##VIDEO ID:XUpnVUCfSB8## evening everyone it's 7 o'clock and I'd like to call together the November 14 2024 school committee meeting you would please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge flag United States of America stands naice thank you very much evening we have our consent agenda posted as well as the minutes from the October 20 uh sorry October 24th 2024 meeting and the oath to bills and payroll so our motion to accept motion to accept motion made by benol second seconded by Elaine we have two members of the school committee uh remote this evening so all of our votes will be roll call V yes elain elain yes Stacy one second Janine Janine yes thank you yes sty I heard you and Justin McCarthy votes yes as well so that carries this is our first opportunity for interested citizens so if there's anyone with us this evening either in person or on Zoom that would like to speak before the school committee now your first chance there'll be a second chance at the end of the meeting we do not have hearing from no one we'll move on to rec we'll start with our student representative report from Rodriguez thank you so for Shaker Lane Shaker Lane and Russell Street want to thank all the families who participated in the cultural Fair big thanks to venol catel for organizing the Bollywood style presentation as well for as well as eloquence dance studio for their Irish performance they are looking forward to conferences tomorrow and appreciate the time families have set aside the room Russell Street also wants to thank your ruin for the cultural Affair and then several Russell Street members presented in last week's cross District P day thanks to Miss mckel Miss Patterson Miss McGregor Miss Mitchell Miss vior Miss Gilman Mr Jarvis and Miss McKinley for sharing their expertise and then students are moving into module two of weight and wisdom starting next week third graders will focus on outer space fourth graders will study extreme settings and fifth graders will explore word FL the middle school is looking forward to parent teacher conferences tomorrow the high school as well and then the high school concert is coming up on Wednesday December 4th at 7.m there's no charge and they'd like a p PR so make sure to great thank you R thank you we have other listed superintendent Clen are there other other Mission you wish to share you bet uh I'm really I'm pleased to announce that littleon high school is awarded with the college board's AP uh School honoral recognition and uh what that means is uh the AP uh courses that they offer our P fa so to speak and uh they're really recognized for their outstanding work and expanding AP offerings to our students and also uh they are recognized for uh providing them with a great pathway for Success at colge so it's quite a quite an honor to to be recognized so congratulations to uh Dr Harrington and the rest of the administration and the staff and the students uh these recognition Don't Come Easy there's a lot of hard work involved in in reaching this level of achievement so congratulations John and please pass this on to your staff as well thank you no one me uh our fall Sports season is uh pretty close to being finished we have two uh teams uh have a few games left their football team and our our chair uh meeting team is still competing but by the time Thanksgiving is over we'll be officially out of The Fall season then our winter sports season starts in December 2nd good timing I know about you it's pretty cold out there tonight good time to start uh being inside for athletics uh third uh item I'd like to talk about we've mentioned a new communication platform it was called school now they changed quite quickly with uh the turnover and buying out companies Etc it's now called school now and we're going to be rolling this out next week uh parents families will be getting a letter tomorrow from the principles of the schools uh next week the school administration will start using it central office will blend into using it as well and the last phase will be uh training and having staff users as their communication platform so we're excited about this for for years we've been talking about how we can uh solidify your communication so it's much easier for for parents to follow this an app-based platform so you actually can choose how you want to receive information as well so we're excited about this and and uh it's nice to to be at that point in time where we can actually release it we wanted to the app I want to put it in the town newsletter at school now School ma thank you and uh we have planned on on starting it a bit earlier but there were a lot of uh Federal forms and approvals that needed to happen before they would allow us to uh enter the worldwide web so to speak so it took took more time than thought I'm glad we're at this point and that's it for my recognitions this evening great thank you very much lant glenie all right we'll uh we got three presentations scheduled for this evening so we'll Dive Right In so first up we have an update of Safety and Security so we have members of the wion police department joining us this evening for an overview of school safety training and procedures welcome hello to see you again get Brian I just would like to start by introducing officer Brian Jones um Brian is the assistant school research officer he's been helping me for about a year or so year so um he's the only other officer certified to be in the schools as of now um so the last year he SP to the 40 hour required um training course and the other two necessary courses to become certified officially um certified through post which is something that we all as school resource officers have to do now soce yourself already done everybody um oser Jones has been very valuable to me in the last year or so um and days that I go to trainings or days that I take off um he's been able to step in and and help out and assist in ways that I've needed him to um and it's he's also takes the time to go to the elementary schools which um allocates more time for me to be at the high school and really focus focus on my attention there so um it's been very crucial for me to have an extra so thank you um what's that rest here um I just wanted to touch briefly upon the updates that I have um in regards to Safety and Security um first off all the school safety drills have been done and they're complete um we will do an additional one in the spring um as in years past we've always abided by the Alice protocol um which is an active shooter response plan um designed to improve survival during violent incidents um Alice empowers individuals to make quick decisions and rapidly changing situations rather than adhering to a rig rigid one- siiz fits-all response um after the school year we will be transitioning to alert um which is now going to be avoid deny and defend um so alert will be the law enforcement response um and the civilian response that we will um abide by will be air a i i r um and the air protocol stands for avoid isolate inform and react um so this is an active stud response strategy focus on Guiding civilians through a structured response plan during an act of threat and so I'll give you the breakdown of it just a little bit um I'll give you a brief description of what it stands for officer Jones and I um we have not attended the training to be officially certified in it um as of yet it's 12-hour course which hopefully we will have completed by the end of this year um so just to break it down um avoid the first priority is to get away from the shooter if possible this involves uh quickly assessing safe Escape Routes leaving belongings behind and moving as far away from the threat as possible isolate is if Escape is not an option the next step is to find a sare location to hide lock doors barricade entry points and turn off lights to stay out of site informed if safe communicate with authorities and others providing real-time information about the location description or actions of the shooter to Aid First Responders and lastly react um as a last resort if confronted directly take defensive action to protect yourself this may involve physically countering the shooter with any available objects or distractions to disrupt their focus and create an opportunity for escape so the difference from alert and Alice um it's Simplicity and the flexibility of it um air emphasizes clear straightforward action in any setting it may be easier for those with limited training to remember under stress um the terminology erir uses slightly different terminology avoid isolate inform and react um that focuses on distancing isolation and protection similar to Alice but framed to emphasize simple sequential actions um air like Alice is designed to empower civilians with specific actions to improve survival during an active shooter event offering steps adaptable to varying levels of situational awareness and safety all of massachus is transitioning from Alis to air um primarily to streamline and simplify the response process for civilians especially in schools um some of the key reasons for this shift is uh Clarity and usability um air steps are seen as simpler and more intuitive which helps reduce confusion during high stress situations um using terms like avoid isolate form and react offers a more straightforward approach that's easier for students teachers and staff to remember and apply quickly under pressure um it reduces emphasis on countering air minimizes the focus on actively countering a shooter which can be challenging concept for civilians um particularly young students so the counter aspect of Alice has faced criticism for potentially encouraging untrained civilians to engage in a shooter which some schools feel is not appropriate or safe um air shifts towards actions that keep civilians out of arms way instead um it focuses on consistency the air protocol aligns more closely with other safety procedures which can make training more cohesive and consistent across School and public institutions um the straightforward language also makes it easier training and applied uniformally um across varied groups um adaption in feedback and research the transition reflects insights from Recent research and feedback from school districts law enforcement and mental health professionals um air aims to address concerns about the psychological impact of training younger students on countering techniques focusing instead on avoidance isolation and reactive options um as more age appropriate response so this shift um helps massachusett schools adopt a response plan that is more suited to the capabilities and comfort levels of student and staff balancing safety with practical realistic expectations um so that's that's just kind of a brief um overview um once I once we are fully certified we're happy to kind of come back and give more in depth um or have question Q&A if you guys want um but I figured just rather than standing up here saying we're going from Alice to alert and you guys not really knowing that's it's not very helpful for anything um so do you guys have any questions on that before I have my last update no no questions for me um seeing shaking heads Janine and Stacy all set no I'm just glad to hear that you guys have updated the drill so I appreciate you looking into that and getting the training that we need um for something that's a little bit more age appropriate so yes thank you same I I was trained on on the Alice training when I was a teacher and it was upsetting to the teachers too so yeah very much so and also to the students so I'm really glad that there's oh yeah and this will be so this will implemented in the next school year um that way we have enough time to train ourselves um hopefully get staff up up to date and then roll it out with the kids first first um first half of the school year fall awesome and welcome happy to have another SRO on the team for sure um okay and so last thing um on December 11th I don't know if that's confirmed or not T C yes almost almost okay well in the very near future um Personnel from police fire um the nle SWAT team the nle Stars team um the Stars team is the school threat assessment and response system um which is also a part of niml for our region um School staff uh admin Council central office Personnel we're all going to be participating in a tabletop exercise um which focuses on active shooter and active threat response um so this is going to be scenario based um exercise and what will happen is each school will walk um excuse me we will walk each School through multiple scenarios from start to finish allowing each team to discuss their specific response protocols and what services are provided during and after an active threat situation following the school Personnel will view their roles in in the re reunification process uh the primary goal of this exercises to proactively enhance our Readiness for an active threat situation so once the exercise concludes we plan to reconvene um and the chief and I hope to return back here to um discuss the outcomes and explore next steps or further training and exercises um last month officer Jones and I attended the alert training for um as sping fuin and Newberry Port um they all conducted two tabletop exercises within the last year and then um last month they um ultimately progressed to a live action um live action scenarios um with the police fire School administrators um their mayor was an intendance um so this comprehensive Hands-On approach will also be our goal um and to expand involvement and practical experience for everyone involved so um it's good to take the initiative to be you know proactive rather than reactive and I think this is a good start for everybody who who's going to be involved that day so I'd like to extend I don't know if I'm allowed to extend the invite to any school committee members maybe maybe on the second maybe on the second maybe not not necess the first tabletop but maybe this if we do end up doing a second one we can make sure you guys are included and see what what's going on behind the scenes that helpful yeah great that's all I awesome thank you for the update um any questions comments Janine I've got a quick one but uh Janine or Stacy any questions for officer wasinski no thank you very much for everything you're doing for us I appreciate it thank you for your presentation so occasionally we hear from members of the community about potential need for a a second uh school resource officer um sounds like Brian at times maybe we have both of you but it's probably the equivalent of one full time or one point something yes um can you talk to us a little bit about other than the training and you know a nice police presence and getting to know the kids and like the the aspect of that is but what are some other things um that you folks do in the school system like how has the case load changed what's you know what is the trend for this type of stuff just so we have kind of your side of the story in terms of what the need might be to add a second school resource officer at some point yeah absolutely um I mean knock on wood I think that the start of the school year has been pretty quiet um I mean this is my third year now and that seems to be the trend is in the beginning of the school year it is very quiet and then usually after the first break we come back and that's usually kind of when stuff starts to unfold um I don't have anything specific that I can give you that we do on a daily basis every day is is different um you know with having a second SRO it would give us the ability to start more programs and be able to attend other schools on a regular basis um right now I do get I I don't have the time to go to all schools like I would like to um I do if they have an issue I mean principles here are great they are very capable dealing with situations on their own and they only call me if need I mean I think in the back of their head they know that I have other things going on which I appreciate but I also would like to have the opportunity to go to these other schools um if I did have the time um I would like to go into school into I go into the middle school quite often to help um Trish ponore teach and health class um sometimes I'm not always able to 100% um attend those classes because I'm being pulled for for various things so um having somebody else it is it's a good it's a good tool for us to even if I couldn't make it if officer Jones or another officer could be in attendance um I wouldn't say that we're dealing with kids getting in fights every day and you know I think and last year towards the end of the year we're struggling with kids vaping um you know we can't all be everywhere at once and so unless we're catching kids doing it we know that it's a problem but unless we're catching kids red-handed you know there's really not a whole lot we can do so I think that having another officer somebody else available to to try to and I can't go into the the men's room obviously so having another officer of a different sex would be useful in situations like that not that we don't have other principles um but just to have us to be able to go into the baths on a regular basis and you know even just for the security of schools um just to walk around each School a couple times a day I come in in the morning and I do my lap around the high school I don't have the time every day to necessarily go to each school and do that so it would be nice again to have an extra set of hands to do that it does and my understanding is that there's if there are events that are happening outside of school maybe in that students you know family extended family whatever and there's components of it where the the police are involved you folks are very helpful in those those situations as well so extends Beyond just you know top level security within the school oh yeah I mean I can um I can speak to at least two cases this year where we've had um a student with some mental health um issues going on and I've had to come in past my normal eight hour scheduled ship I'm happy to do that I'm not always available to do that so again it is nice to have somebody else with the flexibility to do that not that our Patrol officers aren't capable of handling the situations because they they very much are but officer Jones and I think that we've done a good job in building relationships with with the students and when they see a familiar face not necessarily somebody just coming in in a uniform I think that's very helpful um and officer Jones has done a great job going into the elementary schools and starting to build those relationships with the with the younger students so but yeah we would like to host more events after school hours but again sometimes when it's just one of us it's not maybe not as successful as having two of us so and we all know that mental health challenges are increasing all over in our community is is no exception to that so you certainly doing more families and students that are struggling that that require services and an intervention of times but it it's also in terms of security having another resource officer with us would allow them to spend more time training staff uh be available for staff I mean we all know when when we have to bring a police officer in it's not planned it's it's something that just happens very seldom do we we have the luxury of of see well on 850 we're going to need a police office so and this is kind of a precursor to our December 13th meeting Chief Bernard and I and detective Linsky have been talking the last couple of years and we have had citizens families in our community asking us to reassess how we deployed resource officers so at the December 13th meeting uh Chief Bernard and Technic was answering myself give you a rational our why we would like to move ahead with second resource officer and our app would be to have that implemented in January of this year so it's kind of idea is coming in December we we do have the funding to to support that maybe to go back a bit uh feel like a historian at times uh way back in 2011 uh we had budget challenges in the town and and the school department uh with the budget challenges had a number of uh a of District students move in during the summer so we of a deficit situation we managed to to get out of it but we cut a number of staff and we had to uh take the foney and wait for the resource officer the police department at that time stepped up and picked that that position up so now it's it's time with the needs that we have for for us to reciprocate help pay for a second resource office have the the finances to do stay tuned we'll have more on December 13th for you great great news and detective wasis I just like to to thank you for everything that you do for our school district uh times it can be intensive you're spread very thin and and put a lot of hours of time our students and famili is definitely a benefit from from leadership in our schools and and we're very fortunate in our community to have uh relationships we do with our departments we have a very close relationship with our Police Department fire department all departments and it's nice to to recognize Chief Bernard who when I first came here was the high school's resource [Laughter] officer all right thank you very good thanks so much thank you um move on to our second presentation with C mcast update director of teaching and learning Elizabeth SE along with the high school middle school Russell Street administrators we'll give an update on the 24 Spring incast results and next steps awesome welcome thank you uh here to present our 2024 mcast update for you all so tonight's presentation is going to mirror what we have seen a little bit in the past um to remind ourselves that mcast like other data points is a point of data um and there it's one of many that we share throughout the year and in all reality it's the compilation of all of these data points along with anecdotal data that allows us to see the whole picture of a student progress and so it's important just to keep that in mind as we continue through this presentation this evening you'll note that we are continuing to use open Architects um thankfully they have continued their partnership with desie so nice platform for us to see the uniformity and just very easy easily um use of analyzing that data one difference to call out in comparison sometimes we like to compare direct presentation from last year to this year is that the open architect platform did advance and what they were able to do is differentiate that students with um IEPs versus students on 504 plans and so when we go through the presentation what you will see is that this year's presentation we call out students on IEPs and not including students on five Bo plans so a difference when you're looking at if you happen to be comparing um year to year tonight's presentation you will see the order here uh I'll share some pertinent information related to mcast 2024 and then we will dive into school by school we use a similar model of what so what now what right so the idea of what what is the data what do it actually say but so what is our impressions of that data and then then now what are are the next steps and so you'll see that modeled through every school as we present this evening so I'll start with a pertinent information and maybe most pertinent um now when we say mcast being related to last week in the election your your your mind might straight go to the ballot question that was on the um on the ballot last week and so uh we know that the results were that the the question passed and so we are still waiting more information on the implementation and impact of that law um and so we're waiting for more information knowing that there are changes to come however we're in the moment and presenting on what is the current state of affairs um which at this point in this evening nothing has changed so we're presenting the 2024 information as as that is with regards to Spring 2024 Mass our Ela and math and cast assessments for grades 3 through 8 and 10 were full assessments and they were the typical assessments as we them science for grade nine Again full assessment as anticipated um with regards to grade nine science when we go into science for grades five and eight desie is looking at making changes there are coup into a field testing and piloting of changing their assessment last year we were informed that VI were to participate in uh the field test in the pilot of this assessment and so what that meant for us is that our grade five students and our grade eight students participated in this what that means is that mcast science has two test sessions one of those test sessions was just like everyone else taking in the state as the typical kind of old form of assessment with regards to the sence outcast that is what the results are based on this year so that is what they were able to take the results from the session so half of the assessment that was the regular assessment and provide us with results that they were able to calculate and compare with everyone across the board in cre made the other half or the other test session that our students took was the field test it was the pilot and so what Jessie is trying to shift to is more of an idea of doing science so really being able to transfer Knowledge and Skills onto an interactive performance task so it might include more simulation as opposed to just um repeating information on this this year uh across the state everyone is participating in the pilot the field test so again for our students in grade five and eight it'll be just like last year because we participated in the last year the anticipated um date of that that becoming a new operational fully changed assessment is the 2526 school year so we still have another year to go before that happens with regards to Civics we participated last year um again in a Civics field test and so our students were able to participate in this assessment it allowed us to kind of see what does that look like what did the the actual day of look like for that um and that was helpful as this year that becomes an operational mcast assessment so even though just to clarify that the ballot question passed right it did not take away any endast assessment it took away the competency determination that was tied to the high school mcass assessment so all mcass exams are still moving forward and as you can see desie is still moving forward with changes with regards to the assessments is the competency determination tied to graduation that is what changed with valid question um so the the fivics uh mcast just to give you a little overview because it's slightly different than the other mcast assessments it's it has two major components one is an end of course assessment that's given at the end of the school year it covers all the grade eight standards that are um covered in grade eight civics class and the other component is um a performance task and that is covers one of the seven topics that are within the grade 8 Civics standards and um this year they've released it already we know that that topic for this first operational assessment come spring um is topic four which is rights and responsibilities of citizens so with that we'll dive right into the actual data and results starting with hello everybody like to start by just saying you know and Dr clunch acknowledged it at the beginning we have a great school impressive students talented staff this year we did not have the MC scores we preper to present for quar onland we do have a concerning Trend with increasing number of students scoring The partially meeting expectations category we have work to do we acknowledge this in last year's present ation the work continues um tonight we report the results and offer remedies and strategies for moving ahead and improving performan in our debrief with the different departments and as administrators we've already come up with some other approaches more intensive to provide you know more more intervention with students identifying them earlier and we had some really good plans in our action steps last year but this here we we really need to follow through we there was definitely some cracks in our our approach where we s of relied on you know past performance well this will work itself out this year we already started the year with Comm playing time for English language arts department math department um and we'll also be providing time for science teachers to get together and discuss the preparation for biology but I just want to lead at the outset that we have to acknowledge that the trend line and the graph that you'll see will identify some concerns so you can see that 66% set of the cohort um in last Spring's EA mcast from beating or exceeding expectations that's not typical for us in the past we've had much higher performance um and if we look at comparable schools that we like to you know that we are typically considered in company with you know we could see some of them outperforming us in this area so we're going to reach out to those schools and sort of see in all Department areas um the principales association midwash principal Association president has a meeting tomorrow we're setting up content area meetings uh for all the different departments across the 27 schools of the league or the association and one of the areas of interest is this particular topic of MC and other grou performance so you know one of the questions I'm sure that will merge tonight is what do we do now that about question that still a knowledge is has passed how do how will that impact um the gravity or seriousness which students take you know apprach the test so we'll get that but just to report the results you know you can see the graph there public can see on TV you can see that we're dipping the part the gray area is is increasing and the blue area is uh decreasing in terms of the trend line so it's a very nice graph there we're also not where we want to be in comparison to the U the state averages you know we'd like we'd like to be a little bit higher certainly in our performance achievement SGP is you is sort of can be where it can close to State sometimes because of our small sample size um but we had moderate growth typical growth that's called but as you can see compared to the previous year this cohort um was you know went down in the medi exceeding categories by 12% um and we also have some work to do with you know our collaboration or you know just checking in on this very small sample size we have to acknowledge that for our students in general uh but also in the U students with disabilities with the IEP category students with we IEPs performance compared to last year was down a bit minus 8% so just want to acknowledge that with Ela the other thing I wanted to note I took a minute yesterday afternoon a few minutes and as well as afternoon I sort of look at the students particularly in the partially meeting category and 29 of 39 students like about 74% of those in the partially meeting category for ELA scored ban this is a little specific but this is the this is how granular detail we're getting with the data we're going to even get de not back at the building but between 486 and 499 which is the you know partti of the meeting where they did not they passed the test they did not need any PP an educational proficiency plan 46% of students scored greater than or equal to 490 now if they hit a 500 they're meeting expectations so that's kind of interesting a lot of them came close be the expectations but they were just shy by you know that what were the questions that stripped them up were there did they leave things blank what did that did that hurt them we have to look at that um and just you know not to get too small in terms of numbers but had about at least a half a dozen students who were very close within with less than five points of scoring expectations so we know know something could have been having a bad day there could be a number of reasons for that but we did look at the data of that level of detail and 56% of our Ela partially meting students are students in that category improved their mcast score since LMS so we started we started to look much more closely at mcast history we really want to do that this year I think we overlooked that last year looking at M history looking at the E grade results looking at early warning signs and see try and look for indicators of where students might be in trouble but it was sort of refreshing for us to find out that at least 56% of the students who were in that partial meting category this year outperformed how they did in eighth grade nine students in the in this cohort will require if it's still in effect we're not sure about that after the the vote passed um whether they'll need educational proficiency of players because they scored less than 45 test right so we go to the next slide of the math so you can see again a similar trend line too much gray not up blue like we talk that was gra she used earlier today looking at the grph together um 66% meding expectation we really like to see that pushed up next year and hopefully this time when we're reping out be able to probably say that we've done that since we're we're really committed to that um the previous year down 6% in the med exceeding category and meding exceeding down 16% students with IPS and that's 50 only 15% again had a very small number St only between 15 students overall in this sopt class taking 10 peace um it speaks for itself SGP is worth noting again typical moderate growth some years would been quite High um you know and we're closing in on that but we'd like to be harder than we are so that's a Comm for us as well I would like to knowe as I did similarly for English language arts I took a look at the part meeting category left of grade 2024 on the far right you look at the graph um 50 56% of the students scored between 486 and 495 therefore they passed did not require any PP so that's reduced uh 37% of the students scored greater than a 490 over close to meeting expectations in this category zeroed in on this category how close were the because you just missed it eight students were even closer to points of scoring meeting expectations category and 61% of our math students who in the partial meeting category improved their 61% improve their scores from from middle school and E grade ma it's good to see that the students were who would you know their history in case that they were struggling with with mathematics andest they did pull it up when they got to the high school okay so next slide we had a little discrepan the SGP is not reported for science I think you already know that we had a little discrepancy and we had two different types of programs and platforms were running meeting and exceeding so there was an error in your previous packet so we we corrected that I think that think that has gone out to you before meeting so meeting an exceeding category not as good as we thought it was in terms of that first graph you saw but at 69% um so you know again similar trend line if you look from the over the last three years where we are we have work to do here um but there's you know there's always some know you always find certain you know the stories behind the number that each student has a story and we always celebrate the students who wow that student really that student had expectations so that student you know did not need an educational proficiency plan for math or English that student who really has significant disabilities but really able to pull it off in biology and pass the test um so you know those are things we celebrate we don't report those out we don't up bring up names tonight or ever in public about thecast performance but there are every year there's a lot of families especially when the graduation requirement was in place you know really pleased that wow you know they were really concerned with this student going into High School reading more meeting uh confronting more rigorous content and maybe they had a s history of really struggling the you know path of ela throughout since Russell Street and then they pulled off High School we've always been able to say that that students pass the mcast yes we're concerned about the partially meeting category but our not meeting expectations categories as you can see quite small that continue students have successfully passed the mcast with support even if they need Epps uh at you know they they pass and they graduate from high school and that requirement was in effect so we're proud of that um the students who uh do not meet expectations for the most part were not surprised this for us we know their story we know their history we know the supports that were provided as intensive as they were and we know that some of them um because of the significance of their disabilities their parents have and they know that they're they're not going to receive a high school homeone that was in place that the requirement was in place and now students who do not be expectations according to the state has voted um will be able to receive a high school despite not meeting expectations on this task that's of course providing day satis by local graduation requirements at high school um so um next step we have some the next slide we have some Impressions you know this is most we often point this out and you know sometimes take it for granted but the teachers have always when they review of dat are really happy to report that students continue to perform better on most items next I would say majority of the it ear beyond that size just some years it's been just about all year not so much than the state average um and you saw the sgps in sort of summing there cohort meeting expectations Co this coort in the category meeting and exceeding increase by 133% Thea and 53% to 66% and that this is cohort from when they were in eth grade and there in this this class of 2026 the cohort data indicates that in E exceeding uh categories they increased by 20% Ma from 46 to 66% so that's you know that's good to see that growth over time and worth noting typical action steps that we often report um coming up in the next slide but I'll just go over to the um you just go back a second slide um challenges you know goes without saying having a third of the school students scor in partially meting expectations category for English math not we want to be up close to 30% scor partially in science not when we want to be um and and then of course I just want to acknowledge that nearly doubled in math since 2021 the Next Generation standard did kick in officially in 2022 now 2021 so may they might about no challenging they asking the teachers about that that was something that was science to me particularly about their test um partially meeing percentage of science has increased these shares since 2021 so again we have work to do in developing skills improving achievement levels specifically increasing the students in those in the meeting and exceeding expectations category overall we'll continue intervention ninth 10 grad strength and academic support Andre especially for students with IEPs we have a long list of very specific things we're going to that the teachers have identified what they really want to do what as administrators what we want to do is be more involved in the process we're will to be meeting with them more regularly providing more C planning time so we do the next slide please see take look at that and some of these are things that that we we do every year but I think it's it's really important to make sure that we're he to are we doing what we say you know we do we want to conduct a thorough item analysis to identify areas of concern curricular instructional adjustments especially with board problems and open response questions that was really something that the both math and English identified B explicit review of student MC history and previous Ela math grades that's already under way we're creating spreadsheets to really track the students in ninth and 10th grade um and see if there anyone we really need Spotlight providing more important for well before the testing not as a you know test prep thing and rally you know in early March or late February because they had rcla test or wait till April to prepare for the May one this is something that be on ongoing effort throughout the year now I've already mentioned the providing dedicated common planning time teachers have already engaged in this we continue to do plan to do this on a regular basis the difference now is that both Mr C assistant principal I and the director teaching Le be will'll be involved and really trying to facilitate maybe providing some very spe very specific protocols for data analysis um teachers do a great job in preparing delivering um their lessons but you know something like this they might need some guidance on in terms of reviewing data where you know just the times doing know that we want them to feel supported too incept we're all this together as the cliche says we also want it's not e a couple of notes but just before this meeting we really want to have students take their time you notice there an anecdotal evidence that some of them were rushing the last few years to get through it just they were there were in a larger test setting this past past few couple of years rather than being in classrooms and it can be contagious when kids start to leave a room and and it's very it's easy to be influenced by it so we want you know oh I should I can get M done everybody's leaving you know I want to go to watch um so really have encouraging students to take more time um and providing really helpful practice that's the other thing and checking and monitoring curricular alignment with status and things I know um the specific one really in the middle there continue to incorporate claim evidence reason techniques with writing exercises that's from the science teachers Dr finity and Mr buringer enhanced formative assessments with mcast style exemplars writing prompts released mcast questions so our job as administrators with the Department coord usces to work together and see that this is happening and really monitor it and say see if they have concerns now we don't expect everybody in the next cohort going through the testing spring be expert test takers to do you know glowing but we want them to exceed expectations and have develop more confidence and believe in their performance and be prepared as best they can we feel like we could do better in the preparation of these students and maybe to some extent engaging the parents and the Cress to more than we have the best you know I don't want to say it would become complacent but we certainly got used to really high performance on MCS um you know the past years many of us have been around a while and you know always report out the high schools scores great by the time they get the high school they do pass the test but we also don't want their performance to really slide continue slide again continue continue close collaboration special education teachers to include performance of students BPS and monitor their performance in closy so those are the next steps I wanted to make sure that we completely open as often are and talking about areas we we celebrate our successes but we also get to be open and ready to um present instructional challenges but also leadership challenges and this is clearly one of them to reverse that Trend we try try to see you know a positive Trad upward and less kids in partially meeting more kids in exceeding meeting expectations that's our goal so I wanted to just uh be really honest and open and put ourselves out there because the data is the results are there we can see it and we have work te great presentation um questions or comments from the committee members I'll be shy talk about good news all the time so well I just I appreciate that your next steps don't all involve teaching to the test like so many of them are just really good teaching practices like you know incorporating claim evidence reasoning and incorporating more formative assessments so that you can track student progress and you know so so many of these things I think will will bear out in time in improved mcast scores so I'm I'm glad that that you're focusing on best practices but I I had a question about you know this particular cohort that with the disappointing scores you mentioned earlier that you had done some work tracking this cohort back to you know their middle school mcast scores I mean it's possible this could just be one of those cohorts that just has more students that struggle than you know we all see those cohorts appreciate I appreciate you saying that because it is true there are certain corts that come through where we've seen students really struggle just with so we're going to look at their their grades as well English and math for nth and 10th grade how do they do is it there is it discrep in data is it do they you know do we have a grade inflation thing going on where they they scored well in their final grades but you know they didn't do well on a test that could corroborate you know confirm their performance or what's missing and what's the what's the Gap what do the teacher do differently ensure that they had strong grades As and Bs in some cases but they scored in partially meeting category so we'll have those you know those conversations try to suspend you know we put judgment over here and just sort of try to look at the problem together sayf this what's happening here what's going on what what do we do about it um but we definitely want to look at MCS history both the cover nth grade and the 10th grade and really look for early morning signs that students even eth grade final grade so you know get the transcripts of the report cards which CH Middle School administrators I think we need access to aspect but look at you know how did they finish in in math and English uh science as well and see if there's areas that we can our teachers do a lot of preassessments of diagnostic testing anyway so that's helpful so they can sort of predict who might not perform well a lot of the students who scor in The partially meeting certainly not meeting which is very only a few were not surpris as to us but a number of them even in the partially meeting but I have to say that a third that's a little surprising why did those kids I wanted that's why I wanted to new that a lot of kids came close yeah to to that 500 score that they need to be in the meeting category but they missed it and so we're have to look at their tests their test results we do get that detailed data from desie yeah um so that that should be helpful I I am curious to see how we'll be talking about this as the year unfolds the state responds to the the valid the valid you know decision um and how we prepare kids for full of educational proficiency plans whether they're still expected how would prepare them for an m test that does not have such high stakes attached for it where it reverts back to more of a diagnostic test first similar to grest three to eight now it hasn't hindered our colleagues of the other schools from really putting an emphasis on um you know performing well on the lest they really do do but we'll see how high school students respond to that when they know you know it's not something they have to take from as a requirement I'll be curious to see what state does and districts to to incentivize kids to put the best effort forward well this is a really robust list of next steps so I think to anybody who's worried about the impact of question two that it's going to lower the quality education I mean clearly the high school's taking this very seriously even though the graduation requirement not attached to it so appreciate you said some people might even question that right why we we don't want to overly focus on one metric so the key thing here and you know this very well the CC background is to have make sure that we're L that this that you know the lesson planning delivery of the lesson and the assessment is all aligned to the standards and then It prepares students well to perform more test that's align to the standards and they should be just fine if we prepared them well and we've given them some strategies on how to take a deep breath relax about a test that kind of thing and just just good test Tak you know put you better put more time into it that we find that students especially essays when they put more time right substantially more they get a better score they they didn't rush through it that's just one yeah I also just appreciate really the transparency um it's more concerning when everything is positive all the time and it's you know really appreciate the honesty the little has a lot of strengths in certainly areas to work on and you know it's really evident that you're doing that um and I think the approach is what's important and what I sort of see as a positive is that though there are areas to work on we are approaching it in the right way and in a positive way I appreciate my question is around curriculum and this sort of goes to my background of early childhood and the impact of early childhood when I see stuff in high school it makes me wonder sort of what we're doing earlier and I know that there's been curriculum changes and so I'm I'm just curious if we look at sort of data and time and like when those curriculum changes are made because it's interesting you'll see the impact of that five six years later but when the third fifth graders become 10th graders right so I don't know what the curriculum was then I know we made a big curriculum change in ela recently I guess time will tell you know what impact that has but you mentioned especially I saw where did it say something about essay word problems response questions like you've identified areas where students are having challenges does the curriculum that we're now moving towards address some of that in an age appropriate way that's earlier do you do that sort of analysis well I think could probably address you know in the principles that we across the street Middle School could address their curriculum changes but I do think that you if we put a strong you know really we strengthen our emphasis on literacy and there's been some presentations about that as well that we will see the benefits of that yeah you're going to hear some really great news from middle school and I think from about their results tonight and um and so that that cohort's coming the point you know and we have to you know we do acknowledge we we try we're I want to be open again about we're trying to get the um staff you know to you know we have to acknowledge yes it was a tough time they went through yeah students went staff went through a tough time with Co and things like that we but that's a few years back yeah we can't keep talking about that as for the gaps especially when we've had the kids this particular C we had them for two years in high school yeah and so it's not like they came you know they were remote or that kind of they were in middle school we we don't want to be making excuses for uh performance is we wanted today yeah so but it will be really interesting though to see how we incentivize kids and whether we can use this as a diagnostic in some way we also want to be sure to look at our other metrics our other indicators of high performance Dr KY brought up one um right at the open set of the meeting which was the rap honorable commission this year those kids who were you know we saw the treend line those you know where we the performance wasn't that as well wasn't wasn't where we wanted to be last year a lot of those kidss are AP kids uh and did really well on AP exams so it it goes to motivation it goes to you know maturity yeah and academic skill development so you know the students are taking this in ninth and 10th grade nth for biology and 10th for English now so we do see that as our student will look at other metrics to assess the high school we often want to you know to examine like how we performing as a school we know from previous presentations throughout the year is a lot to celebrate at Littleton high school and this is an area of growth for us you yeah and not my intention is not to say this cohort is a lost cause like because they're certainly not because actually your cohort data comparison itself actually is significantly up from the eighth grade the you showed of this itself impr the students who were struggling with partially in the partially meeting category strug it just didn't meet expectations they partially me and at different ranges and some of them very close to meeting expectations they in many cases outperformed how they did L which is good to see yeah that's really telling that actually shows their growth even after eth grade versus comparing cohort to cohort which is sometimes hard because it's entirely different group of students though as a trend we would want to keep track of it but I really appreciate the the upward movement of this cohort itself right thank you very much Janine or Stacy do you have questions or comments for Dr Harrington I don't thank you I think you guys I think you guys covered everything thank you I have a couple for you um they kind of M thoughts here you touched on a little bit but I was wondering about like this academic divide within the high school like is there do we do a really good job with the overachievers and the AP students because had that presentation like it's an overwhelming number of students um that earn AP credit and where this assessment is across the general population and we well number one let me start by saying I acknowledge this is what data point and it's not doesn't represent the entire student doesn't represent the efforts of the uh the staff but it is a data point it's an easy one to get and you know Boston magazines you know top 10 high school Greater Boston like are we are we going to fall out of there next year if they still use this metric this will be a s yeah um so while we're talking about it let's let's talk about it and I appreciate the transparency and all that good stuff um so I have concerns about an academic divide within the high school like do we have these really great programs um and offer top level instruction to those that want it and then do we perhaps um potentially Maybe unders serve the general population just just a conern of mine I I hear you and I think that's something we would want to look at I would say for our special education staff and Department supports I brought them up in previous presentations there's a lot of resources that the school committee and superintendent and snow and other folks have been involved in providing at the high school they really beefed up our level of service so we appreciate that we had of a special education teacher this this year so that should help who's also teaching you know um a more intensive of math CL co- teaching a math course uh so that's really helpful so Ma I would just wanted to focus specifically on students with disabilities there that there's a lot of supports in place um and teachers the educational support professionals each day are doing their job with them um could we do better yes the data tells us at least for them yes that we could um are they doing better than the in in classes that they take perhaps we're going to have to look at that data the other to speak specifically to you duai I really want to look at the college prep we have different levels at the high school we have you know 18 students so you know we can't offer an fa pce for some Sometimes some of the kids don't want to take them they want so offering them online things like that and kids are studying on their own we've talked about this in previous presentation so I would say though that we need to look at are there significant to T to go right at your question you know are there diff significant differences between college preparatory classes and honors classes and do is that reflected in the results are honors kids students who are in honors classes scoring in the partially meeting category and if so why and you know and how did that happen and so because we have a lot of override sometimes for courses where especially where parents and students want to take honors courses but they've been recommended for a college prep course what's the distinction we superintendent actually brought this up this summer talking about what other the true distinctions between College bre and honors some schools have unleveled certain they start with usually a specific Department you know whether it's history history in nth grade or English or they might math it's a little bit trickier sometimes and people generally acknowledge that but some people might be in favor across the board on level in ninth grade but where do you start but before we would get to that you know decision we need to look at data we want to look at other schools that are similar we have tried that and then rted back to instituting honors and CP there's a caution there to do that but first we have to identify as to answer your question directly by doing an inquiry into that and saying do we have a significant difference between students who the educational delivery your opportunity to learn access to curriculum high standards I tend to think what I would like to think is principle that we we do provide a a rigorous called Preparatory bound you know prepar curriculum for students who want to go you know Le CP is for you know certainly kids would be able to hold their own um in College of work either at the community college or at state school and then the honors courses if the kids will more self back to in pendent ERS show initiative and that kind of thing and maybe a little bit more academically skilled at in ninth grade and then that skill continues to develop we might want to also look at do students leave those TR do they have access to higher LEL curriculum do they stay in CP College Prep or do you know the track of sorts or do they move on to honors courses so I think your questions a great one and worth us bringing back and really digging into it so I'm going to remember the question and we'll follow up on it and I'd like to report back to you on what we find right so your your answer was so good you almost hit on all my future questions as well but I'll I'll ask them um just so you have them you don't have to okay if if you feel like I'll go back to the tap yeah if you feel like you left something out you want to add it I know they're chopping at the bit to get up there um yeah right so one of my questions was was kind of just for me so if I look at this data and we say 66% of students were meeting or exceeding 10th grade ELA so that means 34 were not does that mean 34% of the students would actually need to retake this exam in 11th grade to past it no so the The partially meeting category has that's what there's score somewhere in the partially meeting category I'll tell you exactly though just for the public too if you score between 470 and 499 right now as it's that's the current Desi designated range you are in the partially leading category 470 to 499 if you score 486 um to 499 you you can you you can pass you pass the M you don't need to R take it okay all right so it's like really you have you have educational proficiency plan 470 is really the cut off but if you score between 470 and 485 you need educational proficiency plan okay and so that that's the I gave you the broad range but then there's a distinction within that range and it's uh pretty generous actually if you look at it in terms of the amount of points you'd have to get on an gas test this came up in the whole debate about question too but I will go there tonight but you know there is a real threshold of passing and then students have more opportuni take but you know that question you have been decided on there gotcha um the one of you touched on the IEP thing and one of the things that I was just thinking about was like We'll look at 10th grade ELA for example so 23% of students um on an IEP were were meeting or exceeding that seems like a low number I'm wondering why that's the case so I'm thinking well is it really is it is it too difficult in Littleton to actually qualify for therefore we don't have enough you know there might be some students potentially with a learning disability that aren't included in that number and therefore the number is artificially low you don't have to answer that question but it's something I'm thinking about um or do we take a close look at the cohort and say because again the numbers are small um is the severity of of the the learning disability within this IP what really is the challenge so just some of the things I was thinking about because it does like it's a a low number and we do hear from members of the community over the course of the year that um perhaps those on an ie that struggle with with this aren't receiving X Y and Z although we have evidence that over the course of the year um they are and that we provide as many much Services as we possibly can within our the constraints of our budget um so I was curious about that I was C you touched on this earlier I was curious about sort of the report card grip raade versus the mcast score and potential fear that we have you know inflated raids just a question um so just sort of curious if someone's earning an a in a class and they've mastered the curriculum and had evidence of that you know should they at least be meeting the expectations now granted they might not that individual might not be a good standardized test taker or whatever but I was just kind of curious as to what the trend is all great questions um and then I love your midwatch um collaborative that's going to take place and this is a hot button for you but I just want to let you know that if there are other opportunities for you to get involved in sort of mcast related hey there's a subgroup forming we need resources we want you know it might take some money okay although this is just a data point it's an important one right so if you learn of anything and you need to come back to us I need to go to this Workshop or this study group is being put together um please let us know thank you and in terms of your peer pressure def the exam I get that um we you know we're going to have to do something about culture right in terms of like we're on this together the grade no longer matters for you to get your high school diploma but it matters for everybody in town because this is one of the metrics in which our high school is ranked and we all live in this town for a number of reasons school system is one of them that's um so I don't know what you're going to do um I don't know if you can you know you can even look at that SGP like can we incentivize students who have a high SGP and we want everyone to try their best or we don't want anyone to to quit on the exam early but it's challenged I recognize that but I think it's something that we can work through based upon the culture that we have within LPS yeah I'll just close by saying so well said I'll take those questions back I want to follow up on each of those items with the staff as we continue to really do a deep deep dive into this data and try to figure out how we best prepar students for the next spring performance thank you very much Justin thank you for that and and you use the the Acron SGP and gives me an opportunity to to maybe talk you a little more there's a lot of jargon and education student growth percentile is something we watch very closely if you look at the slide that that you were looking at with special education at a 51.8 uh SGP which is typical what does that actually mean I mean you get these these people that specialize in in metrics Etc in an SGP is is comparing the academic achievement of students with similar learning profiles throughout the state so when I see 51.8 uh in that group it gives me the confidence that there some significant confidence that these students are are progressing in their learning in year to year so it's a very important measure I know at times we throw these terms out need to slow down and talk about well that's one thing that that we all look at really closely and it's focus and and I'm I'm obviously involved in the data analysis with with Mr steel and the administration that uh we are or they are more correctly teasing down fairly significantly when they're doing this and what we're doing is central office staff is we're we're we're creating a standardized approach that doesn't mean that's all you use depends on the situation that you're in for example John went back to the great eights uh achievement levels of of the mcast exam sometimes you don't need to do that depending on the she she so and one thing that we we didn't mention because we do a lot is that our assistant principles have worked very hard this year uh to take a look at CCT gaps toes and have come up with some significant uh strategies that that are working well in our we all know if the students are in school aren't in school uh it puts them at a disadvantage in terms of learning what they need to learn especially in high school where the pace of learning is is significant for the things um I know everyone wants so the SGP I was thinking the student growth that was like similar to how the mapwork where it's an individual score on your growth from year to year it's different it's different it's a different it's a different metric so but it's not it's not the individual score or it is an individual score it's every student would receive their unique SGP yes they do okay so that's that's what I was thinking was just like you can look at someone's and that's why you don't and like you know but the metric whatever for everyone who gets higher than this um the Met goes beyond Littleton Public Schools it's uh it's throughout the state like so right um well you touched on The Chronic absenteeism I'm just curious because I you know I know it's a state initiative and I don't think everyone perhaps realizes State initiative letters have gone home emails have gone home like does do we does does Littleton have a chronic S&P problem or is it within a like micro population correct correct got it good way of putting them micro population totally fair and our chronic ASM has improved also between two years ago and last year last year and this year already we're seeing improvements so it's that is trending in a good direction sure but doesn't hurt to make that push really totally off topic but since we're on it like so one of the things I saw was you know coffee with the with the vice principal I think for absenteeism and I'm just curious like I'm thinking if the kid isn't going to school the parent probably isn't coming in for coffee does it does that actually work or no this time this time unfortunately okay right it did not have the desired effect um that but I think the thing is that we're we're putting a different opportunity sure and we'll see what works we'll try everything exactly it was kind of the hook that went out unfortunately it was not a successful hook and so going back to the table of okay how do we do what do we do differently and we know that middle school has done a really nice job in the past of going out into certain Community certain areas within the community and that has been successful um and so this was like trying a neutral location using the library um for a variety of reasons which is the other part I had a conversation with Romano about it and she was like it could have been this this this this this and I was like you're right it could have been any of those and we can't figure out which one so we need to acknowledge right we tried it wasn't the right one let's figure out what else we can do sorry we're going down this radicle blame me just we always this to me Sparks curiosity more than anything else do we have any data or like looked at data on what is causing like I don't even know if there's a trend or they're very individual circumstances there are a lot of individual circumstances yeah so my impression was that the trend was postco like people were out of school and then there was this like reluctancy like I don't have to really go I did it remote whatever or I haven't seen my family in months and this is a priority for me right now school can wait which I heard a lot of for sure and at this point I I'm just curious more than anything is like a reluctance of school is it personal issues and if it's personal issues what sort of control do we have over that is a bad way of saying it other than I know some districts in some other states that'll actually punish consequence give consequences to kids that miss school and in Massachusetts just doesn't do that but there's just certain things that are outside of our control I mean you've mentioned some of the some of the things we see and uh and I go back to how do you how do you help parents feel comfortable dealing with schools and it really comes down to relationships agree if if they don't a parent doesn't have a good relationship with the school they're not going to be jumping up and down and go for a copy with the assistant principal but when you take those opportunities to reach out to those parents in informal settings where you're not talking about something that the child isn't doing you have that opportunity to build a bond and relationship and then they start feeling more comfortable yeah and that way they I guess in a basic way of saying it is it really emphasizes the the point that we really care and and sometimes parents forget that of time because they're not having positive interactions with with with schools and we do care I mean every decision that that is made for a child is in best interest of the child but sometimes parents may not see that because we don't always agree on what that is so the more you can you can get out there and and seek out those parents and and make them feel comfortable then then you're going to have more people that feel comfortable sitting down with you there are tougher conversations do and we've been working on that as well you know I relate your question to um like the my my job at work you you manage your supervis employees and oftentimes there is a legitimate reason for absenteeism but eventually that they resolve that situation but then they continue to take advantage of um the need for you know cutting out early or coming in late or missing work or whatever and I'm sure that's like literally the same exact thing that's going on in the school system is uh there might have been a situation where they needed to be absent or felt that it was very important to be absent and once that is extended it's like there becomes an abuse of that is my guess and it's like no no no we we need you to come back full time like you've what you what has happened has been resolved or we can work through this but we can't have you um coming and going as you please just because you had that luxury at some point in time that's my guess and my guess is from anecdotal data that there has been a a shift in the demographics of the population in Littleton where more and more people are coming from different countries that requires longer periods of time and clean prices have gone up I hear this a lot I was a kid we would go during vacation nobody can afford to go during vacation I'm being perfectly honest and families live in different countries as the demographics changes families Don't Live Here Local or even in this country but live in other places and so that you can't just go for three days to another country and so I'm sure that this is a trend I hear it plenty and I'm guessing that it happens a lot more in the younger ages than in the older ages when they know that they can't miss school because it impacts grades and it's one of those things where again I feel like curiosity of like this is a priority for families and some cultures and that connection with grandparents or you know they they're missing some of that here and so like how can we approach this with a lot of questions and relationships exactly what you're saying um and and trying different things and throwing them at the wall is is the best thing I think it's a great idea you know it's almost that you've attended a few of our a meetings' had that conversation exactly right because we have noticed that there's a lot of just what you're saying there's a lot of really significant Case by case situations but we have also noticed and particularly this change of demographics but also since the pandemic I think there was a reprioritizing of individuals right if I haven't seen my family in so long I'm going to take advantage of being able to go do that and you're right we see it a lot more at the younger grade levels than we do at the upper grade levels and we've had conversations of right so there's it's value it's what the family's placing value on and what we want value placed on right and so coming to that table and figuring and having those conversations of where is that value lying who's the one to decide that that value can be placed there or cannot be placed there and when does that stop right we've had a lot of conversations around our admin table about this um and because being present in school significantly makes a difference yeah um but we also realize that there's real life experiential learning to be had in other opportun as 12 so that we haven't solved that debate I will put that out there right but um it's certainly something that we considering which is why we're also kind of just throwing ideas out there to see what we can get to stick but also to reinforce them and build those relationships and it's a real interesting sort of equity challenge I'll say because you sort of hit it on the head of like different values and I I wonder if there like you said like there is such a value in something that's being missed when children aren't at school and there is sometimes for families an equal if not more important value to a grandparent that is not going to be here much longer and having that relationship to where maybe they're not missing this completely like how can that still happen if the child isn't in school maybe not in the same way but at least in some way where it is in an All or Nothing situation I don't know if that would even yeah all right I spearheaded and allowed us to take a dive on that tangent um why don't we reel it back in and invite the vice principal van up to discuss his overwhelming positive Middle School uh Jason can't be here tonight he had some surgery yesterday so he's recovering so I will be come on work right we'll start with grade 6 Ela the SGP was 76.8 which was in the high category 76% of students were in the meeting or exceeding category and that was a 10% increase from the previous year for students on IEPs the SGP was 69.2 which again was in a high category 32% of those students were in the meeting in exceeding which was a 14% increase from the previous year six grade math the SGP was a 59.6 which is in the typical range 61% of students were in the meeting exceeding category it was a 1% increase from the previous year students on IEPs the SGP was a 57.6 which was in the typical range 23% meeting and exceeding that was a 9% increase from the previous year 7eventh grade ELA uh SGP was 72.2 that was in the high range uh 69% of students were meeting or exceeding category that was actually a 3% drop from the previous year for students on IEPs the SGP was 55.5 which was typical 15% of those students were in the meting or exceeding range that was 12% dip in the previous year grade math the SGP was 58.4 which was in the typical range 54% of those students were in the meeting or exceeding category which was a 15% increase from the previous year for students on IPS the SGP was 51.6 which was in the typical range 15% of those students were in the meeting or exceeding category and that was a 1% decrease from the previous year uh you look at eighth grade ELA the SGP uh was 52.9 in ela which is in the typical range 65% of those students were in the meeting exceeding category which was a 3% dip from the previous year for students on IEPs 40 uh the SGP was 49.3 which was in the typical range 21% of those students were in the meeting or exceeding category um for some reason open Architects was not giving us uh the previous year comparison so we looked into it we couldn't find a reasoning for it um so that was just sort of we couldn't find what the comparison the previous year was good uh eighth grade math uh the SGP was 63.9 which was in the high category 55% of those students were in meeting or exceeding uh range that was a 1% drop from the previous year for students on IPS their SGP was 52.3 which was in the typical range 177% of those students were in the meeting or exceeding category which was an 11% increase from the previous year and thenes uh Science and Technology um 72% of those students were in the meeting or exceeding category which was a 6% increase from the previous year and uh of students on IPS 28% of those were in the meeting or exceeding category there is no SGP uh for this because they do not take it in 7 so some Impressions uh strengths sixth grade ELA student growth percentage was ranked number one out of 323 Massachusetts school districts 7th grade math had a 15% increase in students moving into the meeting of exceeding category from the previous school year 8th grade science and technology had 72% of students in the meeting or exceeding category which was a 6% increase from the previous year and 32% the 32 point uh 32% higher than the state average uh challenge uh unleveling seventh grade math has been positive but leveling up requires further development of instructional practice practices to reach all Learners assessing our new mtss structure to ensure that it is consistent and effective and scores in special educa scores for special education students improved but there is considerable room for additional growth and next steps provide additional training and support for our special Educators delivering in-class support and small group instruction in mathematics developing an instructional transition in ela from sixth grade to seventh and eth assisted by an increased expectation of writing across all curricula and through scheduling and prioritization expand the bre of our mtss programs to reach more students access to inclass interventions any questions I got a couple but yeah I have a couple um I think it was grade six Math we were so worried about last year like there was a real dip and so I was really interested to see that increase with grade seven math that's that same cohort and they they had quite a quite an increase so that was nice to see um my question is what can you say more about unleveling seventh grade math and what it means to level up yeah so when we decided to unlevel seventh grade math there was a concern like we we had the pre-algebra and then the sth grade map so that we were going to sort of meet the middle to not you know challenge certain students but Jason has been from the beginning saying we're going to level up we're we're going to teach the pre- bre to every student we're going to move it up and and that requires support to make sure that all students have what they need for this challenging challenges up I'm moving up class night the grade and is that a move to make sure that kids can get to calculus in the school because they had I uh that was a move Jason was he he felt it was an equity issue that he wanted all kids to have an opportunity to to have the you know have an opportunity to move into algebra and eighth grade if they can be the challenge okay what what has what has happened throughout time when it comes to level courses is uh it creeped into middle school and you know was a pretty young age to be determining the Middle School's uh fate when they're teaching completely different courses to them so the the thought is and certainly back my research is that we're we're not challenging some of our students because there there's always so so many opportunities to get into that higher [Music] class there's no surprise to any administrator in this room that I'm not a fan of Lev courses in middle school and I'm not a fan of of uh level courses in grade n or 10 High School weather so was excited to hear that Dr Harrington is going to take a a close look uh and we have before uh in terms of the curriculum offerings with CP as to Hors Etc and I had the opportunity and system I was in to work with the university and create honors programs and regular classrooms for criteria get an honors grade and finished high school with h as category you were automatically admitted into the university on your standard and students can overachieve and it's really not overachieved but they they they they can perform better than than sometimes they think they can and sometimes adults think they can so it does disadvantage students and now we go to the UK they uh they love lettering over there and uh to the point where by the time a student is in Upper Middle School the track is already de determined for you're going to be going to a trade or you're going to get to college so well I I applaud your efforts to make sure that everybody can get to algebra because it does have a trickle up effect with you know if they don't get to calculus because they didn't get algebra in middle school that can impact Majors that they choose for college you know it's so it's it's a really important initiative and I'm I'm glad that you're you're working so hard to make it it's an equity issue so glad you're working on that anybody else I'm I'm glad you asked that question I I was actually thinking like just the opposite like unleveling meant that we weren't going to give everyone the same and what we were doing was we were so glad you started by that to me my question is related to something completely positive um why do you think the sixth grade ELA students would see the number one ranking in Massachusetts for student growth Angie gresco T no I I think I think I think you're right I think it was the breakout of reading and writing was two separate clocks yeah they got double double the double the time double the curriculum and that was done because it was a large grout and then it was like it wasn't an accident but it was like a scheduling need and it was a double down on that instruction yep and the current sixth graders aren't as big and do they have that they have that we're sticking with that okay s okay yeah and and I will say this um when it came to that they didn't just say oh this is a great thing and and we're just going to let it unfold like once that sort of came in they hit the ground running I mean they dive through data they look at it all right where are the areas that we need to approve that we need to shore up and then they use that to form their teaching and then they look at individual students and say all right what supports do these students need to move the needle they really use that data to inform it and that's really trickled through the upper grades and across into math and science so it's really kind of started a wildfire in terms of really looking at the scores not to teach the test but to really use the data to drive like all right what are our areas of improvement now how do we use our resources to shore those up and it's had a big impact and I think the other subjects have seen it and they're they're taking that role this year they're really jumping in what's also nice I can add in I'm not going to bring us down this a different P um but really what's really nice is that adding that separate writing class what that has done is really allowed writing across all content areas in grade six and so um Andy GCO who was teaching that writing class has had conversations with Jen go the math teacher um and Dustin the social St teacher to say like what are the standards that are tricky or that you have a hard time getting to because of time and she's able to bring those in to the writing class and so it really is this beautiful kind of cross curricular it's double dosage of ela but without realizing it they're also at times hitting getting that double dose of maap because what she's focused on is writing but through a math ons and so is a really nice um opportunity not just an expansion of ela an expansion of ela and so I think that's just important it's incredible and it was born from a schedule solution right yes amazing I just want to feed back on that withing Cresco given that her background is in special education working with students with language based learning disabilities but also having work in special education across all content areas it does give her an addition kind of insight and breath to be able to um have the the skills and the capacity to do that writing across the the curriculum that that so my my host personally lived that last year so shout out congratulations please bring that back um it was amazing you know I'm doing homework I I hate sharing personal stuff but anyways um started yeah like we're doing you know we're doing homework and I'm like it's getting like wrap it up she's like no I have to have this I have to have these you know and it was it was a struggle but she knew what she needed to have in the writing and I think having that I block all year long across that entire grade level like we probably got some really good writers out of it or it doesn't seem as difficult for a vast majority of the population it's not something that comes naturally to everybody um so I think that was awesome just like and I like number one out of 300 23 districts like that's unbelievable yeah I I have to remember the top of my head but I think the I think the S GP was any better yeah we were we were like top 11 in all the three categories that out because desie doesn't like to rank districts against each other so open Architects oh really I when it's open Architects you can then go to district and it will rank you against 11 schools in the area and then it R you state out of 323 I like dat that's so now that we've to toed to number one we'd be kind of curious to see what the other ones are in open architect like for all grades and all me we if we have the data let's I'd be kind of curious to see it where we rank yeah um but great job um I have a general data question do we know or do we look at Data before 2019 because you know there's a significant thing that happened in 2020 but 2019 just looks like a benchmark in all of these was that the trend leading up to 2019 or is that like just an exceptional year with an exceptional cohort it's kind of hard to tell 2019 I think it was I'll be honest I wasn't framing him in just like yeah we we go back five years it's what we is what we look at on the platform so typically you want to look three at least three start to see that five is a nicer M to that um and so what's interesting on open Architects too we're going to start to point where 2019 is going to go by the wayside and we're going to start moving forward to see so 2019 is kind of Statewide it's what even desie will compare to when they come out with data and they're saying we're hitting pre pandemic they're explicitly looking at 2019 for us it's just like with desie it's the last year before hit it was in with our other um with previous years that's what I was wondering if previous years were like this in 2019 was just exceptional yeah okay leg mcast too there a Next Generation mcast that came out with different standards and a different way of categorizing the scoring from needs Improvement or partially needing oh okay um and that they should have failing instead of not giving expectations as a category so there's some changes there as well okay that Mak Stacy or Janine just I leave you guys out nope you guys are having a great discussion asking and answering a lot of great questions thank you good I need have no I have no questions thank you great thank you thank you thank you right [Music] McDonald yes evening everyone uh we'll take a look at Russell streets and cast scores from last year we'll start with uh third grade ELA so our current fourth graders last year obviously was their first year sitting for the encast so there's no student growth percentile for uh Ela or math for third grade um but 60% of our third graders last year were in the meeting or exceeding category which was up four points from the previous year's third grade class um our students with disability 15% of those students were meeting or exceeding which uh was a 10-point bump from the previous year's uh students with disabilities when it comes to math um 58% of our students uh were meeting or exceeding which is an eighto bump from previous year um and for our students with disabilities 30% of those students in third grade were meeting or exceeding compared to 25 which is a 25% increase in previous year in uh fourth grade ELA um this is where we do get our first uh student growth percentile metric we were in the typical range for our fourth graders um 55.1 in the student growth percentile 55% of our fourth graders will Mee meeting were exceeding is a six% dip from the previous year um our students uh with disabilities were in the 44.6 percentile which is in the typical range for SGP um the meeting are exceed in uh percentage was 5% there um which was down by 32% by the previous year this is where it's really helpful to understand the cohort model um because that 32% is comparing that 5% to a whole different set of students on IEPs so if we look at the cohort data um that cohort in third grade was also at 5% meeting or exceeding so it was not a significant drop as that data may appear it was actually there was no change between our our students of disabilities in meeting and exceeding from third to fourth grade um not where we would like to be and and room to grow for for those uh for those kids there but just wanted to clarify that it can be a little confusing when look at it uh similar story with fourth grade math um in a typical range for student growth percentile for the all students category 59% of our students were meeting or exceeding which is 4% below the previous year's four grade um our uh students in with disabilities uh were also in the typical range for student growth percentile um their meeting reing percent was 18% again which is lower than the previous year's fourth graders on IEPs however if you look at those students from third grade into fourth grade um they were at 5% meeting exceeding for math in third grade and grew to 18% meaning you're exceeding in fourth grade so if you look at that cohort you're making progress again a lot more them to grow but making progress fifth grade ELA typical student growth percentile for the all students category 54% of our students meeting exceeding slight dip of 4% from the previous year um our students with disabilities again in the typical range for their growth percentile 14% of those students um were meeting or exceeding which is down 1% from the previous years students fifth grade math um 58% in the student growth percentile in the typical range 59% of students meeting you're exceeding B better than the previous year um our students with IEPs in the typical range of student growth percentile 26% meeting or exceeding which is up 19% um from the previous year and looking at science again as Miss steel mentioned um they took they two sessions of science one session was the uh traditional uh the other session was the pilot so just for that one session of the traditional mcast for science for fifth graders um did very well 62% of our fifth graders were meeting or exceeding um 36% of our students on IPS were meeting or exing that science again we don't have a student growth percentile because that's the that's the first time they have sat for a science and cast assessment uh move into just some general strengths and challenges from Russell Street for last year um so in the all students category um uh the average was in the typical growth range for our student growth percentile in all of our content areas and um three out of the four assessments so if you look at fourth and fifth grade because that's where we get student growth percentiles um in math and Ela so four out of those five assessments we were above the 50th percentile which means those students on average are growing more than the typical fourth or fifth grade student Ross the state um another strength in uh fourth and fifth grade we had the data to to look at from the previous year which students were in that partially meeting category and there was a lot of effort last year through Title One and tier two interventions to move those students from partially meeting into the meeting category and there were 12 students that made that move uh in ela and 14 students that made that move from partially meeting into meeting um from the previous year to last year um and fifth grade math was a special strong point we um looked at the item analysis breakdown uh in the fifth grade data team meeting earlier uh last week and uh we counted that there were 26 of the math standards where our students performed at least 10 percentage points higher than the state average so there were really some math questions where our students were Were Far and Away exceeding um State averages um I'll just point out one example I always like to look at the the multi-point questions in math because those are kind of the multi-step problems that our students have to answer you need answer part A and use your answer in part A to answer Part B and then part C and then explain all of your work in part D and when looking at those questions for fifth grade math especially um we were you know 1520 points um higher than um a lot of the the state averages which is really great to see because that's really promoting those those critical thinking standards for our students um some challenges uh to foresee for um for russle Street there is a large disparity as you saw between the meets and exceed percentages um from our all students category to our students with disability subgroup um there's a there's a big Delta there and we want to work towards making sure that those students with disabilities and also in that second bullet point that high needs subgroup which is a combination of our students on IEPs are low income students that are multilanguage Learners um that they that those subgroups are making more than one year of growth per year because they typically have a larger Gap to fill so we want to make sure that we're shrinking that Gap so there's less of a disparity between the percentages that you saw in the previous slides um and then another challenge uh this year in particular um we are in the thick of uh new curriculum uh for literacy which comes with new standards alignment and what we're understanding as we as we really dive into that curriculum is that there are going to be standards that um are in that program that will be taught and assessed after our students take the mcast so uh we're working through that right now to to really understand how that will affect um how students do on certain questions that assess certain standards that they may not have had Direct instruction on yet um because we have our pacing guide for wh wisdom goes all the way to and we know that mcast happens a couple months prior to that so we're working through making sure that we know um you know we'll use this here to really understand how that's going to affect our students um the the good news on that front I know the Russell Street was in a similar situation a couple years ago when they launched into math as the new math curriculum and um last year a few grade levels adjusted some standards and when they taught those standards and those modules um because they saw those dips from previous year's mcast um geometry standards are coming to mind right now because I know that we made a huge jump in our geometry standards because the teachers were strategic in their planning um and their pacing to make sure that they hit some of those standards Prov every student sitting for the ncast we're not going to totally adjust our curriculum and our pacing to fulfill you know when mcast is but it's it's good to know um where we teach certain standards in school year so we can understand how that be reflected in this one day um our next steps um we've already uh are well on our way for that first one so reflex is a platform uh that helps students practice their math fluency facts and automaticity uh we found that for um all of our students especially some of our our struggling students on math um it's that automaticity that we really um Can can lock that down they have a much uh better and easier time getting to that those higher order thinking questions and um and answering those questions correctly so we've launched reflex to all of our students this year last year it was piloted for our students in the title one math program and uh fortunately a lot of those students that were partially meeting and now in the meeting were part of Title One math last year so we saw a lot of successive reflex so that is now um an expectation for all of our students uh one thing that we encouraged them stents earn three green lights a week which means that they're practicing those those math facts uh frequently and making progress on those facts um I just looked it up so far in the first three months of school Russell Street students have solved 1.36 million math facts so there you go um another Next Step um that I've talked with our leadership team on is is adjusting our win time um to Target skills and standards gaps that we're seeing across grade levels so we're working with our team leaders um to develop systems to strategically group students based on their level of need or their level of enrichment that they may that they may need um uh to be creative in how we're using those 30 minutes per day where every student in the grade level at the same time um has that what I need period um and how we can most effectively and efficiently use that time to Target some of the skills gaps that we're seeing um and then our last next step is um the Whit and wisdom curriculum includes writing for out the module and responding to text in all lessons our kids are writing way more than than they well I can't say than they were in the past because I wasn't here but I know from working with in other schools that like I've seen so much more writing and written wisdom that I had in other literacy programs um so what we are so I think that's going to benefit us in the long run um but we also want to make sure that we're identifying those those ncast type prompts that may uh not be in the curriculum um and supplement those to expose our students to that type of question so that when they sit for the mcast they're not totally blindsided because the question is being asked slightly differently than it was when they were doing it in their you know focusing question task or their end of module task um we just want to make sure that we're not catching anyone by surprise if they're asked to write about a theme when they're typically asked to write about what the main idea or the the essential meaning of something is we want to make sure we're catching anything the potentially trip our students up so that we get an accurate representation of truly what they know and then that's just not being familiar with the test especially for our youngsters who do not have experience with mcast and and what it may look like or feel like but quick rundown on Russell Street have you answer any questions questions um I I applaud your efforts to adjust the wind time across grade level that's a super tricky scheduling problem and also requires the teachers to really be in alignment with where where they are in the curriculum so it's it's a it's a small needle to thread but I think it can be really effective when it works so I applaud your efforts to try that and I I wish you well and thank you it's it's it all comes down to how we can use the data most effectively to put students in the right places so they can get exactly what they need and then having those that that progress monitoring every four six weeks to see their progress and if we need to make any shifts yeah so that's and then I um the other tricky thing that I mean this is the problem of content that is taught after the mcast that that problem has existed ever since the mcast is existed and I don't know if there's any great solutions to it because you know trying to get all of the standards covered before mcast means that you're really at a rigorous Pace that not every student may be able to meet so it's you know it's like I think it's one of those problems that may never get solved but um and then of course what do you teach after the mcast like it's not like school's over so you know I think in a perfect world if if it was possible to do that and then do some Project based learning or something after MC be great but I you know that's another giant challenge so I I applaud your efforts to really be a hard look at that but we it's not going to be perfect we have other Benchmark assessment data points that we use that are towards the end of the year so we can get a we can really see the progression of our students growth from a 9-month school year as opposed to when students sit for the mass and said yeah thank you I think I'm right but in Russ street it's the um maybe it's just certain grades I'm trying to remember it's like two different groups and the kids stay teachers rotate is that how some other the grade levels work in fifth grade yes so it's fifth grade only okay few of our fourth grade classes swap for social studies and science but fifth grade has the last hour and a half of their days of two Block Rotation essentially um so maybe this isn't applicable but I was just curious is there data to look at the two different cohorts within fifth grade like can there be a peer analysis to say hey this group of student students to well on this aspect of the test fell short here and the reverse is true here and can be learn from one another I don't know if that's even possible but yeah where I think it would be most where we could really look at that would be in science yeah um because this year all six of our fifth grade teachers are teaching their home room for their full Ela block and their full math block was how we could work it to make sure that Whitten wisdom was taught you know they they needed 90 minutes for Whitten wisdom so students are only switching for um science and social studies okay um so I I think Cheryl Temple PR promised us 70% remember that go back I'm going to go back to the T you're only in year one and she left you with that massive problem so am I right you like mid presentation so um we we'll keep it on um but question not not for you but the question for everybody um I you know if other school committee members are interested I would like a deeper dive on the IEP population we kind of see these numbers year and the numbers are um they're unsettling with me you know to hear you say um you know 5% of the fourth graders um were meeting or exceeding in the ELA and you know well it's they were 5% last year too so it's not that bad um I just just you know if the school committee would like it and there's no rush but could we talk about the IEP population and the MK data because I think just telling the story about the makeup of the IP population of course you know you don't need anything that's confidential whatever but just give us the narrative on what's taking place here so that we don't just simply look at the number and say wow those are really bad um and it pleas not tonight please but um and not even not even not even next week but sometime in the near future please if we could take a deeper dive on that so we have a better understanding and we also don't really see state state um comparisons for IEP and perhaps you could Enlighten us with that as well yeah we're doing um a program of evaluation we're in the third year of our threee program evaluation and this year looks at our inent practices and so that's certainly something that maybe we can incorporate into when we present on that sure yeah I think that would be really helpful because it's it's such a small sample size sometimes the data isn't really accurate so sensitive data but I me it's the data does tell a story and I think it's important to really I think that that it does behoove us to be looking at those instructional practices just because it is a little bit disparate across um the buildings as well sure thank you yeah and my Baseline was like because we talked about this earlier it's rough roughly 18% of our population so I just like a little bit of a deeper dive on on these 18% you know we celebrate the what you know 25 pick the number 30% of students at the high school they Tak from the aps let's get some more information here um Janine and Stacy comments or questions for principal McDonald I I like your idea of having a another um pass at this on with a focus on IEP thank you for bring that up welcome good good all right thank you very much thank you all right joh question all right so question for the committee it's 8:55 theane just sidebar me and said hey we could move presentation three to the following week um of oh okay so would the what I'm we're g plenty of room next week in next week's agenda no some room in next week's agenda to take presentation three and kick it a week can okay with that brain power at yeah unless you could do it in because I want I want everyone's she wants to be presentation number one next um I'm okay with that you're the presenter you're okay with that fine we'll keep you in suspense for one more week sorry to those that tuned in just for that um all right that that closes up the presentation portion of the evening we'll pause for a second opportunity for interested citizens a slow three count hearing none we'll close that portion of the meeting and we'll move through our subcommittee reports uh first up is pmbc and um unless there's a unique pmbc subcommittee report I'll ask that maybe the Shaker Lane building committee update be given at the same time yep I can do that for you guys uh Kelly can probably chime in if you want to but um first I want to say you guys have such great energy tonight I wish I was there for such a long meeting you guys have F we skipped too seriously I love it um yes I'll try to keep this brief because we actually have had a lot going on these past few weeks since our last school commit uh school committee meeting so um October 29th um this Shaker Lan building committee actually presented at town meeting we had about 10 minutes to give a lot of information to voters just a general idea of what the project entailed we went into the finances into kind of what the tax um what tax impacts would be we also went over the three different designs that the building committee and our Architects have been working on um so I think it was a really great first go at giving the community an idea and kind of getting the word out about the project and and what what kind of the timeline is and and what to expect going forward um so we have that and I also wanted to mention that if for anyone who wants to know more information about the the building committees work um if you haven't been able to go to the tours or you missed the meeting if you just go to um um the LPS main website there's a link there for everyone to click on um that it will say it says Shaker Lan building project and if you click on that it can give you all of the up-to-date information um as to what we've been working on with presentations um so the second thing that I wanted to update everyone on was we actually had one of our first open to well not our first but a public tour of Shaker Lane last night um it was about 40 minute tour of the building for voters to come in just to get an idea of what the the needs of the building are we had about 20 people that came for tours um but we are having and hosting another one on Tuesday November 19th um at 6:30 pm. um so there's also there's an invitation sheet on the website for the building committee and if you would like to join us we would love anyone to just sign up so that we have an idea of how many ATT attes will have um but it's a great opportunity to take a look through the school just to get an idea of what the needs are of the school um and we we are also breaking out into small groups so that people could actually kind of ask questions as we're walking through the building so you can get a kind of a better idea of what the needs are and and why we're involved in the project right now um and then lastly we also had a building committee meeting yesterday in which we voted on kind the the final option for what are going to move forward with um with the msba so we have had we have three different options for the building design we chose of course I had it on here um we chose option 3.1 which to be a little bit more specific on that so that's a new building in the upper field so that's behind Shaker Lane so it's a completely new rebuild so essentially what the kids would be doing is they would be in the Shaker Lane as is the building would be built behind them while their kids are at school and then hopefully with a good timing and transition um the whole school would move over into the new building and then the current building would be demoed um so that's the option that we will be going forward with the msba so the other two options that we've discussed and have done a lot of review on are no longer um on the table because now we're going to focus on really fine-tuning the design and the costs of of this this option that was voted for um and I think that's it I don't know Kelly if I missed anything but we've we've done a lot so yes yes you've done a great job the only thing I can add is we created a banner on our website uh we focused a lot on the the internal structure of the school and and how we about grow in Shaker Lane and uh we do have a 58 page educational plan that that focuses on reenvisioning the education of children at sherlan school so you can find it on the website there and I would encourage you to read it um it uh took us a long time to create that report and uh it does really give whoever reads it an understanding of how we intend to move forward uh and continue with 21st Century Learning with our students and and the design of the school is is integral into allowing us to do that so so please if you have time to read it uh late night read or whatever you know we certainly appreciate it and I and as we continue on with our meetings we're going to change our focus a bit and and talk about more of the the educal educational changes that we're thinking about as well because this was all staged in terms of a stage-by-stage process and we really needed to first of all uh emphasize the fact that that you know we've increased our program we've increased our demographics of our student population and uh we love growing Sheran school and our staff and administration have done a a wonderful job of making it work and they're still making it work but you know we're we're getting to the point now where if we we don't have the opportunity to do something different we're going to be forced to do something different by adding Portables Etc and and you know portable classrooms are are typically added during a bill it's really not a good thing to add Portables as a as a portable classroom to we taking care of your space needs and and in my experience and and it's only in my experience somebody may have different experiences once you lay a port portable classrooms on your ground you may not look as enticing uh to to uh here your community uh that you you really do need uh a new building and and all we're doing is mandating the the issue that we have because it's not just space it's being able to to to educate our youngest Learners in a fashion that that's going to build those skill sets so that they're going to continue to be successful who their educational system um can I ask you a quick question the um the Shaker Lane web the on the district website you know how there's the separate link to the Shaker Lane project is that going to be updated with the new information that that option has been chosen and yes yeah okay because I'm going to I'm working on my entry for the town newsletter so I will direct the town's people's attention to that website with that new information sure and if you want we can forward the latest presentation that we had last night to you so that you can take a look at yeah can you do that and maybe I can link that into the newsletter would that be appropriate course thank you Stacey it's Justin um the option that was selected was that the Shaker Lan building committee number one choice as well so the I guess my question is is the msba in agreement with the shap buing building committee was was that the selection that was made so I don't believe so it was up to our building committee to recommend to the msba so I don't believe that the msba has a particular uh way in as to which one they want the most it was up for us to propose to them and they accept that as what we're going forward Stu and that's that was the one that's out back where all the community amenities were in the front half of the building and in the back half it was all educational and it's an opportunity nature learning and all that good stuff that's good it's on the right um my other question so 20 is good you know 20 participants or 20 for the tour you know I would have been like super excited if the number was like 50 or 100 um we would too do was it 20 like unique firsttime consumers of the information or were there a lot of familiar faces there and and 20 is kind of an artificial number and it was something less than that I would say half half half and half okay all right because I would I mean we will continue to do this as as needed um the community needs to um they they need to be aware of the current state of affairs with the building and the education delivery so that when we go to town meeting a year from now we feel like we have a well inform gymnasium of citizens so I mean I'm saying we'll continue to do it because I I believe it's important but it would be great if we could um have a better turnout for for next week as well I did see like a little bit of Facebook chatter which is good kind of no no press is bad press with this type of thing so um hopefully we'll have a better turnout next week I plan on making it just to have sort of eyes and ears on the on the tour heard it all but plan on going a suggestion to maybe increase uh because I always wonder sometimes if access is an issue if we like entice to people with like a kid moving as they like do something I just always wonder if like child care how much that is a barrier or something we did offer Child Care yeah Child Care was offered and um no one took it week it'll be Avail make it AV again no no you have to go on the tour if you take the child this drop your kid off go to just for the audience letting them know and there were discussions about possible um other opportunities that might become available days you know some just some ideas bed around about how to uh increase the availability for residents to come look at the school correct and with parent I don't know if you touched on this when I set up but parent teacher conferences are tomorrow and for those that are coming into the building you know there's a couple opportunities to to get a little bit of a tour in a Q&A as well so if you happen to have inperson conferences tomorrow and you want to inquire about it you're already there that'd be great we have some nice pamphlets to to hand out as well we at school all set there Stacy all good thanks guys thank you all right budget subcommittee I'll report that the budget subcommittee had a meeting um this week um so we've got a you know a preliminary um draft together which will need to be tweaked and fine-tuned um but things are moving in the right direction there was a little bit of a sneak peek on that tonight with the um potential second resource office um some other um requests or ads for the following year that we're working through but um we're also going to be likely presenting the um the budget presentation in a different format this year which is exciting um so good work was done I can report that and we have our meeting scheduled for our next meeting scheduled for some time in early December that the meeting date escapes me but um Janine will make sure that you're made aware of that in fact I think I sent you an invite already so you have you can put that on your calendar that's all I've got for Budget subcommittee unless Kell want add anything I'm good no we're working on Capital don't have it compiled yet but I'm working on it great the interesting tidbit that I will add about the budget we did we spent a lot of time talking about um for everyone's benefit here is that uh the outer District tuition spend is a number that can move quickly and we've had a lot of success with that in the recent years of um students coming back to Littleton wanting to come back to Littleton us being able to offer programs in house um you know perhaps they they see graduates what's that graduates in students out yeah good thank you for that clarification or addition um you know students or families might experiment with an out of District placement and then realize that it wasn't what they had hoped and then they come back to Littleton um but we have you know we're always thinking ahead in forecasting and there are a couple situations where potentially not District spend coming up um that would impact the budget so you know we're we're going through it in that level of granular detail for everyone's bit um the policy subcommittee has something for us this evening we do this is the policy that we presented last time for first reading um we are now presting for a vote do I call it second reading second second reading sorry um and the if you remember last time we had mentioned that uh it was missing the part about military and Veteran status which this version does have that was a typo from the last one but otherwise no changes from one had an opportunity to read it twice now I don't have any questions questions from our remote members NOP sounds good hearing none someone like to make a motion I would like to move that we adopt policy AC non-discrimination and harassment motion I'll second the motion second Ed by Janine uh this will be a roll call vote go right back to Janine uh Janine yes sty Acy yes yes El Lan yes Justin votes yes as well motion carries uh anything else from the policy subcommittee this evening uh no that we will meet in early December and perhaps have more policies looking forward to it we heard from the Shaker land Building committee already and is there a CPAC update for us this evening there is none there none that wraps up subcommittee reports if there's no other business before the school committee I'll ask for a motion to adjourn adjourn motion made by elain second seconded by Veno a roll call vote as well Janine Janine yes Stacy Stacy yes and good night yes L Lane yes Jus McCarthy votes yes as well we have a j