Okay, good evening and welcome. This is the June 24th, 2025 meeting of the school committee. Call the meeting to order at 5:00. This meeting is being both audio and video recorded this evening. I would ask that everyone please rise for the pledge of
allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Okay. Roll call, please. Samantha, if you would start. Samantha, secretary. Sarah Trulio. Gordon Smith, superintendent of schools. Gregory Thompson. Antela Ky Brown. director of curriculum. Okay, we have committee and subcommittee
communications. Many of us were here last night. Anything's here tonight? Okay, thank you very much. We have an opportunity for visitors to address the committee if anyone would like to do so. Now is the time. Yes, please come on up, please.
Hi. You can have a seat right here. See that little mic on the table? If you want to sit and face that so that everybody can hear. Thank you. So, this is a letter my teacher had me write to the school committee. My name is Ava Brooks. I'm 10 years old and a fourth grader at Mountain View
Elementary School. I'm writing this letter because some really great teachers are not going to be are not going to be back next year. To start, Miss Sophia is a great art teacher. She runs crochet club and teaches kids how to do so many different things in art class. Why is she being taken away? We
deserve our own art teacher. I love art class and so do the other students at this school. Miss EMTT, where to start? She ran drama club, math, and ELA GT. Gifted and talented for fourth and fifth grade. She has the biggest personality, and if she got replaced, whoever filled
in with not would not be like Miss EMTT. Also, we're going to do Lego robotics next year in fifth grade, but we can't do that anymore cuz she's leaving and the whole enrichment program is getting cut. On top of it, another teacher is leaving. Miss McNelte, Mrs. McNelte is a
great fifth grade teacher. I feel like that since the teachers are leaving, it makes me feel bad cuz you cut the programs because you think that we don't care about this, but we do. We love all these programs and teachers. And your opinion of what kids care and not care about is just wrong. I love and care
about these programs and teachers. So, what are you doing is not making them sad, but the whole school. Anytime one of these three teachers comes into a room, everyone lights up and is excited to see them because they are great teachers. The thing they do for us students is just incredible. Miss Sophia
taught me if I touch up my work and say it is and say it's good, I'll believe that it's good. I never really knew Miss McNelie, but I can just tell she's a great teacher. These teachers have influenced me so much and they've done the same with about 350 other students. And it's not just me who feels this way.
It's the whole school. Everyone loves them from the bottom of their hearts. And if you think it's just impacting Miss McNelte, Miss Sophia, and Miss EMTT, that's a mistake cuz they are loved by everyone in the school, students and staff. All I know is that these teachers came to Mountain View because they loved it here and they
never wanted to leave. These teachers knew who they wanted to be the minute they walked into the school. They wanted to be the great teachers that they are today. Even though this you're even though that you're making them leave will all they will always have be in our hearts and they will always have a place here
whether they work here or not. Now that I know this is happening I know how to take care of what's going on to make my voice heard. Teachers getting teachers get taken for granted most of the time and they work hard to be who they are today. For us they are students. What do you think teachers do all day? I'm with
them every day. So I know and they are all and they I know who they are and and what they do for us. I can tell you that they're not what you think. They keep the day exciting and fun so we don't get tired and we feel motivated. Teachers help me so much and some of the teachers
that influence me are not are going to be leaving. Some teachers some people think that teachers voices don't matter and that's terribly wrong because they just because they don't just do what they're told. They take the creative road on their on their teaching journey and make the world their own, not what
people say the world is. Teachers matter to me and taking them away would ruin education for not just me but the whole school. Miss EMTT and Miss Sophia taught enrichment and art to the whole school and the whole school will miss them. All these teachers did not teach themselves
how to be amazing teachers. They had teachers. Even though Even though you made the decision to get rid of them, you left the students in the dark. You never You never planned on telling us. They told us. You left us in the dark and nobody knew how to act. Do you care that me and the and what the whole
school want? We have feelings. What are you going to take away next? Gym Library. You're ignoring how we feel. Open your eyes. See what's in front of you. This is hurting too many people. Do you care that you hurt us? Sincerely, Ava Brooks.
Well, Eva, I want to thank you. Um it's it's very important that you come and speak to us as a student and as someone that this affects. We uh I want you to know that we uh look at all these things with the same kind of eye and and as personal as you do and each teacher
brings something special every day and we believe that and they work hard for every student and it unfortunately sometimes comes down to money and there just being afford being able to afford all the teachers and that's why we had to make a difficult decision. This year
was probably one of the the biggest year of cuts that we've had to make in a very long time. And those cuts are never easy. But to hear your input on what things are important to you is important to us. So thank you for bringing those things forward to us. You are so well spoken. So clearly um your family is
doing something right, but also the the education system is doing right to put something um together. So uh well and well spoken. Uh we certainly appreciate you coming tonight. So thank you. Thank you very much. That was very brave of you to do that. Very thoughtful letter,
John. Thank you, Eva. Appreciate it. [Applause] Okay. Anyone else this evening would like to make a comment? Okay, then we will move forward um with some exciting
news. Mr. Smith, you'd like to We do. Uh back in May 1st when we had our awards and scholarship night, uh unfortunately we did not have information that we now do have. And we have Nathan Laflam here who's a recent
graduate of ELHS. Nathan, I just messed up your certificate here. We also have Colonel Wright here from the US Army. And what we'd like to do is recognize Nathan
for the scholarship that Colonel Wright is about to present to him. Right. Um so just real quick. Um so real quick, yeah, we unfortunately the timing didn't work out. Um we didn't find out about this until after your
guys' award ceremony. So, kind of typical welcome to the army, but adapt and overcome, right? Uh, so every year the army gives away 2,000 national high school scholarships to high school seniors. They give away a,000 four-year scholarships and 1,000
three-year scholarships. So, on average about 20 to 25ish,000 students compete for these scholarships nationwide, give away 2,000 of them. Um, so Nathan, uh, he came in, he interviewed with me up at UMass. I'm with the UMass Army OTC program. He came
up and interviewed with me um with his mom. Lots of questions. Exceptional student. I mean, he was I see a lot of you guys come through. I do a lot of interviews with you guys and some of them are are you and some of them are not you. So, you you've earned this. So,
Nathan will be going to WPI. Uh he got a three-year what we call a three-year advanced design scholarship, meaning he's on the hook for the first school first year of school. still has to do the ROC program. Um, and then the army picks up the tab for the remaining three years at WPI. So, three years at WPI of
what the Army is going to pay amounts to about $193,000 some change. So, that's a big deal for you to be taken out. Right now, no free chicken, right? Everything will cost something. So for him to do this and complete the program, he will commission as an officer into the Army,
go forth either into the National Guard, the Army Reserves, or active duty, and have a 8-year service obligation to the Army as an officer. He's just getting started. Next month I hit 30 years. Long dang time ago. You got a long future ahead of you, but it goes by quickly.
So, we just want to we always want to get out and honor the students and acknowledge and acknowledge their achievements um what they've done not only in their high school career but militarily and and what they are choosing to go forth. Uh if you all been watching the news lately, there's a little bit going on in the world. So,
that's something that you're stepping into. But that's what we do it right. We sign up. It's all about the selfless service. That's the biggest thing that I preach is about selfless service. Not just for you, but to the country, to your family, to everybody standing in this room. So that's why we do this
because it's this is a lot of money when you start you're not going to be making a lot of money for the money. We do it for the service. Um so the other thing so every time you get an award for the rest of your in the army is going to come in one of these nice little beautiful green army things.
So uh real quickly and then I will get out of your hair. So the Army RTC scholarship be it known that late Nathan McFlam having achieved a meritorious record in academic studies, extracurricular participation, athletic activities, and having demonstrated exceptional leadership potential as well
as an expressed desire to serve as an officer in the United States Army is conditionally selected for an Army ROC scholarship. Signed headquarters United States Army Cadet Command this 24th day of June. uh assigned Brigger General, United States Army Commander,
US Army Cadet Command. Congratulations, Nathl. [Applause] I know it's great. There you go.
Thank you. [Applause] While we still have a little bit of an audience, we do want to do one more recognition that's not on the agenda. I
know you hate this, Mr. Johnson, but your leadership as chair always seems to coincide with some challenges. You do an exceptional job. Probably my fault. No, you do an exceptional job of leading us through
that, but I would like you to open that cuz we did get creative because I know you hate this. It was a little different. Well, thank you for recognition. Is it I uh There's something else in there, too. There's something else in there, too.
I'm embarrassed. Thank you. Nice. I've been waiting for one of these for kind of [Applause] says Greg Thompson, courageous
leadership as SC chair 2425. Thank you. Appreciate that. Oh boy. That's awesome. now that you know they go together. So, it's perfect. Thank you everyone. I appreciate that. I might just
The night is young. Okay, let's uh continue on. We have approval of the 2026 8th grade Washington DC trip. Okay, so we have two advisors here from Birchland. How you doing?
We'll make this quick. Tim Mlette and we have Katherine Riley here. Uh Katie is with me today uh to talk about DC trip because uh next year or I should say school year wise house hunting and potentially another addition to the family will be coming on my way. So I'm
trying to obviously make sure there's a co- captain who's been on this trip many times and who can if in case I need to you know relinquish some of that uh if I'm needed at home so to speak. Um so that's why she's with me not trying to get anything away.
um cuz it's not in bookshit. But uh this is a request for next year. Uh the uh trip was phenomenal. Um I've gotten responses from parents in other towns asking which company we switched to. Um
it was a good decision to switch. Um I also reached out to the old company to see what it was uh World Strides and not to but they were still charging an arm and a leg um for the trip. So, uh, the request again is with grand classroom, uh, same time frame, uh, the 13th to the
15th of the May 2026, uh, school year. Um, looking forward to 100 to 150 kids. It'll be great. Um, and I think I personally from the civic standpoint, last year was awesome because of obviously bumping Richard Neil and past
uh, vice presidents and things like that, it was really nice. U, this year was really the student oriented. Um there was an addition they kids had a really good time. Uh we had a dinner boat cruise. Um the kids loved it and it really was like the the breath in the
trip because it's all and then it just kind of slowed it down for a bit and the kids really enjoyed it. Um we had a picture uh that we're going to put up in the school. Uh can you show it? Um I brought other photos but I know you have a million things so I won't belabor too much but if you want to look at it. Um,
and other than that, it's really just looking forward to the school committee's approval. Uh, superintendent's approval. Where are you hanging the picture? Uh, it'll be in virtually. Nice. I have the other one from last year um at capital, but this one is on the ground in front of the
White House. Scolding hot. Um, so but yeah, no, it it was a great trip and it is something that I genuinely enjoyed doing. Um, and I'm very fortunate that this guy joins us on the trip as well. So, it's a great picture. A great picture.
Nice. Can I ask one question? I've had two kids go. This year was phenomenal. Had a wonderful time. Um, my question is just about the the arrival back home. Yeah. So, this year the bus pulled in. I think it was 3:20. Um, that was that was
something. So, if if you'd like uh besides the emails that I had to stay awake from, sending them to all parents, including obviously uh the faculty that were on the trip, um the trip when we left Friday at 5:00 with the weather
we've been having, was a nightmare. So, we did not leave uh I want to say Virginia for like 2 hours because of the heavy downpour when we were on the bus. Thank you. Uh it was about 4:30 and we were supposed to take off. It should not
have taken us 2 hours to leave. Unfortunately, the buses wanted to make sure that they were consistent and staying in a pattern and they were not going over the speed limit or anything like that and they stayed. When we got to New Jersey for the kids, um this is the thing that's new to me. Uh New
Jersey did all that lovely construction on the side uh rest stops and they close at 8:00 most of them. The buses had a plan to uh refuel at like 8:39. And when they pulled up, they pulled
into a place. They said they needed about 15 to 25 minutes to fuel and that the kids could get food. One place was open in the entire thing and it was Burger King. And yours truly ended up having to work at Burger King. Um I did not expect this at all. There's two
people in here who can attest to this. I ended up having to help one employee who was doing all the grilling. So kids got fed. So I mean this with no it's the craziest thing because there was about 125 kids at the Burger King line. One
employee wishing he didn't work on a Sunday or Friday night and it was mayhem. My thing was I want the kids fed. Yeah. If that took longer. So when they got back on the road it was longer than anticipated. Um but the bus company
was phenomenal. The correspondence with grand classroom is great. I I can't say other than that I will tell you that I would like to leave closer to like three to two on that last day if we do that on Friday again. But that's already something that's in been noted. So I do
apologize. No, I was just wondering if that cuz a couple of years ago my daughter went and I didn't have that experience. I think it was maybe 12:30. Yes. And we and that was last year too. Okay. So I just didn't know if there was a pl a plan in place. I think there were extenduating circumstances
like there's a Duncan and there's one guy working at this Burger King and then you just saw a bunch of students run over to this one spot and you were like I was just shouting kids names. So, um yeah, it was it was a wild time. Thank you. Words.
It's an amazing experience with kids. is. Yeah, it is. Any other questions, comments? If not, I would entertain a motion for approval. I move to approve the 2026 8th grade
Washington DC trip as presented. Motion made by Antinella. Second. Second by Sarah. Discussion. All in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed name. That motion carries four to zero. Thank you. Okay. Great. Good luck and everything ahead of you and both. Oh, I know Katie for
Katie. Yeah. Yeah. She's She's just a saint for the people that go on the trip. That's right. The reason it works. Awesome. Okay. Take care. Thanks for coming. No, it's exhausting. It's crazy. Bring them all up. Are we going to bring them all? No. Just bring everyone. You can
ask some questions. No, don't change anything. Otherwise, you're only going to get one school. So, is he voting? I don't know that I have questions. My questions are more about this stuff. William, did you vote on that last one? It's Oh, yeah. So, you want to go to
that stuff? Okay. So, 5 Z. Thank you. You can do that first and then we'll put it up. It's totally up to you. Don't. Mr. Thompson, we do have uh William. Oh, William, where are you these days? In an airplane. Oh, you're on the ground. Good. Bradley airport. Bradley, still.
What a trooper. Thank you for for joining. Yes. Um do you mind if we jump down to these? Sure. Because Amy's gonna leave and she wanted to go through those. Uh 6162 Sarah. Yeah. Okay. I take then
enter in a motion to go to work study first. Take that out of order. Please move. Motion made by Sarah. Second by any discussion. All in favor say I. I. Oppos. Nay. The motion carries 4 to zero. Yeah, please. Just quick. So, uh, one of
our members has to leave. She just had some things she wanted to review and then we'll get back on track real quick. Okay. Thank you. Um, before I forget, I just I did tell, uh, Bobby, give one quick update for that, um, exchange program in Spain, um, that's happening
next year. Uh so we do have the dates for uh when our students are uh going to Spain and also when uh we have visitors coming our way. Uh they're from I I can't remember the name of the town off the top of my head, but uh it's going to be from the um from the southern coast
of Spain. Uh and they're coming from 9:29 to 10:10. Uh there's 11 uh 11 students and two shops coming. Um and then uh our students go in April um 4:15 to uh 4:25 which are more silver.
So um so those dates are are at this point split by the programs uh the roster. That's exciting. Full month of school will be all set up
when they arrive which is great. Yeah. [Music] All right. So, um, so I believe superintendent is going to share with you, uh, an updated, um, this, this is, so this is not, obviously
what will go into the program of studies. Uh, we've cleaned that piece up a little bit, but this is the, um, the syllabus. Uh, it's a detailed syllabus outlining how we look to revamp the work study program. Um uh you know I think the last time we talked about this um
I reflected on the program quite a bit and saw areas where I felt we needed to improve. I had some great conversations with Mark Merini as well. Um and um I did task Mark with putting together the bones of this because I think you know
as a guy who manages it I also want him to buy in and be on board. I I feel he put together a program that um I feel proud of and I I uh I I think it's going to have value for our students, not just in terms of the work component, but also
just the educational component that we're now going to layer on top of uh that work experience. Um and uh I'm hoping, you know, uh that what we've outlined and what we put together, I think better meets the needs of what I I think what work study
program should be. uh addresses some of the concerns you guys had last time, which having reflected myself on that, I fully understand now why we we definitely had to do some things to make this uh better.
Are the credits staying the what you're offering for credits? Yeah, it's still it's that eight credit program. um for uh we did alo also uh I'm not sure I shared I think I end up sharing two or
three different versions of George um uh but there's also going to be uh an independent study block assigned to those kids um for that GB block and they can earn the right to re uh to leave during that time after term one if their grades are up to par, their attendance
is up to par just so uh we're not facing students who might be uh slipping a little any kids who aren't meeting our standards that we've set for them, they would be staying for that G block every day until um until those grades and and attendance is up to par. Uh so um just for term one, the only opportunity that
they're going to have to leave is going to be close to 1:00 each day, you know. [Music] And the seven hours per week minimum, it's still very it can be done at any time still. It can. Yeah, we did align that to the amount of time they could
potentially leave the building um just to uh to increase that requirement because on any given week about 7 hours there's amount of time that they would uh potentially be dismissing related the workers learning plan that you sent
or gave us who fills this out? Uh so so Mark's hope is to um as he goes through each term uh ask the uh the supervisor or the employer uh to fill out different portions of each term to give him feedback and then he can also use those sessions to be with the
students. Um so uh he does want to bring that back to the get feed regular feedback from the employer. So he'll be in direct communication with each student's employer. Yeah, he he is
now. He always has been. Um, but he uh I think more so now. Mhm. Yes. And then is this part of the grade? Yes. Yep. Cuz I don't think it's in here. That's why. So he has the payubs which is
always obviously that's the the working right. Yeah. Uh workshop attendance and participation and then the assignments it's my understanding would be embedded in those assignments. um because they'd be tasked with going to get that signed off on by their employer, bring it back to them um and completing that. But I
can I can verify that piece with Mark like when you look under um the calendar page. Yep. Where it says detail 1020 assignment reflection and employer criteria evaluation one. Yep. So that's the assignment and then this
being completed which would roll that assignment's 30%. Uh yes. Yes. I think if we do use this, it would be important after a year or so to get some feedback on how I I you know, it's
almost mandatory that these come back to but to see how many actually come back on each student would be important. And I'm I'm noticing a couple typos. Um so that should say criteria evaluation one, two, three, and four because when I sat down, he broke it out into four different parts. So, I'm guessing you
copied and pasted that just to change the numbers in order, but um there are four different parts of the uh workbased learning plan getting feedback from the employers. Okay. Yeah, I think um in addition to Mr. Macarini, you know, we had a student come to us
today and Ava. So being able to even ask a few students to reflect on their experience and how this has shifted and being able to hear from them as to what from these um assignments including like the resume building um the problem solving like
what of those are they seeing as being valuable to them as they're moving forward. So I'll just attitude Mark did meet with all the students right before school got out and um outlined the the expectation so they know day one is not it's going to be dropped on in August so
they knew before they left for school that this was going to be the expectation. Uh he also made a point of getting feedback from the kids about what their thoughts were and he he actually got some very positive feedback from the students in terms of uh learning how to navigate different
things in the workspace. uh that career component of starting to think about, you know, what life might look like beyond the summer of high school. Um even just having that space to uh make sure that they're on top of their work. Um because, you know, they when kids do leave us early, sometimes they do get a
little disconnected from school. So, uh just having that home base to um it's uh I think it's going to work well. Do we ever have employers from their uh perspective reach out looking for employees, students to to be part of
this? Um, you know, homegrown businesses, you know, local companies. Yes. Yes. Mark has uh local companies reach out to him all the time. It's great. Looking for kids to work. Not necessarily always part of this program, but just looking trying to connect him with, you know, but even to incorporate
it with this, you know, if we could work both ways. Not only do students come with their own jobs, but work with partnerships with um companies that would offer one or two positions perhaps a year. I'm sure there might be some out there that would be willing to work with students. You know, there have definitely been partnerships that he has
uh relationships he has built through this program to where they continue to reach out to him and say, "Hey, do you have a good kid might be good at this or interested in this field?" That's awesome. Cool. So, how many students do you have enrolled for the fall? Oh 35.
[Music] So they'll have to have verified in August or to get ready classes before school starts. Mhm. The only other um question I have, which maybe it's already tied in, is um in September, I think it's really terrific
that they're going to be talking about how to read a payub and how to save you for retirement and thinking about like is there a way that that comes back at the end like you've worked for a year, what have you put away? What have
you put away? Are we thinking about, you know, the creation of a savings plan, tying financial literacy maybe a little bit into that? Um, because there are financial literacy standards within the civics framework. So, being able to connect those pieces maybe to help kids
leave. I mean, not every student knows when they when they leave high school Yeah. how to save for a 403b or a 401k. and if all if there's interest in going into the workforce then setting them up to be successful um as a result of being
a function of the workforce. So um I can definitely give Mark that feedback and find uh I will say Mark has at times in the past also taught the business partial finances course. So um you know he's he has the curriculum knowledge base knowledge base that might be
something just as a reflection and that would be a good class for for probably everybody. Yeah. So it is in our business department. Okay. As an elective but they have come to me numerous times asking to make your graduation requirement. You know they they do and there's a piece of me that
wants to agree with that but we also do have a pretty robust set of graduation requirements. Um, you know, so I get I get both sides, you know, but I get it because I I think uh there's a lot of skills that are our our students don't fully know until they they get out into
the outer world, right? Appreciate this. Yeah, thank you. Certainly. Do you need an approval from us for any of this tonight? This is going into a change in the program. Okay. Yep. Um,
so one thing I I didn't realize until honestly like yesterday was that I actually didn't write up a updated program studies description for you guys, but um I can definitely take this and put that piece in for you and I can uh email that along.
Okay. So um then I would entertain a motion to uh approve the modification of program of studies for the work study program as discussed tonight.
You can just go. Perfect. Sarah motion made by Sarah. Second. Second by Amy. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. Wait I did have one more thing. Yep. Go ahead. in a year. Can we come back and you can give us the feedback and kind of to give us the numbers and any
surveys you gave and any information and maybe any ways you guys are going to be changing it. Yeah, I'll I'll ask Mark that. I'll ask put some information together. Uh maybe before the students leave for the year. Yeah, if we could do that, we could probably tie it into any
program studies changes. His last piece in if you look at his May agenda item is evaluation of the program. Yeah. So he's going to he's looking for that feedback himself and wants to see what went well. Awesome. All right. Okay. Appreciate the
changes to that. Yes. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. I. Those opposed name. That carries. William. Yeah. Five to zero. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh
compet competency determination. Okay. So, this is a combination of Miss Brown, Miss Paige, and me. Um, and over the last few weeks, what we're finding is that it's becoming less of a um
uh district centered um or governed item and more of a desi and state uh run item. Um, as you may all be aware, and I did include it in the um, uh, information packet, the board of
education uh, voted back on May 20th, uh, and they added their specific criteria to for the class of 2026, um, which we actually already had covered, but then they also added for
the class of 2027 the one-year history course being passed. Um, and so we've added that. Now, I think this is probably going to come back to all of you because there was a webinar last week on the 17th.
Desi started to outline some of the things uh that they feel will eventually be put in place for competit determination um years to come, 27, 28, and so forth. and they're going to try to put together guidance I believe over
the next few months so that um they're meeting the wishes of the board and providing answers to districts. But we would be in adopting this in compliance with what the board has already voted on and certainly um
coordinated with our own high school graduation requirements and not inhibiting um the class of 2026. So we don't want to necessarily derail them. [Music] Yeah. The state is trying to convene a
graduation requ this is different than competency but the graduation requirements committee. Sorry, it's okay. Um so just to back up what you're saying is they're trying to what they're going to tell us we need to do. Right
now they're out there having hearings on their um graduation um requirements thoughts. I just had one question and I understand that this is a totally moving target and you've explained that really well, but
is this not like a time where we really can look forward and add something a little bit more robust like I'm not saying to I don't want to create more work for people. I don't want to put something unreasonable on teachers, but something a little bit more performance
based like a capstone experience or something that can make us stand out a little bit and maybe help us get ahead of where it seems like the state might be going. So, I I think you would probably add that to the graduation requirements because um most of the
competity determination seems to be around the first two years of high school because they're still basing it on how they use the MCCAST assessment. Um, but that's a great idea because we've certainly had discussion over the course of time in are there things we
should be adding to the graduation requirements? Um, so maybe a capstone cuz you're looking or like a senior exhibition, something that is like a real true culmination that can help everybody, you know, thinking of it from an equity standpoint and and other standpoints, everybody has an
opportunity to be successful with something like that and really demonstrate some deeper learning. I I think this is wonderful and and again, you've explained well that this is going to change. Um but I'm just wondering if it's an opportunity to try to get a a
step ahead with I think you have opportunity too, Amy, when you look at um the community service. Yeah, there's already a requirement for 40 hours of community service. Is there a way to put like a bow on that, so to speak, maybe and say it's a requirement for graduation beyond just getting your
paper signed, right? What that because that's what it is. at this point kind of it's like you we're talking graduation requirements now. Okay. Yeah. Your community service which is fantastic but as it stands right now it's more of just sign off and hand it in and get it
verified. But maybe even that's something to think about to make that a little bit more um of a culminating experience and something to celebrate where the students can share what they did or I don't know. I'm just as I was
looking through this, I was sort of just thinking how could we maybe get a little bit ahead of where it seems like the state could be going. Any thoughts, Mr. Paige? Um, yeah. So, I love the idea. Uh, I just
knowing the history here, we've tried different things in the past. Um we've had our we used to have our senior pop project which we uh was very similar to like capstone. Uh we did pivot away from that um when the state uh introduced the civics project um which the kids now do
junior year. So um we just kind of made that more of an intentional focus. Um but maybe there is something we could potentially do with some type of capsule maybe something connected to community service. uh my mind goes to Springfield College or you know manic action day
something along those lines. Um yeah that's that's cool you know so there may be something there that we could potentially um tie in actually one of the civics projects um one young lady I shared it with you and Mr. Macarini uh
put together something similar to Springfield College's uh humanities day and how you could tie in the community service. Maybe that's a starting point. Yeah, she she was actually pitching a very similar idea as a graduation requirement. Good idea. I love that
idea. So, uh there there may be something there. Um I I will say what I do prefer over the civics project versus our uh our previous senior project. senior projects seem very individually focused. You know, this it was kind of like setting careers while the civics
project is more community focused. Um so I I do like that aspect of it better where it pushes the kids to go out and engage in something actively in the community. Um uh but maybe there's there is some maybe there's another piece of potential layer in and maybe there's some choice like
when you look at um like the competency determination and like the goals of that being around postsecary education, work force and civic life. Yep. Maybe it's one of those three avenues that a
function of graduation has to be connected to, you know, post-secary education. Maybe if you're choosing the workforce, it's tied to your attendance daily because you have to go to work on a daily basis and that's a lifelong skill that's going to
carry you through. if it's civic life, like how are you getting engaged in your local community and how are you building off of something that's maybe already a function of your goals to help kind of bring your high school experience to a close so that it could be further
exploration around any of those three because it's speaking to life after you summit high school which is where we want to see kids really thrive. Would you like us to develop some ideas and bring them back for next year? What
what's the direction the committee would like to go? [Music] [Applause] So that will be for graduation requirement. Yeah. This is pretty much dictated by the state, right? Yeah. Yeah. And if you do it, you you're probably going to need to develop it um maybe for
the incoming not this year's ninth grade, but maybe the eighth grade behind it. So I know you guys have governing body that votes on and makes these decisions, right? Um and then obviously we as a school are the ones who implement it. I
think it'd be great maybe I don't know if we can do this like I think you guys have done in the past have professional development sessions with school committee I think we'll talk through some of these things just because there there's so much that goes into making decisions around graduation requirements um which obviously is separate from
competency determination which is separate from escore right so looking at all the components mixed there and seeing just doing a self-reflection on them um because I will say our graduation requirements very diff like a lot from
schools like Mitchaw and Long Meadow who we're often seen as our peers. So like why do they do something that we don't or uh why do we do something that they don't you know so just digging into that I think conversation versus you know coming back coming back with something
where you guys are kind of in the dark until we bring it to you but if you guys have thoughts on those because ultimately you are the decision makers around those graduation requirements maybe it's it's good to have that collaboration and sit down together. Yeah, maybe we can schedule some um you
know as we start up in August again some professional development or even if uh we're waiting for teachers to participate maybe we can do it in September and keep an eye on the updates from the state because they're going to Yeah, they will wait not just competency but graduation. I know that's that's coming
next. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe we can get ahead of it as Yes. and then get ahead of it like in a in a fair way like fair to the students, fair to faculty and like not necessarily saying the class of 2028 like maybe it's 2029 or 2030 so that
there's time so if it's when it is done it's done with a level of intentionality and meaning that actually does what it is we're brainstorming about now. Uh do we need an approval for this too? Uh it would help to have an approval of
the the current competency determination, which we do think will change, but um that will at least allow us the allow us to start to message this out for incoming 9th graders and uh certainly our current students at EHS.
Okay. Can I have the motion, please? [Music] Move to approve the revised ELHS competency determination requirements as presented. Motion made by Sarah. Second. Second by discussion.
All in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed? Nay. I don't think any of those thumbs up. Yeah, he's there. Oh yeah, that's how he's signaling us. Is the thumbs up. Those are all kinds of thumbs up. Motion carries fine to zero. Nice job. Thank you all.
Thank you. We'll see you at 4th of July, right? Don't we have a July 1st meeting? Oh, yeah. We'll see you first of July. We didn't make that date or step back now. It's 7.5. Um, do you want you want to go back in order? No. You
want me to do the graduation requirements too or No, graduation requirements are already. Okay. So, we don't have there was no changes. I put those in there for exactly that type of discussion. I just want to make sure um they have to be coordinated really. Steve, you mind if Frank goes first
since he's here already? I think I can be a bigger man about this. Okay, you hold on. Let me pull up. Is that a hype joke, Mr. Pearson? See, we make things happen around here, Mr.
All right, Mr. Page, Mr. Blaine, Mr. Wright, floor is yours. Okay. All right. So, I will do my best to be brief because I'm sure you guys want to hear me talk all night. Um
but uh the so the first goal that's that's up here um uh just connects back to some of the work that we've done around attendance and uh um taking on uh um chronic abetism at the high school and also working on both supporting kids
but also making sure there was accountability around that. Uh so this slide just goes back to some of our data from last school year of 23 24 uh where um just based on the state benchmarks we exceeded all targets when it came to our accountability data um which which was
great. Um but we also knew that there were still areas where we can improve uh to make sure that you know all of our kids attended school on a regular basis. Um so with that I'm going to turn over the next slide to Gary and let him talk a little bit about some of the uh where our attendance was at this year. um and
some of the work that him and did to um work with kids who were uh chronically absent. We have to go back to the spring of um 24. I started meeting with seniors and our families with really heavy numbers of classes that they've missed. We we found that it's not so much our
issue isn't about kids missing the whole day. It's more about coming in late. It's more about getting dismissed, um leaving early. So we end up with a with a student who might have one or two classes where they have 20 25 30 absences. But if you look here, it's great. 96% attendance. They got credit
for the day. So we just were really uncomfortable with the number of absences that kids were having from specific classes. So I started meeting with these families and saying, "Listen, at this point you've surpassed a number. I've pulled the credit. You're here's a recovery plan. Your student can recover their time with the teacher." And so we
piloted that for about 3 months. And um every parent that would come in, almost every parent, Frank had to meet with many of them, um they were irate because their daughter or their son is under all these situations. How can I expect them to make this time up? And I said, "Well,
you know, they they need to be with their teachers, right? Like that's the purpose of why they're in school. So every single kid last year did it. Every single kid got their credit back. There was a small pilot. It was like maybe 10 kids, 12 kids, something like that." So then Ann and I met this summer and we
started talking about the steps that we were taking with the seniors. And so we rolled out a plan 9 through 12 where her and I would send warning notifications um proactively. You're halfway to the number and then we would also follow up when they hit the number. We've now pulled your credit and then the email um
it's come meet with us. Let's talk about a plan to recover. Our current policy suggests there's only an appeal that's available for families. And so when we meet about that, if a if a student's not in the hospital for two weeks, then why are you asking me for an appeal? You know, your daughter had the flu three
times, I'm sorry about that, you know, um but that's not an appeal worthy situation. So now we have this recovery plan. So we start meeting with families. I'd say the first meetings started happening late in the first semester because those semester based courses, they get 10 absences. So at 10:00, we
would pull that credit. families come in, give them the recovery sheet, they start staying active with teachers. And so by, you know, February, March, April, it's more of those year-long courses, kids are getting into these numbers. So overall this year, I think we sent around 1,400 warnings. Um, and around
I'd say close to 300 notices of loss of credit, roughly, something along those lines. Um there's there's so se almost 70 kids participated in attendance recovery with us including up to today I had two juniors in the conference room
today cover recovering more hours so that they could so that I could fix their grades for them. Um so we've recovered 133 courses now that the kids you know they won't have to take credit recovery for it. Um and maybe in the five or 10 years ago they would have
just gotten the credit um and then next year they would have had more absences and then more absences. So we really feel like even though yes they probably would have gotten the credit anyhow, these kids were actually thanking us. You know I had seniors that came in from the last day of from May 28th to June
5th or so and they were thanking me when they left for allowing them to recover the time. Oh, you know, and we had juniors staying back at school on junior skip day. We have seniors staying for senior skip day. We we don't hold certain school function. Any school
function isn't held against them. So, they can do field trips. They can do you know, we're not holding that stuff against them, but you know, I have I have moms a mom calling my daughter's running out of the house to get to school on time because she knows she'll have to make up the class if she misses
again. And so it it just again like our our daily attendance, you know, from year to year it probably doesn't look tremendously different. Um but in terms if you looked at our class byclass breakdown and look at the number of I think we'll see the impact more next year, but the number of kids that fixed
their period by period attendance late in the year because they didn't want to have to keep recovering classes. Um there was a real impact, you know, on our on our daily attendance because they needed to be here. So I would have a mom calling me, we want to go out of town. Does she have another day to miss? Like
she wants to make it up, go ahead. I mean, she stay another four or five days. So it it actually started some really good conversation and a lot of parents who thought maybe their students anxiety or or mental health was getting in the way. Those students are the ones that stepped up the most in many cases
cuz they would know I got this. if I can stay after school, this kind of relieves my stress a little bit because I can make my time up and then if I miss one, I just know I have to make up another one. So, it kind of offered them a little bit of, you know, a balancing act as well. So, um, we're looking forward next year to the impact really because
that will be a full year being implemented. So, see how it goes. I can chime in on two things for for Gary before you guys jump in. One, um, we're talking about kids who are passing classes, but we're losing credit due to attendance. So we're not talking about kids who are failing out, right? Uh but
two, uh how our policy reads and how we used to always implement things. This was done at the teacher level. Um where the appeal would go to the administrators and I will just say I think you you know this from your years back at ZAP. Uh it was inconsistent from teacher to teacher
based on how they implemented that piece. Uh so when Gary and Ann came to me last summer about this idea like are you guys sure you want to take this on because you're take talk about taking on 800 kids yourself you know but they wanted it and uh I said this in front of our staff more than once like they took
on a heavy load this year of working on the attendance and we saw success. Um there was uh those those thank yous were sincere. I I I saw myself. I saw one mom who was upset that her daughter had to make up the time and the mom actually I'm sorry the the daughter told her mom
stop. Yeah. My mom said this is crazy. I told her be quiet I'm doing this. But we actually so we were able to flip kids taking accountability and it was cool. So just those things it was uh it was really great to see this year when we approach it. It put the students side by
side with the teacher instead of adversarial. So if the teacher's pulling the credit, then it's teacher to student. And so what we were able to do is just say, "Hey, get your teacher to sign it. You know, go talk with your teacher, stay after with her, maybe she'll stay for an extra day for you." You know, we had we had kids coming in at 6:30 in the morning because the
teacher was willing to meet with them at that time. So you know, it definitely has had a big impact in that in that way. So they had to stay with the teacher to make up the time. So, we opened up the door for year one and was I basically told them any adult in this building if if you can find an adult
who's staying on Wednesday and that's the only day you can stay, you know, cuz our teachers have one office hour that they're obligated to stay. So, if it's Mondays, let's say, and I just can't stay Mondays, but I can stay Wednesdays. So, I was like, okay, stay with any teacher you need to. And then I look at their grades. Looks like you could stay
with your math teacher. So, why don't we start there? Yeah, we had we just had I have a stack this thick of these logs that haven't been turned in this year. It definitely was impactful and I didn't have as many students at the nth and tth grade level that Gary had because of course 11th and 12th graders come in
late because they bring themselves most of the time. Um but for the kids who followed through and they took the warning seriously we did see a decrease at least I did at the 9th and 10th grade level. there was more of a push to get to school on time. And then for um students who did have to make up the
credit because they got the the email for the loss, it went to the students and their families. So, everyone was informed. And there were a few who didn't follow through. And then for all the ones that did, they took they took it and they one girl her father sent me a long email. I don't think this is
fair. You know, she had x y and z going on. And she said to me, I got this, Mrs. Blaine. and she went home and talked to her again and he drove her back the next day after school had already gone out. She came in four days in a row and finished today. So, it it's having an
impact. Yeah. Cool. How is attendance counted? Is it from their first like how is full day attendance? We use daily attendance as a as our first block. First block period attendance where we we track it by each class that they're running. Yeah. So, we have we have both sets of data. Mhm. So
the full day attendance though, it's from their first period. Yeah. And so a lot of times and through some of this work, we actually will find we can clean up their daily attendance because we'll find, you know, that they're only missing a block. And so sometimes we just miss that in our system and it'll become a daily absence instead of just a
period absence. It's actually been a little bit helpful there, too, cuz this kid should have been present all day and only only absent for that one class. Part of the student who might come in at 10:30 and they miss half of the day. um they still get as long as you're in for half the day, you get that daily attendance credit. There's very few kids
who come in like half halfway through the day, you know, but um we do have a lot of kids who sometimes they just don't come in first block or they come in late to first block. So, we do have to clean up the attendance on our end. In order to be extracurricular and athletics, it be half the day. Yeah.
with no behave for MIA. Which this also dealt with many of those conversations too because like you're an athlete and this is where this is what's going on. You know, when your season begins, you're are you aware of this? It actually opens the door for a
lot of just variety of conversations. That's so important. You're finding out the why. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Okay. Okay. All right. So, um so the next uh goal
was around teaching and learning. Um and and our goal this year at the high school was to really um uh work on those skills in the math and English uh both in 9th grade whole for the whole grade and then also uh with that uh intensive cohort of students who we thought needed
uh or we identified needed that additional support um uh in the 10th grade class. um the the focus was to help uh prepare them and give them the skills they needed to be successful in the MCCAST uh in order to meet that graduation requirement. That kind of got flipped on its head when we hit uh
November. Um but uh I will say the feedback I got from the two teachers who co-taught that uh MCCAST preparation course for that that sophomore cohort uh even in May after the MCAST was already over was uh how much they enjoyed um
teaching that class uh working together working with the students. Um, so, uh, we are going to continue with that model going into next year, um, because we still think we have that cohort of kids who do need that additional support of math and English regardless of that MCCAST component. So, we are we are
changing that name. Um, but we are going to continue to work with those kids on their math and English skills with a certified math teacher and certified English teacher. So, all that said, um, uh, the slide that you have in front of you, uh, is from our ninth grade students um, from ELA. Uh the uh the
chart just shows uh how their diagnostic scores played out from September uh that first I'm sorry that first diagnostic back in September uh to their May diagnostic on the far right of the chart. Uh it's great when you see those lines go from left to right uh going
continuously up. You don't see that dip for the most part. Um uh our students started the year um that that upper blue line, not the one at the bottom, but that upper blue line um as a cohort, they started around the 8.5 grade level.
Um and they finished uh just shy of um of of 9.2 9.3 as a as a cohort um um for their uh their overall scores. But what was great is we did see three out of those six categories where they were at
a 10th grade level or higher. Um being That's the idea, right? What's that? That's the idea, right? Yeah. Yeah. In uh in reading uh the reading level, the vocabulary and their writing strategies were were areas where we saw them uh basically hit that end of year point that we wanted to see them um see them
hit. Grammar and mechanics will improve. Yeah. So that's that's the area that we continually like obviously we'll talk about that later. Uh it's our second year running diagnostics with our students. We've consistently seen uh the grammar mechanics as an area uh uh of need. Um and it's definitely one that we
want to continue to focus on because the students as a cohort at even at the end of freshman year consistently do um uh score below grade level significantly below grade level. All right. Go to the next one. I I have a question about this one. Yeah. Go
ahead. The what program is this that the chart's giving? Il. Yeah. So, we don't use I Ready at the high school cuz it only goes through grade 8 in their diagnostic. Doesn't have the uh the skills and lessons plans uh in I Ready that they do for this has
a personalized learning at the high school level. Yeah. Yeah. So, this uh does go all the way through grade 12 even though we only use it through grade 10 at the moment. Just nine and 10 use it. Yeah. Um uh but I did I did pitch and threw out the idea and I I appreciate your email the other day to
find out what it would cost to run it through grade 12. Um because I will say both our math and English teachers uh they love it as a resource. They use it as a supplement to their teaching. Um and they've asked if they can get it in all their classes to to utilize. So it's not just like we run the diagnostic and that's it. Um they found ways to
individualize structure for kids. Uh use it as activators for classes. Um you know retach when uh kids aren't getting skills. It even runs through calculus and I've had the calculus teacher inquire about whether she could use it for her courses. Mhm. So, um but yes, this is long short. It's excel. Are
there other reports that give like um a percentage of students? So, this many students are now at the 10th or higher and because that's what we see in the other um grade levels. So, I didn't know if they do it in this either. Yes. just
so it gives us a better idea of I mean how many kids are still at 8.5. Okay. I don't know if they're they have those reports cuz I don't use that. I've never used that program so I don't know. They have a ton of different keep adding to them. Yeah. So I'm I'm So
you're talking about like different grade levels like where those kids are at. Well yeah like this many 200 students are now at this and they were at this. Got it. Okay. Um, and maybe making that one of the goals for next
year, like 80% of the ninth grade will have, I don't know, 10th grade reading level or something. Yep. Um, just so just to throw that out. Yeah, I can sit down um whether or not I can kind of dig into
those reports and see which like they they do have some different pie charts um in terms of like at grade level, below grade level, significantly below grade level, things like that. We can look and see what's similar to the I Ready growth report. So yeah, I'm not familiar with how IRA fits mount. So um
I'm sure Andre can kind of show me what that is and we can kind of look for that similar one that I might have. Yeah, just cuz it gives us a better idea of how how many kids are doing talking compared to this. So um so yeah. And are
the di the diagnostics are not those are used as more formative data. So those aren't rolling into report card grades or anything like that? No, just formative. And isl the venue by which common summitive unit assessments would
be created so that we're able to have consistency in grading as it connects back to the competency determination which we had talked about. So on the ELA side, uh the Odell curriculum does have cumulative tasks at the end of
each unit that we're planning on utilizing those as some type of common assessment versus um because it's a it's a supplement to the curriculum that complements what we do, but it it's not the curriculum. So I I'd be hesitant to utilize that as the
common assessment. Um, so in Odell are they are those assessments editable by teacher or when we say common we mean common like what Frank's giving is what Ann's giving is what Gary's giving. So the cumulative task at
the end of each unit is common. Um, you know, the I one of the things Heather and I had talked about recently was, okay, now that we're implementing these, the next piece is getting our department to start calibrating their their grading practices around those. Um, so I think that's going to be the piece that we're
going to start layering in next. Uh, because I I think, you know, teacher A and teacher B can give the same assignment, but even with the same rule, we both grade it differently. So, we have to figure out that calibration piece as well. You know, that's I think
like we've talked about before, if Gordon's giving an A and Sam's giving a C and the work is the same, how how are we making sure that we're on the same page? Because if we're now stamping what passing means, it's probably a B. Yeah.
Yeah. We need to have that consistency and development on the math side. Uh just to answer that question and we'll talk about on the next slide. Do you want to go to the next slide? Um so terms of common assessments on the math side department does have and are
commonly taught courses uh both a common midterm and final exam in those courses that is also outside of um I have been in conversations with the department had about and I think we had talked about this potentially using the assessment builder within to get more uh accurate
data. Um my one of the things I'm planning on doing this summer is digging into that and making sure that we we do it the right way. Uh where it also allows us to continue to get growth. Um because initial eye test of it, it's more broken
out in segments of the course, not necessarily going to give us that growth data from over the course of the year. So, uh, we still want to be able to one see that the kids are growing from September through June, but at the same time, um, making sure that our our teachers are locked step in terms of
where they are in their instruction and how their kids are being assessed. Uh but just to hit on on this slide um and we talked about it at the uh the February meeting um so we do have a number of uh strands where the students are demonstrating um below grade level.
Uh what I was happy to see on the algebraic strand which is what we want to see at the end of our freshman year is our students as a cohort ready 9.5 um for algebra and algebraic thinking uh um which is a growth from as a cohort
7.5 in September you know so um uh so we did see that growth of uh of their algebra skills over the course of the year and most freshmen take algebra you know there's definitely areas uh where you know I see in uh based on how they're being assessed um that we have
to improve. Um but it was great to see that growth in uh in the course that the students are taking during that time. And I think I asked this before, but how does this in particular because it's it's not quite as strong in math as it
was in ELA. How does this match up to what we see on report card grades? Do we see I mean because if 9.5 means you're exiting grade nine halfway through
grade nine so you're moving into grade 10 half a year so to speak behind the algebra should be closer to grade 10 you mean I'm asking okay so if we're looking at that algebra score yeah um what the
final like cumulative averages would be for our algebra cohort or I was uh I was one honors cohort. I don't have those, but I can definitely get those. I'm just thinking like to see like is this to begin to triangulate that data. Is this giving us information that is matching
student performance data that teachers are seeing? Y if so, do we then see that reflected in the report card grade that's being given? If there's a disconnect, why? If I would agree with you that if at a 9 if 9.5 means they're
still finishing below grade level at the end of that year we should see him closer to 10 than a 9.5. Uh and then I'm looking at report cards and see across the board. That's a concern, right? Uh I would that that's probably not the case. Uh but I don't have that data of where they finished the year. But I can
definitely um would just be interesting to see because then you could start to lean into what is giving us the most valid measure and then if it is this how then are we utilizing like you mentioned the different components um to provide more intentional
uh you know targeted standards practice based on what the report is telling you kids are in need of. Because when you look at, you know, post-secary success, passing algebra 1 is one of the biggest indicators of post-secary success for
students. Yeah. So, making sure that when we're saying they're passing. Yeah. That it's solid footing. Yeah. And our department always talks about the importance of algebra one to prepare students for what they take their junior year, which is algebra 2, you know, which is typically where you start to
see students branch off senior year and going into different math levels, whether it's probably stat or calculus, pre-cal, whatever it might be. Um, but algebra 2 really being that uh I want to say the capstone of the math department, but it's that it is that one that state does expect students to achieve too. So,
Um so the next slide just talks about uh the growth that we saw um from our students in in that uh that cohort um from the 10th grade team. Um so I I did put in the information about the growth that we saw in our ninth grade students
um both in English and math uh in terms of the grade levels uh based on that first diagnostic in the fall to the spring diagnostic given in May. Uh where we saw 1.2 2 uh 1.2% not 1.2% uh 1.2 grade levels growth on the LA side, 1.4
levels of growth on the math side. Um but on the uh the 10th grade cohort, uh just to hit on that, and that's that cohort of 23 kids who all came in below that 10th grade uh um that level. We did see um um what what we thought was some
solid growth both in ELA where it was 1.1 grade levels and then 77 grade levels on the math side. So we saw those kids continue to make gains over the course of the year. They didn't didn't we don't see that stretch growth where they got beyond just one grade um but they still did continue to make progress over the course of the year.
Is there opportunity to talk to the educators who are servicing these students to see what types of professional learning they're in need of to make that impact greater? Like are they in need of foundational
math skills or foundational reading skills that aren't necessarily part of what they're used to teaching because as a result of the profile of student that they're now being asked to support and that's literally just a question like it could just be that they have
like a mismatch of my skill set tells me X yet I'm servicing a group of students that need Y. How do I bridge that gap through either a resource or through some professional learning so that I'm able to better affect growth for the students who I know need
it? Yeah. Uh I'll say the two individuals that we assigned to that 10th grade team were very intentional because we knew we were asking them to do some heavy lifting. um having observed those classes and sat in on their meetings for their co-planning um and then also debriefing at the end of
the year I think we picked the right two teachers uh uh we do definitely have some high need kids who are in that cohort um um but I I I think we can have that conversation about additional training
but I do think we have great individuals identified to to run they clearly made an impact it's just trying to see what do they need to go to push. Y and then will these 23 be how will they be supported going into grade 11? We don't
have a structure in place for grades 11 and 12 to that level at this time. Yeah. So will it be so nth grade also has a cohort that will 10. So so that the that data point or data set that you have for
nth grade is the entire nth grade. Okay. Uh we did test all students on the diagnostic in grades grade 10 who were in a standard level offering. So kids were in standard geometry uh or students were in standard English. They did uh I
do have diagnostic scores on them. Um what what I just broke out were the students who were on that uh 10th grade team prepared for the MCCAST where it's a group that needed that additional layer of support going into the year. We knew that they were significantly below grade level and and needed some academic
uh skill building. Um and uh that's just the data that I shared tonight was with that uh specific group. Oh, okay. So, so for their overall freshman uh the whole group is starting at 666.
Is that meaning they're starting at a sixth and 2/3 grade level? Yes. Mhm. And so is that a concern? Does that's where our baseline is that we're that's a tier one issue? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Compared to uh overall for ELA 844 again we're half
a year behind. Is that a reasonable statement to say are other districts meeting the number the true numbers or is this I think it's a common issue but doesn't mean it's not one that we want to continue to work on. And so one of the ways we're trying to fill that gap
is having the consistent highquality curricular materials in everyone's hands. the professional development, MTSS teams to get make sure kids aren't falling through the cracks. We have all sorts of things in place. Um, but I don't look at that lightly either. Yeah.
And I don't know I don't know the I Ready program and how it might translate to LL. Um, because I would guess when Steve looks at his AP data, he's not seeing a 6.6. No, there's not a score, right, Steve? Per se like that. We can get that. Yeah. And that's not what the
standard what I would look at, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um I I was I would assume that as a cohort would probably be higher. Um but I just don't know that how the programs relate. Might be worth emailing both
companies asking and asking if they have a correlation chart. A lot of times partnerships like that can say hey this is how we correlate to um this particular company. I think imagine learning does some correlational work
like that. Um STM math and curriculum associates do some correlational work. So they might even have something that lets you know they definitely have it between the assessment system and curricular materials. It would be interesting to see if they have it inter
customers. You can say I want to talk to you and I want to talk to you at the same time. Yeah. like they're servicing they're providing a service that is meant to benefit students regardless of grade level and regardless of company brand. If you need something from one to
work in service of the other, it serves them to have you have what you need in order to be able to make that step. Yeah. I'm also hoping that the growth that you saw in the elementary as the kids come
up with that solid foundation coherence will have an impact um when they come to the high school I'm not hoping I'm banking on okay um just our last slide I'm going to turn the floor over to Ann and um just
talk about some of the stuff we did u just on culture and climate for our If you look at the right side of the page, you can see that um we had our experience, our student experience surveys from the fall and the spring. And um obviously we're happy that we
made some gains in terms of students feeling like they're part of the community at school and then also feeling that their school is inclusive of all backgrounds and identities. um we did some work that we we were really intentional with trying to bring in not only students voices but also
like bringing in their families. And so some of the things that we've done is um the program of studies or the curriculum night bringing in families um the eighth grade family night where students attend with their parents. Um the school council worked on actually looking at
the survey data this year and the students and their parents gave us some really good ideas as to things that we could do um to bring in support and um we worked together to organize an all school assembly on substance use. We
brought in a guest speaker. Um the DA's office had some programming um at our school this year during the day but we also had a forum on social media awareness at night. Um some of the PD is also um really focusing on inclusivity
and culture and climate and belonging. The work that we did with Dr. Ple um also the regulated classroom PD that was ongoing throughout the year. Um and then in addition to these whole school surveys and the information we're getting we have a lot of teachers and in
certain departments the whole department is actually surveying students and getting that feedback on a regular basis. For some it's like you know end of year, others it's like midyear and end of year and then some it's quarterly. For for others it's like at
the end of a unit um to get the feedback not only on academics but also just to check in and see how the students are going. So you know we're happy that people are actually looking to get that information from the students and in some cases adjusting what they're doing because it's reflective and then in
other cases we're we're just kind of taking the temperature on how the students are feeling at that time. if we need to get more support. Um the UDL strategies continuously being implemented giving students their you know to use their voices offering different uh choices of things that they
can do. And then I've also um I work with all of the adviserss for extracurricular clubs and we've seen a major increase in um students approaching administration to ask if they could implement new clubs and a lot of them really focus on exposing the
rest of the students to cultures uh ethnic groups traditions and so you know I feel like we're kind of moving in the right direction and you know there's a lot of things that we can do to push this work further. uh next year
staff attendance. Uh I think it was on was on that first page. First page. Nope. I don't think I put it. Oh, I thought I was someone else's. Yep. You asked me. Yep. Hold on. in that chart. That chart I
sent you. It's okay. I forgot. Just send it along for anybody a chance. Please send it. Yeah. Yeah. We're at 95% for both uh teachers and for professionals. No, that's that's what everybody else
present. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. Any other questions, comments? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you all. Appreciate it. That'd be nice to cheer on Steve. Oh, I got Steve.
Hello, Mr. Pearson. Hello everyone. How are we today? Doing great. This is still on medical. Before I get started today, I did want to go on the record with just a big thank you. I don't know, you might be aware that we're a bit short-handed at Birchland the last uh two and a half months of the school year. So, I want to
thank our ELPS leadership team. They were a huge help in us keeping us afloat getting across the end of the year without having to sacrifice a lot of the stuff that makes Portland special. So, should Gordon and the high school team Ann and Gary both spent time in the building helping out so that we could do some things we continue to do and the
kids got to get the full experience. So, thank you to everybody. Thank you guys. Miss Brown signed that was there for quite a bit as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Miss Brown too as a whole leadership team. I was couldn't have done it without you guys. I was juggling a lot of balls at the end of the year. So, thank you. All right. So, uh supporting
the whole child is the first goal I want to talk a little bit about. We can go to the next slide. Um high school promise brevity and I will deliver on that because I think our data uh speaks for itself on most of these and it's going to offer you a little bit of context. If you recall last year, we think we were around 12% that were chronically absent.
And that number has decreased uh drastically here down to 5.9 or around 6% if you count in the 20% or more. This was just a testament to being relentless and using all the tools that we had at our disposal. um killed entire forest, sending out letters to families, endless
meetings with with families and caregivers and even doctors because a lot of our stuff was medically based that students were missing school around um our incentive programs, messaging to families, whether it would be in my weekend updates, signs posted around the school about the importance of attendance and just a consistent theme
with our students talking about being there being one of the most important things in life and in school especially. So, we had a drastic reduction in our absenteeism, which is what's great. And another big factor of this, I don't want to get into too much now because it's going to come up on our supportive culture slide, was around increasing
engagement, giving kids a reason to want to be in school. Um, and it's it's what we deliver in the classroom on an everyday basis, but I'll talk a little bit more about that when we get to that slide. Um, you can see our our teacher attendance was below there as well. I think we took a little bit of a hit this year. This was a strange year where if
anything could happen, it did happen. had six long-term subs to close out the year in addition to missing my assistant principal. We had a lot going on. So, I I know our teacher attendance is usually a little bit higher than that. Um, next year looks like it might be an adventure as well. Already got some long-term absences lined up, but I still expect to
see that number go up a little bit more next year. Can I ask a question about what that number means? Yeah. So, when we talk about attendance is 94%. Does that mean teachers were present for 94% on average of the 180 days? Yes.
Yeah. It's it's so in mun you have to almost reverse it because what you have to start with is what acred time was used. Okay. And then look at the days they had available and then do the math to come up with this. And again just trying to clarify. So then that means
roughly 11 days missed roughly. Yeah. Yeah. We had and again we had several on average actually large number their school year is 184. So when you approve time because they're in contracted for 184. So it would be a
little it would be it would include those not just and paras they're on 182. So we had to Yeah. So you have to look at the contracted days 11 days. Yeah. We also saw a nice dip in you know the absentee numbers among our black African-American students and our Hispanic even though some of those
numbers are still higher. They're a big reduction from last year and I attribute that some of the work we did with the academic leadership association mentoring some of those students. We had an affinity group going with um Maple Shade for a while. A lot of our students were mentors for that and they enjoyed participating. That was a good reason for them to come to school. So, we saw a
nice reduction in those numbers as well. So, we're pretty pleased with the attendance data. It's it's an ongoing battle. It's one we're going to continue to pursue next year. It'll be a little more difficult without Trish Pereira, who is a a diva at this stuff. Um but we will carry on the fight. And I don't want to misspeak then because I have
said 11 and Gordon said it's a 184. So, that would be closer to 8 days. So I just want to make sure I'm So each teacher was absent eight days. Well, that's on average on average. We had some teachers that miss, you know, maternity, paternity leave,
surgeries, grand jury duty. We had everything come up this year. So all right, teaching and learning. So um it's our next goal here. And when we're looking at the numbers, you know, obviously here this is from our I Ready data. And again, the data speaks for itself. The put it simply, the goal is
to increase the green while reducing the red, which we've done quite well from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Our green has grown quite a bit and our red has shrunk. So, we were on target there. But when we're looking at the numbers around growth, um I believe in ELA, we targeted we wanted 65%
typical growth uh for our students in reading. We were a little bit short of that this year um you know, for a variety of reasons, but we were within parameters we've set in the past about what we have been. um 60% I think we're right around that number last year as
well. Uh so we're similar. This was a year when we did a curriculum review for reading. So we were piloting some different curriculums. We ended up settling on reading reconsidered. And I think that that was a it was a good learning experience. I know it was for me. Um I tutored some of our eighth graders who were struggling and when
their teacher wasn't available after school. And um as a former English teacher myself, I learned after my first session with those kids that I couldn't just wing it. I had to get the materials a day ahead, go over and plan it. So, it it's quite quite rigorous. So, I'm
thinking we're going to see the benefits of that in years to come as kids get more accustomed to these high quality instructional materials. You can see our numbers are still pretty good. 60% typical growth. Um, our seventh grade, we got a really dynamic group of teachers there that work really well together. We we see aren't seeing our
highest numbers. They did meet the goal for their their typical growth and their stretch growth. They were 3% off. We were looking at 35%. I think we were at 20 or 33% last year. So, we did pretty well in those numbers as well. Um, little work to do there. I think we're going to see those numbers again tick up
as we do some professional development around the new curriculum. As we get more familiar with it and the requirements there, we're going to see our numbers go up, but 150% median score. You can see it's it's not bad. Our kids are still continuing to make progress in reading. Even if they're not making it quite the same level that we
want to to catch up on MCCAST toward the world pre- pandemic, we still got to see those stretch numbers go up and that's going to be our our aim next year. And Steve, did they take the eighth grade take the I Ready after their four MCCAST test? They did. And we also were missing our eighth grade teacher for the entire last quarter. Well, we noticed some
score reversals. So, I think a lot of eighth grade scores are not really real. Is Yeah, it wasn't ideal. their best foot effort after they took all those MCCAST like scores went backwards which doesn't they come back from DC and they do their last round of of uh diagnostics as well
and I said one of our eighth grade teachers had been missing for the entire fourth quarter so I'm not sure we're getting our most valid results there but you know the numbers are what they are and we know we have some room for growth there and then the MTSS team did they then take a look at the 31% who made less
than 19% progress towards typical and the 36% who made less than 19% progress towards strategy. Yeah, it's it's always been a we notice a feast or famine trend. We always there's not much in the middle. It tends to be good chunk of our kids make the progress we're looking for and then the one there there are those
that don't. So, every year we're looking at how we can what kind of intervention programs we have to try and reach some of these kids. Um I did not put the slide up there, but our intervention programs are working pretty well. Our kids that are the furthest behind grow the most. They've got the most distance to go as well. Um, but yeah, we do have
certain kids that don't seem to make a ton of progress. So, every year we're looking at what do we need to do to push those kids. We added in that enrichment block a couple of years ago to give us another way to reach those kids with tier one teachers. So, we had a big meeting with my MTSS team and a special
committee on enrichment to see what we want to tweak for next year. And I think that our enrichments are working well in spots. We're going to be looking to get a little more consistency because we're going to rely on them a little bit more. We're going to have fewer tiered classes next year. So, we're going to need those enrichment classes to serve as an
intervention for those kids that are struggling. So, we're going to be looking for some more consistency, a lot more visits from Natalie, assuming she's able to travel around the building by that time in there, observing those rooms more than we do typically, and kind of giving those teachers some feedback on what we can do to push kids
forward. I've been talking about Heather with some programs we might be able to bring into those enrichments to help push kids uh whether that be Lexia or or anything else that's on the table and over maybe spire we could look at um but it is something that we have known.
Uh the next slide is again our our projection for MCCAST reading. Again, you know, this carries out 57% proficient will be uh the score that you know, a nice uptick from the fall when we were projected to be in at 43%. Um we'll see how those numbers pan out.
They were pretty close last year, the projections to what they should be. And we're growing a lot more kids proficient, a lot fewer kids that are not meeting expectations, which is exactly where we want to be. And do you happen to know what the percent proficient or the percent meeting or exceeding expectations on MCCAST was
last year? Last year, yeah, we were at Oh, I have I don't I'm want to mix up English and math. I know math we were in the 40s. English we were in the 50s. I think we were around 54. Okay. Outperforming where you were last year. I'll look it up. Yep. We should be
slightly ahead. Again, this is part of that pre that push to to we're feeling science. We're we're spinning our wheels. We're treading water. we're going to catch up to where we need to be. We need to have more kids hit their stretch growth. So, that's going to be our focus and we're doing it in areas. We just need to be more consistent with it. All
right, math. Uh, we had a pretty good year in math as you're going to see with some of our data here. This is again the overall beginning of year versus end of year. And the same story of growing the green while shrinking the red. We did a really nice job there. But when we go to the next slide and you look at our growth, we largely hit our targets here.
We were looking for 55% uh typical growth in math and we scored you know above that. So we hit our typical growth goals and our stretch goals we did very well as well. We in fact we exceeded our stretch goals as well. So math is on target. We're
another year getting more familiar with our IM curriculum. We did a lot of work in department meetings with talking about where our gaps were for vertical alignment. Where did our kids struggle? What were we missing in the transition from one grade to the next? But this is also a testament to our our program to
really clean up how we're selecting kids for our math programs. We wanted to really bear down on that from a couple years ago where it was just a teacher recommendation decided who was going to go uh into algebra. Now we have an accelerated math program in sixth grade and seventh grade. We have multiple data
points tracking back to MCCAST performance in third and fourth grade to try and determine, you know, what's going to be the most appropriate math placement for kids. And we want this to go beyond a feather with my cap. I got into algebra. We need kids to develop the foundational skills that are going to help them be successful long term. Uh
particularly in high school. So we want them to be with the programming they need where they're going to find success. They're going to build those skills so that when they get to high school, they can still take honors and AP courses and be prepared to do it. I believe when we first took our kids take the high school algebra final, we had
almost 40% a little over 40% failure rate. This time we had four kids out of nearly 60. It's not passive. So, I think it's working and we're trying to make this transparent for parents. We sent out letters this year detailing all the data points that we were looking at considering the math placement and then what math placement we were recommending
them for. We heard back from five or fewer parents. So, I think that the transparency helps. They know what we're doing. This is not just as subjective as grades. We're looking at mastery checks. We're looking at I Ready data. We're looking at MCCAST data historically and attendance. Attendance is a big piece,
too, because they move at such a pace in these accelerated courses. If you miss something, you're going to be way behind. So, we have again a pretty well- definfined program. We're going to continue to work with it and fine-tune it based on how the summer goes. Like I said, we've only heard from I think 95 parents so far, and they've all been
four of them have been sixth grade parents, one going into seventh grade. So, I think that our our data and our transparency is is doing us a service there. It looked like from when I looked at the state site, uh, it was about 46% last year. Yeah. So, if this comes into
we see a little uptick there as well. Yep. He's on the plate now. We'll be able Yeah, we see a slight celebration bell like wow celebrating us. Yeah, we're happy with the MCCAST, but you know, as you were saying with
the high school stuff, we want to see this success translate into long-term success into high school. We don't want kids having to repeat algebra, not being able to do the AP and honors courses because they were missing some skills because they were in a rush to get into an accelerated group at an earlier grade when it didn't matter as much as
building that strong foundation. And can I jump in with it? So, the IM curriculum has its regular curriculum, but they also have accelerated that starts in sixth grade. So by 8th grade that algebra they'll have everything and so that's what we're yeah because there were some gaps we have to start in sixth
grade otherwise they're yeah because it wasn't there before but we had the accelerated programs in seventh and eighth so we were noticing there were some skills they weren't performing so well on so they spent a lot of time in their department meeting identifying those so we could do kind of a boot camp before MCCAST where we went back and retaugh those skills so the kids wouldn't go in you know completely blind
but we're hoping to close those gaps completely by using the IM accelerated curriculum as well and it's the same when you look at math last year again because it's at least somewhat of a metric to compare. It was about 40% we're meeting or exceeding expectations on MCAST and again now you're looking to
have moved from almost another Yeah. Yeah. We're moving in the right direction. Yeah. We got to keep that momentum going. So, all right. So, moving on to our last one, which is the inclusive and supportive culture. So, I put up our results um spring versus fall and our
numbers are are pretty consistent, you know, across the board. I'm going to focus on the engagement in a moment, but we spend a lot of time talking about the diversion community is a big part of our advisory program with our AAR committee this year. Getting kids to be responsible members of the community, understanding their role in it, the
responsibilities they have to other members of the community and making sure that we are there to support each other. This year we had a we are birund day which was completely focused on community service and being part of that community where kids were talking about projects. They were learning from the high school about the community service requirement. We were welcoming our new
sixth graders in there to get them to be part of our community. So those numbers generally stay pretty high for us because it's a big part of the focus of what we do and trying to create that virtual family. But the big uptick we saw you'll see is an engagement. Um, we knew that our engagement numbers is
something we wanted to see uh increase drastically. Um, oh, I see. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. They weren't represented the same when I got the screenshot. Went from 64 to 86%. Nice. So, and a big part of this was um our year-long PD focus that we
had during our collaboration station was on revisiting we call the instructional block. So, teachers have certain requirements for every instructional block. Supposed to have a posted goal. you know, mini lesson, student engagement, but we've also been had a lot of initiatives going on at the building level and the district level
of fantastic um instructional techniques from UDL regulated classroom. We did a lot of co-eing this year. So, we would look how do we weave these things into what we already do this year. So, our coaches did a fantastic series all year looking at each element of the instructional block and how can we weave
in these 21st century skills, this new PD that we've been having at the district level to increase the engagement for our kids to get them more involved in the classroom to get them excited about their learning. And our teachers appreciated. It was a good reminder of some of the basics that we needed and gave Natalie and I a good
anchor point. We went in for things we were looking for in the classroom to give them feedback on. But teachers took it seriously. We saw a lot of teachers giving exit surveys about how clear how clearly they were communicating their objectives to kids, how engaged the kids felt. They were using that data on a daily basis to inform their instruction.
And then overall, you look at that huge uptick in engagement. I think our classes were more dynamic. I think you saw the increase in our attendance. Kids were more excited about what was going on in school. So, we're celebrating that success. Something we want to try and translate um into next year as well and
see how we can keep that going. Um we're going to push on with the co-eing. I think we we dipped our toes in those waters this year. It's it's complicated. We put a lot on our special education leaison when it comes to the co-eing. We're going to want to continue that next year and I think we're going to see those engagement numbers hold steady and
increase. All right. I did promise brevity, so I'm open to questions. Excellent work on the brevity. Thank you. Any other questions, Mr. Pearson, tonight? Oh, that just seems to align with what you saw in movement in your
data from MLO to EOI as well. Yep. Yeah, we're pretty consistent. Like I said, the engagement thing I think was felt throughout all of our strands and what we're doing. It's a big part of what we do. And um and also explaining to kids what engagement meant was a big part of that as well. Didn't mean that we're juggling fire and entertaining you in
the classroom, but that you're thinking and learning consistently. You're an active participant. So, I think that also they had a good understanding of that by the end of the year. Great. Thank you so much, Steve. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Harrison.
Thank you for your presentations tonight. Thank you. Steve, for entrepreneurship on there, uh entrepreneurship vision. We'll pull it up next for you if you want. And actually uh do you have
any information on the waver waivers? Cross country cross country and uh somewhat straightforward. We've done them before but uh I don't know if you had any additional we'll just pull up your one then. Yeah. Okay. Gordon Gordon can do the waiverss. Okay. We got faith.
Uh can I take a motion to move up uh 7.4 to the next order of business, please? So moved. Motion made by Sarah. Second. Second by discussion. All in favor say I. I. Those opposed? Nay. That motion carries. William, you there still? Yeah, he's there. 4.
Nice. That's awesome. Okay, we have uh acceptance. Uh no. Yeah, donation to the LHS entrepreneurship program. So, um, just to give you a little history here, this this has always
actually just blown my mind that, uh, Don has done this and, um, I just want to give her a little bit of a shout out and some kudos here. Um so Don has run the entrepreneurship program especia uh since the late 90s. Um from
that time literally until this donation was made she has funded that program entirely out of pocket. Uh so she fronts the money every year between5 and $10,000 for the program. Um and then the program reimbures her at the end uh just because she believed in the program. she
believed in um what the kids were getting out of it. Um and time and again when we see kids going into the business world, they'll tell you like that was a class that inspired them. So um so I just want to give her one that shout out and two uh a student who graduated from
here um who now works for this company um she kept in contact with and he reached out to her to uh to offer to to fund the program um so she wouldn't have to do that anymore. So um so this donation uh allows that program to now
continue to sustain um where you know it's the fronting of the money to purchase the products and then it gets re uh replenished uh once you know the students go out and actively sell um um so I think it's one it's great that
it's it blows my mind what she did in the past but also it's great that a former student giving back program because of what he got out of that and what he believes he's now obviously in sales for this company. So, um that's amazing. So, just so you have that history of what this means, I think it's
an awesome thing, uh both of what she did and also where it's going to go. So, fortunately, we don't get to have Dawn forever, you know. Um so, when that retirement comes, the program will endure. There is a ELHS entrepreneurship account
that's already in existence. Yes. Yes. Okay. And that's where these funds would go. And so they would prepay and then they would be reimbursed and then they do the same thing every year. Yeah. So how it works is they prepay for any products that they might sell. Y um and
then um they reimburse the program and then any profits they make the students can actually uh earn profit off of that and the district will cut they they work it out. It's all on the up and up. Uh and uh uh so they can actually make profit off of the products at the end of
the year. Sometimes kids get a couple hundred bucks and um Cool. They see the fruits of the labor. Yeah. So when he talks Yeah. Okay. They generate the ideas for the products. They come up with the marketing strategy and then they feedback from students to make sure
that they're buying something that might or purchasing something that might be profitable. Uh then they go through the marketing campaign. Um they go out and and sell. Uh I'm sure you've probably seen them around town selling at different events and they go to the middle school. They usually do really well in middle school are excited to buy
from high school. They usually do really well in the superintendent's office. Yeah. So, okay. I take a motion, please, to accept the check for $6,000 from Secure Energy Solutions LLC um to be placed into the Selto High
School entrepreneurship account. Still move. Motion made by Antel. Second. Did I go to you. Yeah. Was it Was it too wordy? What happened? No, no. I was like, you're making the motion. I know. I don't get to do it often. And I still didn't really get to, but that's
right. Motion made by Antel. Second by Sarah. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed. Nay. That motion carries three to zero. He said he just took off. Good for him. But he doesn't know who's connection. We
appreciate his keep up. No, if he's if he's in the air, that's fine. I don't think so. Okay. Thank you, Frank. Yeah, appreciate you. Enjoy your summer if I don't see you. Same, Mr. Paige. [Applause] Okay, moving back into order. We have a
superintendent summitive self assessment evidence report. So, um it always makes sense to me since we're doing these end of the year reports to put this together at this time. I know that we're carrying it over um in terms of the evaluation
until we get the fall accountability data. But um much of the highlights obviously you've heard over the last two nights and uh some of the nice things are we're we're hitting our attendance goals. We're actually exceeding in many cases our attendance goals.
um our growth goals and I ready uh would we were able to meet and in some cases exceed um it was nice to see uh the math stretch growth come up. Mhm. Um so one of the things that uh if you remember we
did at the beginning of the year was rather than going with sort of the theoretical 80% we need 80%. Obviously that's where we would like to be if you break down how tier one teaching should
be um achieving results. But we were wondering if we were stretching it out so far that people were always feeling down because we weren't hitting that 80%. Now we're able to actually come back and show them how they've achieved certain things with many of the
initiatives that we put in place. Um so we're excited to be able to do that um as we discuss it more as a leadership team, but then bring it back as we're setting goals next year. I won't read all of this to you. Um I do have the
folders set up in the shared um the shared Google Drive so that uh you can see the evidence uh there and certainly happy to discuss any or all of this with anyone uh if you want to discuss it individually.
Okay. Thanks Gordon. Sure. Thank you very much. Okay, we have approval of the eighth grade waiver for girls varsity cross country and JV field
hockey. So in your packets you have uh a request from Mr. McGee. Um he's already uh gotten the support of the middle school and high school principal. Uh and he's looking to put in place again a varsity girls cross country 8th grade
waiver cuz currently we do not have the recommended uh minimum of 10 student athletes uh returning uh to field the varsity team and so we would like to offer the opportunity to eighth graders uh and hopefully get above that minimum
of 10 students. field hockey. Uh they're hoping to have both a varsity and a JV team. And so the eighth grade waiver would help us field that uh JV team. And eighth graders would only play on the JV team.
It's going to be a stretch. Seven more players. It's worth trying. Yeah. It may be challenging to do that. It's too bad the numbers are low again. Plus and actually they've had very good seasons the last few years. So, um,
yeah. Does somebody have a w motion, please? I move to approve the eighth grade waiver for girls varsity, cross country, and JV field hockey.
Motion made by Antella. Second. Second by Sarah. Discussion. All in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, nay. That carries three to zero. Thank you very much. uh and adoption of new ELA curriculum for Burton Park Middle School. All
right. So, for those of you who were here last night, I I have here a copy of um the DESIE process for evaluating, selecting, and implementation. Um and I also mentioned that there, you know, the nation's still catching up
with this process. So, not everything's been reviewed, but we use the curate uh rubrics. Um, and so I really wanted to make sure that the ELA curriculum was knowledge based like wit and wisdom. Um, you know, in addition to the content and
skills, the the more background knowledge that kids have, not only does it help them actually comprehend, but it prepares them for the world. There was a great article recently about AI. You can't use AI if you don't have the content knowledge and the questions that you need to ask. Um, so they went
through the whole process. They actually started this the beginning of last year knowing that this was the year to go through it. Um look through different things decided on to that they were going to um field test and field test a whole unit of each. One was fish tank
ELA which has been reviewed and one was reading reconsidered was actually created by the teach like a champion folks. um and they chose uh reading reconsidered and I'm very excited because if you look at the diff the curriculum map they will be reading
whole novels um and a lot of them so um in addition to you know really close reading different sections and writing and everything else um when they come out of the the middle school I'm thinking now you know all of what
they're they're exposed to through wit and wisdom and then in middle school. Um we're going to see tremendous growth in the high school and um they'll continue that work with Odell. Um so I'm happy to
answer any questions about Reading Reconsidered. I personally feel really excited about it. I wish my own daughter could have this curriculum. Um it's very very rich and like Mr. Pearson said, it's very rigorous. Um, and so the the shift now, like I mentioned last night,
was, you know, nationwide, we've been teaching kids to where they're at. And so if I'm teaching a seventh grade student who's at a third grade skill level, third grade skills, they're never going to catch up. Um, we're never going to see that typical growth. We're never going to see that stretch growth. So the
shift is really teaching kids at that seventh grade level and providing the scaffolding and accommodations, whatever we need to make sure they can be successful. And it is possible. We've seen it in a lot of our classrooms. And so the shift now for teachers is how do
we do that in our own classrooms? Um using the technology that we have, using our own skills, co-eing the um expertise of a special educator, all of the things. Um and so in addition to kind of learning how to implement this
curriculum, it's going to the big push is going to be on helping support that shift. Um, and so we'll have uh we've always had horizontal alignment at Birland because it's it's homegrown, but both teams like both the seventh grade teachers, both the eighth grade teachers
teach the same, but we haven't necessarily had vertical alignment and we haven't necessarily had that level of rigor that we really need. So, I appreciate the variety of genre. That's what I was saying. And there's
that there's classics and there's so when they had the parameters that I set for them um they got to choose because you can't possibly do all of these. We're going to do five units next year uh four five units next year. We per we would purchase for six units
knowing that hopefully we can actually make that happen the following year knowing that when you implement a curriculum the first time you never get through all of it. Um but the parameters were different genres um to make sure they had mix of the classical and the contemporary or you know historical
fiction versus non-fiction and um so they're going to have there's diverse Yes. authors. Yes. So all students are able to see themselves. Yep. And also see different perspectives. Y actually
was one of the things that Mr. Pearson was connecting to in terms of engagement. Yep. So, and I appreciate um I know you and I have talked about this document before, but the planning and implementation guide that you provide um educators with. I appreciate how clear
it is in terms of what expectations are for both things that folks should be doing, not things that they should not be doing. Yeah. So, what Sarah was talking about is this sheet. We started doing this when we kind of had a restart last year because we said uh having
never implemented highquality instruction material at such a level before, you know, teach with integrity. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So, when we kind of move back to fidelity, knowing that we test out the recipe and then we can make those changes. So, this has really helped move
the needle forward of being crystal clear about what we can and cannot do. Um, and and you know, I I I did get some push back because some folks felt like they weren't being treated as professionals, but when they actually started reading it, one person even said, "Oh, thank you. This is just
expectations. It's just clarity." And as Bnee Brown says, clarity is kindness. Well, and it helps provide valid data. If we're not implementing something, it's meant to be implemented, we can't say it didn't work because we didn't implement it in the way that it was
meant to be. and and the changes, the tweaks that people are making are now at a um a grade level span with the help of a facilitator and making educated decisions rather than, you know, I'm doing this and I'm doing this. They really have to come to consensus and
have a reason. And there they're all valid reasons. One of which is that the curricular materials always give you more than you could possibly teach. So really helping them to figure out how to prioritize things. Um but yeah, so I'm really excited about this and um I hope
that you approve it. So as you go through it or the team collectively will develop the pace as you go. Was that um so what we did this year for the elementary teachers and for uh the math uh so it was K to8 math is we gave them
a pacing guide with flex days knowing that you know sometimes things happen uh assemblies things like that. So they basically were trying to keep not lock step. So you might be on lesson 10 and I might be on lesson eight but at least
within a range and when people started falling out of that range we had different things in place to help get them back on track and people were helping each other. Um I lost my train of thought. So they did not create the pacing guide. However, they were able to give feedback at the end of the year
about that and throughout the year in those common planning times. Um but to try to get consensus on a pacing guide would have been impossible. So we we created one um and then asked for folks feedback. Are there common assessments that they take? So yeah, and all the
materials that we've purchased there are common assessments. Um so there's a lot of different ones and so and we've outlined which ones are are necessary and which ones can be um optional.
Okay. Okay. Any other questions? If not, I would take a motion for adoption, please. I'd like to make a motion to adopt the new ELA curriculum for Bristol Park Middle School as presented. Motion made by Intella. Second, second by
Sarah. Discussion. All in favor say I. I. I. Those nay. That motion carries three to zero. Thank you, Heather. Thank you. Thank you, Heather. Okay, our final uh topic this evening is
to discuss a time for school committee reorganization meeting on July 1st, which is a week from today. Mhm. Yeah. Wow. They've gone in the morning in the last few years. I don't know if that's open for everybody. Um if it's very
early, I think Does Pam usually attend? barely does 7:30. Uh yeah, be good. It's the beginning of the next year. I mean, it truly is a roles and responsibilities reorg meeting. Okay.
Let me know. Yeah. 7:30. 7:30. Sorry. Does it have to be 7:30? I mean, for I'm up at 5, four or five. I'm just saying. Does it have to be 7:30? be earlier if you No, I mean just for these guys like they're not always in 7:30. I'm okay at 7:30. You
have? Yeah. Yes. Okay. I'm up at 5. We'll do 7:30. We'll check with uh William and Amy just p.m. for the heck of it. And uh we'll go from there. 7:30 July 1st. Okay. Unless you want it in the afternoon. Who is checking with those
people just to make sure we don't all walk away thinking summer hours. Summer is coming in 7:30. He loves it. Do you need me to ask Pam? No, I do. Oh, you can ask at 8. I don't explanation. I just wasn't sure if I
could remember central office hours change. So, the office is 8 to 3 still. Sam's coming in 7:30 to 2:30. Awesome. Actually, I don't know. All right. Amy says 7:30 is good.
Okay. So, we'll just wait for William. Anything else? Check with him. Pam, we'll check. Uh, Heather, you're going to check with Pam. Okay. Thank you. Sounds good. Okay. Okay. If that's it, I would entertain a motion to go into
executive session to discuss um strategies uh for non-union personnel. Yeah. For Yeah. Strategies pardon non-un personnel. Yep. Motion made by Sarah, second by Antonella. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Those opposed, nay.
The motion carries 3 to zero. Thank you. We are an exec. Thank you. Thank you.