Welcome to the Monday, December 1st, 2025 meeting of the Dennis Yamath Regional School Committee. The Dennis Yamath Regional School Committee will enter into executive session to return to public session to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining. Executive session is necessary to protect the bargaining position of the
body. May I have a motion to enter into executive session? I move to go into executive session to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining and to reconvene in open session. We have a motion in a second. We'll take a roll call vote. Mr. Morris,
Mr. Martin, >> yes. >> Miss Landers, Miss Beimis, and I vote yes. We following our discussion executive session, we will regain uh reopen the meeting. Thank you. Welcome back from our executive session.
Will everyone please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. And I have the privilege of inviting Miss Mauasian, the assistant coach of our division 4 champions of our DY varsity field hockey and the team up
I am coach Malcasian, fortunate enough to coach this great group of ladies. Um, I want to introduce you to them. Uh, right here next to me is Tayen Frasier, eighth grader. Lily Eldridge and Avery Post, both eighth
graders. Ava McGrath is a sophomore. Maddie McCarthy is a freshman. Addie Callahan a freshman. Skyler Hopkins is a sophomore. Laya Richter is a freshman. Jazzy Vargas is a sophomore. Kimmy
Sherpa, sophomore. Taylor Gavon, a sophomore. Brook Shakcoin, a junior, Jenna Richard Jr., Leah Woodward junior, and our lone senior that's here today, Elaine Emanuel.
Um, we're missing a few because of sickness and other obligations, but we're just very nice, fortunate to come here and thank you for honoring us. Um, great group of girls. Not only do they excel
on the athletic fields, but 17 of them are either high honor or honoral students. So, that's something else to be very proud of. Yeah. If you want me to start, I can start back on August 18th when the season
started. No. Um, one unique thing about us is we're a family. And I think that separates us from a lot of other teams is we like one another. We get along. Um, no one's better than anybody else.
When one person's down, we pick them up. We've had some illnesses on the team and we've persevered and we've just stepped it up when we had to. Um, our head coach, Leslie Lef France, is not here. She's away on Thanksgiving. Um, this is our second year. First year we made it
to the final four and second year she just always pushed these kids to do better. always pushing, pushing, pushing, knowing that they had the potential. And that was, I think, a best thing that happened is that we peaked at the right time. We just kept climbing
the hill throughout the whole season and when we reached the playoffs, we were ready to go. Um, and if you don't know this, uh, 32 teams enter the tournament out of roughly maybe 60 division four teams. You have to win five games to win the
championship. You lose, you're done. So fortunate we had a high ranking so that our first three games were at home. We beat Tingsbury 6- nothing at home. Then we beat Ipsswitch 4- nothing at home. And then a
real nailbiter against Quabin to make it to the final four. We beat 1 Z. Um, and then in the semis, um, we came across Cohasset, who had beat us in a preseason scrimmage, three-0, and we're
playing against them, but we knew we were way better than we were the beginning of the season, so we felt confident. However, we got ourselves in a little bind being down three to one going into the fourth quarter. Uh, but we rallied. We scored two goals to tie
it and send it into overtime. overtime in playoffs is played seven versus seven and we scored in the first overtime to make it to the uh finals and that was unbelievable that we were able to accomplish that and then on to the
finals up at Burlington and we beat um Frontier Regional 2 to one. It was 1-1 going into the fourth and with two minutes and 18 seconds left, Elaine Emanuel scored the the winning goal and uh we held on the last two minutes and
we were the state champs. Um, one other great thing that we're all very proud of is the Dennis Yarmouth community. Um, parents, our parents group is awesome. Our siblings, our friends, our students,
our staff members, even Dr. Smith. He was at our our game at the state final game. All kind of surrounded us and just really um gave us that extra oomph to want to play and to represent the town
that we live in. Um we had the police in the fire fire station. They were escorting us to and from games. In fact, when we won the state championship, they met us at the bridge and you had a police escort all the way back to DY. So, it's just really
great to be part of such a great program. Um, these kids are great and they're young. We might be back here next year. I hope you don't mind. Um, but with only two seniors, um, we started one eighth grader, four
freshman, one sophomore, three juniors, and two seniors. So, we have a very young team. Um, and the future looks very bright. We try to encourage the younger kids at the middle school here. I run an intramural field hockey program and they all come and help and try to um
get kids interested in the sport. So um the the future looks bright. Another interesting fact at the game at the final game was this is the third state championship for DY. The first one was back in 1987 coached by Karen Oanda. In
fact the field is named after her. She was there. In fact, she went to most of our home games. Um, she was still coaching when some of these kids were in in eighth grade. Um, but she won the first state championship for DY and then the second one was won in 2018 with Mary
O' Conor and Coach Oander and now we got the third. So, I have a great picture of all of us and holding the trophy and everything, but it was quite a nice thing to have him there represented us and uh being there for us. So very proud of this team. Did anybody
want to say a few words? Captains? No. They used to get interviewed after the games, but they have a they have grit. They're never down. We're never down and out. We never give up. We keep fighting to the end. And uh that's what
I really really proud of these guys. >> I probably said too much. It was perfect. >> Um, first of all, congratulations. Um, and, uh, as coach uh, said at the game, there was a couple things that stood out
to me. So, first was the, uh, the crowd. I mentioned when I, uh, sort of gave my report last just last week, uh, congratulating you all while you weren't here, but um, the I happened to go to I was up there for the day, right? So I
went to the DY game and my wife works for another school district that was also in the in the state tournament. So I sort of got the opportunity to watch two high schools participate in the championship and the thing that stood out to me the most was the difference between the experience and uh as coach M
said the the way the DY community showed up to cheer you all on and celebrated with you all when you won was unique. And I just, you know, hope most of you are back here
next year celebrating as well. But if you're not, um, and even if even if you are, just the fact that the way the community showed up for you didn't happen at to champion with the the next game that I was at, right? just the way
that even your the whole the huge student body that showed up and the way they they were chanting throughout the game like your your community showed up for you and I think it just speaks a lot to DY and how much you inspired them. Um so you know that's just something to be
really proud of and and I hope you are proud of that because um you built and brought something with you all the way up there um uh up there to Burlington which is not an easy place to get to. Um, and then the the second thing was your persistence. Um, that was
definitely something that stood out to me at the game. I don't know anything about field hockey. I don't understand why they blow the whistle. I don't understand any of those signals. Um, but one thing I can see um in a in a game is how when you all went up quickly or you
went up in the second half and then how quickly Frontier scored. I would have been a really easy moment for you to be deflated and for the whole momentum to go the other way, but you didn't. I saw like the whole tone of your team change and you stayed with it and kept the ball. I assume it's called the ball,
right? In their end and really just kept kept pestering until you got that got that go-ahead goal. Um, and really showed a lot to your character as a team. Um, and I think the the last thing that I would just say is like, and this
is uh there's a couple things that a superintendent really wants to be able to say that they um can sort of I don't know, check off and you want to be able to say that during your time as superintendent that you you have a state champion. So, thank you very much. You
checked off a big box for me um that we um I can say that I was superintendent of state of of state champs. I had nothing to do with any of it, but it's just something that I get to be able to say. So, I appreciate you uh bringing that to my career. It's very um personal
for me. So, thank you very much. You you all are responsible for me being able to shut that box. Um so, we're going to just give you some a little appreciation award. I'm going to read uh what it says for one and then all of you are going to get the same thing except it's going to have your name on it. Um so, this is a certificate of excellence. Um and this
certificate is proudly presented to and then it'll have your name. Um, in recognition of your contribution to the Dennis Jarmth Varsity Field Hockey Team and the 2025 MIAA Division 4 State Championship, your dedication, teamwork, and commitment to the grow to growth
exemplify our district's core value of excellence, striving for high standards, embracing continuous improvement, and taking pride in your achievements both on and off the field. So, we're going to call you up one at a time. you can come get your certificate and then go over there so we can take a nice little
picture for all of our social medias. It' be great. Thanks. All right, so one at a time, come on up. Actually, I just off here. Um, A McGrath, congratulations. Taylor Gavon, congratulations.
Ayanna Emanuel Elena sorry I can't read the fancy handwriting uh Leela Richter Talon Frasier Jenna Richard uh Kimmy Sherpa,
congratulations. Jasmine Vargas, Jasmina, sorry. Brooke Shone, uh, Leela Woodward. Congratulations, Maddie Moore.
No, not here. Um, Brook Woodward, not here. Um, Skyler Hopkins, congratulations. Ashley knee, not here. All right. Um, Maddie McCarthy,
uh, Aurora Quinn Quinnville, not here. I probably messed up her name anyways. Um Riley Precourt here. >> All right. Um Michaela Powell. >> It's all right. No, it's my um Avery or
Avery Avery Post. >> Congratulations. Uh, Louisie Eldridge and Addie Cal Calakan Callahan Callahan >> a goalie. >> All right. And coaches um Leslie Lefron,
Kathy Malcasian, and Carly Coochin. Congratulations again. Um, and congratulations, Miss Bennett. Uh, next we will move into elementary MCCAST presentations. And it looks like we will be starting with Mr. Riley and
Ezra H.Baker Innovations. Good evening. Can everyone hear me? All right. Good evening. There we go. I'm Patrick Riley, the principal at the Ezra HBaker Innovation School. Uh, and I'm pleased to present our uh, MCCAST data for the uh, 2025
school year. So, we can advance the slide, please. So, every school in the Commonwealth uh receives a report card um that demonstrates uh the accountability to uh
various achievement targets uh set by the state uh improvement targets uh year-over-year. Uh and so, uh at the Ezra Baker School, um we met or exceeded all targets, uh in ELA for all of our subgroups, uh last school year for
MCCAST achievement, for uh English language learner achievement, um and uh we're very proud of that. Um I I've said it before, uh Mr. Deppen left things in very good shape at Ezra Baker and um the accountability uh reflects that uh from
from last school year. uh we did meet our math growth targets uh for our high needs and students with disability subgroups. Um so every every subgroup such as students with disabilities, English language learners, um high needs, low income, uh depending on if
the group size is large enough, they'll they'll get a a target number uh for MCCAST achievement uh for attendance for um English language learner proficiency and um your overall accountability rating is based on how many of those
targets you picked. Um, and so the last bullet point here where we increased our overall accountability points that we could possibly hit. So the percentage of those targets that we hit in this in the uh 232 24 school year uh we only hit at
Ezra Baker 28% of those growth targets. But last school year um the school hit 72% of the growth targets um whether it was in any of those four categories. Uh so again, very proud of those um of that growth year-over-year from the 24 to the
25 school year. Uh really reflects the the dedication and the hard work of our of our staff members um as they're really focusing on that that tier one uh highquality instruction in ELA and math. Uh the only area where we declined uh was chronic absenteeism and it was uh by
about two percentage points uh for students who missed uh 18 or more days of school. Uh so certainly um those are uh that's an area that we're focusing on uh significantly this year um as well as the rest of the district. Um and and
just a little bit um at the bottom uh where where you see the school report card. So based on your rating uh you get a a rating of you know some progress toward targets or substantial progress toward targets. Uh and so that rating is assigned based on a
two-year look back. Um and the 24 school year um 23 24 school year gets a little bit less of a weight than the most recent school year 2425. Uh so that's where you see the composite um percentage there at the very bottom of 54% where we made um again our rating
overall is substantial progress toward targets. And so, um, one of the benefits of students taking MCCAST, um, is that we do get to break the data down, um, uh, quite significantly into different subgroups and look at how, uh, students
performed overall. So, uh, we're very much, uh, at Ezra Baker keeping pace with the state, uh, in ELA. Um if you look to the upper right corner uh those are the different um areas of English language arts that are assessed by the MCCAST in grade three. Uh reading
language uh and then there is a separate score for the essay and overall for writing. And so uh we've we've exceeded the uh the state um achievement uh in nearly all of those categories. Um we certainly know that there's room for
growth um especially when we're looking at our writing. Um that continues to be an area of focus for us. Um but as you see performance over time um you know grade three uh schools that end in grade three can have a a great deal of variability year-over-year uh with
achievement since we only uh get accountability for that one grade level. Um and it's the very first year that students take that exam. Uh but you can see we are on an upward trend at the moment. Um and and uh we we hope to
continue that. Um, one other measurement here that'll also be the same for math. Um, if you look in at the top row there where it says average scaled score, um, the closer that number gets to 500, uh, in general, the the better students are
achieving, 500 is that cut score. Um, between students getting partially meeting or meeting expectations for their achievement on MCCAST. Uh so one of our goals is to push that average scaled score past the 500 mark uh this school year and continuing that upward
trend uh beyond this school year. Ready for math. So as you see in math while we didn't get uh we didn't hit as many of our targets in math you can see um in the very center there um the blue the blue bars show students who are
meeting or exceeding um the proficiency in math. uh that's that's remained almost stagnant for the last uh few years. Uh we have seen an overall decrease in the red uh where students are far below or um uh not meeting expectations. Um and as you as you can
see we are again um on an upward trend. We are um for the last three years uh ahead of the state as far as the percentage of students that are in that meeting or exceeding category. But there's certainly uh a ways to go. Um, in the upper right box there, I would
point out that uh we did exceed all of the um state achievement uh in in each area for math that's assessed on the MCCAST. Um, and so again, we're very proud um of that and it reflects the especially for for our math curriculum,
the the really uh hard work that our teachers have been doing uh looking at fidelity and tier one implementation over the last few years. So, this just takes the the data that we were just looking at and breaks it down into two of our our major subgroups. Um, and as you can see, there's a graph
for students who are on IEPs and there's um a pair of graphs for students who are English language learners. For each of those um pairs of graphs there, the the line graph on the left uh represents how many students took the
exam in any given test year. So it's it goes back to 2021 and uh shows how many students took the test uh took the MCCAST each year. Uh the upper line is the total number of students in the school that took the test in grade three and the bottom line is the subgroup. So,
as you can see, the number of students on IEPs that have been taking the MCCAST uh over the last three years uh has has gone down overall. There was a very small number of students um that were on IEPs that took the MCCAST last year. Um
and you can see on the right uh that represents the achievement gap. So the number of students um the number of all students uh who are proficient or higher um is the top line and the number of students in the subgroup is the bottom line. Um so that's how the how each of
those graphs are paired. So uh you know one trend uh that I I think sticks out is that um you know we have an increasing number overall of students taking the MCAST every year. So our grade three enrollment has gone up. Um, and while the number of students with
disabilities has declined, uh, the achievement gap, uh, hasn't quite closed in ELA, uh, as as much as we would like. And same with the English language learners. Uh, we have an increasing number of students, uh, ELLL students taking the exam. Um, and the achievement gap uh, does continue to widen for those
students. So, that absolutely is an area that we are um, looking at and um, making plans to address. Uh so this is our math data and as you can see our students on IEPs last year uh again there there weren't very many
um but the students that were on IEPs um closed that gap significantly last year. Uh so again that that just reflects that variability uh for that subgroup uh year-over-year it can change quite significantly just not not only in numbers but also uh the profile of of the students taking the tests that are
on IEPs. their needs can be significantly different from one year to the next. Uh and again the ELLL numbers uh for you know last year's math MCCAST um we had 100% participation so the numbers are the same um but you can see
the achievement gap in math uh is is widening quite a bit. Um, so, um, I've had several meetings and several conversations with our educators, um, already, um, both our ELLL teachers and our grade level content teachers, just trying to get some initial, um,
information from them about why why that is. Uh, we've looked at this data as a staff already. um and talking about the different vocabulary, the different um ways that that the Eureka curriculum is presented and how we can help our ELS's um access that uh more effect more
effectively. And so there are several action steps from our improvement plan uh that will address um not just the achievement gap for the subgroups, but again that average scaled score that I talked about to um increase the achievement for all of our students in ELA and math. um
where you know we have mechanisms in place to meet with classroom teachers individually uh at least three times a year. Um we're going to be doing that more frequently but um at a minimum three times a year where we do look at that subgroup data. Um and then all of
our professional staff um again that one area where we declined for our accountability was attendance. So we want to um leverage all different approaches to um increase the uh number of students who attend school regularly because they have to be there in order
for our achievement to go up. >> Uh thank you for the time to present this evening and um I'm ready to accept any questions. >> Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Riley? Miss Bemus. So these are very encouraging results.
Um so my question is this is your first glance and your first year. What do you see as some of the encouraging practices or programs that contributed to these good results? >> I think for um for math especially and
and for ELA um teachers are very familiar with the data. It's been presented well to them uh in previous years. And so we take ownership of that, not just at the third grade, but you know, this is a kindergarten through third grade effort. Um, and every
teacher has to be familiar with what that third grade achievement looks like and what piece of that they own because we won't see those gains and we won't see um that scaled score get past 500 if we're not developing those skills in kindergarten and even before that in
preschool. Um, so I think that's really something positive I see is that um, we do take a whole staff approach to that. >> Do you know approximately what percentage of the students are ELL? >> Um, at the moment um, I believe we are
at 30. I just looked at this the other day and I don't want to mix up the subgroups. So I'm sorry off the top of my head I >> Okay, that's all right. I know we have 70 students that are that are ELLL. So, any other questions, Mr.
None? Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> And then the next group we have up is someone standing up first so I can looks like Margarite E. Small and then for board members in the packet, Margarite Small was first I think.
So, and then so it if you go backwards, it should be the first packet. >> Hi, I was coming in. I'm Carol Mahadei. I'm proud to be the principal of Emmy Small. Um, and
I guess what I'd like to say before we start with this data is I feel a real ownership towards this because as Patrick said, it's a kindergarten through third grade process and these third graders were in kindergarten the
year that I started. Um, I'm very proud to bring this report card home to you. Um it's an incredible um improvement over the last years. We're up 79%. On Wednesday, I've been invited by the
state to participate in what they're calling an academic excellence convocation for um schools that have gone back to preandemic scores. Um, and so I'm super delighted that the hard
work that our staff and our kids have put in and that it's paying off. Um, much like Patrick, the one place where we did not get the full points is chronic absenteeism.
We are our attendance rate is slightly better than it was at this time last year. Um we're really um making a concerted effort to focus on that and um to that end we have a team and other
things that we've talked about but most importantly kids can't learn if they're not in school. Um here's our ELA data. We had a 7% increase in students meeting expectations and the place we're behind this state on
all of the dimensions. But the one place where our entire third grade teachers are dedicating their efforts this year is around writing particularly on the essay expectations. Um, we looked really hard. The state actually sends you your
essays and we looked at each of those and we compared them to the state exemplars and um, for those of you who know me, this used to be how I made my money before I became a principal. So, it's really been encouraging to look at that and focus our work on it.
Um, in math, I'm proud to say that as Patrick mentioned, our um, work with Eureka Math Squared has really paid off and we had a 9% increase from last year
and um, we actually had 4% students in exceeding expectations um, which we're super proud of. Um, our selected populations data tells a little bit of a different story and I'd like to talk about this a little
bit. Um, we are working really hard to support all of our students in tier one instruction, which is to scaffold and give them what they need, as well as tier 2 interventions, but to keep them with their peers and to receive the same
tier one instruction for students on IEPs. The gap is the smallest it's been since 2021. And although our gap for our multilingual learners is narrowing, it is larger than it was last year. Again,
you know, different students, different needs. Um, but we are going to continue to focus on um tier one instruction for all and support for all students. um in math. Despite our growing
proficiency in math, our e students on IEPs are being left behind. And that's a real targeted area of focus for our school this year. focusing on access to tier one curriculum, being sure that
when um special needs educators are in a classroom that while they're attending to the goals on the IEP, they're also supporting those students in their access um to tier one curriculum. And
similar to last year, our multilingual learners are narrowing that gap. last year they um exceeded it, but I think that comes from
the robust exposure that they have and the attention that we pay to SEI instruction for our multilingual learners. Our action steps are just as I shared with
the um school improvement plan and it's to just continue the hard work of you know um keeping our noses to the grindstone on district curriculum and focusing observations and feedback on instructional practices and also making
sure that we are consistent with what's expected um with our district curricular curriculum. And it comes down to our basic core value of equality and that um we've been really doing a lot of work at
our PLC's on aligning learning goals from our current data as Patrick mentioned um with benchmark assessments, mapped curricular assessments and MCCAST to drive the instruction and growth. And I echo what Patrick says. The students sit for this test in third grade, but
it's a test of what happens from kindergarten on. And again, as I mentioned earlier, this um real focused attention on student attendance. >> Great. Any questions for Miss Mah? Miss Pis,
>> I just want to acknowledge uh your growth factor and congratulations to your staff and all the students there. >> Thank you. They worked really really hard and it's showing. Thank you. I appreciate that. >> Yes. Uh I definitely acknowledge and appreciate where you are. Um obviously,
you know, we want to make sure we stay there um and continue. >> We want to make sure we go past there. >> Past Well, yes, definitely past it. 89 is a very high score to keep up. Um, you know, and then as I'm thinking about this and looking at ELLL and IEP, um, I
know we the director of ELLL or ML. Um, I would hope with with us creating that position for this year that there is a another person that can help assist in making sure we're doing everything we can to meet that needs of
that sub because it seems we have some great things but there's still some disparity um in that area >> particularly with students and IEPs for us >> and then with the IEPs as well. Miss Landers. >> So, across the board, chronic
absenteeism seems to be an issue. I I'm don't know what else we'll see tonight, but um are you you know, I see that you are creating an attendance team and you've got some um action steps. Are you
working with the other principles, the other schools? And are you working not just with the other elementary schools, but do we have any sort of cohesive plan up and down for >> Yes, we do. Okay. All of our schools um at well, it's a I think it's like two
hours after school starts. For us, it's at 11:00. It's earlier for the schools that start earlier. There's a um message that goes out on parent square if your student is absent. Um and that just in the immediate on that day kind of
reaching out. But before that, we also make phone calls to check. We have the teachers reaching out. And then um just as importantly, when students come back, we welcome them. We tell them we miss them. And we've always done that, but
we're really focusing on that. And every um there's an uh at a certain point in the year once you've missed I think it's 4, 8, 12, you get a letter. But in addition to the letters, we've been sending the parent square as well
because that's an in the- moment and often the family says, "Oh, I didn't realize it was that many." Um, and then where families are missing a lot of school, then we're extending an invitation. Sometimes it's the nurse, sometimes maybe the family doesn't have
a doctor and so she's helping to set up for appointments to keep their health up. and other times, particularly just speaking for elementary school, um the importance of being in school and
the other effects of missing school. We've been working on with families and then sometimes the social worker sits down. Um sometimes it's transportation if family misses the bus in the morning and then we work um to see what we can do to help them.
>> Perfect. Uh great job, Mr. Mahing. Thank you for representing us and uh next week and we're excited that uh you get to accept that award. >> Thank you. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> And then we'll have Miss Kelly station. >> Hello. I'm Valerie Kelly. I'm the
principal at Station A Elementary and I'll dive right in. Uh like the other schools, we made tremendous progress. our um our progress targets improved to 92% and on the lower I'm uh put a table that
outlined the difference between 2024 and 2025 um and similar to the other schools we made gains in almost every area is um one place where we didn't earn any points and so that's going to be a real
targeted focus and like the other schools chronic absenteeism uh was impactful, but that is a priority focus also this year. And so we're excited to see um what yields from our efforts across this coming year.
Our ELA data, we're really thrilled to see this is the first time in many many years that our we are trending back upwards and that is full credit to the teachers who are working day in and day out. And uh in an elementary school, it's kind of like a relay race where
they start off in kindergarten and it builds builds builds and then our third grade team really takes that baton um and gets the kids prepared to take the MCCAST and and reflect that global learning that happens. And we had a nice jump 10% from last year and we're
exceeding the state for the first time in many years. And like I said, that's an effort um that goes credit to our teachers who are working day in and day out taking a look at our data um trying different methods. We had um a number of
different efforts globally across the school last year to be responsive to our data. Uh writing continues to be a priority focus area as well. While we're slightly above the state in these four domains on the top right category, we still have work to do. Um and so we're
going to continue that priority focus, but we're really pleased with the the nice um reverse and trend for ELA. Math is a real area for celebration for us this year. Uh we made tremendous
gains and it's been a trend that's been continued over the last five years. um which is pretty significant and uh it credit also goes to the our our teachers who day in and day out are teaching. I think they are really
analyzing and digesting the Eureka Math curriculum, but also finding areas where our students might not be coming to the table um with the skills needed to access everything. And then they're adapting um and thinking really critically about the profile of students before them and how they can meet those
needs and grow those students forwards in a in a concerted way. And it it's paying off. This year we disagregated the data and met with all the third grade teachers and like the other schools we uh looked at all the essay samples but then we also did an item
analysis and we collated the class from last year um by each domain and the teachers really digested kind of how their students did and and then they're taking that information and adapting their practice further. So um we're really celebrating this growth but we
also are recognizing areas that we need to continue to focus. We also um recently with the help of PTO purchased reflex math and that is a platform where students can practice math fact fluency and um that's just a tool that parents
can use at home easily. Kids enjoy it. It's not done in tier one instructional time but we're finding that math fact fluency is impacting kind of global math performance. So we're hopeful to see um impact from that extra tool as well.
The areas that uh we're not celebrating as much would be our achievement gap that seems to have widened uh for our EL students and uh this is a real priority focus. I think one major contributing factor is our chronic absenteeism.
And so we're kind of doing a dual focus of addressing chronic absenteeism and figuring out the barriers of why kids aren't here and how we can support those barriers to get them here and then also working with really closely with our EL instructional team uh to figure out how
we can meet students needs and grow their proficiency levels further. And same goes for EL. We did see growth. This is our ELA to the far right. Um we did close the gap narrowly. I think some contributing factors to that is getting
our um special ed teachers OG trained and using a scientific method to support um some early literacy and phonics acquisition in a in a systematic way and we've seen u payoff from that. So we're building on what's working and examining
what hasn't been and adjusting our practice accordingly. Same for math. Uh we widened the gap for EL but closed it a little bit for our students with disabilities. Uh I think what we found as an elementary team in
the district is that Eureka Math has kind of higher Lexile vocabulary. And so we're thinking about opportunities to increase that vocabulary practice um to help our students whose first language is in English better access um and
creating opportunities to reinforce that tier one instruction with the EL teacher in the classroom. We're taking a lot of action steps this year. I think we're in a great place. There's a lot to celebrate on how we did this year, but there is also concerted work to do. And so um some of the things
that we're doing this year um we're continued the t we're continuing the targeted focus of our extended learning block. Last year we extended the school day by 22 minutes and we created uh an intervention block called what I need and we're using that meaningfully again this year. We have increased partnership
with our ML um department director and coordinator and they're doing coaching cycles and providing targeted instructional support for our staff. We have a schoolwide approach to addressing chronic absenteeism. I partnered with our ML director who's getting her who's
doing her dissertation on um chronic absenteeism and we did a great faculty meeting training on chronic absenteeism and things that really impact students getting to school and and what's been effective in other districts to reversing that trend. Uh and then we did a follow-up faculty meeting where we
focused on our particular absenteeism trends and we actually looked at students who were severely chronically absent from last year and students who are on that path for this year and um and had teachers break up by grade levels and take a look at that.
And some teachers weren't aware that some students sitting in their class were absent that many times the year prior. And so having that data live for them um I think gives us extra agency and the people who are closest to those families to help uh make endroads to get
them here. Um we're holding enrichment blocks for our ML students and our students with social emotional needs. It's something we started last year but the goal is to increase connectedness to school and expand um essential vocabulary in those different domains. If you think about
music and English isn't your first language, like there can be a lot to to navigate voca in the vocabulary um realm, but if you have an extra couple sessions on a small group with the music teacher and you learn some of those key, it helps you to access and it helps you
to feel more comfortable. And so we're thinking about ways to really um bridge all of these different opportunities for those two particular groups. We are trying to shorten our data cycles to afford greater responsiveness to our performance data and intervention implementation. If we have this data and
then we don't meet on it for six weeks, by the time we act on it, that data is old. So, by shortening the data cycle, we're really trying to um to to be responsive in a shorter time frame and help um target that need faster. We, like I said earlier, we did initial
trainings for all of our special educators in the moderate realm um with OG and we're seeing that really pay off. We're doing a schoolwide focus for the priority areas outlined in MCCAST and that's that item analysis. If you go on the DESIE profile, it outlines um all
the questions by ELA and math and how your school did versus the state. And so we we really analyze that and places that we are significantly below the state or any areas that were just lower in general. And then we're um creating a priority focus area for um for
instruction across this year and finding opportunities to include some of those topics earlier and create um embedded spiral review. So, we're hoping that if students get more opportunity with that um with those topics that hopefully they'll have mastery for MCCAST and just
in general. And finally, uh we're conducting data meetings with individual teachers three times a year. Uh this is something we did last year and we felt it really paid off and so we're continuing it um to review every students, review all the growth targets, ways to support and we're getting good
feedback from teachers that they enjoy this kind of individual time to really look through their class profile um and set goals and and not just thinking about the students who aren't meeting but also thinking about the students who are meeting or above and what extension opportunities we can be offering them as
well. And that concludes station app. >> Thank you very much, Miss Kelly. Any questions? Miss Beles, >> before we leave K3, thanks to all three who presented tonight and I really appreciate the detailedness and the
concrete examples of what you do with this data and how you use it for reflective and then practice. Um, and I just need an explanation. What does OG stand for? >> Fair question. We use a lot of acronyms in education. I apologize. It's Orton Gillingham. It's a methodology.
>> Mr. What impresses me is not only success in the the verbal rendition of what you've accomplished as a as a group of team leaders and
confi confirm good behavior and grades for the students from from the teachers. But the number of detailed items and mechanisms that you've got as part of your toolkit certainly exceeds anything. I mean
that's not like I grew up in the dark ages when it was up to the family to get the kids motivated. But the responsibility for the student is highly referred to as as need and needs are
isolated without judgment of negativity. So I'm impressed. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. I I know when we looked at the district report card, there was a lot of concern and I know we'll hear
information moving forward from the other schools. Um, but I know a couple years ago when we talked about the 10th grade, we talked about the K to3 and how if we didn't increase our scores in K to3, the graduation rate would be
affected. And I know that's when we started we pulled in math and you know there was a lot of question is do we need to change it again? Um, and there was a lot of concern about constantly making changes. Um, but from what we've
seen from K to 3, it really has some, you know, positive forward thinking for what the future has for us. Um, and you know, we're just hoping with, you know, this new group of students who, you
know, didn't see some of the things that some of our other students had to go through that, you know, normality will be here and that we can continue this path. Um, and obviously for the upper grades, we we know that our teachers work hard and we want to get back to
where uh we need to be and exceed that. But um thank you to the K to3 teachers um for all that you do and I think the atmosphere in these schools how they're three very different schools but the atmosphere is one that's welcoming and I
think it has made an impact on our students. So thank you >> and then we'll invite uh Mr. Blake intermediate school So, good evening, Jim Blake, principal DY Intermediate. Just to build off of what you've been saying, Mr. Tino, I
think one of the first impressions our fourth grade teachers had was when the kids were new this year for a lot of those successes that you just saw in like third grade MCAST and things you're talking about, they definitely noticed right away. Whether it was writing
longer and writing stamina, reading, math packs, you name it. It's it's things that they definitely noticed uh coming in. So, moving on to our school. So, I know I listened to the last school committee meeting where everyone got a
little more familiar with these charts. So, if you were online and looking at like all those numbers and then maybe hit one of the other tabs where it said like detailed and it got into some of the things the other principles had talked about like for literacy in math
there's like 10 subgroups each. So, the way that I could kind of summarize our data is if you look at those 20 different scores, like 16 of them are improving, but we're not improving as fast as we'd like to go. So, we're happy that we're
improving, but not improving enough. So, I guess that's the easiest way to summarize it. Um, in terms of chronically asking, because we've all been talking about it a lot, if my social worker was here next to me, she would be like, "Tim has beat this drum
since he got here." And just because sometimes when we talk about kids being absent, we think of all like a parent went on vacation. There's a million different reasons. And sometimes we don't bring it down to the grade level of like the ground level what that looks like. So for someone who's chronically
absent and they're out 18 days, that's like just writing off a month of instruction. And for us, we were always hovering around 17%, which isn't anything I'm really proud of. Uh terms of our school in attendance, we've always been pretty good in the district.
Um and last year we dipped down to like 19%. So one of the You're not going to read it as an action item, but I've been beating that drum louder. Like if almost 20 of our 20 20% of our kids are out 18 days or more, we are fighting uphill all
the time and we need to really get real of what that number looks like. So when you say chronically absent, usually I feel like we feel like, well, the kid missed a lot of school, but when you say 18 days at least and think of like there's some months where the amount of school days is 20, that's a lot of
school that kids are missing. So, I don't think we've ever not been serious about this, but I think in terms of it being a focus of the district, I think is a great thing. So, we just need kids here more often. And sometimes it's hard because as kids goes up in the grade level. Like I have a junior myself, you
know, if he's missing school, he's worried about his GPA. My nine and 10 year olds here at the school are not talking about their GPA. So, sometimes we think about it differently. But it's building that base. the more they miss year after year, it's just you're fighting uphill and it's really hard.
So, we'll get a little bit to that later. Um, the other point where we need an area growth is our achievement special education. I know some of the other schools have mentioned that as well. When we get to look at the data, that was a little bit of a surprise for us because we've been trending in the right direction and we definitely took a dip.
So, next slide. So, in literacy, um, our first goal and really for literacy in math, if you think of excellence, what I've talked about with the staff is to be excellent. You got to at least get to where the state is and then you got to forge further ahead. So, our first
goal is really to catch the state. And you can see we've really been stagnant. We haven't caught up with our precoid levels. Uh, last year achievement levels were the same. I think the state increased like 8% while we didn't increase at all. Um, so that's obviously an area of concern.
uh because we just we need to we need to catch up and we'll get into some of our action steps later and what that will look like. If you look at the bar graphs, I know Mr. Riley pointed out, you see there's less kids in the red, but even though there's less kids in the red, they're not up in those two different color blues where we want
them. So, there's some improvement, but um certainly not the improvement that we're looking for. In math, you can see we're get we've passed our kind of our pre-COVID levels and we're getting closer and closer to catching the state and going and going further.
Last year, we closed that gap by, let's see, I wrote it down someplace. We're down to like 6% behind the state. So, we've gotten better and better as years have gone by. So, we're we're happy with that. It's nothing that we're proud of yet because like I said, you got to at
least get to that baseline and then we want to keep pushing forward. So, they've definitely seen some improvements in math and that trajectory is moving in the right way. I think everyone has explained these grassroots so I'm not going to explain them in the same way. When we see the
achievement in special education needs to improve, you can see where that gap widened. If you see that kind of trend line, this where I was talking about is we were When I say surprised, it wasn't like we opened up MCCAST 4 said, "Oh my god." Because as we were looking at data along the way, we noticed that we were
starting to get a gap that wasn't there before. So, it's been an area of concern that we're working on this year. Um, when you look at achie the achievement gap in E for EL students, you see again the trajectory is moving in the right way. And in literacy, we started to
decrease that gap a little bit more last year from the year before, but we still got work to do. Go back one. There you go. So, you see that now that we're looking at math, you see that same dip for special education students where you see the graph is moving in the right direction and then
we definitely had that dip down. And in EL though, you see it decreasing and starting to go the other way. That graph obviously was kind of going down and we've really started to turn the trends. So in terms of when we get into action steps, that's one of the things I could
talk about when we were here talking about staffing and making decisions and how things change for the school. I see this as the help that we gained is having a positive effect for our students. So the first step that we talk about, you know, all the other schools have mentioned the same thing is making the
teachers aware of the data and having them look at it as well. So, it' be one thing if we just came up here and said, "Oh, here's the data." Then send it to our staff and say, "Here it is." But we really have them go through it and walk through the same steps looking at the data, come up with action plans, and
then come up with like a challenge of, you know, what does this really look like in your classroom? Um, for us it was a couple staff meetings ago where we went through the same data that we're presenting right now and said, you know, if I was walking based on what you just
like based on what you've learned, what would I see if I walked in your room at the perfect time? Like what would look different or what are you focusing on more if I came in at the perfect time? Because anybody who's ever taught will always say the principal comes in at the wrong time or misses that one perfect
time. um for EL staffing. Um a couple years ago we talked about I think when Mark was new we talked about like student to teacher student teacher to student ratios and what they should be. Um I believe Mark will correct me. I forget
what we have for EL but it's like 18 to 20 for per teacher. Um for our school we were hovering in the mid 40s to one where we barely fit in the classrooms that we were in. Um, so I see really see when the the change of staffing where
we've increased our staff to bring it to a more beyond honest realistic level that you see the achievement start to change the class. It's not just because the class size has gone down, but you see the teachers able to focus better on what they're able to do um with this
increased staffing um without getting too much into the weeds of it. Our EL teachers are teaching language, but they're not necessarily like a reading specialist. So, we've really been able to focus on the new curriculum that we brought in last year to have in the curriculum the
supports for the EL teachers to better teach reading especially at those earlier levels. So, that was not a focus really before, but when we brought in the new curriculum, it was what supports are there for the kids and for the teachers that we do a better job of
teaching uh reading because we needed to improve there. Um, in terms of I want to get to Yeah. Um, in terms of literacy, we're having kids write more than they've had before.
When you look at the data, they need to respond to text and writing more often. So, that's been a focus of the teachers. not just three or four times during the year when we have PLC meetings and taking out an MCCAST rubric and how do we improve because that's important but
more of those weekly PLC meetings looking at student writing all the time and being able to identify what aren't the kids doing as well that we need to do them as well because while we'd like to see improvements everywhere it's what the other schools have said as well their writing just needs to improve and
the only way that you improve is asking kids to write more often um one of the things that we're excited for is having the new literacy program. Right now, six of our 22 classrooms have had it. Um, as a teacher said recently,
when can I use that, too? So, that's a great I'm excited for the momentum that we'll have for next year, too. It's a noticeable jump in the expectations that the curriculum has for the students, and that's already been sensed throughout the school. Um, I know Valerie just spoke about it
as well in terms of interventionist meetings and looking at data really tighten those up. Um, it's not that we never had that before, but really being a lot more strict in like every six weeks we're looking at our data, looking who's in groups, talking to families
about it, too. It shouldn't just be like your teach your student comes home and says I have, you know, teacher X and this one. And that parent doesn't know what that is or what that is all about. So really an expectation this year was communicating with different families. Your kids in this reading group because
and then at six weeks talking to families about I've seen progress and this is what it looks like or I haven't seen as much progress as we need so your child's going to stay with me longer. So that parent portion of it was something whether or not it should have happened
before is a definite thing for this year uh that we're excited about so families really understand what's going on. Um, and in terms of it might seem like um, like an easy thing, but for a related arts teachers, they're involved with students who are chronically absent. I
think especially in K to five where students have less teachers, having your teacher reach out to you for everything is not a surprise, but having your related arts teacher like noticing the attendance like, "Hey, Tim, you were out yesterday. I'm glad to see you back."
and sending that message to a family is just a way to kind of kick it up a notch. Um, and like I said, like been really banging the drum of trying to get everyone to really realize like how much it is when you're out 18 days. Um, so
that has definitely started the different teachers reaching out to families and different teachers noticing kids. For us, I get to do this because we're here in our building. When kids go to related arts, they all kind of meet in that lobby and see their related arts teachers. So,
it's I'm not going to say it's easy, but there's definitely opportunities for teachers, including the related arts teachers, to be like, "Oh, hey, Glenn. I noticed that you're here today. I missed you the past couple days. It would have been great to see you in Chorus. How you doing?" All those little things to just let kids know that we notice and let
families know that we notice and let families know that it's important. Um, it's just a way to help bolster student achievement because it's hard to learn when you're not here. So, I think I covered all the questions.
>> Thank you so much, Mr. Blake. Any questions? Mr. Morris's waving. >> The range of meeting with parents answers the question about more parental involvement. It isn't just a matter of calling up on making a phone call. It's
actually involving the families in the total teaching environment and learning environment of the students. And it seems to me that it's having a success because we're not passing blame. We're
creating a positive environment for family, students, teaching staff. So, I'm appreciate you're laying that out. Thank you, M. Linders. >> Tim, do you have some ideas about the
sort of stagnation here in the ELA scores? >> Yeah, they've been stagnant for a while, right? >> Yeah. I mean I think one of the thing moving forward is if you look and I know this is like apples to oranges but I hope you can
follow me with the same principle is the way that we rolled out math when we rolled out EM2. I would hope predict plan for the same amount of success when we roll out a new
curriculum in literacy having those same improvements. Um, I think that's really the key to it. I think in terms of when you look at math, I had a teacher once. I just briefly walked through the classroom and looked at the board and she said, "I know you're going to tell
me to do X, Y, and Z. Miss Pontius, if she was here, she would tell me to do X, Y, and Z. If the math coach walked in here, she would tell me to do X, Y, and Z." And that was just a look. And I just looked. She's like, "I already know what you're thinking." But the roll out with math
um really provided that opportunity and I'm really looking forward to having a similar roll out for literacy where you should see our achievement scores start to move because they need to. >> Thank you, >> Miss Beus. >> It's been a while since I've been an
educator. So, uh when I taught MCCAST started in grade four and there was no grade three. So now I'm wondering since it starts in grade three and you are do doing it again in grade four, is the ELA more abstract or more challenging, a
longer writing component? Is there any difference between the third format and the fourth? >> I'm not going to pretend to be an expert of what it looks like in third grade, but I don't think it's anything so different that the answer to that is
yes. I think sometimes when you looked at talking about like in middle school, I know there used to be like the the big essay in grade seven, there were some differences there, but there's nothing so different that it calls to that. Thank you so much. Um you know we keep
again the state the country everyone's saying the the chronic absenteeism and you know it's just thinking about what we can do and you know hearing earlier comments that transportation could be an issue and whenever you say transportation all you think about is money but it you know it
makes me wonder you know what other options we could provide and I know there's teams of people thinking about this but um I know we off to after school buses. I don't know. I'm not saying we need to decide to have a late bus but uh in the
morning, but it's just if if transportation again, I don't know what the number one reason is. It could be illness, it could be whatever, but if transportation is an issue, I think we need to possibly look at ways to get the kids to school. Dr. Smith, I'll let you comment on that. >> Yeah, just because there were there were
two questions I just want to um or two comments that I just wanted to round out. So one was the on the chronic absenteeism just to put the couple of the principal's comments just in a larger context. It is as I've mentioned
it is part of one of our action items for our strategic plan for this year. So in addition to what was already mentioned uh we've been working on consistent messaging at the district level. We, you know, we even made some
simple changes to how we code our um attendance across the entire district. U move shifted away from the idea of an excused absence because we believed it was communicating the idea that there was that if if students were identified as an excused absence that somehow it
didn't, you know, it didn't impact the learning, right? So, you could have 18 excused absences. Well, there really is when you report to the state, there is no such thing as an excused absence. it's either you're president or you're not president. Um, so but really we were using excused absences so that we didn't
then you know call home and alarm to say you know your kid's not here and then especially with like a kindergarten parent you if we didn't have some way to not robocall to say hey your kid's not present then and the parent thinks you
know I didn't put my I put my kid on the bus you know whatever we wanted some system so we've just changed it to be notified you've told us your child's not here so we're not going to then send you a message saying your kid's not here because we know your kids's not here or you know your kid's not here or we know you know your kid's not here. Um so that
was one and then we've been messaging both from the district level and the school level to what Mr. Blake was just talking about like the importance of presence. Um and then even a simple message went out maybe two weeks ago, you know, as we're heading into the cold
and flu season. You know, trying to reshape an understanding, you know, during COVID, we were all guilty of telling everybody to stay home pretty much all the time for any reason. And so we now responsible for reshaping our
understanding around those things that it's okay to come to school if you know you're not feeling 100%. Um, and so the our nursing director just put out, you know, a sort of a a message to the entire district around, you know, these are really the and it's going back to
like we used to send these messages out as school districts all the time like, you know, it's really like if you've got a fever of X, Y, and Z, these are the reasons the roots to stay home otherwise, you know, it's okay to come to school. Um and and the nurses are there to support and help make judgments if you know if your child needs to see
some you know get some additional medical attention. Uh so anyways really trying to work on some of those pieces as well. And then we are the the leadership team um has been working to develop we're going to survey we've looking to both survey caretakers as
well as students. We just sort of have to figure out what's the appropriate grade bands to hit for students. Um but to address what might be some barriers that are keeping kids from coming to school. Um you know if it is transportation what is it? Because we
offer transportation to everybody. So how is that impacting your ability to get to school? But anyways we want to sort of uncover what is it that you know because we do have some state level data. the students take the vocal survey um which gives us some and we did some analysis of that this summer looking at
sort of a sense of belonging and is that connected to chronic absenteeism. Is there any relationship between the students who aren't feeling as connected to school and the populations of students who are not attending? Uh and
we saw some correlation in that data. The challenge is vocal is given at four, seven and 10, I think. Um, so it's not a full broad picture. So we want to get we want to drill into that a little bit. So we're So anyway, so we have a couple of other action items that are across the
entire district. Uh, in addition to everything that you are here as well. Um, and then the other piece was I what was the other note I wrote myself? Um, oh literacy. It was some somebody made that I think it was you uh Tomas who mentioned around the importance of the
literacy work and it it is all over the research and the um the literature that if we don't if students are not um reading on grade level by grade three uh it impacts their studies have looked at
the relationship between reading on grade level at grade three and graduation rates reading on grade level at grade three and college success reading a grade level at grade three and future job earnings your future health like and there's connections and
correlations between all of them. So really it's really very important that we work on early literacy and as the team mentioned it starts in kindergarten. It's not just the responsibility of third grade but it as we build those strong foundation in the
third grade it helps for student success all the way up. It's like decades of research to support that. >> Thank you. Yes, Miss Landers. >> What are the interventions when a student is chronically absent? I mean,
we know from our policies, you know, you get a letter after x number of days. We know we're getting text messages and emails, but and and I heard the um that you're having meetings with and bringing families in to talk about but like
what's the big intervention for a chronically absent kid? >> So that's like part of what we're developing this year to say we had a consistent approach from building to building a districtwide. I I would be telling you we didn't have a real other than some of the measures that were like
we had a consistent approach for sending you know the letters homes to families but as far as a and each team or each school is working on similar but slightly different things because part of it is grade appropriate um or school yeah age appropriate as well but um part
of it is more real time management of the data like each team has each school has some version of an attendance team Now that is um looking at it on a regular uh looking at their attendance data on a very regular basis not uh and
and responding to students uh very consistently. Part of it is a tier one approach as you heard several of the um the principles mention meeting students rate uh you know as they return. A lot of the research talks
and again doc somebody mentioned Dr. Watts' dissertation was all on this. Um, and so she's provide she's been a great it was just sort of a um ancillary benefit of hiring her. Um, she's she's been able to provide the team a lot of current research on chronic absenteeism.
So, she was able to share with us, you know, a lot of the research talks about uh a lot of things that can turn chronic absenteeism is the interactions you have with students right when they come back and not to, you know, they can just be positive affirming. Hey, we missed you.
uh we're glad you're back and not um turning their students attendance and or lack of it being present into a negative and you know well how come you weren't here instead of we're glad you're back right it's just a a slight shift in the way you frame the conversation uh could
have a positive impact and then there's other things that schools are working on like rand I think you heard the high school when they were here presenting around their parking policy like some of that has been influenced some of the things they mentioned around like the random um forget exactly how it's
phrased, but the like the random um uh like it's not a random celebration day. I can't remember the phrase, but it's essentially you have something that happens on a day that it's not pre publicized like it's a nothing other
than like you had to have been there that day for that thing to happen. You don't know when it's coming. And when you start to have those things, then kids now I want to be in school because I don't know when this thing's gonna happen. So it's it starts to drive a culture of hey you want to be there because this thing's going to happen and nobody knows when it's going to happen
but they do happen as part of the school culture. Um so again the high school mentioned that they're looking at opportunities for that for their school. Um and different schools are experimenting with different things. >> Thank you. And then you know the one thing I will I'll ask of our our leaders
um there's a lot of documents that look the same. It is beneficial to all of us if you do have your school logo on it instead of the DY logo. Um and then maybe even on some of the slides have in the bottom have the school names if we can do that. Um you know we have 60
pages we looked at and all the data is the same. Um so just an ask from from myself I guess on behalf of the committee. Um, and Miss Bennett, if we can look at that and then Mr. Rubino, too. Um, it's just as we're going through some of these, it's just hard for us to go through.
>> I'll take I'll take the bullet for them on that one because I gave them a template, so they're they're they're operating off my template. So, I'll take the bullet for them on that one. >> Thank you. Um, and Miss M. Deo was unable to make it with us tonight for a student representative report. Um, but
we are very glad we were able to have um our champions here. So, we did have some student representation and now we have a very excited thing. Um, we have our new website presentation. The previous one was uh installed on Phil's first year. Um, so we're very happy to have the the
new website. I believe uh Leila is going to present. Leela, >> good evening. I am Leela Espano and I serve as the communications and community relations coordinator for the district. Thanks for having me tonight.
I am very excited to share that on Tuesday, last week, the 25th of November, we officially officially launched our new website. The launch follows a thorough process where we interviewed multiple vendors and chose
to move forward forward with smart sites that's powered by parent square. As you may know, Parent Square is already our communication platform here in the MSR. Selecting Smart Sites allow us to bring
everything into a unified communication systems. This means increased efficiency and stronger, more consistent branding. With smart sites, we can create content once and choose it to feed right into the website. And I will show you that uh
shortly. We can also um share the content to the parent square app, send it via email, text messages and even uh shared to our social media channels. So this is this will ensure that our our
messaging is consistent across all platforms. This works this work supports the following district strategic initiative. strengthening communication and information system, telling the DIY
story more effectively and maintaining a positive public image. I also want to uh highlight that we used feedback from the communication survey done earlier in the year uh to help us
guide the website's development. So, I'm going to give you a quick overview of the new sites navigation. Right here, we are at the district page. And here you can see all of
you can easily find all of our schools as well as the early education program. And right next to it is the quick links where we can easily find uh high interest items such as the lunch menus,
school hours, and our school year calendars. Over here we have a welcome message to the district and this button will bring us to a core values. This is consistent across the website
and each I can't see anything. How do I go back? Okay. And each uh school page will have a welcome message for their particular school also with the button to link to the core values.
Here we have the upcoming events and and the calendars and we'll talk about there in just a minute. Over here I'd like to show you uh our social media accounts. So this is a district page and it show is showing you the uh Facebook for the district as well
as as the Instagram account for the district. So families can easily find this um our accounts here and follow us and stay connected. Also this is consistent with all other school pages. They can have their social media
accounts listed listed here as well. This is the latest news section that I uh talked about briefly a minute ago where we can create um content in parent square and choose to
feed it to here uh instantly. So this is timely and consistent and this is the district page. So we are seeing um the superintendent messages. Here is the message Dr. Smith was
referring to uh that I posted a couple weeks ago regarding the guidelines for keeping sick uh sick children and any other press release that is sent uh districtwide will go here in the district page for each school's uh page
they will be you could see their their newsletters or information that they're sending via parent square to their families. they can choose to um have displayed here as well. And now Joanna will show you a little
bit of the school committee page and the district calendars. Uh I am Joanna Watson, the assistant director of digital learning and library services and I worked closely with Leela to revamp the website. And while we're here, I will look at the calendar first.
I actually want to go to a school and show you how the school calendar will look and then we'll go back to the district and see how they all feed into the district page. So at each school they have you have quickly the upcoming events but then you can click view full
calendar and you will get their school calendar um laid out and you can advance through forward and backward. If you go to the district page and you go to the calendar, all of the schools
feed in. So, brace yourself. So, the key is up here in the corner. You will quickly learn which color is which school. And we had this on our old website as well. So, we kept the colors the same so that because we're midyear, we didn't want people to have to learn a
new scheme uh for the colors. But this is how it lays out as a district. So quickly at a glance, you can see what's coming. The top navigation bar here should look similar to what we have been using. And I will take you quickly to the school
committee page. It looks a little bit different than before. If somebody wants to contact you, they click and there's a contact form they can fill out and you will get an email about it. And then down at the bottom we have all of the links and we can see the list of school
committee dates, the the meeting archives, the agendas and other important links. And that's that's our new website. We're continuing to add things to it, making things look better as we navigate it and figure out how it works. It's got a lot
more potential than our previous website had. >> Thank you so much. Any questions or comments? Uh, we have a Jenny Lenders. Uh, not a We have a Jenny Landers. So, it looks like there's a misspelling. There's an A. So,
so we can fix fix that. And we did see a wonderful press release of Miss Marshall. So, Miss Marshall, welcome. Thank you for being here. Um, yes, Miss Miss Lenders. Um,
so a news story that is sent out on Parent Square automatically gets uploaded. It goes to both places to parent square and to the website. Does it also at the same time get posted to the social media for either the district
or the schools? So it's in all three places at the same time. >> If we choose to, we can make that decision. And so anything that we are sending to the district districtwide, like for example, the one that I showed
you with the guidelines of keeping children at home, that one was sent by my office to all schools. But there are things that we can send it just via parent square and choose not to publish here. But we have the option to
publishing it. >> And can you show um staff directory? Is it only per school? Yep. So it's per school or office? So if we were to go to
the high school, it's now right up top here. It used to be on the bottom left and it's organized the way it was before where it's by department or in the other schools it would be related arts, classroom teachers, specialists, things like that. And people can still send a
message as before. >> But to find a staff member's contact info, I need to know what school they're at. >> Yes, you can do a search. I would have to I've not done it yet. There is a search up here and if you put their name you may be able to find them but I have
not tried it to see the sites do operate somewhat separately even though they're under the same umbrella. So I'm not sure if you went to one page you could search for someone elsewhere in the district. I will I can try that out but I don't want to do it right now. Um I don't think
you're going to be able to do it that way though. Yeah, you would have to know the school they're in and then I think you can search from there. >> Okay, >> Miss Beas. So, I was looking at this today because I was curious to see where I could find uh any information on the
school absence policy and in different schools and I only could find it language in the handbooks. Uh and then I realized under family and students there's a alphabetical directory of sort
of topics. How did you decide what topics to include or did you edit it or anything? It's a directory of topics alphabetically >> the families and students. So at the moment it was carried over from the previous website and over the years when
people have asked that something be posted if it's a district-wide initiative or topic it gets put there typically. So, >> so if we wanted to publish a clear attendance policy or a desire or wishes
or how much we value it, a is a good place to begin. >> Miss Marshall, >> um I have a comment and a question. Um, one, I think the website looks fantastic, but um, I was trying to find the lunch menu this morning for my
daughter and I don't have the page saved. So, I Googled and the first three links that came up were broken um, and took me to the previous site. So, I'm just wondering if is this launched or will it
be updated with like a Google search? >> Thank you for letting me know. >> So, yeah. So, we'll pick let's pick the any school and look at to see if the lunch menu loads, I guess. >> So, I Googled, you know, DY lunch menu. The first several links that came up on
Google all took me to the old website. Okay. Uh, I haven't had that happen with anyone, so thank you for letting me know. They are right here on the uh on all pages. Uh, I'm on the district page right now. No, the high school page right now. But if you go to quick links and they're right, they should be right
here. Uh, >> yes, I'm sorry. It's the results that came up in the search in a Google search once I found the page. Everything was >> Oh, okay. Yes. But we can look into that and thank you for letting us know.
>> Perfect. Anything else? Well, thank you much. I think it brings us into the 20th century, 25 years later. Um, but it it it looks great and like I'm sure there's gonna be plenty of functionality and suggestions that will come. But, uh, we appreciate the
photography and the the pictures of our students and, um, all the the images really, you know, make us feel the DY pride that we saw at the bottom of the website. So, thank you. >> Thank you.
Next we have our large uh subcommittee representatives uh for the policy subcommittee which which you added a member today. So, if you remember last January, uh we had a quick onepage document um about
the new change in the law uh after the voters decided to no longer have MCCAST as one of the two criterias to earn a high school diploma in Massachusetts. uh we did not have guidance from DESIE
but we knew that that first class was going to be affected by it. So we took the language that we knew we read the law and we adopted a policy um and we voted upon it under a special
provision that we have and it's BGB policy adoption. Uh so normally in any policy, this is for Meg, um we would have two readings of a policy before the ultimate vote by the school committee.
Um, and I'm asking uh to indulge us again, this committee, um, and wave that to policy reading because what we're about to present tonight has to be filed with DESIE by the end of December and there's a lot of paperwork that our
staff have to complete in order to file it correctly. They can't proceed until we adopt the policy. So, I'm asking or requesting a motion to wave the BGB policy under uh sequence or meet
emergency conditions. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Um any discussion or questions? Okay. Seeing Seeing none, are we required for a roll call vote? We are.
Well, we we are we will do a roll call vote since we are suspending policy BGB. Um so we'll take a roll call vote. We'll start with Miss Marshall if they say yes or no. >> Yes. >> Mr. Morris, >> yes.
>> Mr. Martin, >> yes. >> Miss Landers. Uh Miss Beimis. Can I vote yes? And the second one is a first reading. post reading a vote on both. Yep. >> Do you want to move IKF and then I'll
speak to it? >> Yep. Um move IKF the graduation requirements. >> Uh so so moved. >> Mander motioned and Mr. Morris second. >> So IKF is what we had. You can see the
original transcript. It's on the second outline. That is what we did last January with the information we had with very little guidance. We adopted that policy. So we have always had graduation
requirements which always had IKF. What we did last January is add a piece to it called comp competency determination. So the only thing I'm requesting is that we accept this IKF
as amended. So we made that motion and second. Um any discussion on that? The IKE IF seeing none. Uh we'll take a roll call vote again. Miss Marshall,
>> yes. >> Mr. Morris, >> yes. Mr. Martin, >> yes. >> Miss Landers, Miss Beus, and I vote yes. >> Um, I'll make a motion to approve uh IKF, competency determination.
>> Second. We have a motion in a second. Further explanation. Okay, now you figured out competency determination is now a separate uh position in our policy manual. The
rationale for that is in July DESIE or Department of Elementary and Secondary Education or DESIE came out with their long guidelines of what qualifies or what needs to be included in any
document of competency determination. So, a group of us have looked at this, looked at what Desi had in their uh published guidelines and looked at information we received from the mass association the school committees and
basically the intent is the same with more qualifiers and explanation. So, it's a longer document. What is new for the first time is if you go to the third page additional
consideration. So all of that is new per DESI's guidelines and also added is formalizing an appeals process. Um, since I'm still speaking to
this, um, I want to point out that your small committee made a error. So, if you're looking at the page two,
it's a backsided document. It's in the middle, it says align courses. We list all our courses as we did before. But below that, that last paragraph, students who do not meet. So
I it's my error and hopefully it's a friendly acceptance to make that clerical correction. >> I amend my motion to approve the amended. Okay, >> there's one more.
>> We need a second on Mr. Mar seconds the amended. I'm still speaking to the issue. I'm going to ask to add something to the document. I've already given a written copy. Um so basically what I would like
to add to the end of that page uh that I just referenced is this paragraph. Students who met the CD standard in English language arts, mathematics, and/or science prior to January 3rd, 2025,
i.e. students who earned a CD through a regular or retest administration of the MCCAST or through a DESIE appeal process retain that benefit. >> We need additional amendments to add that. I amend my amended motion to
include the second amendment. >> I have a second >> and Mr. Martin will second. >> Okay. So, we now have a a motion, an amended motion and another amended motion when we will vote on all of it together. So, any discussion or
questions? Okay. Um continue our roll call vote. Uh get me right in it. Miss Marshall, >> yes. >> Mr. Morris, >> yes. >> Mr. Martin, >> yes. >> Miss Landers, Miss Bemis,
>> and I vote yes. >> Thank you to our subcommittee. There was a lot of information and it had to be done in a quick uh timely manner. Um, and Dr. Smith is comments, sir. I I just
want to thank the committee uh for waving uh the policy and moving that through. As Miss Beis mentioned, there's a lot of work that has to get done to get this to the state. And then we have to notify parents and uh because it affects the graduating class of 26. So the sooner we can get moving on this,
the better. And just um related to this uh in only the way uh the state seems to be moving over the last year. Jessica got notified on Wednesday about a
meeting this Wednesday. Um so right before Thanksgiving about a meeting that on Wednesday um that the states had the governor has a whole separate graduation council that's been working and they're now releasing their version of what
graduation across the state should look like at least their first version of it. It was 106 page document that I tried to get a little bit through this morning. um which I think less affects at least by my first read of it less affects
necessarily the CV side of things but the graduation requirement side of things. So at some point in time um you all may have to be back revisiting the policy that you um amended um but to to be
continued. Uh I don't I guess I don't have much other than I have a meeting I got to attend. >> Perfect. Thank you. Um and next we'll move school committee leaison to select board. Anything from the town of Dennis? I don't have anything new from the town of Yarmouth. Um so we'll move into the
superintendent report. All right. Thank you. um not a lot since uh it was just last week, but a couple of things, a couple of first start with some donations um and some acknowledgements. So, um as is in the uh the packet and is in the consent agenda,
I just want to acknowledge two donations um that came in between the meetings. So, first to the merkantile, I want to thank the merkantile specifically. Uh, I want to thank um Miss um Miss Megan Lamp. Yes, thank you. I couldn't find it
in my notes. Um for a donation of over a hundred meals as well as being supported by 25 So each one of those meals was supported with a $25 gift card to Stop and Shop. Um these were distributed through our food service department and
our social workers. Um that uh they were all in time for Thanksgiving. So just huge support to a wide they went all across the entire district. I got a couple different emails um that went out to like from like one in particular from
a social worker at one of our schools over at Emmy Small uh talking about uh the 15 different families that it fed at that school. But again that was part of a larger effort but um just the impact that uh it had across the entire district. So just thank you to the Merkantile and to the Lamp to Miss Lamp
for supporting that particular effort. Then the second is um our uh unified basketball team uh at the high school has been participating you know it's a they've been uh they participate every year in in a basketball program and this
year I think they went undefeated again or they might have had one loss at the end of the season but um but this year the coach Miss Wise also got them invited to participate at a game at TD Garden um in January Um and so to help
support that um they received a thousand dollar donation through the Cape Cod Foundation on behalf of um Dave and Missy McGra. Um so again support there's costs obviously associated with making a trip all the way up to Boston and um and
so again this donation helps support that trip and make it make it possible. Um it's just a great great story. There's been a lot associated with this story that's been that's been super positive. Um so just another um great great example of our community stepping
up to support so many of the great things that go on here in DY. So two great examples of that. Um then I want to acknowledge a couple of other things um that happened across the district over the last couple of weeks um maybe last month or so. Um some of them tied
directly to Thanksgiving and then some just sort of in the seasonish around Thanksgiving. Uh and they're all largely in the same bucket around drives to support uh families in need. So uh Station Avenue Elementary does their uh
all for one food drive which uh provides to the Yarmouth food pantry if I if I might have the wrong food pantry but C community pantry. Yeah. All right. Um but they doubled the amount of donations from last year to this year. DYI does an
uh a huge um community drive, food drive as well. Stuff the bus full of um donations. Um and then uh the going back a little bit further, the uh the family
table dinner that the Ezra Baker School does. It's part of their um community or part of their tradition over that school. Part of that is each family um is encouraged to bring uh an item which gets donated as well. Um and then last
but not least, the two things happened parallel to each other. So, one was a family member reached out to us after the hurricane um that really ravished Jamaica and she wanted to build some support and so our our district helped lend a hand in
organizing relief efforts. And then a group of students from our voices heard um group at the high school wanted to extend that even further. And the high school has sort of taken it on and expanded uh beyond what was done in we did about a week-long sort of
district-wide effort. And then the high school this this student group at the high school has taken the effort a little bit further and longer at the high school and built off of that momentum. So, just a bunch of great things going on at the district that really highlight our one of our core
values of community, specifically the part that says we strengthen each other, we unite, working and celebrating our uh shared strengths and that we serve and include all looking out for everyone. Um, and that we own the responsibility to make our schools excel. So, I just
really wanted to highlight those couple the things that have happened over the last couple weeks. And then two, just quick updates. So, first, uh, it's been a long road, but we did close out the turf the turf field project. Um, had the final walk through about 10 days ago.
Um, there will be some small things that need to happen in the spring, mostly like seeding because we were past kind of the germination period. So the contractor will come back to patch up some some p places around sort of where the um the JV field kind of curves and
comes down where they you know their equipment or whatever disturbed the field and some of the spots going out um by again sort of all around the edge of the JV field just need some receding and some fixing um but nothing was going to hold um at this time of the year. So
they'll come back in the spring to do that. There's one piece of netting um for the back stop on the lower field uh where there's a a softball diamond cut in that um hadn't been delivered by the time of the project was done. So it's it's a like removable netting so that if
it gets used or when it gets used to the softball field, it goes gets installed and goes up so that foul ball doesn't get either by standards or go into the winter. Um, so that's uh as of 10 days ago, that hadn't been delivered, but it was supposed to come in within a couple
days, so might is might be in by now. I have that date. Um um and then um there the only other piece on that is now that that project's done uh there's I think
we have an internal team looking at fee structure for both field use but just sort of looking at all of our facilities use uh rental agreements and and looking across the cate what spaces what the current uh going rates are. Um and so
sometime in an upcoming meeting uh there'll be a presentation for the committee to uh look at review and then uh approve be some recommended big changes
uh rental rental fees because we are what is sort of going great for field use and use etc etc. Um and then simultaneously uh I'll be making a recommendation or so we will be
making a recommendation from a fiscal perspective around setting up a revolving account specifically for when it comes to turf fields uh because they're brand new right now, right? Um 10 years from now uh the the carpet in
particular is going to need to get replaced. So instead of having to go back to the towns 10 years from now, um the idea here would be to would be use the income that we generate from leasing the fields to outside groups that want to use it and build a reserve um in a
revolving account over period of 10 years. So to then not have to go back to the towns or to go back to the towns with a very small ass because we built up um a reserve that can be used to purchase the the carpet and have Um,
is there any road to getting blue on that hill next to the turf field and what does that look like? >> So, um, we I've already had a conversation with, uh, our facilities director in the fall. It's easy to put
it by the upper field. Um we're going to bring um we already have portable bleachers so um he's just going to bring them over um in the spring the the in between. So there's already sort of a raised um
bowl for lack of a better word that I can so that sort of gives a viewing area for people with chairs. If we want to um put bleachers in that space it's a bit of a bigger project. we'd have to have something built
uh because nothing can there's no way to bring a portable something in there. Something would have to be built in it in place. So if that's a direction that ultimately decided we would want to go, we'd have to get it priced out. But the upper field is easy. We already have the equipment. We just literally need to
bring it over. And I've already talked to the facilities director and it's part of the plan for the spring. Another field question, not this field, but the high school field. Um, is the I I've
heard that the track is in such bad condition out there that it's not going to be used this spring. Could is that true? And what's happening over there, please? >> That is correct. That they can't use it
for um uh definitely for meats. Um They can they can use it is for practice but it definitely is not the track surface itself is not acceptable for meets. Uh and so we have
you know you'll see when the capital plan comes it's on our capital list u and it's a big you know the whole stadium is on the capital ask list and what's the best approach for addressing
that because there are several needs at the high school and so when we come with a capital plan have a couple of potential ways on trying to address the high school needs that's the best strategy but it's not a
small number when we're looking at the entire stadium as a is there potentially a bandaid that we could Potentially, we're looking at like a band-aid for the just the track surface, but it's at what point do you want to keep throwing bed
after? Good. Because it's it's like at the subsurface where it's damage. So, you could sort of skim the top, but it's only going to So, you're just Yeah, it's bad. Any other questions?
>> Just one more topic. All right. So then just a quick update on the FY27 budget development today. Um we kicked off the first of a series of meetings. Dr. Gilson has developed a a great process building off of what we've done over the
last couple of years uh here in DY. But uh so we started meeting with staff today. All staff had to all the staff leads had to have their uh budget line item requests plus any staffing requests etc into
uh her office on the 21st of November. And so this week then we have meetings all week um with every one of those leads and then there's some meetings you know like Maria's in pretty much all the meetings. other folks who have cross
functional roles who sit in um on on the meetings but again it's for the department leads to present their data their requests for us to ask questions etc etc to compile from each of the departments then to sort of get the
initial uh view of the district asks then we'll start to work on prioritizing combine it into a district list start to get the district budget already is you all will have your first presentation budget
dating. So, we're in the process of getting all the groundwork done for that. Uh putting in Dr. Wilson's has already done a bunch of leg work on salary estimates. She's done the man's
work already so far to sort of figure out where all people are, where the estimated to be next year, etc., etc. So, a lot of work's already been done, but this week meeting each of the principles to see and facilities and and
to get all the departments projections data. Any other questions? >> Great. Next, we'll move to school committee business. Um, our contract with the DEA ends at the end of the
school year. Um with that uh we have engaged um into start negotiations. Um and part of that is to get a representative from the town. Um it our regional agreement rotates from town to town. Um this year for our negotiation
for this term is the town of Yarmouth. Um at the town of Yarmouth reorganization meeting held a couple weeks a couple months ago now. Um Tracy Post has been selected as the town of Yarmmouth representative. Um the
municipal representative shall serve as a member of the regional school committee on all matters related to collective bargaining by the regional school district. Uh the municipal representative may serve on the regional school district bargaining team if any if the selected by the regional school committee to be a member of such
subcommittee. Um and we do have a a subcommittee specifically for negotiations. Um, so we're looking now to see what role we want uh the member to the representative to play.
>> I make a motion to point the municipal representative to the negotiating. >> We have a motion in a second. Any discussion? Um so currently how the state law says that the person um has a right to be at
all meetings and can vote um what we're asking or uh inviting uh Miss Post is to actually be a member of our negotiating subcommittee. Um therefore we'll be in all negotiations any caucuses or discussions further.
So seeing no further questions um we'll take a roll call vote again. We'll just continue that for today. Uh we'll start with Miss Marshall. Yes, >> Mr. Morris. >> Yes, >> Mr. Martin. >> Yes, >> Miss Landers. Miss Beis and I vote yes.
So, we'll notify uh the town of Yarmouth. We'll notify both towns um as well as specifically Miss Post um the invitation and as we schedule dates uh we'll make sure that uh she is notified as well. Thank you.
Uh next we have the consent agenda uh which we have the uh donation from Miss Lampton uh the donation from Dave and Missy McGra for the uh unified basketball team and then the minutes from October 20th 2025. >> Move to the agenda.
>> We have a motion second and a second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Um there was an invitation that I will make sure that Mr. Martin. Um, and does Marshall get from the unified team? They do have a they would have a
Best Buddies game. I believe there's an event that's going to be held um at the high school that we've all been invited to. So, Friday, Friday the 19th. Um, but we'll make sure that um it they had trouble getting to Mr. Martin, Miss Marshall, so
we'll make sure that the two of you also um have that invitation. Friday tonight. Yes. At 12:30. It is part of Best Buddies, but I believe members unified team will be um bills requisition payrolls. Um thank you for
those who signed the folder. Um there was an email sent out right before our meeting. So you may have not seen that email, but there is an email uh with other bills and requisitions. if you can please check your school email uh to
make sure that we can uh virtually sign uh those on that. Um and then calendars there so many pieces of paper too. Um I think I have tabs. Thank you for that.
Um looks pretty blank. Um we have our next meeting will be on Monday, December 15th. Uh and then we will start uh our winter vacation um on Wednesday the 24th of December
and then for school committee topics are updated in our miss okay anyone want to make public comment we got to make public comment >> is there anyone in the public that would
like to speak >> seeing seeing none And now we will take that motion. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> We have a motion and we have a second by Mr. Martin. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Thank you so much. Roll call vote. And again, welcome, Miss
Marsh.