##VIDEO ID:2pk1JuITOxI## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e [Music] good evening hollon and welcome to the uh January 9th 2025 uh meeting of the hollon school committee first meeting of the New Year welcome and happy New Year to every everyone uh sorry for getting started a little late but we did have an executive session uh before uh we start we started tonight so uh we've got a a packed agenda tonight so we'll get right into it I will entertain a motion to um approve the consent agenda by joh second by Sarah anyone have any comments Joe do you any yeah uh so in the minutes uh it said that Franco Gora had made a motion to accept option A as the school start time uh option and uh that motion was actually made by me so I would like to uh want credit for that no I just want the record to ref reflect accurately so I would like to uh make a motion to amend the minutes to we can just amend the yeah just amend the minutes so as amended yeah as amended yeah okay any other any other comment it's just uh warrants in the minutes okay all in favor I all right moving right along uh we have a couple ratification votes uh today um and so the first one up is the high school schedule committee recommendation and uh I'd like to uh ask uh principal list if uh he can maybe go over the recommendation a little bit discuss it and and then we can have any questions from the committee oh yeah can [Music] David how about your communication put put it is that on oursite send you the schule so they can VI talk to the they would like the no no no whatever whatever dat want the recomendation just good I just sent you just a just it's Jo I have sharing with yeah can you give Dr cus screen sharing rights I think I I don't know it's delet okay all right thank you um so I just want to give a little bit of background um so um we had a scheduling uh committee made up of of uh staff from the high school an Administration um and our goal was to really address um just some of the uh issues that we face um with our current schedule in making bringing forward a a recommendation um and as as you may recall if you tune into these often last year when I spoke a few times about the the kneas report that came uh and when we had the equity audit um there were um pretty glaring issues in terms of of uh things we needed to address in our schedule uh to support students um and just to sort of remind folks of of what those were and what some of the things that nask said uh what came out of the equity audit um was just the the opportunity for students to partake in in some of our performing arts classes um continuity um of classes um opportunity for all students to have access to our directed study block um looking at how students are tracked um in our in our current schedule um time for students to receive interventions um the the time when our special ed students have to take their classes so that they get access to to electives these were just some of the pieces that came up in in our our Nas report in the equity audit um and so knowing that going in we had the scheduling committee uh worked hard to come up with the schedule that that could address these issues um and also um bring in um the extra 15 minutes on the time on learning while at the same time not um losing um the the the aspects of hollon high school school that are so important to our Student Success and um to our culture here and so what that um came out uh what the scheduling committee came out with is a schedule um which is posted there on the screen um which has uh students taking um eight different courses which is if you look at our current Block it's four and four so it continues that eight um one of the uh great parts of hollon high school are how many classes students get to take how many electives they get access to um and so this would um allow students to to access those the eight blocks um it also allows things like Performing Arts um to take place during the regular schedule uh so instead of having to meet during dsb and then those students not getting access to study uh they would then get access to um their Performing Arts during a regular class period um right now if you have a special Education Services it could take up like it could take up one quarter of your entire schedule um or you have to give up your dsb for it um and in this type of schedule it would be 1/8 of of the schedule so You' still be able to meet all your requirements uh for students who are passionate about content areas they could double up on classes um it would you know and at um for students who are interested in challenge themselves with many AP classes this opens up more opportunities for students to to take more AP classes if they would like um and then one thing that I said before about the uh what makes this place special are are the the dsb is used for everything it's sort of the catchall um it's where students work on senior projects some students have internships during that time or during class periods um we have jam bands that go on and so we really wanted to provide uh space for those things to still exist um and also for students to have intensive targeted interventions which is almost an impossibility in this current schedule uh and so X block um exists in the schedule for those purposes what that also allows us to do is to take dsb and really make that into a directed study block for students where you can focus on that study time that extra help within those classrooms um so it really instead of dsb having to be that catchall for everything you then have an X block available to students um where you can do some of those more creative pieces the social emotional pieces the community rebuilding pieces the all of that work uh can be done there and so we didn't want to lose that um from the high school um and I know it says Monday through Friday there but you could run it 1 1 through five I mean that's sort of an option that exists because we all know that we have lots of random Mondays and or Fridays off so there's L of consistency there but this is what the this is the schedule that came out of the scheduling committee to be brought forward to uh school committee um uh as the as a proposal i' be happy to answer questions that anybody has any questions yeah so just for clarification the during the X block there are no courses correct it's just a an extracurricular type it's not I I wouldn't go as far as extracurricular but I wouldn't go as far as courses okay is that so yeah so during dsb and during X block it would be an assigned loc yeah there would be an assigned location student would they would sign up like do their classes for an assigned location you sign up for that spot not a free perer not a free perer no um I have we have a question how can you double up on classes specifically math is this like a full year schedule or semester so it's a full year if you were to double up on math a rate now the way it works so like if you look at math like a student can take you know so if you come in and take Algebra 1 let's say your freshman year um you can take geometry and Algebra 2 that next year um some students choose because once they're done with their their pre-cal they might go to Cal and take stats um and so you still have the same amount of periods but the the different ways of going into Ma so like you you don't you need preal to take C but you don't need that to take stats so you would be able to do that and there different time frames when you could do those classes any more questions um okay so uh before we uh we take a motion to for on ratifying the schedule I it is important for us to note uh that uh we did receive communication last night from the hft uh that they did not ratify um uh this this schedule so we are still going to going to move forward with our ratification vote um but uh you know pending our our successful ratification it will will still not go into effect far as everyone understand so everyone understands that um but at this time I will entertain a motion to um ratify the uh schedule put forward by the high school schedule subcommittee um that was sent to us uh on uh December 30th of uh 2024 okay we'll take a a roll call vote for that as it is a a ratification vote uh Frank yes Sarah yes Hillary yes Joe yes Cynthia no Don yes and Dan I am a yes so um the school committee has has ratified 6 to1 um moving on we have one more um ratification vote for the cafeteria Managers Association um do you just want to give a just a very two second sure so we um ratified our cafeteria workers contract earlier in the year and at that time the um we the cafeteria managers would no longer be part of that contract so they asked to meet with the school committee and administration to create a separate contract it's non-union but it is a contract that they meet um collect ly to bargain uh we currently have two cafeteria managers so we met with the team and Sarah was with us and we ratified uh not sorry we we moveed forward with um anou that they have already ratified and approved it's very simple it really was just try to take them as a separate group and you know adjust their salar similar to what we did with our cafeteria workers but they were at a higher level so it's a little bit different we did add additional a few additional days because they were actually working more than um what they they were getting credited for so we're trying to help to support them with that and we annualized some of their um days as well just similar to what we did with the c the general workers okay any uh any questions about that all right so I will entertain a motion to uh ratify the cafeteria Managers Association uh contract for is it 24 to 27 what is the yes it's retro July yeah so for the 24 school years of 24 to 2027 by John all right we'll take a roll call Frank yes Sarah Hillary yes Joe yes Cynthia yes Don yes Dan yes pass for working on this thank you Sarah and just I I meant to earlier you know uh thank you Mr list and uh to the entire uh you know committee uh that worked uh many many hours on on the uh the schedule and uh we'll uh move forward um so moving on the communications uh do our student reps have some updates for us and just speak of it is it is L today we had people travel to Mansfield en Vision hotel for Deca districts individuals went today 14 members placed for States and tomorrow teams are going from around 7:30 to 4:00 p.m. currently we have theater student 1X being directed Ed and they're in progress um we have a Winter Dance coming up it's hosted by the senior class and all grades are welcome from 8 to 10 in the high school around I think in 2 weeks and tickets will be sold at the door for $10 in theme is pajamas the hollison Medway Norton Millis ski team has their first race tonight at Ward Hill in trb um senior night for gymnastics is this Sunday the 12th and there was a barricade drill this week which went well that's it great sorry um all right school committee uh individual comment and it what no um it the fan is loud so you know to turn around and know um go ahead go ahead Frank okay um so yeah happy New Year everyone um I had the opportunity on December 20th just have me last day of school too so was interesting and it also was the first snow of the year to observe plastino and Miller's dismissal um goes a little bit out of order I know based on scheduling we had the day before but it was really good to actually see how it operates today with the split time um and how it could change it will change in the future um I am definitely inspired by both David J SL um with the plans they put in place now with the schedules in place or will be in place uh but now what them voted on and how they're going to think about the dismissals um specifically with all the buses being there uh I will say pleno uh wasn't as clean because buses were late I mean it just so happened it was snowing that day so you would expect that uh some for the most case but you know that she said something happens often and you now have a bunch of little kids just waiting there um for their bus to come so I think that having all the buses there at once will definitely help there at the same time they were very open with the challenges the new challenges they will face and solutions they have for having everyone leave at the same time so I think it's something we have to continue to monitor as as we said we're going to learn based on what we see we we act in on what we know and go from there but uh it was a good uh experience and I I look forward to our Administration and our our leadership continue to make this process better today no comment uh I just wanted to commend principal list in the committee uh for working on that proposal um when I was running for this position I went door door and spoke to so many parents who uh said we needed to move away from the Block schedule uh and so I just wanted to thank you for coming up with proposal and hopefully we can move forward with the new schedule [Music] and for to um public comment and we have a few people so we will uh timer we'll do 3 minutes on the clock for for everyone just do we have do we have any no just the school committee and yeah there was someone there a while but you public if you like um uh Amanda 3 minutes I try to be brief but you guys know me um I did time myself I think I'm at like four or five minutes but that's the only educator speaking tonight I hope I could maybe be provided some Grace to um get through the entirety of my comments but I'll read fast read fast yeah all right good evening my name is Amanda Rivera I'm a graduate of Holliston High School and I've been teaching chemistry here for nearly 15 years I'm deeply invested in the success of our students and our community I wanted to speak tonight to explain why I and the vast majority of teachers voted to not ratify the proposed schedule while I am not speaking in an official capacity on behalf of my colleagues I was at the ratification meeting and I heard all of the reasonable questions and concerns that my colleagues that my colleagues voiced on behalf of our students and the staff to be fully transparent I love the book and I think that it's excellent for rigorous in-depth meaningful Hands-On science instruction I think It prepares our students for college as it mirrors most College schedules and it helps them mentally and emotionally not having to manage seven or eight classes at a time our high school schedule is one of the aspects of Holliston schools like monori and French immersion that make our district Innovative and unique that being said I am not opposed to a schedule change neither are the majority of my colleagues even those of us that like the block we recognize and respect the needs of subjects like foreign language that could benefit from yearlong instruction we recognize and respect the challenges faced by Bandon chorus being offered during dsb we recognize and respect the issues raised by our special Educators and yet we voted no why I voted no for two reasons first this process again only from my perspective was not in fact collaborative when the schedules were sent out for feedback four of the five were versions of the eight drop schedule as proposed by Administration and only one proposed schedule from the teachers was included and it was included with a caveat that it may not be feasible I watched as the teachers on the committee came up with creative option after creative option to address the agreed upon concerns things like a split block a super block a five period day these were met time and time again with a no that's not feasible or know they're too complicated I just don't believe that's true I taught at a school with a split block a split block was used here in Holliston in the past I know it can be done and I know that there are Creative Solutions out there and I'm worried that they're not being given a fair shot I'd like to also add some context to the committee and share that only one of the four Educators on the committee voted to propose for David to bring that schedule forward for ratification votes one of the four teachers on the committee voted to propose that schedule which leads me to the second reason why I and so many others voted no I not voting in favor of any schedule change until we have run the schedule through the power school sandbox or at a minimum try to build it on butcher blocks with like the Post-it notes or the magnets like we used to do in the old days so that we know the real world implications of that change right now teachers have way too many unanswered questions without running the schedule through Power School teachers did their own math here are the questions that my analysis of the impact again just to the science department raises and if my analysis is incorrect please please truly correct me by running it with a power school mockup I'm not asking these questions ironically or rhetorically or trying to provoke like teachers and students and the community really want answers to these questions one under the proposed eight drop schedule we don't have enough science teachers to teach the current courses that we teach this year my question will you hire more teachers in order to keep the program of studies and class size the same or will you change course credit allotments cut electives and in and increase class size if so which courses will run next year and which will not two we don't have enough textbooks or laboratory equipment to run all of our laboratory classes concurrently the reason we can teach as many sections as we do with the books and the materials that we have is because half of our courses run first semester the other half of the courses run second semester will you provide the funding needed to purchase the necessary textbooks laboratory equipment and Technology necessary to run all science sections concurrently I can't provide an exact cost estimate until a mockup of the schedule is made and we know exactly how many sections of each course will run three for classes like marine biology just for one example we don't have the physical classroom space to run all sections of Marine Bio concurrently even if we had the budget to purchase the tens of thousands of dollars worth of additional tanks and marine life we can't afford to give up the lab bench space into additional classrooms which leads me to the question for all departments and all sections do we have enough of the correct type of classroom excuse me for example chemistry classes require gas lines and fum hoods do we have enough of those classrooms to run all sections concurrently we already share classrooms extensively in the science department I just have one last paragraph lastly the proposed schedule is a reduction in over 3,000 minutes of class time for three- term AP courses that equates to a loss of 42 class meetings that number can get worse if you consider classes that run after the exam which I did not do we don't have 42 class periods to cut from the AP Chemistry curriculum you may wonder how other districts with a drop schedule can teach AP courses I can tell you from my own child who is in a seven drop 2 that her AP science class never drops my question will the proposed schedule take into account the loss of time for AP courses by ensuring they don't drop by creating supplemental courses double blocks Etc I'm open to suggestion to ensure that AP students are provided with an equitable amount of time necessary for their college level curricula my ask is that before another schedule is proposed for ratification that these questions be answered with data and a power school mockup when these concerns are addressed and a collaborative schedule is built that solves the agreed upon problems that brought us to the table in the first place and yet doesn't degrade the excellent teaching and learning that already occurs here I'm confident that the staff will support it thank you for allowing me to so I just I think you've been given some someone Ro information though because the schedules that were presented and surveyed to the teachers were presented in that subcommittee and were sort of voted on and received majority support from the subcommittee before they were put forward so to say that wasn't a collaborative process for the schedules that were put forward just I mean I don't I don't know how you get there so and and there were there was talk about materials that's for the other questions I mean those are those are other things that need to be that would you know need to go to Administration but to to have a whole bunch of schedules put up and and have each member of the subcommittee sort of note which ones that they they like and put forward the ones that receive majority support I mean I don't know what what your definition of collaborative is but that seems pretty collaborative to me so I read my comments tonight to three of the four teachers that were on the subcommittee and they supported my public comment tonight so that's that's where I was getting my information from it was from the teachers on the sub committee Amanda do you mind sending that to the full committee please I'm sorry do you mind sending that to the full committee your comments just so we can have all your questions yeah absolutely thank you y thank you I appreciate it [Music] Bara hello Barbara Ryan 14 bbing happy New Year everybody um I'm glad to be back in the land of the living I was sick for about 3 weeks so it's good to be here with all of you first I want to thank our educators our leaders principles um for all you do each day um with my PTO hat on um that's what I'm going to speak for first um I just really want to thank the school committee for your continued support with um all the requests that come in and following those guard rails um and supporting our students and teachers so thank you for that um we are looking at our priorities we currently raise anywhere between $60 and $80,000 a year we think that's UNS sustainable going going forward uh when we all fish from the same Pond uh we're looking at a 24 to 36 month projection we have some spend that needs to be um some money that needs to be spent to get our balance down we're not an organization that really should keep a large balance but with the pandemic Sarah is familiar we just we have a little pot of gold right now and we're using it very wisely and we need to do that so I know I've talked with um Dawn and I'm going to be meeting um I think with Dr Jordan and councelor navorski just to kind of give this projection again what should we keep doing well which is community building teacher appreciation um dances some Culture Connection things reada aons uh Outdoor Learning Alliance Bing snowboard and Ski Club so those are the things we do really well which build community so again going forward we look forward to these conversations with the administration and certainly the subcommittee on budget to see where a happy meeting medium um could be had with some things that maybe we shouldn't take on and maybe it should be included in a larger school budget so thank you for that uh switching to my Community member activist hat um again thank you for the recent um uh discussions and start times and really appreciate it I apologize if if I came across like I attacked you Frank I just want to say publicly I know you were involved but it's really nice to hear from the whole committee when you do have a lot of things to say so I appreciate that um I still am interested in the extra 15 minutes for the three buildings and the 10 minutes how that's going to be orchestrated measured if you know if measured at all how how that's going to be handled and what the benefits of students um is going to be um all the students with that extra time and I'm really excited to to watch um this schedule change I know there's a lot of emotion possibly or even thoughts around um going from block to Bell having wonderful children who are a little more on the average um um in how they uh not learn but what they how they engage in school um I'm excited to see what the possibilities are in a non-block schedule for the majority of students I I think um I think it's it's going to go back and forth but again I think the equity audit pointed in a direction that you're you're considering I also think this is about reaching the majority of students and students with different needs and different ways of learning and um here to support the process and and all of you in this so thank you very much thank you for what you do thank you for um again your support of the PTO and that's it happy New Year thank you thank you Ashley good evening my name is Ashley Nelson Hest Chuck and my husband and I reside at 36 Mitchell Road with our two uh daughters who will be in placentino next year I'm here on behalf of the Holliston music and arts parents Association and would like to share a perspective on the newly proposed high school schedule that was released this week the proposed schedule provides greater flexibility for our students and has the potential to significantly enhance the development and bread of the music program giving ensembles a seat at the table and we're students can earn the credit they deserve it was also crafted and supported by High School music teacher Shan Bido as one of the committee members under the current block schedule model our students face significant limitations in their access to elective courses students involved in the music program particularly in Bandon chorus often find themselves in a difficult position they must choose between attending rehearsal during DSP block or dedicating time to academic help and study in a music Ensemble consistency is key to a successful productive experience when students Miss rehearsals or are unable to commit fully it hinders their ability to to meet National and state standards for music education furthermore it prevents students from engaging in other important curricular activities like music theory or exploring the social and historical context of the pieces they're studying these components are essential for a well-rounded education in the Arts along with creating a significant rehearsal obstacle this scheduling conflict puts our students into an extremely unfair an inappropriate position but beyond the academic impact there is also social emotional aspects to consider the opportunity for students to be a part of a cohesive Ensemble is incredibly valuable not just as musicians but as individuals the bonds formed through collaboration the sense of belonging and the personal growth that happen in a group dynamic are crucial for many students emotional well-being under the current schedule these benefits are undermined personally having been a music educator in Massachusetts and a very active member of several music educator executive boards for over 20 years I have a strong pulse on music programs across the state where the norm is a variety of curricular ensembles a higher ratio of music and art Staffing and programs in which the community unequivocally takes pride and values what I see in the Holliston music program does not align with the overall excellent quality of the school district it is deficient and quite frankly ly embarrassing Holliston nurtures an inclusive community with Equitable opportunities the proposed schedule aligns with that Vision the hmap strongly encourages the school board to consider these factors as you review at this point future schedules thank you very much you uh Jess Street um my comments are actually um in regards to the school start time vote that happened on December 19th um I just wanted to say I think it appeared rushed it missed many critical data points and failed to address the concerns of the majority of your constituents there are other options that could and should be explored that more adequately represent the needs of the community and meet the parameters put forth by the subcommittee one of which I'm Happ Happ to share with you at a later time during your vote the survey results were not discussed or meaningfully considered instead the decision was based solely on a feasibility spreadsheet that the school committee failed to critically evaluate this left your constituents feeling inadequately represented survey data showed that schedule B was the most favored by families and students the approved schedule schedule a was the least favored among students and staff at both Rams and the high school excluding Administration results reflected the voices of high school students who during meetings raised concerns about the difficulty of managing their commitments with the current end time of 243 nearly 40% of high school respondents supported schedule B with schedule a receiving only 29% support and it was associated with high levels of negative impact on student sleep after school commitments homework and downtime support staff including adjustment counselors largely opposed schedule a in 2019 the schedule that you just approved was deemed unviable in a report put forward by Administration according to a the report a 303 dismissal would have quote significant and negative impact for both our youngest Learners and our oldest students it will place tremendous pressure on the time we currently set aside for students to seek extra help or to access our robust and highly utilized extracurricular clubs and activities remembering that our ultimate purpose behind changing our current start times is to reduce student stress and the impact that stress has on our students physical and mental health we feel this option would have the opposite impact we recommend that this option be removed from consideration end quote the results of the survey and this report directly conflict with the parameters outlined by the subcommittee which quote should limit the impact on after school activities including but not limited to sports clubs extracurriculars and after school jobs further there were key discrepancies in the spreadsheet that were not addressed during your vote while these discrepancies were not questioned by the school committee I reached out to you and administration and I have yet to receive an answer other than it's complicated which undermines my intelligence and fosters mistrust in our Administration the approved schedule also raises safety concerns middle school students will wait a minimum of 10 minutes for buses post dismissal Miss Manning suggested that this waiting period could be a good social opportunity however on November 14th Dr slany noted this age group is at a developmental stage of testing boundaries and I fear waiting could lead to dangerous situations including bullying your decision failed to honor the promise to consider the holistic well-being of all students while the high school sleep study was considered there was no evidence that similar attention was given to the needs of elementary students administrators claimed that younger children learn best in the early hours of the day but no studies were presented to Define early or to explore how a 7:40 start time impacts the physical and emotional health of our youngest learners while administrators May understand the learning habits of our children they are not pediatricians while the committee met its deadline it failed to adequately represent its constituents and address their concerns I respectfully urge the committee to reconsider other schedules take the necessary time to fully digest all of the information ask critical questions and ensure that the well-being of all students and families is prioritized thank you Melle uh hello everyone my name is Vel ramanathan great to see you all again I am a freshman at hollon high school and I'm here to talk about my concerns on not the proposed schedule but rather the five schedules that were presented for students to vote on roughly two months ago um and on the form that was given to students 2 months ago we pred five different schedules three of which were drop schedules at first glance these schedules seem fine as they allow for students to have Variety in their schedules every day and more classes can be fit into a schedule rotation however many of the schedules include dropping three or two classes every day in a week that would mean only seeing a teacher three out of five days or even as little as two times a week if you include holiday weeks this simply is just not optimal for learning uh or for a healthy school environment at all as students do not have class with their teachers their whole week which weakens the teach teacher student relationship this may not seem like a large issue however it is what makes sure breaks the students confidence students like me and the others you see here tend to form better in class when we feel that we have a stronger connection with our teachers students only having class three times a week the discontinuity in learning is not placing them in a proper position for Success additionally drop schedules also pose the issue of disrupted study habits and difficulty keeping up with the material in all the classes student students have eight classes that are rotated into five or six blocks a day their homework uh for a class could stretch over two to three days which causes so much confusion when classes that are dropped overlap with multiple assignments not only that but students who miss school just once can miss seeing a whole class for 3 Days on the drop two schedule with a 4-day cycle 3 days on schedule one which is a drop three with the 5-day schedule and 4 days without seeing a class on schedule 3 which is the 8 Day schedule then also appears issues with schedules four and five schedule four is a two-day two-day cycle with four different classes on both days and schedule 5 is also a two-day cycle just with five different classes each day both these schedules mean either eight or 10 classes running together in a whole year which can take an impactful mental toll on students that many classes swapping every day is simply not optimal and too much to focus on for students with attention disorders such schedules would be detrimental to The Learning exper Experience for students who have jobs or play other sports most most sports practices go on for 2 to 3 hours after school that'll mean going from 3: to 5:00 after that some students have to go to work whether that's for providing for their family or for side money that will probably be spent on 3 hours that means St most students will only be coming at around 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. every single night every day of the week doing homework starting from 9:00 can take anywhere from 1 hour for easier classes to 3 to 4 hours with multiple APS again that is simply not feasible for most students and can heavily mess up their sleep schedules ultimately I know that each schedule proposed will have its flaws but in the situation that the high school is in the most important thing is taking time I know that time is the one thing we do not have but for many of you this decision may just be one that you all vote on like every other one that you make every single meeting but for us students teachers and administrators we have to live this schedule and I truly believe that if you want a schedule that benefits everyone in the hollon high school environment for the next X amount of years it's important to listen to input from both groups of students and teachers genuinely take the recommendations and suggestions that we make into consideration while voting on something so impactful thank [Music] you AUM hello I'm Smith I live at 109 Robert Road and I'm a junior at hson high school I first wanted to thank you for taking time into trying to figure out the best schedule for our school although I would love to keep the block scheduling I understand that with it some students don't get the resources they need and some of our classes are affected such as languages and maths although this point was already made by Mrs Rivera as they say great minds think alike I'd like to reiterate I'm confused about the take eight drop three schedule which seems to be the main option while no schedule is perfect this one specifically hurts many of the AP students from the math that I have done if you didn't believe Mrs Rivera if we switch to the propos schedule APS that are currently three terms long are losing 3,267 minutes of class time which equals out to about 42 classes APS are classes with the same amount of material to cover as college level classes and with that you need the extra time to be able to actually get what you need out of an AP class with the schedule I know we'd be able to take more APS something that me someone I love to take harder classes I would love to take more APS but the quality of these classes would decline as you need to rush through units in a smaller amount of time which would just get then there's no reason to take these classes at all another issue is that from what I understand you most likely won't be hiring more teachers next year and with the schedule class sizes will increase which I believe only harms the students and teachers I've had the same English teacher my freshman and junior year though the difference is in my fresh year it was a class of 12 students and this current year it's a class of 28 students I felt in my freshman year I could not only get more out of the class academically as I could have more one-on-one time with my teacher but I could also but I also had better social connections I got to know my peers and teachers on a better on a better level and could actually develop relationships with them I'm a very social and outgoing person and this year I feel like I don't even know half the students in my English class lastly another issue I've noticed was that it's only a 5-day schedule and with this you face the issues that certain classes that are scheduled to be on Monday and Friday lose out more days since statistically there are just more holidays on Mondays and Fridays so I just wondering how that was being taken into account I'm also aware that there is a survey sent out that students and teachers filled out about the schedule options and I was just wondering if you could share the results of that survey was or if the public is able to access that also if the results from that survey align with the proposed schedule um as being a favor it overall I do appreciate the amount of time that's been put into into these alternative schedules I just feel there are more Creative Solutions to these issues like a split block schedule for example that could help solve the problems we're facing thank you all right um that brings us to the end of public comment and uh we will uh move forward with our uh presentations hi everybody this is the um part three of our budget process this is the uh special education uh portion um you have a little bit of presentation uh but also in your the folder is kind of one the presentation but also a one pager um of the the document um as well um you know we're we believe kind of in missb working with with her over the last uh month um that we've put forth a um a solid budget a conservative budget um of what the proposed cost will be uh and what our proposed kind of recommendation for FY 26 would be um and as you see I want to kind of like highlight um what I've got in yellow um just so that we can kind of note something uh one kind of discrepancy um within the 9100 the tuition uh line item um there's a number of 2, 278,00 19,000 um this year uh done last last year but for this year was a onetime fun of 750,000 um so the number right below it the 1, 528,000 million um if done with including the $750,000 onetime fee uh that would look at that we are actually looking at a reduction in tuition of $884,000 onetime fee um it's uh a reduction of [Music] $134,400 total that's a $9,000 9,298 uh decrease um in uh the budget the part two part three the special education budget uh from the prior year um which uh gets us at a. 26% um for projected at this point for um FY 26 so so budget subcommittee reviewed that uh today um there there may be some potential questions that can't really be answered as they may pinpoint too closely to to students um I think we we could uh schedule for an executive session for next time if if those come up to answer some of those questions where more concrete numbers on on different ins and outs and placements not with not just be clear we're not we the school commit is never even names but but with a little bit more uh color than what can be shared publicly um but so I just want to sort of preface that by we're expecting it to be larger which is why we got the one time no we were expecting it to be lar so we're ne9 yeah I mean so we can I can move on to like SL I guess slide two we can talk about there's a projection that was done in uh May of last year um and slide two is going to speak to that but I think I can go on and talk about that but I wondering about looking at this there are any questions about these specific numbers and we can kind of go into some of the explanation I will note that what's kind of already been taken out of this are is our circuit breaker um that is the circuit breaker Grant uh that's usually that's about you know $2.98 million um we also have a 240 Grant um as well that's taken out of this as well um that kind of go towards our tuition um as [Music] well clear this is just this point in time right now cuz that could shift like next week or tomorrow or with movein over the summer and speed can talk about like how fluctuate that fluctuates but yeah I think on it we' we've done our best to be as conservative as we can knowing that there are special education costs are Ever Changing um we do our best to sort of mitigate by other means to bring that cost down um but you know as David was indicating where we were looking at our number to be for FY 26 in May has shifted slightly and and a lot of that has to do with unexpected out of- District um programmatic structural changes um where some of the placements that we've have have significantly increased their tuition um beyond the expected so we knew there was a 15% increase um I have recently my office has recently received two programs that we have students at where one has increased 37% for FY 26 the other um has increased um 18% so I get total tuition increases by March or April um and we talked about that at budget sub um so far as where can I have more of a definitive tuition um cost for everyone and and that would be the early spring where placements then will tell me this is where we we project our tuition will be for FY 26 um and there's as Cynthia is indicating there are other unexpected changes where there um you know there might be changes so far as restrictive placements going from day to residential or vice versa residential down today where there are significant changes in that cost there could be students who move in um that are already at outof District placements that um we can we have to encumber that cost um um so we're doing our best to be um bring that cost down and and make changes where we need to but it is um a little bit of a moving Target for us um Frank to Frank to your point and what this is kind of showing as far as the Grid on the top is that um you know what we have appropriated for for um for tuition uh is you know 1.5 million that's what we currently have in our FY 25 in May last uh year um there uh Keith has projected just kind of looking at kind of all the stuff that we were trying to do in the spring uh as a district that the tuition cost would be about 1.17 5 million um our projection this January projection a lot happens between that period of time we had some immediate things that happen in July um that already kind of um messed with that number as well um but then we got add into so like our January 2026 uh projection is at one you know 1, 393,000 uh 994 um the difference between that uh May projection and the June projection that's the 218,000 there um we're still we're still down uh to and from our true f225 to our true f26 um by 134,000 uh 415 um but that that's kind of the the difference that we're dealing with and kind of the factors that um Speedy was talking about all LGE to is probably T are we concerned with any other line items that may shift significantly I can't hear under this fan I'm so sorry now just the factor of numbers tuition is by far the largest correct investment correct so obviously it's that shifts even by a student or two that can really dramatically change the numbers the variables we have above all the other cost anticipate any massive changes there that could impact material the budget or do it simply come down to tuition and the students that will it's really tuition and transportation and and the other slide if you want to just shift so I just want to show both things so just for the committee to see we are bringing down our numbers in out of District so we're currently right around 45 kids out and projecting next year even with any shifts will be at 41 um I accredit that a lot to the prr programming changes we're making in District and really bolstering the the programs we have the continuums we have from prek all the way through um where we are able to maintain more kiddos in District um some of the things that we are trying to bring down cost is with in opportuni so with that great work by my special Educators and my ssas and my counseling staff with those programs um I'm doing a lot of work with surrounding districts to work with them to bring in their kids um so it brings down a District's cost if they can tuition into another District as opposed to a program that is $100,000 so we're doing things in that nature um transportation to your point Frank is the other really high cost for student service um and we are doing all we can my um my assistant Michelle is doing an amazing job really Bringing Down the cost as much as possible this is across every district with Transportation it is an increasing cost with fuel lack of drivers um it's just that cost is going up for every District so we are trying to do more what we call like ride share where I'm working with other districts if we are utilizing the same program I might have a kid from Milford and a kid from Holliston on the same car and we're you know sharing that cost um we've re removed all livery service um so that that was a driving cost um but again to your point those are the things that are hard for us as a district to control because it's almost out of our control what a place or a transportation company is going to charge us so um we are working with some families that will transport their own children um and then we do the state reimbursement model which does bring that cost down for us so where we can do that we work with families to do that um and we're working creatively with two of our transportation companies to come up with more of a fiscally manageable package for us if we stick with them can they drive down that cost a little bit more for us so um Michelle's really working hard to see if we can get that number to you um early spring on what that would look like so I think just to Just J as points is this number is well it's not the number that we were hoping to bring you as we talked about in May given the significant increases in tuition and transportation that as you said are completely out of our control and continue to climb um we're doing our best to be conservative with the number we give you right now and it's still a moving Target as you go through the pro you know the rest of the year with placement decisions and IP meetings and things that are happening but we're going to do our best to try to stick here okay any any more questions about the budget for now obviously it's still January so much more to come we'll be talking about the programming piece at a later date too right that's coming just an update to yes like a mid update for me to be able to explain those pieces yes my question pertains more to that two color so yeah I think we should okay great um so we'll move uh on then to the uh Math study group okay let me open that one up [Applause] okay so we started our math study group this fall we're going to walk through kind of let what led us to this year and um the group that we worked with this year so um we'll walk you through the timeline of events good evening just to remind you of the work that took place during the 2023 2024 year it's all up here um but just to do some Recaps on some of the um some of the items we shared the survey results from the math Forum um teachers at both high school and middle school levels strategized on power standards and how to shift standards and we did math PD at both the middle and the high school to prepare for this work okay in the summer we continued our math work at all levels um algebraic thinking is taking place at all levels so we need to do the work at every school um the main concentration though was at Rams because that's who's going to be most impacted they did a lot of more work continued their work on Shifting the power standards and looking at implementing what Alm taught us and they work with and also understanding by uh excuse me not understanding by Design sorry sorry um Universal Design for Learning to make sure that we're meeting all the students needs so this is excuse me the timeline that we've undertaken this year for our math study group with our effort to try to get this information to you earlier than we had initially projected so we talked about this last March we looked at volunteers at the beginning of this school year we started um after school meetings and those Ended as of December 2024 bringing the recommendation here tonight is our hope to move forward and potentially to vote on this in February at the next February school committee meeting we would then want to work out all the implementation details and we're going to talk about that further along and talk about what that might mean for math curricular in the fall at the middle school level and this is the group that worked together on this um Math study group this fall we had um three of our curriculum intervention um special our stem intervention specialist who are working with our staff to support students and staff with math this year Ron Taylor is here he's going to help us um with some of this dad he's going to present us well so thank you Ron Dr slany was intending to come tonight but is homesick and hopefully I won't be joining her um tomorrow with that um and then you can see it we had Leah Sarah Carla Mr Marino as teacher Representatives on this and thank you to Joanie for her her part in this um discussion as as well going to hand off to Ron now so during the many times that we met um this kind of uh sets the picture of what we were doing while we were meeting uh we reviewed relevant research for the pros and cons of leveling and as you can imagine there are strong feelings and opinions on both sides of that but we really Tred to dig into the data and the research rather than talking about how we felt about the matter we studied the impact of leveling and deling we considered the relevant Equity steering recommendations that's going to be brought up uh later on in this presentation same thing with our fourth bullet here we conduct a data analysis of the current student math performance with various populations you'll see that data coming your way as well um we reviewed math Pathways that's another thing we did and we wanted to see when students enter the high school in a certain math class where do they typically end up do they have access to the entire uh pathway that that all students should uh and we identifi a need to establish a process for Equitable program criteria and success so we're going to dig now into the literature review um in order for early algebra instruction to take place we need to have access to Advanced or excuse me we want to make sure students have early algebra instruction uh so that they have access to advanced mathematics so as we know um if students want to pursue a stem related career or pathway in college often times uh they need to get to calculus in high school and so I think we had a a student here earlier talking about the need to get to calculus and whether or not a new schedule would allow for students to double up Etc we're trying to work on ways where we can eliminate the need for students to have to rush um and find alternate ways and have to get tutoring and go to Russian School of Math we want all students to be able to enter the high school um with an opportunity to get to their desired location without unneeded Stress and Anxiety um there's a let's see here the um studies indicate that early exposure to algebra can benefit women students of color English language Learners and potentially narrowing the achieve achievement gaps later in this presentation you'll see some graphs which clearly show that that we're lacking in our upper mathematics classes with students from our more marginalized groups and so we think work can be done to improve that um and then Readiness concerns sure there are there are concerns that students may not be ready for the algebraic thinking um that they need to be successful in an algebra class and if that's the case we're going to do our best to meet the needs of students uh when they're in eth grade in Algebra 1 um but if they needed to retake algebra in high school we would make sure the supports are in place to to help them be successful there I think we're going to jump to a video by one of our our math group teammates Leah made from [Music] home to evaluate the impact Introducing Algebra can you help us please you might have to put the video up CU I can't on my Compu how do I get [Music] you have the [Music] presentation do you have the maskk that presentation it's linked in there y i just [Music] if you can't get it right now we can go back to it in a minute yeah sorry um if the math study presentation is in the school commit folder yeah I have it on I'm going to go back to the presentation for [Music] [Music] minute moving on R to the next I don't think [Music] [Music] switch the the next slide that I was going to talk about is continuation of the literature review um and it talks about the way that um school districts should be assessing whether or not um students are are ready uh for algebra and how to be successful in mathematics and I've been a part of some school districts that um yet have dug in and looked at the way they are doing things and I applaud Holliston for doing the same uh in places I've previously been things like Behavior or work ethic have come into play when when placing students into certain math classes and this student isn't ready for algebra because of the executive functioning skills that they're lacking we need to learn to support support those students and find ways to help them uh access the curriculum not not lower their their math um pathway and so there are three bullets on this slide uh which are to assess individual Readiness so that's very important uh to provide support structures like tutoring and differentiated differentiated instruction um there's a need for professional development for sure it differentiated instruction is something that's thrown out um in every interview we've ever had with a candidate coming in for a position in school they talk about how important it is it's very difficult and there would need to be professional development to make sure that teachers are continuing to learn students are different than they were 20 years ago in classes we need to make sure we're meeting them where they are um and as Joanie mentioned earlier uh early exposure to algebraic thinking is critical uh so that students aren't exploring algebraic thinking for the first time in alge a class um through the use of all Learners Network we're we're learning how to help students become mathematical thinkers much earlier on in the [Music] process mat if you can you move this off I'll put my screen back on we'll skip the video [Music] back yeah I'm pluging this back in [Music] [Music] [Music] okay so the Equity Auto recommendations is what let us to some of this work as U ju was sharing and uh what I did is when we were putting this together we we actually took this right from the equity audit so one of the recommendations was that we should examine the timing of leveling in math and science what grades to begin it it actually um said that we should be delaying leveling until High School to establish heterogeneous grouping and environment throughout middle school and then another recommendation was to reform or eliminate prerequisites for honors and AP classes again to open more doors for students and not close them and part of the concern with leveling Middle School is that we're tracking them so early and then they end up actually closing doors and there's no other Pathway to get back into it in high school and push forward to higher levels and then another um issue that came up at the audit was that when the place is beginning how are we communicating effectively are we doing it in multip multiple media fors are we getting it to all students of all languages and all um soci economics and how our famili is interpreting that it's been talking in the past about how um parents have been able to appeal at the high school levels and potentially the middle school but if they don't know that they have an ability to do that are they actually advocating for the students and it's not their fault if they don't have the um that information handy so we need to do a better job communicating that to all of our students and then we have filed process that and as well as the audit that we have really been inconsistent with how we're leveling and placing students and the override processes in place don't necessarily mean that we're giving all students access or even potentially the students in higher levels may not always be the students that have the skills to even do that at time so that's been a challenge so Jer I'll put forward the equity audit steering committee going talk about that um so in the same light we're ensuring Equitable access and we're really diving in making sure that uh students with varying backgrounds of race gender learning style ability and socioeconomic status have the same learning experiences or can have the same learning experiences as others um in inclusivity of course is is huge um and so we're going to employ scaffolded support and purposeful planning uh which is an absolute must to make sure that um we're not just saying we're we're going to be inclusive but walking the walk as well so the data that was collected was eye openening and I'll share that data looks similar in other districts as well I don't have that to present I'm I'm pulling that from my own data I've worked in different districts and um it's fairly similar to this so This was done by Carla Krauss it's the breakdown of current 8th grade math course enrollment by demographics uh you'll see here um that 64% of 8th grade students are enrolled in math 8 whereas about 36% are enrolled in algebra on the next slide we're going to break it down further um on the left is the same picture that you just saw but here we break it down by low income there are n uh excuse me 20 students in this top left part here 20 students um that would be uh fit into that low uh loow income enrollment um only one is in algebra at this time um over here uh five students on 504s there are 30 in 8th grade only three are in algebra at this time down here our Latino enrollment 14 students two are in algebra in 8th grade and over here IEP enrollment of 37 students only one is currently taking algebra so we feel as though there there could be some systemic barriers that are preventing this and there's a need to dig in find out why that's happening and then create structures uh so that we can fix it and make these classes uh accessible for all we're going to continue to go through the data but I just I think when Carla shared all of this data with our math study group during um November I think it was it was very eye openening um because it really paints a picture that really persuaded us to move forward with the recommendation that we are tonight here's some ISL data as well in on the this gives you kind of an idea over here in the bottom left hand corner if students are in the 200s and their with their ISL scores that means they're at a second grade math level 300s third grade Etc and so you'll see that the students in the top left there who are currently taking algebra in 8th grade you'll see that those students are scoring in the 600 to 900s uh in theirl scores our lowincome students you'll see that there are four students here in the 78 900s they're scoring in the SE uh 7eventh e8th and nth grade levels forl but they're not represented in the algebra class why um of course there are different data points you need to look at everything's not based strictly onl but this data does suggest that maybe there are students who could be in algebra who are not and that's basically what you would see with the rest of these charts as well this is really a a similar breakdown but just horizontally on a bar graph but the the colors can show you um blue are students on IEP so you can see um where their scores are you have more in the 200 300s of course uh rather than in the 78 900s um algebra students are green so you can see that's heavier weighted down here in the 98 700s but I I think just seeing those other areas the 504s the Latino the students that are scoring in the 700 800 900 that aren't necessarily even in the top levels since what yes exactly [Music] yeah and then we can go to the math the high school math data [Music] I'm sorry [Music] so on this next slide you'll see uh a breakdown with general education students IEP students and English English uh Learners um blue is General Ed uh yellow is IEP and that's what you see mostly on the screen here the red is our English Learners uh you'll see on the right side of the graph where it says Algebra 2 honors and Beyond it's almost all blue it's almost just uh General ed students on the left is where you'll see uh all three colors but mostly blue and yellow um the spots where you see mostly yellow are Algebra 1 cp2 and Algebra 2 cp2 um as well and then in the middle there that third largest bar of yellow that's Geometry 1 cp2 so this graph really screams to the fact that our IEP students are mostly in uh or cp2 classes needing the most support this last graph is um showing course enrollment by ethnicity and again on the right side of the screen where you have your Calculus your AP Calculus AB your Calculus BC your AP stats it's mostly uh enrollment of students who are white that's the the blue bars and Asian that's our green bars whereas on the left side of the graph you'll see more uh of our Latino population and our black population Latino is in yellow and black is in red um and so why is it that the graph is so heavily blue and green or white and Asian at our higher level math classes and not full of our entire student body and so that's what the data shows for high school and I do want to add that Leah worked on this data with you at high school both Leah Barton and I uh worked on putting together this [Music] data Ron told us a story with the data and as we really grappled with the data and um had some eye opening talks we came up with a list of systemic barriers and challenges we identified those and I'll go over those now so our group came up with there's some groups significantly under represented under represented in classes versus math 8l score suggests that there may be some students conceptually ready for higher level algebra and in some cases did better than their non-marginalized peers but were overlooked this data as a whole suggests systems in place may not be Equitable for some marginalized demographics so we went on and identified the barriers systemic barriers and the challenges as a District We There is a need that we need to ensure and better clarify for families regarding the math Pathways and show that connection between higher education we also discovered that socioeconomical F economic factors May limit fam's access to tutoring and other academic supports at the school um finally one of the barriers and the challenges that we need to face as a district students May face difficulties with executive functioning skills and developing consistent academic habits which could mask their res Readiness for the demands of algebra and unintentionally exclude students so we really need to unpack all of these as a district so in going through all of the information that we shared with you tonight and discussing this with the math study group and also going back to what happened in the spring that the school committee did um vote to have us offer our algebra to most students we know that it's not for going to be for all in grade 8 um next year but we wanted to make sure that we open put the opportunities for as many students as possible looking at all the barriers that are in place right now and trying to expand and dig into those further The Proposal would be to restructure our middle school math Pathways to allow for the heterogenous grouping that we talked about earlier related to the equity audit and then to do so we would have to make sure we have appropriate scaffolding and resources so that every student that enters Alder one has some success opportunities now again we know that not every child will succeed as well and we would still have Pathways at the high school that would open up doors and have them allow them to beaken as we talked about with the literature as well so how would that help students so next one um by removing math levels in the Middle School um and providing students students with the opportunity to take algebra could have significant benefits and these are huge and there's many more but um promotes equity and access we really need to ensure all students regardless of their background have equal opportunities to engage with advanced math concepts fostering equity and bridging achievement gaps it's also going to foster a growth mindset if we open it up for all it builds a strong Foundation it improves their critical thinking and problem solving skills it reduces um it eliminates the divisions between students and promotes in inclusivity it improves the long-term success of the students in math encourages collaboration and creates an inclusive environment so even though um this team um that we put forward is recommending this we're not saying that this is automatically going to be successful for all students there are things that we need to do to make it more successful because we have read research for places that did not implement this properly students still struggle so if you're going to move forward with um opening this barrier or removing some of these barriers and offering alra toal students and taking away the levels to open up the access then we have to consider a lot of things along the way one of them is how are we assessing individual Readiness what multiple assessments are we using to to see if kids are developing there or not we should be looking for unbiased and unbiased information and ways of determining that um that they're not getting the prerequisites it might be on us how do we get them to them if they're struggling so that they might have a better opportunity and we may want to think about longterm which we should be anyhow in my opinion um standards based grading also helps us understand because sometimes grading can be very subjective when you do standards based grading it might be when the child gets there versus when they're based just on test scores and homework and and skills like that sometimes we don't get to the point of ever determining do they actually know the standards because we're not assessing in the way that is best for students and giving them more time to do so so another area to consider we making sure that we provide additional support structures um the teachers um talked about this the teachers that were part of this group and also when we met with the great uh 6th seventh and eth teachers at the middle school this was something that they identified as a concern do we want to see if we can add more tutors to help support this because again that soci economic app for students that don't have access outside of school if that's the way that they're succeeding to get there then we need to make sure we're offering some of this support in school which we are doing with the current model we have but are there opportunities to add some more tutor support and more interventions for students to get more students the support they need we have continued and will continue the all Learners Network training and I think the important thing with that is this training is not just happening at the middle school it's happening at the high school and also lassons he know K to five as well so while we're saying that algebraic Concepts need to be given to more students in grade 8 we're working on algeb Concepts all the way down and all the way up so it's not just the middle schools responsibilities all from kindergarten all the way up introducing algeb Concepts more um extensively than we have in the past it's something we've been working on already and we'll continue to do so it's a multi-year plan of how we roll This Out and we can't just you know assume everything's going to be hunky dory we have to really be very methodical in a multi-year process for how we would do it there is evidence to show that some of the schools where ding has not been as successful is because they didn't give the adequate support to the teachers the PD the long-term plan it was just kind of thrown on to them and teachers were supposed to adapt that's not the way it will be successful you know I talk about again in the third column there the early exposure it does take 3 to 5 years for methods to roll up as you start changing the curricular we've done a lot of work in the past couple of years to address our concerns with the math curricular having been so long overdue no review since 2015 here we are we've invested a lot of money as a town we're very excited about that we're investing a lot of money with training for teachers so it will not shift overnight but we are really confident with what we put in place already and if we continue to support this then we can get more algebraic thinking to all of our students and as they approach Middle School would be more and more successful with us moving forward 7eventh grade math is still being finalized teachers have been working already this year to try to take some of those grade eight standards that we talked about this last year and move them down to grade seven so they're already working on this and we're seeing some success already um in just this pilot year we trying to shift to get to alra next year and I think the teachers are feeling pretty pretty good about that at the moment so what other steps are we going to have to take so um Carla house is doing a really nice job right now of planning visits to other schools to see how they actually accomplished what you TK us to do so she already has a visit planned and I know it's this winter and Carla I'm sorry for forgetting the date but they will be going to Plymouth to visit with the teachers that have rolled this out um and they'll be going to some other schools also teachers will be going and asking other teachers how they did it right um the uh Math teachers at Rams are going to create an i EXL end of the year assessment for middle school students it will not be graded it's really important because they can pull out the algebra standards and pull out questions or tied directly to those standards that information will then help guide the high school on how they need to form their class what students need more support if there's extra the schedule changes and you have a block that you can uh offer more intervention that's when they would go and really Target those skills for those students this summer The Middle School teachers would continue working on Shifting the standards and um really looking at what they have been able to accomplish over the last two years and what they still need to do aln allers network does an incredible job of identifying power standards for each grade they would be using that document to guide them through the process reveal chapters need to be changed around um that is what the the high school says they need to do and both the high school and the middle school need to build be build menu items and that's really a choice for the students of how they're going to demonstrate Mastery of a standard very important to give students voice and choice we need to work on vertical alignment of what we is nice to know what they need to know and what is the things that we're just going to expose them to and again aln helps us identify that so it's not us just you know shooting from the hip we need to continue that all Learners Network training we have been meeting with them to do a proposal for us and we're really strategizing on that every uh stem curriculum person has really worked with their staff asking them what their needs are we will need to offer differentiation training during PD D Days um director BD and I will be looking at different places that offer some differen differentiation training and work together on that we are recommending that a high school math study group will need to be created next year to ensure that smooth transition they are going to see a lot of positive changes at the high school and what skills students are going to be coming up to them with so there need there are ramifications to courses at the high school that we're going to need to make so that group will really kind of be digging into how do we do that we as a district need to communicate our vision and why to staff to the community to teachers to be very transparent we need to continue to refine and offer those mtss interventions at all levels guys remember I know Jess and Jerry Al spent a lot of time showing that structure of the house so you can remember that what they were talking about and then also in order to do this we um as a committee would recommend to remove grade eight levels in science and that's because if they remain students will be tracked so we need that in order to do scheduling and that we are not tracking students in eigh grade yeah and we've talked about that before that when you have teams in place and then you're taking onethird of the kids or a little bit more and putting them in advanced math and advanced science you're automatically kind of blocking out the whole day and similarly your kids that are in the lower levels are now also being tracked all day and you can't really expand upon that that is a challenge with having the team approach and and tracking um in these areas when you get to the high school you're not doing it the same way because they're not on the team so they might be in advanced math but doesn't mean they're in advanced science but it it really ties our hands in the Middle School level and it leads to more of these systemic barriers and that's why um that limitation would also be recommended due to that challenge that we're having right now and I will say the math study group um it it doesn't mean we'd be making drastic changes they to prepare for some of the changes of the kids coming up there might be some transitions that would take place and I think Ron you've shared that some of your high school teachers are already hearing our eighth grade teachers have already modified just like our grade seven this year and we're seeing between the aln and the new curricular Resources with Al that our kids are already being exposed to more than they were um in the past as well the next slide you can see we used a lot of different um literature to review and that's what Ron was going through in the literature review so you can click on that and read the article yourself and I I apologize that Leah's video was not there I C it's a 2 minute and 22 second video it's not a heavy look but it's a real good summary of everything kind of frames it from a teacher perspective as well to um before we begin discussion I'm sure everyone has some questions I did just want to clarify though that our our vote last year was to offer Algebra 1 not for most kids to take Algebra 1 in a trade I I think that that's we we wanted there to be an offering of algebra one um but not that we were looking for most or or you know the majority of kids necessarily take it is that fair to say I mean just looking back into the minutes and basic on my memory that would conserve it is yeah mind we already offer Al right in grade eight no not a full year of algebra one I mean I sat in with with in the back to school night or whatever was like we offer it that's that's not I mean I sat in my my daughter's 8ighth grade uh math class and she she's in math 8 but they they showed the standards and they showed how some of the standard the the algebra 1 class standards Mo many of them or at least a third of them were were being done in nth grade and I think this year they've tried to add more into the Cent alge this was for this year though could you say that one more time this year's back to school night we have an algebra 1 class but it is not a full year of Algebra 1 it takes many of the algebra 1 standards and and puts them into that I Ru in class but then there's a whole bunch of standards and it looked to me based on my memory from early the eth grade stand about about a third of them are still pushed for algebra algebra 1 into the the ninth grade because they still need to make up some of the the regular eighth grade standards as at the beginning of the year this be on our curriculum now it was it was in a handout that I got I don't have that document but we did review it in our mud group that um the seventh grade teachers took last summer we planned on taking so they took some of the eighth grade standards into grade seven corre and then some of the e8th grade teachers took some of those other algebra this year I can't tell you how far they've gotten right now but that was their plan to try to move us forward right no we we asked for that but I'm just saying at the beginning of this year in in the sort of the the the parents night that was what the the teacher showed up on the on the on the board is that still there were algebra one standards as part of the algebra one class that were not being done until 9th grade I guess I'm a little confused because we clarified with you if you met because we had you had said we misunderstood and then and you clarified it was algebra for most so that is what we brought forward to you how we would get there I would not have said the algebra one for most I said we need to offer Algebra 1 a full a full year of algebra one we we have a full year of alge one in 8th grade I'm just trying to include more students a mistake out that's that's that's not what this that's not some with the standard show I'll go back and see I find it and I'll I I'll ask the the standard to go to your point there are some standards currently addressed in eighth grade and some addressed in nth grade and Ron and I were present at the meetings we're high school and and 8th grade teachers got together and they were talking about how they were going to further shift those yes that still needs to be done and they are working on that but there are I mean but that's an important point so that means that we are not currently offering in a full year of Algebra 1 right now in eth grade if we still have if we still have shifting to do then then we're not that's why they took on more this year with the goal of trying to get to next year I mean this is part this has been part of the plan yes regardless of how many kids take it what happens to the kids that go into 9th grade into Algebra 2 now are they learning Algebra 1 standards in Algebra 2 that we didn't cover or they just skip over that if they' take they would first go into geometry which has embedded algebra is embedded all throughout geometry so whatever skills they need for Algebra 2 that they hopefully received in eighth grade or or may not have or just brushed the surface with and need more time with that would all be happening throughout geometry ultimately the vertical alignment between 8th grade and nth grade is very important to make sure we know at the high school level what they're what they've covered extensively what they've just been able to expose the students to so that when they come to the high school we know where they are in their learning and that's why um the group is recommending that we would do a math study with the high school to help them with the transition because it wouldn't be a perfect roll out next year I mean we know that there's still work to be done and that's why it's a 3 to 5e process to get it perfected right in many math classes I was a math teacher for 19 years in in many math classes it frustrated me that the first term of the year would be a lot of review from the previous year because um summer happened and and and there was a rush the previous year to cover a certain amount of curriculum and we didn't expect students to retain everything so let's really spend the first term uh making sure they remember you know what they've lost that's imperative to move forward things have really shift more in line with um re uh continuously continuously recycling through things that you've already learned in class seamlessly so that you're learning for Mastery not just learning for the moment so that there's less review hopefully moving forward in future years where they can just dive in start the curriculum close gaps as they go but not have to worry about not being able to cover an entire algebra one curriculum for example and that's also why um the high school and middle school staff went forward with reveal math because they felt it also address the content the way they felt that they could Master it and then that's also why we um the teacher is actually advocated and have fought for additional time with aln support because helping them to with the PD that they need to implement this as well good question about the standards PE following up on that so I really appreciate the work that the group has done um it's clear there's a lot of work that's been put into this a lot of data that you've looked at and and that you're really looking to move forward with a way that um provides more access for students not just in eth grade but in their High School career as well well um but I wanted to follow up on the standards piece because with the standards the way they're laid out there is a purposeful progression of content that builds on each other and the trade-off for any kid that takes um algebra is that they're missing the eighth grade content the standards and and that's the same content that they're assessed in um in eth grade as well so when you're talking about shifting standards can you just kind of expand on that what I'm hearing in that is that either standards will be densed or skipped and I'm just wondering about how that plays out vertically as students move not just to algebra but also to geometry and statistics as well I think one thing what I will do after this meeting I will share the the P what aln calls a power standards I can share those with you tomorrow because it's easier to see that like mapped out right but they really concentrate on um aen has identified this is where you need to put your most teaching into for them to understand all of these Concepts this is where you need to put your time and so then when we're talking about doing the Shifting the student uh excuse me the teachers are looking at that document but when the high school and the middle school were talking they're like okay in order to meet what aln is saying what should the high school be doing what should the middle school be doing right can you expl on that yeah it's been recognized in one of the meetings we had last year I think I might have looked at you and said this is a geometry standard in sixth grade my son is doing it and he knows what a trapezoid is it has two you know a pair of parallel sides I'm like why are kids learning that standard third grade fourth grade fifth grade uh in 10th Grade geometry you're also teaching it and assessing it it felt like it felt like it could be done better and I think that's what the shifting of the standards was do we need to teach it a little bit in seven consecutive years or can we do it really well in several in the first year and then just revisit it briefly as we go forward rather than spending entire units of study teaching things that they've already learned it you get a lot of information on learning walks for example like at the high school level having teachers or administrators go down to the middle school and see what they're learning it really opens up your eyes because you're like oh my gosh students were exposed to this and if they're if they didn't retain it and they need to relearn it why we're not blaming the kids we're going to figure out what it is that's going on and and fix it and I think that's where the what we're doing with the shifting of the standards to make sure that we're doing it once or twice and doing it right so that there's time to do all that we need to do but we're also looking at it a way that really connects with every student because aln we work with the teachers to really do a lot of choice so there talking about those menus right so I learn very differently than Susan learns who learned very differently than you do right and we can choose different ways that we're comfortable with or the teacher might really push one of us to go a certain direction right but it's showing Mastery of that standard so there's a lot of power in that if a student owns that choice as you well know right there's more engagement there's more interest and that that really pulls them in um It's a combination between the two but I'll be happy to share that document with you tomorrow and I to look at this you mentioned few school districts where this all hopefully kept up with what Cambridge did and then their pivot back what are some school districts that I can look to where it did work some of them are still like the Plymouth model is still developing so that's so it's a work in progress is there anyone where this was successfully implemented because my my concern is I saw this movement and what would you say 16 17 18 you saw it with Cambridge you saw it with I think Newton or Brooklyn and then they pivoted back so can can you direct me to some places where it was successful so need withs many years ago that's one group in the Middle School um lovely I can't recall now I'll I'll get a list for you you have a few nearby DED to I think San Francisco is probably the most do and they've been working on this for over 20 years and they spent 10 years on doing algebra for all in nth grade and it was deemed unsuccessful actually but one of the things that came out of it was their charts are different than what you showed us uh Mr Taylor where when when they looked at after several years of implementation um where were our students of color accessing math more students were getting into pre-calculus and statistics but they weren't doing it at the honors level and that's really the breakdown we didn't close the gap in terms of um our students of color accessing Advanced courses um and so when we looked at it was more than just when are we taking algebra but also thinking about how are we supporting students in their vision of themselves as a Learner in their access to courses with scheduling issues and then also looking at um how guidance was working with students and mentoring them toward making specific choices in their courses some of that is social emotion um students have learned helplessness or learned to believe they cannot do we need to turn that around as part of this conversation as to how you can do again it doesn't mean we believe that every child can succeed it just means that earlier that we expose them they more likely they have opportunities and I think we believe every child would succeed yes every in alra in their first go it would be given them another opportunity in high school is what we would hope that they think now it's given them more time to then revisit real team as that means we weren't working for so I we want to still we not saying do agre with that possibility we need to retake it but having more exposure in eight then I'll do need to more success SE to go to kind of flip what you asked one thing that we discovered as a committee that we talked about for a while the biggest reason why districts failed we discovered was that they did not offer support to their teachers so they just put all the kids in algebra without helping the teachers that's not fair teachers were not trained to do that right and so that's why you know we that was one huge thing that came out for us and we're like in order to make this successful we have to support our teachers in so many different ways right we have to offer that um and that will ensure the biggest way that this will be successful if they are feeling comfortable they know how to do it teacher support and I understand I can see how that would be really important but if we're covering the same amount of standards and we would agree that some kids just need more time more exposure more time on learning for that right um how do we accomplish covering all of those standards with kids at different needing different things some kids might get that lesson in five minutes and some might need the repetition and do it in 50 how do you do this without increasing time on math is that part of it too well part of it is like I I'll let you talk a little bit but part of it is setting the stages Susan said it's not just a middle school responsibility so it is building it prek all the way through right building those critical thinking skills having number talks having kindergar kindergarteners explain their mathematical thinking it's a lot of power in that students need to see there's not just one way to solve a problem right and that's not a common practice you know in all school districts right so so we need to shift all that if you start to shift all that you see changes in the upper grades right the math the the power standards that we were talking about will also help the the choice menu that I was talking about really is geared towards hitting students where they are are at that level aln is all about Universal Design it's meeting students where they individually are and how we accommodate that so there's a lot of um aen has a lot of resources that have examples of menus that the teachers have been working on they've gotten coaching from aln Consultants about um how to strengthen their menus what it needs to be composed of these are all skill sets but you want to add on to it then how yeah sorry a lot yeah I have I I could go on for a while so I'm kind of jazzed up right now um uh oh I open Pandora box there's a there's a lot that can happen when we put those learning uh into the hands of the students and and really make the classroom student Centric um the idea of teaching uh unit 4 lesson two to a class of 20 students and they're all in the same place is borderline laughable they're not all in the same place so but have we done the professional development I'm talking about globally for for teachers to be able to meet every student where they are so in doing some research on my own there's there's something called like the modern classroom project for example where there's kind of a pacing guide where students come in and and they go to and this is what teachers can do if they're given the professional development to do it students come in and they know where they are in their Learning Journey and and they go to different tables and they pick up their materials and they watch a video some sit with the teachers some go over here and work on a project and some might be on unit three while some are on unit two but as long you know and if if they're supposed to be on unit four right right now you know the teacher has a plan and maybe there's flexible grouping set up where there's a team of teachers where students who are struggling can meet up and learn a certain Topic in a classroom together and then come back in and join the the group for some some instruction there's all sorts of things we can do um that I don't think are being done because it's so hard to break away from tradition um so can we just am yell can we just go back to the the Excel benchmark testing uh by demographic data that you that you put up the middle school one yeah and and while Dr kuska brings it up I can just sort of ask my question I mean I think that I think that you you you definitely you know identified some inequities in the date I mean that's very clear um however I guess my question would be have we gone to the the the low-income students that have scored 700s are better on their ISL scores and we have we said you know what because this was done in no let's put you into algebra one have we gone to the the 504 Learners and who scored you know 700s and above and said have we put you want to go into algebra one I mean I think I think we need to look at this as in different ways of potentially getting kids there we've identified inequities but then have we tried to have we tried to solve them what I mean are there other ways other than sort of throwing out sort of an advanced class that we can allow for kids to challenge themselves because I think you know we talk a lot about about rigor and I definitely think we need to increase rigor but by rigor I mean like heyy we we want to make sure that kids can run as far and fast as they they can and the kids that are have that want to run faster but are having problems running faster we want to give them the supports and and to you know to to help them get there but we also have to recognize that there's some kids that just either don't want to go that fast or maybe you even with all the supports you know just won't be able to to get to to that place and so putting them in a classroom with these kids that want to run far and fast may be detrimental to their own you know U mental health and sense of selfworth so you know I mean just some thoughts off top of my head allowing parent overrides in eth grade or for to to to go into you know into Algebra 1 um having more yearend assessments rather than just relying kind of on on a on a teacher recommendation to let kids go into into um in t one um and again mean this is this is perfect data to sort of demonstrate my point we sort of identified a bunch of of kids um are they still in you know Al uh you know math 8 if they're if they you know if their you know scores are are similar to to kids in algebra or have we you know have we given them those opportunities I mean going back to this is data that we just recently gathered this year so no um this is similar you said it was November right so it's just like a couple months into the year I mean that that that you had that I just like you know it just we haven't had the we haven't had a plan in place to do things like that though that's part of the that's part of the problem with the system we have right now but that's not the suggestion right the suggestion is is to I mean all Learners Network right I mean you sort of it seems it just feels like you you you hired a consultant if you will that had a goal of essentially homog um of heterogeneous making a classroom and now you know it's shockingly that's what the recommendation is I mean it's it I just I I think we need we need to know a little bit more there's a lot of talk about about PD that that's needed you know what what is the cost of that to get everybody up to to to where they need to be to do it does is is it a cost effective way of of sort of making sure that everyone has access to it the end goal I I don't disagree with at all and and you know finding these these these data points is incredibly important I just think that we need to think about whether we really want to bifurcate or not or not allow for any kind of bifurcation and I think that that's why we talked about a multi-year process so we would have to come back and if that's the direction we're going then we give you a multi-year work with the teachers and put together a multi-year implementation timeline for all of the things you talk about the other thing that gives me pause is the deling det tracking the science without input from the science teachers at the middle school and high school so to the extent that we can kind of really look at these schedules and see if there's if if you know if we're going in this direction see if there's a way to accomplish this in in math or where we're going with this but make sure we have voice um and collaboration between the science departments at the middle school and high school and get to hear from them on this because I'd be really reluctant to make a decision in a month that without hearing or looking at any of that right and also I heard understanding of the standards that are covered in in both and I I know years ago we got away from IPS which we had before um just straight up honor science um but I I I'd like to understand that all of those standards are being met and that we're not making this decision by decreasing standards and depth of what we're covering and I think also bring this uh plan to to all of the the members maybe of the even of the uh math curriculum review team because I know that a number of them came to us and said that you know they definitely were not in favor of ding at the at the high school some of the ones that High School no high school and and and other grades too is all Learners network available for science as well um not uh they do not not as specific as Ma so I'm concerned about how you would do differentiated learning in a heterogeneous classroom if you dra track science at the same time so there's a lot of a lot of questions on that but so I guess let me correct myself though all the concept same Concepts apply to any single subject they would be able to help us with science um that I know that you know in the past the concern was for the past science class that it was not standards based you know so the past honor science class was not it was not TI to standing the it was not tight to standards um and so right we would we have to look at that but if you continue to have that level because of the limitations of middle school and I was a middle school princi you're really tying the hand of the Middle School principal because you are a group of students is going to continuously just be in the same classes together but would you agree we used to have honors history and honors um well this was long before both um of your time but we used to have tracking for English and social studies along with math and science and by removing it from English and social studies didn't we remove some of some of that so arguably you removed it from math you could create I mean I guess it's just that most in most cases I don't want to speak Jess was did a lot of scheduling so she could probably speak to the schedule better but in most cases when you're when you're leveling for math most of those same kids are going to be leveled in science right it's just they kind of fall hand in hand and it doesn't always mean that you got away from Team grade say it again for that reason specifically we moved away from teams and we would have to move away did we he did and then they moved back yes we we attempted that yeah and then you moved back to team yeah and a lot of that was teachers feeling in development we the te because we had so much tracking and boxing in that we had to take away the teams and then we with the goal always to put them back uh we just had a blip of a group that kind of went created larger inqui right yeah clearing like the data show right so it just was not the kind where you would over half the kids in a class are are on IEP every like you just you're creating like these sub separate classes basically int was never keep that it was just yeah try trying to address the inequities in various ways I I will say um ultimately it's it's a big c curricular change that school committee would vote on um we would like you to do whichever way you go by February because the teachers are waiting to figure out what they need to do next and what we have to plan for implementation um there is another possibility that if we're agreeing that we're going to try to get as many students as possible through more algebra concept so that they can't open more doors in high school and Beyond we could also stay this as a two-year process where you keep levels for next year but it's more it's still algebra so the lower level may not get all of it in the first year with the hope that by year two we then remove the level to try to slow play it a little that another potential possibility was can you speak louder it's really hard to hear s so for the kids if you do take Algebra 1 in 8th grade and it just didn't cck for you and then so is the the idea that then you would retake that same alra titled class or talk about what we talk about the other day because I don't think that is something that would be super appealing to so there would be ideally multiple multiple option one of one of the things that was was thrown out there not thrown thrown out there makes it sound like it was not well thought out that's not what I meant at all um if if we have methods and place where we can track student understanding specifically so rather than a student makes an assessment and they are in a 77 and they put it away and they don't know where that 23% Gap was their parents don't know where the 23% Gap was the special educator that works with them doesn't know where that Gap was they move forward the foundation continues to weaken because you need to build on that and grow stronger as a math uh student uh we need to track by standards or by um High leverage Concepts I forget what they use uh with aln but essentially power standards and if we're assessing how well you know standard a and standard B and standard C we can see that a student wouldn't need to redo all of Algebra 1 there might be pockets of understanding where they're experts and and could teach it to their friends and there might be areas where we can clearly identify oh they don't need to redo all of Algebra 1 it's really standard c f and g and then we can build that into support in n9th grade for the students where um that information could be shared with teachers and perhaps during warmup you know the F minute warm-up at the start of class could be oh we've recognized that many students still aren't carrying forward this information let's put that on a warmup and spend five or 10 minutes on it or let's have students meet during dsb um you know dsb needs to be more structured and perhaps if we realize there are gaps in student understanding it it's considered learning time why not make it learning time come learn in the areas that you need to um to close those gaps and allow you to succeed to your ability and the other piece um that's one of the me between map and also inel that we identify the standards that students are missing through I Exel and part of our intervention so we're doing some direct intervention with students and then we're doing indirect intervention where our Middle School um interventionist or High School interventionist will also have those standard and be setting up modules for the kids to do um which they can do during DSP or or Rams block right now so that is also part of the work that that we're doing and moving forward as we speak so that hopefully kids will get that extra support as we're going along so Sarah what we were talking about the reason why for the high school math study group is that there would have to be shifts in what the high school students would take and if these just like we would need to look at and we talked about this before um what understanding are most students coming up with so what does the high school need to do and if we do that like correctly then we need to look at are is there a big need for Algebra 1 and is there only a need for just some students in ninth grade to have that and then you can look at possibilities of um combining different math classes for the high school if you only think you need a half a year of some kind of math class half a year another that would all have to be worked out with this math study group right but it opens a lot more opportunities for students to get to those high level classes in math but doing what we recommended question understanding reveal is in year one this year correct correct okay so I'm hearing a lot of Shifting of the reveal scope and sequence or the curriculum um in terms of like which standards we're going to prioritize and I I'm just wondering about the timeline for that and and the support for teachers because the implementation science around a new adopting a new curriculum is really year one is focusing on implementation and just implementation um and monitoring the Fidelity so I'm I'm just wondering about the support for teachers and trying to adopt something and then change it at the same time yeah absolutely so this was asked by the teachers not by us and they said they really felt strongly both at the middle school and the high school level that they want to change the order of the units for reveal and so they felt strongly about that um the Middle School Carla is already working with them like what what should we do right they're already starting those conversations and it's again driven by what the teachers are seeing in the classroom um the work would continue then through the summer but the work is starting already now that they're having this conversations I'm not quite as sure what's going on at the high school but it would be summer work for sure that we need to give them support to do that but it is their want not ours so just be cautious how do we know it's working if we haven't f y yeah and that is why I appreciate that one of our suggestions that we did talk about with our Mass City group was that could be a um compromise is that next year we are still going to get as many kids into algebra next year but potentially still do a modified leveling for that year One to to buy a little more time for that still opening more doors is the is the ultimate and then year two we the hope that we would remove the level completely so that was sort of like if we're not feeling comfortable to go this route yet that would be sort of the the two-year plan for that can I ask about the scaffolding for the elementary like is there a to thought about having a Elementary study group um you there's a lot of gaps from people don't want to say from Co but they're they exist those they go all the way up through as we track into middle school and high school so um I'm just curious as to thank you for that question um what has been really decided at costantino and Mill is that the teachers have have the big want of really using those after hour preaching syia um their big ask has been to concentrated on math this year so they're having a lot of those discussions part of an upcoming PD day um that the placentino M teachers are going to be do doing a lot of work and um Together part of the day as they did the was it the last PD day or the day before I apologize but we are listening to their needs and we're trying to provide things you during the school we have been providing things already during the school year to help them meet that um the we also are looking at um because teachers need to be more comfortable so part of Aon is we've had coaching by them too so the teacher teachers get to ask those questions you know something they've been struggling with or they can actually view that teacher and the teacher can say what do I need to change or give me some advice or how do I need to do it and there's been a lot of back and forth going with that um this year which has been appreciated by the teachers yeah the elementary teachers actually requested additional coaching cor aln so that was where they did get some additional Grand funding from U and thank you to um I'm sorry H for supplying year and I think um and I have reached out to and asked if they can propose different models for the future we would ultimately like to send out our interventionists and potentially some grade leaders to get more of the Train the Train the model moving forward so that they become even more of the experts which is Al also mitigating costs and more sustainable long term so that is something we're still waiting for those proposals I think so I have two other questions one is is there an alternative pathway for students just to kind of test out let's just say they didn't do so well in you know whatever their sorry I don't know who to direct this to I can't see anybody so bouncing around yeah um an alternative pathway so maybe that student does really didn't do so well in their sixth grade year but then they I don't know they blossomed they were able to they were mature enough to be ready for it could they test in to some other is that another alternative yes so one of the things that the high school years ago it used to be you had to to pay and take an accredited course that's not what I'm talking about like little stes more yeah so now that's gone and now it's if you can demonstrate that you understand the core content of the course um yeah you have you have our permission to move forward you know U and then my other question is are we going to see anything resource wise at our strategic initiatives in regard to this with either aln I know you can talk about it strategic initiatives I'm just curious no I think our hope is that we we we're still meeting with principles on Tuesday related so I'm putting put that all together so you don't necessarily anticipate or you I think we're anticipating that we are definitely going to invest a lot of our PD money and time into aln and and differentiation you also may hear us talk it's too early in the process with other reviews but we're hearing from teachers that this has been a lot to take on all this is much as they want it it's been a lot we may end up coming back and slow playing some of the other Cal changes even though those are important too to give them the time um to do that again it's easier to do that at the middle and high school is easier because they're not all teaching every subject it's harder at ele when they teaching every subject to give them multiple different training things so you may hear us come back and say we're only going to move forward with changes in curricular potentially at middle and high school because the content teachers can manage that versus all falling on the one teacher do that and also Cynthia so I have entitlement grants that I have funds for professional development and so sometimes like in the past it wasn't as concentrated we're really looking at utilizing those funds for math because we know there is a great need you know a lot of it that we need to improve so I will be utilizing some of those I think all that sounds great and I I appreciate the PD time and the teacher GRS towards that but I'm worried about the dayto day in a class of 22 or 24 heterogeneous mix like I've had struggling math kids that I feel like would be crushed if they didn't feel like they could keep up and they don't do all that well learning from screen and then there are other kids that do very well and could move on through units with the screen learning but it it it sounds like Utopia if we had smaller class sizes or more boots on the ground in those classes so I guess to what extent looking through the priority needs lens are there interven I or other hands on deck to get those class sizes smaller or have more support dayto day boots on the ground not just some PD three times a year and that was one of the things we had in the slide was that we may come back and ask for more tutor it was on one of the slides I'm sorry yeah I don't is that on a daily basis though or is that like if you're if you're struggling cuz I I I just I worry in this heterog genius mix too of the behavioral problems you'll see with with the boredom and having having you know three kids on unit 3 and six on unit 7 and I I what I talked about kids being that was that's probably 15 years from now like that's not anything we talked about in the math group that's not our plan for next year to have kids in totally different units of study I'm just talking about like world that we want to get to yes yes we're we're taking an in incremental step to to getting to a place where every student is learning at their own pace comfortably feel feeling empowered and and enjoying themselves um we're not there I I didn't mean to give that impression we're not going to put screens and have kids watching videos to learn that that's not our intent and I'm sorry if that's the perception I gave um so uh don you brought this up um one of the things on the one of the slides was to add more math tutors through the right and it would make through the priority needs and it would be something similar to what we have at placentino and Miller we have math tutors of placentino and Miller we do not have them um at Rams at all so Carla is doing the intervention and at the high school we do not have it's not the same setup right so that's what we're going to recommend have some extra tutors to work on that to bring those students skills up but we're also knowing we're trying to mitigate budgetarily as well so you know but you know we talked about the fact that enrollment has shifted a little bit that may open up some opportunities to potentially shift some current positions to to the positions to get some of those needs met without necessarily adding to the budget would be helpful to modify it too just understand like what we get with that is it every day is it once a week is it 15 minutes helping EX like to try and understand what that support is because I can have that information for you for priority needs don't it right now what grades too we start doing it in sixth grade so that by the time you know they get to e8th grade you know obviously you know that would be ask for is for all grades not just and they hit a certain grade like we're really trying to consider in high school as well which also leads to schedule constraints right so you also have to have places where we can give them that extra support um and schedule limitations limit that as well I do feel like Rams with its current schedule does have some opportunities with the Rams block to be able to offer that um and as I mentioned already even though they may not be getting um because K's one person right now she may only be doing a certain number of kids but she is setting up intervention that kids can do in that block um as well with I Exel so what what I will base this data on is what um they're able to do at Postino and so that's you know I'll be giving you actual data how often get support things like that but it would vary depending on the needs of the student correct so other things that you want us to get for the next meeting well it be February would be coming back to you so you know this is not for the next meeting one thing um to consider so I really appreciate the way that you're prioritizing communication to staff and then um support for the teachers and implementing all this um and one more thing that you might want to consider prioritizing is the data colle ction and monitoring what I hear you saying is that um the district is going to be implementing a new curriculum shifting that curriculum and the standard progression um Shifting the course offerings or or expanding them to eighth grade students and then also shifting um pedagogy as we support teachers and adopting a udl um instructional practices all at the same time and that's a lot and it's not imposs possible to monitor what's working well but it's really challenging to do all that at once so really like setting up structures now to identify and kind of progress monitor along the way so that you can identify which of those things were effective and which of those um were not and why no I appreciate that an i cell will really help us out in that there's a student companion piece and so we're that's the plan is also when when students are getting intervention to get extra support and that is getting documented and that's being used right now to determine who needs inters right the data is already being assist I think it's part of the data collection could be for February how are we defining success right that could also the data again Sor how are we defining success cuz that informs then the data we need to collect cuz we can collect a lot of data and sometimes we can't collect data so that's a challenge but the data we can collect how are we defining success cuz it could very well tell you it's working here but not working here and how are we defining and saying Mastery of Standards is how we're defining success so then what's the data to support that right so ISL might be the correct okay and we'll have it's part of our mid progress discussions with principles we we bringing that data back you'll so we have three assessments that we're doing yes for the standards throughout the year um at all levels yes so we'll be doing that as well and and also because it's year one of a new curricular resource was we also have to be we have to caution that you're not going to see the games immediately right so it is a three year 3 to 5e process but we should be able to at least measure with our rightel that some of the successes that we're starting to absolutely who's going to make up this math study group to ensure it's smooth implementation sorry to similar to what we did this year we'll work with the high school and and look for volunteers it's going to be very much similar to the process we looking at two of them members right here I'm I'm going to nod and agree I couldn't hear the question I feel like I'm also yelling because very School study group who's going to put it together I think we do a similar process we did for the middle scho and Ron's been to see that since he's he's such a strong math resource for us we are un fortunate now that um we have we now have Ron in his role we have um Leah Leah working directly with the teachers as a peer and then Ron can also because he's got the math background and then you know Nancy has the social background so I mean we're fortunate that we have created a strong model right now except we would like to have more tutors to then help support individual students but the model itself I think has come a long way okay more to more to come thank you thank you I appreciate that reflection all of it and thank you for your question Hillary that was a really good point moving uh on to policy and I think every uh you all thought you were we were going to get out of here early tonight um okay so we have three policies to review this evening so do we want to each take one no they're like no we're done here um which one we starting with EA all right so Transportation so um this this was brought well we've been meaning to address this one for a little bit but it didn't seem like there was much um well anyway in light of um our changes to uh transportation for next year um and because this hadn't been reviewed in a bit um we reviewed our Transportation uh policy and um I'm only only half to read what we well I have to I might as well just read the whole thing because we stuff that we've frosted out as well as added so um transportation eligibility uh students who are residents of the town of Holliston may be provided with transportation services over town accepted roads to and from the Holliston Public Schools a HPS transportation map will be provided in the office of the superintendent and the minimum guidelines are described below preschoolers are not entitled to transportation services unless the student has an individualized education program that requires transportation services grades K 1 and two are entitled to transportation services with the exception of those living in proximity parentheses according to the HPS transportation map available on the district website it's not there yet but it will be um to the school as determined by the superintendent or it just said there sorry that was a mess and there designate or their grades 3 through five living approximately one mile or more from the school are entitled to transportation services grades 8 6 through 8 living approximately 1 and a half miles or more from the school are intended to transportation services grades 9 through 12 living approximately 1 and a half miles or more from the school are entitled to transportation services exceptions to these guidelines may be made at the discretion of the superintendant or their designate after consultation with the hollon police department exceptions superintendent or design May wave these eligibility requirements if a student's health and or safety might be affected by the lack of school bus transportation determination of a waiver a waiver will take bus what bus space availability into cons consideration transportation of students on buses that are not regularly assigned to them may be allowed in order to permit these students to attend after school activities within Holliston there must be adequate room on the exist exting bus and no additional cost of the Town shall be incurred for this Transportation children of bus drivers bus drivers may not transport their own children without the prior approval of the superintendent or designate the superintendent or designate will make these decisions based on load limit and safety school bus stops there will be designated bus stops that can only be modified after consultation with and in the agreement of the safety officer the bus shall pick up and drop off students only at the designated bus stop if in the Judgment of the driver there are safety concerns about discharging a student at the designated bus stop the driver will return the student to school and every attempt will be made to notify the parents should say parents Guardians this got wonky for some reason that should say parents guarded requests uh for a change of the design to bus stop of a student must be made in writing to the transportation coordinator in emergencies a verbal request may be made by the parent follow followed by a written request within one school day questions to bus fees bus fees I just did simple a mile pass a mile and a half okay the Queens you had to pay bus so um the law says that we need to provide bus um transportation for students K through 6 free within two uh outside of 2 miles outside of 2 miles okay so 6 to though saying miles people are entitled to transportation services we if I'm 2.1 I'm only speaking for myself for others not just me if it's sixth grade and you're at 2.1 you need to pay okay and then everybody needs to pay after yeah everybody everybody pays after that so this is more about whether we're pick you up right this is about yeah yeah this doesn't actually say whether we're we're implementing or not it or not right we because we we still pick up 6th or 12th graders within 1 and a half miles that the our policy allows us to to not that yeah it says may but why are we doing the budget yeah eligibility cuz because for we've never been able to pay for it so a long time ago we bust fees that didn't exist so this was sort of added in here as if we have adequate budget we wouldn't charge any fees like that's it was like wishful thinking so that's never going to happen or at least right now it's not happening so it just didn't make sense to even say things about well when we have adequate versus non-adequate so we just took it out that was at the recommendation of Keith he said you didn't know why we were keeping that along so um and he was all all he was he's all in this yeah he's in all all in this um and then there's a whole um according to the HPS transportation map available at the district website that has not been created yet so it will be created but has not been created yet so why are we doing that for kther 2 instead of just setting a a distance cuz it's um because there's uh the parameters around it is like C yeah we don't want them Crossing Washington Street so we're kind of creating a zone that so it's not going toar have a mile marker to it but it's going to be a Zone does that make sense so if I just said half a mile that might not encapsulate just based on sidewalks yeah basically I mean it's based on sidewalks and safety so that's what we're looking at is saying that we want people to be able to walk we want them to walk safely so it's basically roughly it's like two Central Street on one side and then uh not past not passing Washington Street on any of the other sides and then I forget where it is on Woodland but we that hasn't been created because it needs to be created along with the public safety officer for us to make sure that that is they you know they agree with that so who is the we decide to well we just said they're going to make it I mean that's that's administrative who's the safety officer though our current is that's not SRO right that's a no I think they have to go with their with the I mean who's our safety officer our Sr I don't think it's the SR no like the consultation agreement there will be designated bus stops that can only be modified after consultation with an agreement of the safety officer work with the town yeah we work with the town they he's the he's he's the Emergency Management we're going to consult with him about a bus stop no can we get that out we're not he's not the safety officer so who is the safety officer well it's a member of the police department but I don't know who it is so so then can we put in police safety or can we put in should then just be the [Music] SRO it could be but I we couldn't that was a recommended language I could take it out no I don't I'm not even saying take it out if you don't want but I'm saying yes some sort of just more defining so I can just say in consultation with the police department where did I say Safety Officer school bus l oh stops there will be Destin bus stops that can only be modified I think this is a police the agreement of the safety officer why don't we strike that I don't know we want have we ever done that I it's so I don't know if they if they wanted to change it we have like when we've had parents say my child bus stop is unsafe right in the past and we have asked the SOS to go out and take a look and let give us a feedback on that all the best but every time we we modify a bus stop we get the safety officer to look at it CU if we don't I feel like that's yeah no we don't every time but when we've had requests about safety that's when we but we can still do that without having that sentence in I feel like it's yeah I mean I the only thing that like the safety officer been a variety of things thereal that open right I just want to put you know I that safety officer could be a member of the police department or they may not be I want to either leave it a little bit more open Administration and then they would go to the saf okay uh [Music] well not capitalize not theine with HPS Administration can we just say that then you guys have your own procedures as how how you manage that we just say the administration is that acceptable better than it's better than just yeah okay um all right anything else no good um do you want to read them all or can we just like take them in turn so is this considered a first reading no this has been this is a long-standing policy we just need to vote on it we're done I don't have to read it again that's it okay until we revise it again eventually some other time so we need vote on it yes we do ready entertain a motion too I I I get it I'm trying to decide whether I'm ready to entertain a motion too do we want to stay here later I read this a lot slower the next one if you want all right I'll entertain a motion to approve the amendment to uh Transportation student code EA as further amended uh at our me and I'll make sure Lisa gets these um yeah so the right ones get uploaded y who who who was Joe first or sh I don't want to have to amend the minutes later all right so so Frank and then s all right all in favor okay thank you that cares un do somebody else want to read the next one really slowly or should I do it are huh athletic one I actually don't have to read the whole thing I just have to read what the changes are what are the changes okay can you guys not see the redit out copy why does that happen I'm why am I able to see it you think it's the way the sharing things in the folder remember obnoxious we have to fix that we could on the other one right I don't know I don't upload them so it's not the upload of the Google she at least in this one school physician is a capitalized to defined [Music] term you nice which one are you looking no I'm nice I'm giving praise so I I apologize is there a way for me to us to put it up on the you guys can see it that way I'm going to tell you so it's um J JJ if the title's been changed I know but the title's been changed to head injuries and concussion in extracurricular athletic activities so this was um as a recommendation of Brenda Barton who is our nurse manager um in consultation with her staff along with athletic trainer and coordinator and Matt Baker um it was also vetted through um Dr zlat Who is our um School physician and she finally signed off on this draft like we've been working on this for a year so it's I know it doesn't sound that ens but it is anyway so um changes were the title um there was an addition to where was mentioned about um coaches certified athletic trainers volunteers school team Physicians and there's an addition of athletic coordinators I'm not sure I know really what the difference between an athletic director is but I guess athletic coordinator is at um like at the middle school we have an athletic coordinator but not a director so we wanted to be inclusive of the staff that we have um in the second paragraph uh there was a mention of in accordance with uh chapter um sorry um CMS CMR 2011 um or sorry Mass General law um 105 CMR 2011. that she wanted specifically into um the policy not just being a reference it's also as a reference but she wanted it specifically added um this affirmation is updated by annually by September 3r 30th every odd numbered year upon review or revision of its policies so that's the law so that's why it's in there um on the second page um on the next paragraph that begins most student athletes there's an addition of um however relying only on an athlete self-report of symptoms to determine injury recovery is inadequate as many students instead of um athletes um are not aware of the signs and symptoms of the severity of concussion injuries pose um and then the next paragraph down um it's talking about the the research about concussion um research has shown that young concussed athletes who return to play before their brain has healed are highly vulnerable to prolonged postconcussion syndrome or in rare cases a catastrophic potentially lethal ological condition those were that was added um last paragraph I'm going just read that whole thing cuz that was all revamped this protocol should be reviewed as needed but at least every two years with the protocol team to discuss the policies and procedures to be followed to manage sports related concussions the district protocol team will consist at a minimum of a school administrator school nurse school or team physician if on staff athletic director licensed athletic trainer if on staff neuros pychology if available guidance counselor and teacher in consultation with any existing School healthwellness advisory committee any changes in this document will be approved by the school physician and any change will be given to the school committee and protocol team um this P shall be referenced in the student faculty handbooks and also available on the district website that are those are the changes I know I don't sound big but that took a while can I ask a stupid question or if I like to say a question um so how do we monitor is it I I anytime you put in you know a a a period of time to review something right and reviewed every two how are we tracking to make sure that we're actually following these things well it's it's their compliance so as the nurse manager like she has to make sure that we're reviewing the things that we're supposed to every year but so the team needs to do that doesn't mean that we have to do that they review it if there are change that need to be made then she brings it to our attention did I say that correctly believe I did so it's so it's so it's that the so the responsibility is with the she's supposed to make sure that we're in compliance okay so then how do we make sure that I mean we still need to make sure though that it's being done basically I'm just we just have to that where we set timelines and and time frames for that yeah it's just the law so the law says that they need to review it so the Lawes that yes that they as a the team has to review it they have to affirm that it is being since I've been here the nurse leaders have brought it forward to Administration yep seems like every year but it does seem like that it was year so yeah yeah um okay I all the people said that this is good I'm good anyone have any more okay uh so I'll entertain a motion to approve the amendment to policy jjif to be now known as something much longer than athletic concussion policy okay um last one is we get to vote oh sorry you know that I'm rushing did we already vote go ahead no we have I it's getting late it's early we Haven hit 10:00 IG and DC now I'm getting lost in the the the acronym least of that pass by the way unanimously um Susan this one wasn't our new policy CU we kept going back and forth about acceptable use of digital resources versus acceptable use of so this one's new yes okay that's what we want to make sure so there's a whole bunch of different ones that we're working on acceptable use and um the most uh um well we felt like the most one the most important one that we need to get addressed right now is about our digital uh resources and um so Dan McLoud uh worked with us on this one and felt that M we work with misc's guidance policy and then Dan McLoud added a few things in here but it's a new policy so I can read it in an entirety but then you we can take feedback and okay all right acceptable use of digital resources i j and DC the superintendent in conjunction with director of technology and digital learning shall develop and Implement appropriate procedures to provide guidance for access to digital resources guidelines shall address teacher supervision of digital resources ethical use of such resources and issues of online privacy in addition procedure Shelf prohibit utilization of digital resources for prohibited or illegal activities and for the use of other programs with the potential of damaging or destroying programs or data technology procedures shall be implemented that effectively address the following controlling access by miners to inappropriate ma matter on the internet as defined by children's internet protection act sepa and the children's online privacy protection act Kaa Safety and Security of miners in use of digital resources preventing unauthorized access including hacking viruses and other unlawful activities by miners online annually all students must agree to and sign an appropriate digital use form developed by the superintendent in conjunction with the director of digital sorry of technology and digital learning this form must be also signed for the parent or Guardian for students under the age of 18 employees must use District resources for the purposes directly related to to educational and instructional purposes employees shall use digital resources in a responsible efficient ethical and legal manner in accordance with the mission of the District staff staff is required to use their school issued accounts not personal accounts for all communication with students and parents Guardians such accounts must be used with other staff members when conducting School business on the recommendation of the superintendent in conjunction with the director of technology and digital learning the district shall determine when and which digital resources can be made available to the community All Guest users will be prompted to and must accept a digital use agreement prior to use use of enhanced technology tools EG chat GPT Gemini are emerging as important components of the digital information and Technology landscape and the hollon public schools sees their use as strongly connected to a students's development as digitally literate citizens such tools are subject to all of the expectations and requirements contained in the acceptable use policy and other District policy handbooks referenced Below in addition to adherence in such to such policies handbooks instructional uses of enhanced technology tools should be governed by Educators professional judgment and all relevant codes of safe ethical and responsible digital conduct those violating the digital use agreement will be subject to appropriate consequences Source MC 2223 um policy cross reference sorry legal reference um 47 USC chapter 254 and policy cross reference J sorry jic FB bullying prevention I jnd DD social media KD CB District website and social media and procedure reference is the student and employee HS so anyway it's the first read we don't have to even talk about it we can you guys can send emails and let us a couple typos but yeah I know that's signed by the parent the guardian you know and for of students address typos but if you have other you know comments concerns whatever I could bring them up in their next meeting okay thank you all right um so now we get to our so I just realized and we'll have to get this back on here we we don't have reports from the uh the administration on here I I just saw that I saw that too um I I don't think it's something that we we can't certainly if you have a things to to report that we can certainly fit it in and I don't believe it will will violate anything if you have anything certainly would fall under public comments or something like that in it also yeah I just wanted to mention um that I sent out the r search um information today the timeline for the permanent principal um and that Joanie and David List are going to be co- facilitating that and we're trying to move forward um with the reg's timeline just because we want to get that completed timely because it also could impact a decision for the assistant principal rers get that out as well and then uh learning walks I know Ron mentioned this earlier so I feel like it's connected to what we talked about with the mass study group but we did have a learning walk today at the middle school and this is something that last August I had said to um our leadership team is really this should be a year of growth for us as a leadership team and really calibrating the learning walk process so we're really each each time we keep tweaking it and making it stronger and stronger and and I think we're getting really excited about the progress we're making as a as a team with the hope that next year we can start then having potentially teachers in the building with the administrators a little bit more as well so that's the direction we're going but it's really been helping us um look at student engag wom saf environment in particular this year and then the last thing is um roundtables I always talk about the student roundtables and the information I get from those so I did have placentino Round Table yesterday I believe it was and they're always quite a joy um to give me a lot of useful information about what you know safety things even the little ones will tell me what's working well and what's not working well and what they hope to accomplish so we had a great meeting with them and I'll continue the round table meetings and also want I'm going to be sending out something to staff to set up some more of the past one-on-one small group um or sometimes team meetings that I've done so I'm going to be offering some of those with staff for the second half of the year as well are the the pastino kids excited about starting earlier next year I think one child may have brought it up now he said I can't remember exactly what they said about that kids say the darnest kids say the darnest thing I think there might have been a TV show about that yeah just true okay yeah just a reminder that we have a full professional development day on January 17th so I'll be making a report to you the next school committee meeting after that than um you know Susan indicated it was nice to get down to middle school and see my people uh down there so it was fun to see the kids uh there lastly over the uh vacation they were doing the work on the Rams rooftop unit um and I just wanted to say you know thank you to the school committee um that initially kind of planted that seed money uh that we had um and waiting until failure on that that unit uh and then also to the fincom for trusting uh the administration to use the funds in an appropriate way um also to the select board uh for supporting the capital request um and then our maintenance department for keeping the unit functioning as long as it did um and then to uh James ke for working on this project and doing the bid and onside portions this this might be the first time the fincom has ever been thanked at the school committee table so I I was remissed when we were presenting the math study group too that I I did neglect to thank the teachers the for teachers and other administrators that served on the mass study yes I thought uh great thank you and they were in the side yes they okay all right so uh reports from our subcommittees Communications [Music] okay great uh paing our next meeting is this Tuesday at central office at 4:15 we'll be discussing graduation requirements among other things I'm excited about that I am excited about it as well yeah all right budget and budget we had a meeting today at 5:00 and our next meeting is on next Thursday January 16th and are we do we settle on 5 I believe I thought it was four to five so oh right yes five [Music] right okay uh superintendent um we have our first check in on Wednesday um at the central office at 4:30 okay um we don't have any old or new business today most we were dealing with presentations and and other things so um our next meeting will be January 23rd uh there will be a 5:00 priority needs uh meeting and then a 7:00 regular meeting uh so bring um pillows and blankets and things like that dinner yeah um does anyone feel like they need we need to continue uh executive session what we're talking about for or is everyone good okay so uh we will not have executive session today so I will just simply entertain a motion to adjourn move IIA all in favor we stand a Jour thank you very [Music] much for