray at the district level as well and our literacy specialists. And that is phenomenal. And we know it's normal and common that there is going to be a period uh that
learning curve where people are getting adjusted to internalizing this new curriculum. I'm fortunate that in my last two positions, one of them being a principal ship, I was very heavily involved in the adoption of a new curriculum. Um one at the district level
and one at the school level. So I've seen this play out in different contexts already a couple of times over the last six years or so. And um it it really is in year one about learning the new curriculum, internalizing it, and feeling um more and more effective at
being able to instruct using it. Um secondly, again, the the bulk of this strategic initiative remained the same. We want to create opportunities for teachers to collaborate in learning communities focused on both literacy and math so that they can review student
work, share strategies together, learn from each other, and discuss those progress towards goals. Um, so again, we're thinking about how are teachers feeling about their use and their effectiveness with the new curriculum. And you know, one of the school site
council members who's a teacher named I think very appropriately that we want to continue the progress that Ridley School has made in math as well. We don't want to ignore that even though more of our time and effort in professional
development this year will be focused on literacy. It's important not to lose sight of our math achievement. And so we want some of our PLC some of our learning community time to be focused on math instruction as well. And um we will
go into the data as to how math uh student outcomes have improved over the past few years. But we want to ensure that that improvement and that trajectory continues. So, we're thinking about our growth data in particular and maintaining or exceeding that growth
data in grades three through eight as a good barometer of continuing that work in math even while we are more deeply involved in internalizing a new literacy curriculum this year. Um and then finally in terms of literacy again um
and Vanessa Balo spoke to this as well in her presentation. One of our district priorities is the continuing the work of developing district-wide MTSS systems. So we thought that one slice of that that we can um work on at FRR this year
is piloting the use of UFly in some classrooms and intervention spaces to augment students decoding skills. Now we know again that for F FRR we need to focus most on that reading comprehension
piece um but we have seen um some great promise in the use of UFly especially in the intervention spaces thinking about tier 2 um as well as some in tier one and so we want to um follow that data so that we can take that into consideration
in our next version of our school improvement plan. You can keep going Betsy. Thank you. Um so now here is some of our data. Uh this starting with our star reading data. Um I thought it was really interesting. If you look at the
um bar graphs on the left hand side of the screen, you'll see the proportion of red is most significant in that um last bar graph on the bottom. And that is exactly the area that we discussed which is range of reading and level of text
complex complexity excuse me. Um, so again, that's part of the basis of our rationale for wanting to zoom in on that area. Um, particularly once students have mastered um, their decoding skills in the lower grade levels. Okay, you can keep going, Betsy.
And then here is some important math and literacy data that shaped um, our thinking around our goals and those adjustments for this year. Um so in the lefth hand column you'll see some of our MCCAST results in literacy in particular. Um this is grades 3 through
8. So you'll see that our percent of students meeting or exceeding is 63% and there was a little bit of an uptick last year compared to the prior year. Um but the overall um achievement in ELA over the past few years has been relatively
flat. So, that's one of the reasons why we really want to push the the bar with our literacy achievement this year. Um, and then if you look on the right hand side, you'll see that there's been a little bit more of an upward trend over the past few years in math. Um, slightly
more. We still have work to do in math. We're not satisfied with where we are in math. Um, but we have made progress over the last several years. And again, that's a credit to the educators in the building and the former administration. I can't claim any of that credit as a new person. Um, but I think it's worth
highlighting um that we've had this past year 69% of students meeting or exceeding and our average SGP was also higher than literacy at 61.4%. Um, all right, Betsy, you can keep going. All right, our next two goal areas.
There were fewer adjustments that we made in terms of monitoring in these buckets um because again as the site council and I reviewed the the language here, we really felt like this is the work that needs to continue in the last full year of this plan cycle. Um so our
goal is to implement cultural as a district is to implement culturally responsive community engagement plan to foster connections among caregiver schools the district and community and we as a school want to pro provide open consistent and accessible communication channels to strengthen the relationship
between families and school. Next slide Betsy. Um so again here we made fewer overall adjustments because we're invested in continuing the work that has begun this school year. Um so the last version of
the school improvement plan included um creating a structured communication plan that shares when and how the school is sharing information. We want to take this school year to review and revise and augment that communication plan. um and we do want to see an increase in
engagement from family and community as a result. Secondly, we want to continue to organize workshops that resonate with the needs and interests of the community. Um so again, the language that was adjusted there was continue to do this work because the site council
and I are in agreement that this feels like it's important to continue that which was already begun. Um and then finally, continue to use multiple uh communication platforms to ensure that information is accessible to all families. Um so again, minor adjustments
here, but again, wanting to honor the work that has been done in this area and carry it forward. Next slide, Betsy. Okay. And finally, the third goal area, and I know it's a little bit of a a quick breeze through, but I'm trying to be cognizant of time. Um the district
goal from the strategic plan is to partner with families in the community to create safe environments that promote belonging. Um and we want to um create a safe, positive, and inclusive learning environment for all students and community members that affords them a high sense of belonging and celebrates
gains along the way. Next slide. Um here there were some adjustments because some of the language from the last version of the plan we felt like those uh initiatives had been met in a in in large part. So, one of them was to
um implement a schoolwide cell phone cell phone policy proc I'm sorry, not policy procedure um for F FRR and that's something that was done in prior years and we're continuing to use those procedures and we're also aware that the Massachusetts state legislature is
considering some um language in adopting um you know legislation around cell phone use in schools. So, we felt like it wasn't the right time to include that in this most revised, most recently revised version of the plan. Um, but we
are continuing two of the other initiatives that were in the plan, which is to refine our schoolwide positive behavior interventions and support system to support a positive culture in the school. and we um examined the goals
and benchmarks that had been written into the plan and decided to um add a little bit more language around how specifically we're measuring whether or not we've met this strategic initiative. So the language that we adjusted here was that we're going to look at
disciplinary referrals in comparison with last school year. So there was previous language about reducing referrals by 30%, now we're saying yes, we want to do that, but we want to specifically compare with the prior year so that we can see that we're making
improvements year-over-year. Um, and then finally, we want to continue to integrate restorative practices into our PBIS system to address conflicts um and repair relationships and promote accountability. And again, you'll see that language as the goal, including
that piece of comparing with uh last year to measure improvement. Okay, keep going, Betsy. All right. And so, um, like Vanessa Bleello, we took a look at our belonging data, um, from Panorama, and I think there's a lot to celebrate
here in terms of the overall trajectory of improvement. Um, excuse me, with respect to students sense of belonging over the past few years, which is again a credit to all the wonderful educators that we have at FRR. Um, I think that
when you dig into the subgroups, as Vanessa mentioned, it's also true at FRR that there is variance among some of our subgroups. So, we want to celebrate the progress and name it, acknowledge it, and also dig into the subgroup data and
how can we make sure that all of our students are feeling that sense of belonging. Um, even if our overall averages are high, we want to make sure that's true for all of our individual students. Okay, keep going. All right. Uh, and that is my whirlwind
presentation, but I look forward to any questions that the subcommittee has. >> Thank you, Sarah. We really appreciate it. Um, are we good to go? >> Hi, Sarah. I'm Bob Wro. I never met you, but you you are
>> your hands and see who maybe it's >> that was an incredibly impressive presentation for someone who's quite new to the community. I appreciate the way you gave credit to the long-term educators that you're working with and the leaders that uh were here recently.
Um it's just you know the it's impressive and um you know sort of the the fundamental goals of academic u achievement and um helping kids feel like this is their home. So thank you very much and good luck. Hope to see you around this next few years.
>> Thank you Bob. I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Okay. We're gonna Oh, go ahead. Is that okay? >> Yeah, sure. >> Hi, I'm Carolyn Thal. >> Raise your hand. >> Hello. Nice to meet you. >> Um I'm I'm don't work in school
building. So when you say disciplinary referral, just like what specifically counts as a disciplinary referral experience? >> Sure. Yeah, great question. Um, so they range, but um, anything that would be
considered um, a violation of the code of conduct, which some of those, as I'm sure you're familiar, the code has behaviors that list out at level one, two, three, four, five, and one being, you know, more minor incidents and behaviors at four and five being much
more major incidents. And so we um, we have a system in place to track that whole range. anything that would be considered minor to anything that would be considered major. And so when we say decrease disciplinary referrals, we're saying across the board, right? So
whether it's something relatively small that may happen more frequently, um like a student who is disregarding directions from, you know, an educator to something more major. We're we're looking at that holistically. Does that answer your question? >> Yeah. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Okay, we're g we're going to let you go because I think Brian is next, but thank you so much and welcome to Brookline. We're so delighted you're here. It's great. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. Looking forward to working with you all over the coming months and years.
>> Bye bye. >> Hi Brian. >> Hello. >> We are here >> and we the floor is yours. We're ready to start. >> Yes. Thank you. Thank you everybody for
having me. >> Okay. Tremendous. Uh Betsy, could I impose on you to also uh show >> Lincoln slides. >> Yeah. Okay. Uh skip ahead to the next one, please.
Uh I uh want to acknowledge the the caregiver and teacher uh reps who have uh helped in development of of our plan uh as members of our school council. Uh Christopher Blessen, uh Sarah Jay, and Sandra Whismann, our parent reps, our teacher reps, Courtney Olirri, Donald
Petri, Gretchen Thompson, and Alejandra Trob. uh without their insights uh in both the meetings themselves and also in you know kind of the understanding the various perspectives they bring uh the plan uh wouldn't be as uh as robust as
it is. So I thank them for their time uh and partnership. Uh next slide please Betsy. So, I wanted to start with some celebrations and some acknowledgements from uh from the past year uh in our work uh at Lincoln. Um notably, we've
continued growing uh our middle school student council. Um highlights include how they've worked in uh the planning of our fourth annual field day. uh both in terms of the organizing of uh subcommittees going into the day and
then helping to run field day itself when we get rolling. Uh I've had volunteers uh helping to deliver morning announcements so it's not just my voice that students are hearing every morning uh making announcements. Uh they plan spirit days. they organize and execute our paper recycling program and are
just, you know, growing to take on uh more and more of those leadership opportunities that we want to see our middle schoolers uh take advantage of as leaders in a K8 building. Uh we also last year continued uh our classroom buddies programming. Those again are opportunities for our older students,
right? Uh upper elementary and middle to be uh partnering on a monthly basis with our younger students uh around our school's core values of creativity, curiosity, and compassion. Uh sometimes these include doing a readaloud and then a shared art project together that we
display uh in the Lincoln school. Uh sometimes it is, you know, uh just a cozy get together and read with a buddy time. Uh but you know it's really been gratifying to watch those relationships playing out also across the school day right where our uh you know not even
during the planned buddy times but where classes will be coming to see each other's artwork during the art show or coming to participate in a publishing party celebration uh for instance. Um, last year we held our second annual culture fest. Uh, and our third one is
already on the books and being planned for the spring organized by our linkative Lincoln initiative for equity life. This is where family student volunteers uh student and family volunteers presented some element of their family culture be it art, music,
food, language. Um, we uh this summer uh were the lucky beneficiaries of the third and final phase uh of a project to refresh our space uh our hallways and our classrooms. That got us some new paint, some new flooring, some new carpeting, and maybe most notably uh
climate control across uh all of the classrooms at Lincoln uh which has our students and educators thrilled. Um we opened a third adaptive learning center classroom. Um that uh came about through the budget process last year.
Um and we added that role to better support the growing population of students uh in the adaptive learning center ALC program uh not only in this year but in the years ahead. Um and finally through both opening that third classroom and also the kind of um you
know packing up and moving out of a lot of classrooms for the uh the paint and refresh work going on. We made some strategic moves of where classrooms and other kinds of learning spaces were located. Uh this included creating the space for that third ALC room. uh
getting a bigger classroom for our uh our EL teacher who works with our uh middle school students to allow her for some more space and more uh and better support pullout services she's providing. And we also created in our multi-purpose room a adaptive and
physical therapy and occupational therapy space that we're kind of calling the the motor space or the motor room. So those are some of the community celebrations. Uh next couple of slides will take us through some data celebrations from last year. Next slide, please, Betsy.
Thank you. So, >> yep. Uh, so I want to highlight, uh, on our spring 25 ELA MCCAST, overall 71% of Lincoln students were meeting or exceeding expectations. That's up five points from the spring of 24. Uh, and
our kiddos had an average SGP of 61. In math, uh we had an uh 74% of our students meeting or exceeding expectations, uh up from 71% in 2024 and an average SGP uh nearly of nearly 62.
Um a number we pay a lot of attention to uh and I know that Vanessa and Sara both highlighted uh their school belonging numbers. uh by our spring of 25 administration of the Panorama report, 85% of students at Lincoln were
reporting um high feelings of school belonging. Um that's up 6% from uh the spring of 24, up nearly 30% from when we first started administering the survey, and that's an all-time high for us. Um what's also notable too is when you
start digging into the demographic data, you see uh actually in third through third through fifth grade kind of a continuing pattern of our uh students identifying as African-American and black who are reporting higher school the highest school belonging of any group.
Um I also uh pull in note for my staff uh when we kicked off our work back in August uh the growth we saw from beginning of year to end of year uh in our MClass screener. So that 74 a.5% that students those are students uh in first second and third grade our
kindergarters weren't taking the beginning of the year MC class. Uh but then by end of year it included them and the benchmark moved and 81% of our students were at or above benchmark. Um so really solid uh growth over the course of the year that uh I think is a
credit to obviously the fantastic work done by our educators and specialists and then also some of the strategic moves we put in place through this process. Um next slide please Betsy. So one area that uh we're keeping an eye
on very closely uh this year has to do with our attendance. Um so you can see our overall attendance rate um in between 23 24 and then last year slid about.3%. And we saw an uptick on our chronic absenteeism rate. Um and I know I think
that we need to be mindful of getting that number down you know ideally down below 10%. Right? And again chronic absenteeism is students who are missing 10% or more of the school year. Um, in that last row I have for you there, the data thus far this year, right? So,
we're tracking at 97%. But, you know, I'm cleareyed about the idea that it's easier to show up in September and October. Uh, and it's certainly easier to show up before we've been struck by uh any stomach bugs or other flu and pestilences. Uh, but our chronic absenteeism rate uh is about half right
now, which is uh but that's an on track for number. Obviously, I don't have friends who have missed uh 18 days of school just yet. Um part of our you know the theory of action here too is in looking at attendance is drilling in on tardies.
Um so the the open architects platform has been fantastic for uh for really I think all of uh our principles and uh I've been you know kind of evangelizing among my staff at how easy it is to get at the data and how easy it is to manipulate it and answer some curious
questions you might have. Um so it's tracking for us our total number of tardies over the course of the year. Um and so we see this like really dramatic increase from um 23 24 to the year you know to to
nearly 1500 more. Um so this year I've begun every day uh if you you know through Aspen students are students and families get notified if a student is absent right if a student's marked absent that phone call goes out parents get that notice and most of the time
they're aware uh but we're not tracking you know tardy notifications don't really had not really shown up as a thing until a progress report or report card was going home and where you have more and more perhaps of our middle school students walking to school on their own, right, as they should be
trusted to do. Parents may think in fact that they're there on time. Um, but every day we're grabbing uh and sending a blanket email to the caregivers of kids who are marked tardy and just letting families know. Um, you know, this is just to let you know your child
was marked tardy this morning. Um, you can view more information about that in the parent portal on Aspen. And so we see it it seems to be having an effect so far that we're we're down below even the the pace that we were on in uh by October 20th uh two years ago. And so
I'm hoping that that can continue to be the case by um focusing in on tardies by focusing in on communicating with families. We're prioritizing the idea of not only being there every day but being there on time every day.
>> Okay. Um like some of my colleagues uh both on Monday and today have highlighted what we've endeavored to do uh you know we're in year three of a three-year plan but have also endeavor to to work within the um kind of uh
existing strategic plan as well as the kind of like um focused goals of the strategic plan um that uh we developed in concert with senior leadership over the summer. And so, you know, under the district goal of increasing achievement
for all students, we are supporting access to grade level text, content, and tasks through databased instruction and intervention. Um, can you go to the next slide, please, Betsy? And it's here where we see like some of the choices we're making in terms of systems, some
of the moves we're making in terms of like how we structure data meetings and other uh, you know, and and the ways in which we think through our tiered intervention systems. So for example, you know, like uh we're like fr FRR, we are in full imple implementation of the
fish tank curriculum. My two middle school uh teachers in grades 6 through 8 along with the entirety of the K to 5 program are implementing the fish tank program. And so we're trying to support teachers uh through uh the implementation of this new curriculum uh
by you know creating opportunities for their collaboration uh both in faculty meeting and common planning time. Uh it has been really helpful to to partner with office of teaching and learning as well as Christine Gray. They set up an opportunity for Lincoln first grade staff to get over to uh Baker and
observe first grade uh teachers there teaching fish tank and debrief not only with those staff but also their among themselves about what they observed. Um new to us this year is having a a wind block in uh grades K to 8. Um previously
wind was operating in grades four and five. This year, uh, we move I moved to schedule it, uh, in grades K through 8. Um, in part because, as Vanessa spoke to, we need protected time for tier one instruction to occur and then this set
aside time for the kinds of interventions uh, that some of our students need and benefit from to take place. So, this helps to give more students access to the tier one experience uh without needing to be pulled for either um EL services or
other interventions and then uh also creates more you know dedicated time for our specialists to have access to students for those kinds of interventions. Um it's also important to schedule in such a way to support the implementation of the various curricula
and various um things that our classroom teachers need to implement. And so what that means is a coherent schedule where you are um not chopping up you know a math block in the middle with a special or recess etc.
Those kinds of like small but simple, you know, moves have a big impact on the flow of a day and on the flow of the student experience. And then ultimately too, how you schedule students for intervention and how you schedule students for uh certain needed services
in special education or EL. And then um the final action that we're paying attention to this year and have rolled out I think pretty successfully this fall is holding combined data and intervention meetings with our math and
literacy specialists. Um we're doing this for a few reasons. You know, I think first is to honor the the teacher time, right? So, uh we had for the last few years been having grade level meetings for math, looking at that data,
making choices for students who about in-class and out of class supports, uh and then holding a separate meeting for literacy. And it, you know, those were thoughtful conversations, but it did take a lot of teacher time. Um, and also it set off a kind of race to be first to
schedule your intervention meeting to get the best uh crack at an intervention spot in scheduling your students. So in this case, we're able to not only like have one combined meeting where we're looking at the sort of totality of needs of our students across contents, we're
also more coherently scheduling interventions in the room there. Understanding like, okay, the priority right now for this student based upon the data that we're all looking at in math and in literacy is that they get some literacy intervention because it's impacting all pieces of their
experience. or clearly the priority is that they are in need of some intervention in math and they're a great fit for this group for this 6 week cycle. So that shift I think has you know produced um a level of coherence
among our um our specialist team and I think our grade level teams have you know been able to um bring to bear all of the knowledge that the you know to for me to be joining those meetings and hear all of the knowledge that our educators have about kiddos across years
has been really uh really helpful to hear uh and help to make um good planning decisions for for them moving forward. Um, next slide, please, Betsy. Thanks. Um, so our second and third goals both
have to do with supporting the student experience and and as a mechanism for that, supporting the student experience uh with our parents and caregivers and community. So, um, if we can go to the next slide, please, Betsy. Um, some of our strategic actions as they relate to
goal number two. Um, I know it seems quite simple, but uh going back a few going back three springs ago, it seems like we save everything awesome in a school sometimes for uh two to three weeks in May and June where parents uh
feel as if maybe I don't go to work at all. I come and I attend uh these concerts or these breakfast shares or these work shares or these field trips. And so part of uh what we've tried to do both for ourselves internally and how we communicate with families is get a
year-long scope of opportunities when we are inviting parents uh to come and join an open house or to participate in a workshare or to see a concert or to see the opening of an art show and schedule that so that our families uh especially those with kids across multiple grade
levels uh can be there to support and also so that we are you more uh we're more thoughtful about each other's spaces and not, you know, bumping somebody out of the theater who needs it for a presentation. And we're also recognizing where maybe we have months
that we're not doing a lot of programming and maybe should consider moving something to better integrate or to better bring in uh members of our families or members of our community. um trying to support staff in some consistent and reliable means of uh
communicating proactively with families. You know, I think we have a lot of great on the cuff uh um interactions that can occur at pickup uh or at drop off out in the the front circle uh at Lincoln and teachers are obviously in touch or
parents are in touch with teachers when uh as needs arise. But I think we also are trying to be more thoughtful about the um more regular proactive communication that can prompt the kind you know that can prompt conversation uh especially with our older learners who
maybe are not too keen to let you know anything else is going on other than that school is good. Um, and then we want to continue to grow and support events and programming like CultureFest, like Lincoln Links, uh, a program organized uh, by our um, Lincoln METCO
liaison. Um, or the Ruby Bridges Walk alongside other existing PTO and community events. Um, I feel really lucky the partnership that I've had over time with our PTO. they have uh you know consistently had this shared vision that the PTO there the PTO exists to support
students first and to build community as a part of that and have been fantastic partners in um in in that work uh of you know everything they do is either geared towards um providing a great experience for students or to um helping teachers
to better support students and grow and build our community. Um, and if you want to see that coming out this weekend, I recommend you check out Pumpkinfest on Sunday. Uh, and between 12:40 and 1 o'clock, if you're so inclined, you can throw a pie at my face.
Uh, next slide, please, Betsy. Thank you. Uh, again, uh, we're drilling in on belonging, right? Creating and nurturing an environment that promotes feelings of belonging. And I think that you know while I highlighted at the beginning the relatively high uh rate of school
belonging we have I think that then kind of you know the work becomes what are the small actions you know what are the thin slices of work we need to be taking uh to ensure that we stay there and continue to grow. You know, I think coming out of, you know, I look at our
data from the spring of 2021 administration of the Panorama survey, and understandably so at that point, our feelings of school belonging were low. Um, and so the moves that you make to uh to grow your belonging when you're
coming off of distancing and masks are pretty easy. Right now, the work grows a little bit more nuanced and a little more challenging and a little more interesting. The good news is that um you know in a lot of cases if there are students who are identifying like low feelings of belonging at a school the
size of Lincoln, we're able to to to know exactly who they are uh and to to to be able to identify that number of students and come up with um specific interventions to support them. Um can I go to the next slide, Betsy? So uh part of how we do this right is
kind of our ongoing putting our shoulder into the work of daily morning meeting time and grades. uh K through 5. Um and that's where either through morning meeting and or some additional blocks built in for SEAL staff are kind of
doing those tier one um lessons uh that support community that support identity that support relationship. um you know we're imple you know by having that time we're then able to implement a a tier one SEAL curriculum
in K through five um at the middle school level while we don't have morning meeting in the dedicated way that our K to 5 folks do we this year are using some aspects of win as a mechanism for either um intervening with students who
need some additional support in the area you know in some aspect of their SEAL experience or through you know use leveraging that time for global team building opportunities. That was how across K through 8, I'm sorry, across 6 through 8
they launched win uh was you know seeing you know some of our um you know for example our eighth graders engaged in some team building activities early on in the year. Um, finally, uh, as I spoke about at the beginning, uh, part of belonging is
being there, uh, and part of feeling connected to school, uh, is being there. And so, decreasing our rate of chronic absenteeism and daily tardies, uh, is ongoing work for this year. Um and you know I I think that the that is just you
know needs to just be intentional work by both um you know having accurate records uh in you know in our classrooms and in the office and and keeping track of who's here when but then also a daily check you know a daily and weekly checkpoint on the part of uh myself and
uh my vice principal as well as our clinical team about like you know what's what's happening with students who we maybe have seen sign, you know, uh, all of a sudden missing many days in a row and we don't know why or they were sick and now they're finding it hard, you know, to
get back. So, um, really focusing in on chronic absenteeism and paying attention to daily tardies and getting kids there for all of the things that we have to offer them between 8 and 2:30 every day. Um, is uh, the work of the year in attendance.
And that is a very uh quick spin through the work that we've had going on at Lincoln and and are focused on this year. So, >> thank you so much, Ryan. We appreciate it. Um any quick comments? >> Sure. >> Yes, sir. Um I had said to Vanessa earlier that I
was excited to see the expansion of whims and um so likewise with you very happy to see that that's something that you've been able to expand and I was just wondering is I guess it's sort of just a yes or no question. Is there a day when you could see that instead of
like having the kids that need intervention leave when and the kids that are left behind maybe who are very good at persevering through difficult emotions. um are they left to do just team building or is there a chance for
us eventually to do enrichment during win so that some of those kids can get like even greater experiences? Do you think that someday we might be there? >> Uh so you said yes or no. I think the answer to that is uh is almost right. I
think that like right now in some pe in some places for example in eighth grade the team has you know they have two wind blocks a week. One of them they are utilizing for kind of intervention or check-in or academic support and makeup. The other one, like for example, my
eighth grade social studies teacher is on a six week rotation of their their students doing like an like kind of an introeconomics class with kids, right? Like kind of like a macro. So it is a bit of extension and enrichment happening there where they are um you
know kind of getting elements of you know his area of of interest and expertise uh at a kind of like you know 30,000 ft level. Um so it is a bit of extension for all and it is a bit of enrichment you know for for all coupled with you know opportunities for kids to
be pulled out on kind of the alternating days. >> Love hearing that. Thank you. >> For sure. Thank you. >> And I think congratulations, Brian, on your middle school program was highly rated in the state, was it not? Recent last year.
>> We were. Yeah. Uh last year uh I think it was it was with the curriculum subcommittee uh where the folks at US News, we were um we were in the top 10 for middle school programming um in in the state according uh according to those folks. Um, you know, and I think
it is great that the middle school itself, you know, I I was always careful when, you know, talking about that that, you know, the middle school got the shine for it, but truly we are a, you know, as a K to8 school. Um, you know, those kids get there >> to that place in middle school as a
result of a lot of really great work that happened with them from the time they were five going forward. >> Absolutely. >> Congratulations on that. >> Thank you. >> Hi, Brian. Bob Wro. >> Hello. How you doing? I'm impressed. Excellent report. I love your
celebrations. Um I love the focus on, you know, the truly basics of good schooling, academics, social, emotional stuff, and I love your use of the word kiddos. >> Thank you.
>> Okay. Thank you, Brian. We appreciate it. We're going to move along. We got two more. So, thank you. >> Thank you everybody. Have a good evening. >> Brian, say is available. >> Uh yep. Say is on here. >> Okay. Say, um, hi say. So, we're running just a little behind. >> No worries.
>> And, um, Anthony, I know you're on there somewhere and we'll get to you as soon as we can. And I hope committee members are okay. Moving along. >> Yeah. Well, you have the time. Okay. Well, we hope. Okay. Say, you can you
can go right ahead. >> All right. Well, good evening everybody. I almost said good morning cuz I'm just no I have no idea what time it is right now but uh it's good to see all of you. Um I think I've met at some capacity in my time in Brooklyn all of you. So um
hello again. Um so uh I'm Sed Ola. I am the principal of the Baker School. Um what I love about the Baker School is that it is a large school that has small school vibes. Um we are the second largest school in the district. We're right we're behind FRR. Uh it's right
now we're sitting at about 662 students with uh Lawrence right behind us with I think they're about 627 or 630 or so. Um this school improvement plan that I'm going to put I'm going to share with you is uh a result of a lot of collaboration
and teamwork um which is also a hallmark of uh the Baker School. So, I need to give um thanks to Gareth Lawson, Scott Litman, Darren uh Dylan Rossi, and Leslie Tomian. Um and many other people not named um in on this slide right now,
but um everything that we do at Baker is really a result of collective action and um this this idea of collective efficacy that uh together we are able to make great things happen. Um, next slide, please. Um actually before I get into
this I actually do want to mention a few celebrations um that I was remissed to put in in this slide but I wanted to mention that so every year one of the things I love about Baker is that we start off with a convocation assembly where the entire school gets together in September to um acknowledge and kick off
the school year and welcome new members to the Baker community. That includes our entire kindergarten class and new students and new staff. So that happens every year in September. Um, at the end of last year, we had our middle school play, and we've been doing that every
year since, uh, we were able to come back from the pandemic. And, uh, so last year's play was The Lion King, a phenomenal play, uh, put on by our, uh, sixth grade science teacher, Yasmine Sharief. And what came out of that is we were awarded the, um, best costume
design, uh, by the middle school division of the MA Massachusetts Educational Theaters Guild. Uh so that was a uh shining moment of our uh middle school uh team and we were very proud of that. And lastly I wanted to point out with our MCCAST uh in grade 7 are we had
the uh highest in the state percentage of students meeting and exceeding um standards in uh MCCAST with 86%. So we are quite proud of our our staff and our students here. Um great things have been happening and great things are are on
the way. Um, continuing. So, when we think about uh how we can continue what we're doing at the Baker School, um, we want to make sure we're take we're taking into consideration uh, money brought in from the state, the town, and and the federal government. Um, and we are also making
sure that we are spending this money and allocating resources in in ways that are in line with um, provisions and and constraints set forth by both the town and the school committee. Um many of many of the funds that are directly
related to the school um often support a variety of things. One such thing is supporting educators as they support students. An example of that that I'll talk in a little bit more about is supporting adults who support afterchool student activities. So we have a bunch
of student affinity groups. Um the play that I just mentioned, athletics, um student interest groups which are starting to grow. So we have a new crafting club that started up last year. We have an environmental action club that is um helpful in the future roll
out of our composting program here at Baker. Um this is new this year. Um and another thing to note is that in the uh as our population continues to grow, our percentage of high need students and students with disabilities um also continues to grow. So as we think about funding on a district level, we also
want to think about how we can provide maintain and provide the supports to and staffing to make sure that students in all uh varieties are able to be supported to do their best work at the Baker School. Uh next slide, please. So
you've heard similarly from um my colleagues, principal colleagues about the district goal about uh increasing student achievement and in some areas we're doing a really great job of that. in some areas we are continuing to work to support that so that we have um high achievement across the board. Um so at
Baker we're going to be working to implement consistent progress monitoring and data analysis mechanisms to make sure we are able to better identify students who are in need of intervention. Um it is important to know um you know back in my uh when I used to teach in at math at the school um before
we got to a test I would tell students it's important to know what you know and know what you don't know but you never not you never want to not know what you don't know and you apply that method here you want we want to make sure we know who's doing well and who needs additional support and the best way to do that is to be able to analyze our
data and um be able to have progress monitoring. We want to know who's doing well, who needs additional support, and be able to provide them with that additional support. Uh, next slide. Uh, so some of the things that we're doing to be able to to meet those needs is, uh, we're going to continue
implementation of Hegerty and Foundations programs in our early elementary classes. This is our phonics based um, and um, uh, instruction. Um, and then we're going to continue uh, professional development with uh, educators as we implement the new fish tank program. Um and and so one of the
things I'm really proud of here is that uh Brookline staff had the opportunity in the spring of last year to pilot a program to kind of get a feel of what fish tank is going to look like and feel like and and what are potential uh challenges that we may come across
before we go into full implementation. And what I'm really proud of is that the Baker School, we had we had at least one classroom in grades K through four implement some version of um Fish Tank in the spring. So, and in many of the grade levels, we had multiple teachers
in multiple grade levels uh implementing or piloting uh a unit of fish tank. And the benefit of that is we had some initial collaboration between and amongst staff in um their implementation to kind of see you know what does it how
do we make this work? How does this how does this program fit within our schedule within our school day and what are some possible challenges that we may experience prior to designing the schedule for the next year so that way we can make sure that we have as um
smooth a road as possible. Um, this also allowed an opportunity for our literacy specialists to meet with grade level teachers to kind of talk about and help see what it looks like in the classroom. Uh, provide any re resources, begin thinking, what additional resources do we need to develop to help support
teachers. Um, I talked earlier about knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know. Uh, so this is the area of of implementing screeners to see where kids are currently. So in K through three we use the MC class uh screener and in grades uh last year in grades four through six we were using
STAR. This year we're using uh the STAR assessment in grades 4 through 8. So we added grades seven and eight to this year. Um and we're also going to continue the practice of monitoring achievement in the middle school. So what this looks like is um our middle
school this year has been having conversations and individual conferences with students after progress reports come out. So this is an opportunity for goal setting um to be able to talk about um how we've done so far. What strategies and tips and and tricks have
we been using to get what we've gotten on our progress reports? Um also the conversation of really being able to sit down and and reflect with yourself or with the individual student. Uh do I like the grade that I got? If I don't like the grade that I got, what grade do I think I should be be able to get? How
do what steps in place do I need to do to get to that grade? Who can help me? Um, I always talk about how middle school is the goal, overarching goal of middle school is this idea of being more independent and more reflective. And we do that with conversations with our
teachers on data with the IPRs. And um, this will happen again when we get to November with the report cards. Uh, next slide, please. So in our second goal, we're talking about um this idea of culturally responsive community engagement. So at Baker, we're going to be working, we're
going to continue to work to cultivate culturally responsive practices. One of the things that is amazing about Baker is that we have students and staff from literally all over the world. So we want to be able to make sure that everybody, staff, students, families feel seen,
heard, connected. And this will also connect to our our goal three as well. And if you are if you feel comfortable and you feel seen, you feel that you have something to contribute and to gain from the environment, you will do your best work. You will rise to the challenge. You will take that leap to
take that academic risk. So on the next slide, we talk a little bit about one of the things we're we're we've been engaged in. So one is the idea of increasing confidence around addressing and integrating cultural diversity within our teaching practices. So pri previously I believe it was the year two
years ago if not last year no two years ago we u were able to get uh faculty this the copy of the book culturally responsive teaching in the brain and what we did is we did a book study a collective Baker school book study um what we've did what we've done since then is any new staff that has come to
Baker school we've given them a copy of that book um it's kind of so that everyone's on the same page about language that's the first thing that's important um it's also a great opportunity when we're having conversations between and among ourselves as staff about either celebrations or challenges that we may
have. This is a resource that we all have that we can refer back to. Um a common phrase that staff hear me uh use a lot is this concept of a warm demander. Um if you think about that educator that um is tough as nails but will do anything for you. That's your
that's your warm demander. They set high standards and they give you the confidence that the confidence and belief that you can meet that goal. Yes, it's hard, but you can do it. Um, I've said it so much that I think I that I know the page on which this this exists. It's page 99. Um, so that is um a a book
that we have out in in the community. Um, I have a long-term goal of wanting to create a a mini library of sorts of teacher resources that anytime um a teacher wants to look into a particular strategy, pedigogy, thought, um, there there's a place they can go and pull out
a book for a little bit and and and go through that. Um connected with this is um conversations with the office of teaching and learning and the office of student services to discuss any further professional development and family engagement opportunities that may exist. So where are their opportunities? Uh we
have a a a great partnership with the Massachusetts partnership for youth. Uh they do a lot of webinars on a whole host of uh uh topics and resources. They have a family toolkit. Um so you can go and join a webinar and hear a lot about any particular topic that's going on.
they are run by experts in the field. Um, so that's a great space for and a great resource for staff and families. Uh, next slide please. So our third goal is kind of is connected and it to our second goal. It's this idea of partnering with families and the
community to create a strong sense of belonging. Um, so we want to make sure that we have and maintain a supportive inclusive learning environment where all students and families feel seen, safe, and valued. If uh if you don't have that, you can't learn. It's almost I
like to think about Maslaw's Maslo's hierarchy of needs. Being fe seen, safe, and valued is is needed um in order to be able to get yourself in a space to be able to take in the academic content that is going on in the classroom. So,
the next slide, we talked a little bit about what's going on here. Um to be part of a community, a community, you need to have information. you need to know what's going on. Um, so one of the things that was started and will continue doing is regular communication with families um about what's going on
at the school. I've started uh what's called a note from Edith that goes out to families at least monthly. And this year I'm trying to see if I can get it out every two weeks with all information what's going on in the school and reminders about what's going on districtwide. And this is a place
one-stop shopping where families can kind of go and find out, all right, what do I need to know? what's coming up um and um uh what workshops are available and and and then also what other places can I go if I have additional questions. So linked there is always the Baker
School website, the public schools of Brooklyn website and our PTO website. So that's a place for families to go to find more information. um connected to that because we have families from all over. We have families whose first language is different across the board
and we want to make sure our communications are are provided in their in the language of their choice, their preferred language. So all of the notes from Edith that come out have the ability to be translated into their into a particular family's preferred language. Um, so that way we we remove
the barrier of uh we remove a a a barrier to be able to understand and know what's going on at the Baker School. Um, what's going on this year is we're going to begin work along with uh the district leadership around revising the school website. Um, so that way that
information is also another so that website is another spot for staff and students and family members and prospective families to learn more about the Baker School and um, the public schools of Brooklyn as a whole. And then also continuing with this idea of making
sure everyone's on the same page is we have to update our um, student handbook, student guide book for families and and students. Um, so that way everything is also another that that is another spot for people to go to learn more about the Baker School. The ultimate goal here is
that we have at least three different places that people can go if they want to know more about how we do what we do at the Baker School. So that's the notes from Edith, that's the school website, and that's the family's uh handbook. Um we are
seeing a lot of um great results as uh as a great great results as a a result of the work that we've been doing and you can see this on our next slide. One of the things that we're really proud of is our um attendance. So a lot of our uh previous principles have talked about uh
chronic absenteeism. And while we're we still have a ways to go, what I really am proud of here is that pretty much in every one of the stat uh groups here except for one, you see a decrease in the amount of uh chronic absenteeism. So, one of the things we have been doing
to do this or to to see this is we've been sending home uh messages to families um roughly quarterly letting them know where their students are um in terms of attendance. So if at that particular time that student has been meeting the definition of chronically
absent which is roughly 10% um of the school year so for the whole school year that'd be 18 days then we send a note home saying you your child has missed x number of days and then so there's a first note and then we're getting having a a second note that'll go out if they've already gotten the first note
and nothing has in increased or or things have increased uh we send a second note and in that case we also then provide resources we'll have our school cil reach out if need be. We'll invite families in to have a conversation with our school counselors, our vice principles, or myself if need
be, so we can really figure out what is at the at the core of keeping kids from school. Um, when you look at our panorama data, we notice that the sense of belonging is increasing. So the panorama data with regards to this is
school belonging belonging started in uh 2020 and the rate of students who were reporting high sense of school belonging was 51%. Um it's understandable but not a great great rate. Now um if you look at the spring of 2025 that number is
86%. So we have been seeing an increase in a sense of school belonging since we've been uh implementing this this survey. And I think part of the reason of that is because kids are coming to school and they're coming to school because they see they feel seen valued. There is um when you also look at the
data you see that there's a high number of students who are reporting supportive relationships at school. So they know that if they have a challenge whether it's socially, emotionally, academically there is someone here who will support them. Um that's that concept of a warm demander. They know that there's someone
who has their back. Um, so these attendance rates are an indicator of of all of that together. Um, so that was very quick. Um, quick snapshot of Baker School, but I want to thank you all for your time and um, yeah.
>> Yeah. Thank you, S. I appreciate it. Um, and congratulations on your Lion King costumes. >> Yes, we are very proud about that. >> I hope you have lots of pictures about that. >> Um, we're ready. No, no, >> you got to say hello.
>> Hi, S. This is Bob Winro. >> Bob, how are you? >> How you doing? Listen, I >> It's been a while. >> I appreciate the community building. And did you develop the concept of notes from Edith? >> Yes. Yes. I started that last year. And I needed to have we I have a message to
staff that goes out every week. It's called the Bulldog Bulletin. And I needed to have something different for uh the families. I didn't want to use the same thing. So, I spent too much time thinking about it that I'm proud to say. But then when it came up, I was like, "This is perfect." >> Anybody know what that means? >> Yeah.
>> Okay. Anyway, um very comprehensive report. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you, Z. We appreciate it. >> No problem. Have a good one. >> Um so I just want to say welcome to Anthony and BHS. I know we're running a little behind, so I'm sorry, Anthony. Uh
if there are people who cannot in the audience, this is being recorded, so if someone has to leave. >> No way. Anthony Myers is here. >> I am not leaving. The rest of us are here to listen for as long as you want to speak. >> Awesome. This is much much mustwatch,
must listen. Um I'm actually hoping in 10 minutes to go over to the girls um varsity senior night volleyball game. So, um here we go. So, thanks uh curriculum school subcommittee for being here and district leaders. Uh this is
our school improvement plan update. So, Betsy, please. Next slide. Um we have a wonderfully large um school council. Um we have four parents. One of them is on this call, Julie Wingertter.
And then we have three students. I think you know one of them well. Aditi Jienshar is the student rep on school committee. So really good student voice. Uh and then five staff members. Uh two teachers and three administrators. So
really terrific large group. We talk about a range of topics. Um, and it's been really enjoyable. And we begin meeting again uh in November. We need to elect uh one more student and potentially one more parent because as
you can see uh Anna Paduri and um Asha Hoo have um moved on um rightly so as they've graduated. So next slide please. lots to celebrate uh and similar themes from what you heard and I just listened
to Brian and say um but we have the lowest chronic attendance rate in the district as we should as a high school. These are greater stakes uh 7.9% that's still something uh we monitor regularly and as say described intervene in
various ways for students who struggle uh with school attendance. Uh and then a high sense of belonging. This is an area where we tend to lag behind or historically have lagged behind elementary schools uh in terms of sense of belonging. Um we're pleased that this
is our highest percentage um since we started the Panorama survey and between the high and medium sense of belonging. Um that number is quite high in 98% as you can imagine. we're focused on who those uh 2% are who aren't feeling that
sense of belonging or students who really struggle um with attendance. Um we had a really good um dennial visit um from NEAS and you're going to hear some clear areas of focus in the upcoming slides. And I would just say this year
has been a gift in terms of how clear we were coming into summer and then going into the school year about what we needed to focus on sort of the big strands of work. And I'm grateful uh to Robin and Bella and Joelle for their support um as we've identified those
areas and are thinking about how best to work uh with the larger district. You'll hear a little bit more about our building curriculum accommodation plan. That's something that um our school council took a look at. Is it something we um more or less ratified or approved
that um we're ready to move forward and figuring out how sort of tools we can give um for teachers to individualize and also offer universal um strategies to support students. Uh I continue to be very proud of our growing unified sports
program and that's thanks to Kyle Williams and his team. It was the goal we set when he came on board and now we're adding the newest element in botchi. Uh and then some state championships almost obvious always in cross country and then also volleyball
and ultimate frisbee and just huge participation numbers. So I actually did go through all of those. I didn't uh summarize. So let's go next slide Betsy please. Um so I think in terms of goal number one what I hope you hear is that
we're working on the major areas of teaching and learning. We're working on uh curriculum instruction and assessment uh in these are areas especially curriculum and assessment um that we told NAS we needed to work on. So we
have uh as Bob knows better than anybody, we have over 300 courses at the high school and I think making sure that we have similar format across departments and across the school is really important as we think about
transitioning to new teachers. You know, teachers retire, teachers leave. Um and we want to make sure that we know uh what is expected in each course. And I also want to know that while there is always room for teacher freedom and some
room for teacher autonomy, I want to know what students in physics are learning. What students are learning in junior American literature. So there's that strand of documented written curriculum. And then there are two pieces of assessment. One is a move
towards common assessment. So, similar idea that within a world history course, a midyear should look mostly similar in two different honors world history courses. And I can't say that that's the case now. And it's something our student government and legislature have been
clear about wanting more of that. I did end up vetoing their bill because I didn't think it would was something that should be legislated and it's something that we need to work on as a faculty. And then there are structures and practices that we want to work on um in
terms of assessment. Uh and some of that is is things like how are we supporting extra time um so that the educators don't bear all of that. Um so those are things um that we're working on. Um, and
then, uh, the Brookline curriculum accommodation plan, as I said, is a series of strategies, all of which make sense, um, but where you can individualize or, um, make universal. And to me, it's it's giving teachers the freedom that regardless of whether has a
student has an IEP or a 504 or an IAP, um teachers are freed up to try different things to intervene and support students in a range of ways. Um so we're proud of that work. And next slide. I probably should have. This is
all um I I've pretty much covered this. Um yes I mean not surprisingly as we prepared for that NEAS visit in the spring our departments were and are at various points and so for instance on PD
day we're giving time to departments to dive into that work and that will be more department focused than it will be whole school. our coordinator academic team which is made up of all curriculum coordinators um and unit B as well as
unaligned um leaders get together weekly and we're agreeing on a common format that then will be implemented more at a department level as you can see the common assessments is to try to move um towards a ratio of 7030 or even 8020 for
common versus what may might be individualized. Next slide please, Betsy. Um, BCAP is something that we're activating within departments and then also uh experimenting with and again activating within our student intervention team. That's the high
school version of the child study team where educators and counselors and administrators are bringing forward students who might be struggling in one aspect of of school or another. And I think our take overall is we have the tools we need in many cases. Yes, there
are students who will need special education support and there are ways that we can experiment and try things to help students right now and sort of gauge those practices over a shorter period of time of six to eight weeks and
say what's working for this student um what still needs work. Uh next slide please. So this is focused on another and I should have said curriculum instruction assessment before our areas we're
working on. It's also what do we want for all of our graduates and all of our students uh at Brooklyn High School and in the public schools of Brooklyn. And that is to me this area of vision of a learner or vision of a graduate. to be honest, we've been talking about this
and circling this for a couple of years and it is now time to do that and we are doing that work. So, Robin and I joined a team of five uh to go down to Cheshire, Connecticut um last late last week and uh engage in a workshop on
vision of a learner. And without getting too specific, it's an opportunity as I said to talk about what we want for all of our learners. what habits, what skills, uh what learning experiences. Um and so that's a conversation that
will begin at the high school. Um thinking about what um what in the future, what will kids need as learners, as leaders, as citizens, as workers. And as you can tell, that's a very broad set of questions that to me is a huge
opportunity for us to engage as an entire district and community. And some of the specific learning beliefs may be different school to school and certainly by um by age. And yet that's something everyone um has a perspective on and I
think we all realize is important. So for me, um, sorry Betsy, uh, next slide. Once I get talking, it can be hard to also look at the slides. It's an opportunity to have a series of conversations, surveys, um, focus groups
that help us hone um, what we want for our kids. And it can seem sort of like a pmpkin village where you just create a piece of paper that says we want kids to be strong collaborators and effective communicators. Um the pre folks who
presented to us um were from Nipmuk um uh high school um in Massachusetts and it's so clear that it's a living document that vision of a learner is something that helps them think about how they teach and learn, what they
teach and learn. Um, so really excited about that and and we're specifically excited to bring some of that to the school committee uh to engage you in those conversations and some of those activities. So as you can see it's at
least a year and a half of work and the high school is moving sort of quickly between October and November and then we'll bring along a larger um wider um district team. So, we have a smaller steering committee that has Robin Benoy
on it and Matt Rosenthal, who's our math um curriculum coordinator, prek to 8, and then uh four high school people, maybe five high school people. Um and we're also excited to work with our school council that that's a real pos
um to help us think about those conversations and and surveys and such. Um next slide, please. Um, so this is uh continuing the work and I know I've blown past 10 minutes. Um, uh, this is
work continuing from last year. Um and so it's around um comments on IPRs and trying to be clear internally and externally with what we do with those comments and make sure that um uh deans
teams are being super clear about what they do when they read a certain comment about following up with a student who may be struggling. we continue um a cycle of professional learning that we've done over the past uh three years that I'm really excited about includes
um landmark. It includes some common assessment work and some student support and then we've also added um two strands of uh artificial intelligence professional learning. So those are more or less 10 Tuesday sessions throughout
the year that um educators select a strand and then follow the year um within that strand. And we think that that's uh really important to engage in that way. uh and we continue to focus on absenteeism
uh and attendance and then the the now bianual panorama data is really important and I say with my advisory to my advisory all the time no no no we this really does matter to us because I think in some ways they wonder are we a surveillance state or is this just
something we have them do and then don't do anything with it it's really um different than either of those it is looking at data and determining Who are the kids who don't have a strong sense of belonging? Who what are kids who say they don't have friends? Who are the
kids who don't um feel as though they have a trusted adult? And then try to act on that data. Um because as Say and really Brian both said, those are foundational elements. Um sense of belonging, coming to school, having a
trusted adult that we want to make sure um our kids have that. We know that not all do. And so that's ongoing work. Um so I think that is the things I spoke to. Sorry Betsy that I'm talking ahead
and not saying when to um move forward the slides. The three-year professional learning. Great. Um and so this is just um what could be you know this was a a slide in the template um we were rightly given. There may be some summer workshop
funds. not all of the curriculum work can happen um within the school year given limited time in the contract. And so some of that um may be budget requests um for July uh when the new financial year starts or fiscal year
starts. Um and depending, you know, we're able to use um some monies to support the leadership of these strands of work. Um, and it may be that those are um, asks for next year, additional asks. And then I think it's really just
thank you and let me know if you have questions. There's our beautiful STEM building. >> Thank you so much, Anthony. Appreciate it. Uh, anybody? Bob, I know Bob. Go ahead, Bob. Hi, everything. >> Hi, Bob. >> Um, I love your report. I love the
graphics, especially with the green line going under the the new campus there. Um um I love the belonging data. Amazing for a big high school. So impressive. Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> Um and probably the most impressive thing in your presentation was the implementation of botchi. And I want and I want to know where the botchi court is. Well, admit to being very alarmed when I heard that it might be in the STEM Commons and I was imagining the
botchi um balls of yester year and I was imagining what our head custodian would do to me if that were the case. And Bob, you know him well enough to know what he would do to me and to you. So, I've been told it's a different style ball and I still need to confirm because my alarm
hasn't quite um stopped ringing yet. Finally, my downstairs neighbor who's now a sophomore at Brooklyn High School totally loves you and totally loves the high school. Thank you. >> Awesome. Let's go, Jake. Thank you. >> Oh, great. Yeah. Amazing. Anthony,
>> um I know that only to in order to do common assessments, we need to start with curriculum. And do you feel like you gave your um teachers and the department heads enough time to get the curriculum to the place where common assessments now make sense to write? I
>> That's a really good point, Sarah, and I think it's why you see and I didn't um even though this school improvement plan is theoretically for last year and this year, you'll see that some of that work extends. So the the common curriculum work is at least this year and next year
with the goal of having some outward-f facing um documents that following year. In terms of assessment, um some teams have already been working on this. So I would say math and science have fairly to completely common assessments. Um
this has been an area of social for social studies. So it's why you're hearing me say it's really department um based work because it the needs are different. So I think my genuine answer to your question is not really meaning in terms of the amount of heads up and
yet this is something we've been signaling for a while and trying to to sync up and working with um Robin and and Joelle in terms of moving that forward. >> That's great. That's great work. >> Yeah. Just quick hi. How are you? Thank
you. >> I'm good Carolyn. Thanks. >> Um I am excited to observe as you and your team work on the vision of a learner. Um just because you know I as you know huge fan of our jewel BHS and
everything you've done for our community and my kids. Um so I'm always loving what watching what you're doing sort of daytoday and then sort of this global kind of thinking. So I'm excited to observe that. >> Thank you. Um, and just the usual thank
you. You mentioned junior American literature. Um, I could speak for my own junior in American literature and this is actually meaningful. My husband and I sat looking at each other with our jaws open the other night um, as our junior
recited the entirety of the Raven. >> Oh my gosh. >> And that is an engaged student. So, thank you. And thank you to Nick Rossy for that. Great. Well, good. And that's a good segue to, you know, I have a very small role in all of this. Brookline
High School is about its teachers, its counselors, its nurses, and the entire team. I'm blessed to have a really strong administrative team. And so, I merely hold the vessel and and steer it some, but I'm really grateful to have a a great team and a supportive school
committee and district leaders. So, thank you all. >> Anthony, thank you for your leadership. the the boat would go astray or would be grounded if we didn't have a strong leader. So, thank you so very much for that. And I think we're going to let you go if you can still make it to the volleyball.
>> I will move quickly. All right. Thanks so much. You all have a great night. >> Thank you. >> And unless there's new business, we will conclude. >> No small amount of information.
So Suzanne, as as I expressed at the end of the last meeting, I just want to put on the table the possibility of two um discussions coming up. >> I think I wrote them down. >> Thank you. >> I did. I have them right here. >> Yeah. The worst thing and um professional development.
>> Yeah, that's the stuff.