Good evening everyone. Calling the Norfolk School Committee meeting to order. Today is Monday, December 15th, 2025. I'll begin this meeting by reading our mission statement. The Norfick Public Schools offers a safe, joyful, and challenging learning environment that meets the needs of our diverse students. Through school, family, and
community partnerships, we provide an education that inspires lifelong learners and cultivates caring and productive citizens of our everchanging world. Can I have a roll call, please? >> Peter Schwald, >> Lauren Divas, >> Grace Lockhead, Madora Champagne, >> Lisa Sheldon,
>> Katie Young. >> Nailed it. >> Off to a good start. >> First item on the agenda tonight is public comment. Looks like we have none. Okay. And we have no correspondence. So
that takes care of item B. Moving on to the chair report. We have some generous gifts to approve tonight. Um the first one is for from the Northfor PTO in the amount of $7,400 and this is for the homework homework
club stipens that just began um and indoor recess non-technology bins. The next item is from the Norfol PTO as well in the amount of $2,210 and those are for HOD fall grant requests. Next one also from the PTO,
$2,380. Freeman Kennedy fall grant requests. And the next one is also from the Norfick PTO for $10,000 for a projector project. >> Yeah. And that is to replace the screen and the projector at the age all of day
in the main um auditorium gym combined multi-purpose room. >> Awesome. Looking for a motion to approve these gifts as stated. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Further discussion. >> Almost $22,000. Huge. Thank you.
>> It's very much to our PTO. >> All right. All those in favor. on pair of professional negotiations update. We met when was that? I don't >> last week on umuesday. >> Wednesday. Wednesday. >> So the four uh no that was yesterday was
the 14th. >> See I don't know either. >> Last week on Wednesday >> the >> I would say it's going well. We've agreed to a lot of the language. Um I think that there are some um >> we refer to as tenative agreement, you
know, kind of agreements in spirit and we're continuing to review and cost out financial um negotiations and we are scheduled to next meet in January shortly after we come back from the winter break. So
moving along at the end. All right. So um couple of things just to share some happenings going on around the district. So last week as probably all of you know we had uh parent conferences at both Hol Day and Freeman Kennedy. Um it's a great
opportunity. We enjoy having parents have the opportunity to come in and visit and see their children's classroom. Um meet with their teachers. Um it uh it's a chance to kind of reflect and share information about children's progress and and celebrate some of the growth that they've made over the fall term. So, um, it was great
to welcome so many of our parents and families into the schools. Um, many also stopped by the PTO's Scholastic Book Fairs in both buildings. It's a a very popular event. Also, last uh, two weeks ago on December 4th, the uh, superintendent Dr. Rich Drole from King
Phillip and I presented at the Norfolk Citizens Academy. That was an opportunity for us to share information about the school budget process, some of the critical needs that our schools are facing. Um, talk about how schools are funded. It was a really actually it was a really nice night. We had probably 20
people from the uh citizens academy group. It was held at the Holy Library. Um, we were able to share some of the uh special projects we funded through grants to the schools and then answer questions um from community members of of that group. So, it was a really nice
night, great chance to engage with uh and some rich discussion around school finance. Um I think Donna was there filming for Norfolk Cable. So, it's available for anybody to view as all the citizens academy meetings have been at HOD this month. HOD continues to uh uh
run their be of the month program which is part of their positive behavior incentive program recognizing students who are modeling positive behaviors in the school. They also had uh we have uh we're part of the unified champion schools program which is run by special
uh it used to be special Olympics but it's really a program that looks at how you can make your schools welcoming and accessible to students with different abilities throughout the school year not just at that one day. Um so students in some of our specialized subsequent programs had the opportunity to partner with peers and to engage in unified
champion schools lessons and activities um that went really well. Again, the goal of the program is to foster climates where students with disabilities feel welcome, are routinely included in and part of all school activities, operations, and functions. So, that uh continues to go well. We
have committees at both schools that are working on planning and um schoolwide events and activities related to unified champion schools. Our tech integration specialist, Robin Tuseri, has been continuing to work with the first grade students over at Han Day um to explore
engineering and design through the Museum of Science Youth Engineering Solutions Kits that the PTO supported funding for this year. Um and that is going well. You had a presentation from Robin last time, so you have a sense of what those that curriculum looks like. Um they have an upcoming schoolwide
assembly in the next week prior to the December break. That's a winter sing along and they are running their annual hat and mitten drive at the Freeman Kennedy this uh just last week. The students have earned over 10,000 feathers a month for the first three
months of school. So they had a schoolwide celebration. Uh they did a really great job again designing the event to be inclusive so that all students could participate. They had a um sore hot shot basketball assemblies by grade level. Um students had two
minutes to shoot as many baskets as they could and keep track. Any students that didn't want to be part of the um competition or part of the it's really competition against yourself, but who didn't want to could be part of the cheerleading um and build science and and cheer on their colleague uh their
peers and teachers who were part of the the event. So, it was a great event. Um the kids really liked it. At the end, the staff members engaged in a um a knockout basketball game and the kids loved watching that. So, it was a lot of fun for everybody. They have an upcoming
chorus concert for grades 3 to six on December se 22nd and they also are planning a schoolwide sing along before the break. Um FK is engaged in the season of giving which the school committee approved as one of their fundraisers um and are actively collecting gift cards to support
families who might be in need over the winter season. So, that's a quick look at what's happening across the district. Happy to answer any questions people might have. All right, great. Tonight, we have our new director of curriculum, Katie Young, here who is going to provide you with a
presentation and update on students performance on the spring MCAST exams for ELA, math, and science. Science is only taken in grade five. So, um the others are uh across the grades. So, I'll turn it to Katie. >> All right. Um, thank you for having me
today. I'm really excited I get to present this. Um, there's a lot of of really promising data to look at. Um, we're going to look at some overview of of what MCCAST is. We're going to look at uh how Nor compares to both the state
and similar districts. And then we'll go through some of the specific data for Norfor both for all three for English, language arts, mathematics, and science, technology, and engineering. Sorry. So, one thing that's important to remember about MCCAST is that it's a
measure of one or two days of the students um of the students career in school that year. Um and students respond to that kind of pressure in all different ways just as adults do. Um you know, some students
get really nervous, some students do better under pressure. Um and it's it's really just one or two days of their of their their whole grade level. So teachers, we're going to we look at the data for MCCAST. We like to look for
trends to to find out some ways that we need to grow and some things we're really proud of, but we also look at a lot of the other data that we collect on a daily basis. Um some of which are the benchmark assessments for ELA, math, um
SEAL, uh screeners, unit assessments, sub quizzes. Um this year both the HMH into reading and inter literature and um amplify math have a lot of exit tickets uh or I think
amplify calls it show what you know but it's a chance for teachers to at the end of a lesson just do a little check check check-in to make sure uh their students are where they think they are. Um and then if they're not to be able to provide immediate um immediate support the next day or maybe later on that day.
Um, and there's daily work. So, when we're looking at our students growth and their achievement, we're looking at a lot of factors. Um, I just wanted to to kind of preface what we're going to we're going to look at today with that information. Um, MCAST is important. It really does measure a lot of um the
students their demonstration of their abilities. I think that's important that we it does not measure what they can and cannot do. It measures what they're able to demonstrate at that time. Um, so it's a snapshot. We use that data to reflect and to um you know make some changes as
needed but um it is just just a couple days in their lives. Um most of the students in grades three through through six take the MCCAST on their computers. If there are um accommodations in the IEPs or 504s they can take it on paper.
The paper version is almost identical to the digital version. The only difference would be if there's like if there's a drag and drop for example on MASS on the computer it might just be fill in the blanks with like an answer key I mean um
you know like a possible answers above. Um but in general they all took the same assessment. I think you've probably seen uh some of this multiple times over the past many years so we won't spend too much time talking about it but there are four levels of achievement. um not meeting
expectations, partially meeting, meeting expectations, and exceeding expectations. Um often what we when we talk about our students, we group them meeting and exceeding together. So you'll notice that throughout the presentation. Um and we're going to start with just
some really zoomed out data. So, we're going to dig into our Norfolk data um much more um on a much more detailed level after, but I just want to start by showing our comparisons between uh how Norfolk did this past spring and how we
compared to some of our similar districts and the state. So, I'll give you a minute because there's a lot of numbers up there, but you can see that Norol is about in the middle of the pack um in ELA
and we are performing 16% higher than um than the state and these percentages represent the number of students who are meeting or exceeding our expectations. So, while 58% is um is, you know, like I said, the middle middle of the pack, we
always want to strive to do better. For math, uh you can see Nor's a little bit higher on the on this end in math. Uh 66% of our students scored meeting or exceeding expectations. And again, you can look at the data. There's a three towns that are
similar to us that scored above us. and we scored above um most of the rest of the towns that are similar to us. Uh let's see and 25 points percentage points above the state. So this slide right here shows all of
ELA and all the grade levels um all combined into one score. So when we're looking at the entire FK population, 58% of our students scored meeting or exceeding um the expectations, their
average scale score was 505, which is um which is meeting expectations. And the student growth percentile is 50 is 50. Um the student growth percentile is what is one area that I really do think is
important that we look at and it shows how the students are doing compared to the students who took their same test and did similarly last year. So for example, if we have a fifth grader who scored a 505
in fifth grade, when they go to sixth grade, all the students who scored 505 in fifth grade are put into one category. and then their sixth grade scores are ranked. So the the goal is to get in about the middle of that pack. So 40 to 60% student growth shows average
growth. Um obviously the higher the better and that's what you know we'll keep on working towards but 50% is a is a good student growth. It shows that our students are growing at a at a um pretty average rate. Any questions about this one?
You can feel free to ask questions as I go. Please interrupt. Um, in math, 66% of our students scored meeting or exceeding. Um, the average scale score was 508 and our student
growth percentile on average was 54%. So, this is something I was able to look at some of um, Victoria Sana's previous slides. something that she had always done was to show one cohort as they progressed from third grade through sixth grade. So I was able to do that
with the most recent um graduates of FK. And you can see here that um ELA is purple and green or math is green. And the bars are showing the percentage of students who are meeting or exceeding um
expectations. So although there's some ups and downs, it's pretty pretty steady in that that 55 to 65 percentage. >> And Katie, also um when we've looked at this in the past, statewide students
data um tends to do drop in in fifth grade. >> Okay, thank you. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, that's probably a very important point thing. >> Um so now we're going to dig a little bit deeper to just look at some of our ELA data by the grade levels. Um we're going to start with looking at some of
the um types of questions, the scoring rubrics um and then we'll go over the data. So this is one example. This is a third grade. I know you can't read it. It's small, but this is a third grade um essay. So what the students had to do
was read this passage, which you can see, can you see my cursor? Yeah, you can see it was a long passage. It goes on and on. when students take the um ELAC test, the passage is always on the left side so they can refer to it. Um,
and I noticed when I was preparing that there was this little nifty feature where you can hover over a word and it gives you a glossy definition. So, I don't know if that's new. Um, but that's something that I thought is is important that we are this is why we look at the
test so that we can prepare our students to take advantage of things like this. Um, for the essay, the students need to write about three paragraphs in third grade. Fourth through sixth, they're closer to five paragraphs. Um, and there
are there are rubrics that score both the idea development and the standard English um, conventions. I'm not going to go into great detail here, but I believe you all have the digital version of this, too. If you click this down here, and I typed it
out, um you can see uh student examples, you can see uh different examples of each of the scores, um and other questions that were asked. So, it's a great resource, um just to have bookmarked if you're interested. Another type of question that is often
on board that is always on the ELA pass are the selected responses. So, this is a sixth grade selected response. This is the fifth grade selected response. Um, sometimes it's just multiple choice, sometimes there's multiple sections. Another way that you see selected
response is they may say select all the the options that apply to whatever the question is. Um, so selected response is not just multiple choice anymore. Um, lastly, there is a constructed response which is another writing
response but it's shorter. It's about a paragraph and it's scored on a three-point scale. Again, you can use the um the link to look at some other examples or these examples. So, for our ELA, we're going to start in grade six and go down to grade three. We'll do that in
all the subject areas. Um so, this I'm if you're noticing this beautiful little uh lip going straight up. Um it's exciting to see. I do want to caution us that one year of data is
really one year of data. The students change, the test changes. Um nothing is the same from year to year. So what I what I look at when I see this though is that last year was more of an outlier and these are more of where we are. Um
so we've been going up and down a little bit. We have a new ELA curriculum as you all know. Typically within the first year of a curriculum, there's more of a dip. And that's because the students and the teachers are all learning new ways of thinking. They don't always get through the whole curriculum in a year
because they're um as we talked about last time I was here, sometimes they had to stop what they're doing and and fill a gap that didn't need to be addressed before, but based on this new curriculum, they're finding out. Um so oftent times there's a little bit of a dip. The other reason there's a dip
sometimes is um the newer curriculum really focuses on long-term understanding and deeper understanding whereas older curriculum was more skills-based and just wrote practice um in general. And so as we're using the
new curriculum based on new science of of learning, sometimes when you're focused on deeper long-term understanding, it takes a little bit longer to really solidify that. um but it does pay off in dividends in the end.
So um ELA has the domains of the essay, the language, reading, writing. There's also a listening and speaking but that's not assessed by MCCAST. Um within each domain there are clusters. So what I showed here were
just the clusters and within each cluster are the standards. So, the clusters do contain more than one standard, but without, you know, looking through every last little bit of detail, um, I thought this would give us a little bit of an idea. And what stands
out to me when I look at this is our, um, difference from the state. So, uh, while we're, you know, we're always working on improving, uh, and we do have some areas that we want to focus on, we are compared to the state doing, um, our
students are performing really well. So this next slide is something that's new I believe to this kind of presentation but I really wanted to talk about you know I said each test every year changes the students change the test questions change so it's really
hard to look at one number of one test and say this is where we are at this time it's a a lot um it's a lot it makes a lot more sense to look at how we're trending and So what I did was put together um the last three years. So what you see on the right is last year,
how we performed on MCCAST or last spring. Um on the left is the last three years looking at just the the domain. And then to get a little more specific over here we have the clusters of
standards and how we how our students did on average um over the last three years. The averages that I was showing earlier were percent of students who meet or exceed expectations. This changes to the average percent correct out of the possible points. Um so you
can see integration of knowledge and ideas 80% real strength. Um and as we've I know you've spoken with with with the district about in the past writing has been a weakness um or an area of growth that we are really working on. So, I'll
talk a little bit more about what we're doing for writing at the end. Um, but you can see that this is an area that we do have some work to do. Fifth grade, um, as Dr. Al already said, fifth grade's a hard testing year. Um,
and in general, this it shows. Um, so 47% of our students were meeting or exceeding the standard. uh the average skills score was still meeting. It's 501 and this average student growth percentile is 42.5.
To look at the clusters again, um you can see that we are well above the state in many of the standards. When it comes to our writing standards, that's where we we are going. We're focusing a lot this year. I can slow down but I feel like you guys
have you have this right. I don't want to go through every every bit but please again ask questions. Um over the course of the last 3 years we are um our students have received about 72% of the possible points for reading, 64% for
language and 43% for writing. So writing again is something that we're focused on very much this year. Fourth grade, this is going to look very similar to fifth grade. 54% of our students met or exceeded
expectations. The average scale score was 502 and their student growth percentile is 48.3. Um again if we're looking at um at the clusters of standards one of the areas of um of strength
there we found it were the key ideas and details in reading. So reading in general has been our strength in across all uh grade levels and again writing is an area that we're going to work on. um conventions of standard English which is also part of the the a big part of our
writing is a new focus for our teachers and students in Northbook. Um there there was always some grammar but our new program focuses a lot more on grammar and so students are building
from K to first to second to third. um and they are going to gradually get stronger and stronger in those conventions of standard English. >> And just to to piggy back on that, so when we were looking for a new ELA program, we knew this was an area of weakness and we were looking for a
program that had a strong written language and writing component. So um that is part of why HMH was selected. >> And there's a lot to remember in grammar. It's grammar is not just something you're going to learn in one year. So, when we're looking at students who at this point had uh probably about
eight months of grammar as opposed to that intense grammar instruction over the course of many years, um we're hoping that we'll continue to see growth from here on out. Um so, this looks very similar to the fifth grade one as well. 72% in reading,
um 43% of our possible points were earned in writing, in language, and then in language by itself, 64%. And this third grade one looks like they're just they're like the little engine that could kind of keep on
trucking. Um unfortunately, they don't have a student growth percentile because they haven't taken the MCAST before, so there's nothing to compare them to. Um but almost 70% of our students were meeting our exceeding expectations and their average scale score was 509.
I have to point out uh the beautiful difference from this day in third grade. It's all double digits. Um and for knowledge of language, our students scored 92% of all possible points.
So things like this are really encouraging and exciting to look at for for writing. Again, we know that that's an area that we are really focused on this year. So in general, the last three years, 67% um the possible points were scored in
reading, 39% in writing, and 66% in language. So this, excuse me, this um screen is more about um our students with disabilities and the achievement gap. There's a lot to look at. Um I'll
explain what it is and I'll give you a chance to look at it. Um every every two bars go together. So this is 2019. We kept it I kept it in here just because it was our last pre um COVID scores but then again went through the last um the
last three years really. Um this shows four years but it shows how our students with disabilities in the first of the two are doing um and how our students in the general ed population are doing. So we are seeing if you look at the green
lines it's kind of an easier way to look at it. um we're seeing there still is an achievement gap and this is something that we're working on. Um Dr. Tupper is working on it with her with um you know with her teachers and and
as a district we are very much aware of it and are focused on closing that gap. Um we'll talk a little bit about what we're doing at the end when I go into next steps. Um but this is going to be a long long many year work in progress.
you have questions about this before I go on? All right, we're going to go on to math. Um, in math there are also a number of different question types. So, there are short answer which are just where you write your answer in the box. Um, it's
sometimes a number, sometimes it's a word, it's just like it's called a short answer. Um this is a selected response in third grade, but this is an example of where they say select two correct answers. Um once I believe from fourth
grade on that they'll say select all the correct answers. So they don't tell the students how many to look for. These are um a little bit trickier because if they get one and they feel good about it as as young students, they they feel good, they move on. Um, and so this is just
another reason that we look at at the um released questions to make sure that we prepare our students for all the questions. The uh constructed responses are intense. There are a lot of parts to it
and many of the parts build off the previous part. Um, so this is a a fourth grade constructed response where it starts off with some fractions and asks them a number of different questions where they have to build from part A to
part B to part C and so on. Um, I included the rubric that's that they use to score students. If you click on the link, um these are actually hyperlinks, not here, but when you open up the rubric, you can um see examples
of what a four is. 4 A and 4B, as you also saw um on the ELA, are just two different versions of four because a score of four can look different ways. In the ELA one, um there was one one
student got four and they had uh three paragraphs and one student got a four. They had one long paragraph, but it answered all the questions. It had a clear beginning, middle, and end. And so, it's good for us to know what um what constitutes a four and what we're,
you know, always to know what what we're aiming for, what our goal is. So, for the math data, um sixth grade, the 70% of our students were meeting and exceeding expectations. That's really exciting. That's a that's a nice number to be able to share. um
their average scale score was 5'11 and 63.9% um percentage percentile for the student growth percentile. Um and Katie, just for student growth, because it's sometimes confusing when you're listening to that, that number basically
means that our students in sixth grade grew 63 that their growth exceeded 63.9% of the growth of all other students at that grade across the state who scored similarly. Does that make sense?
>> So they grew faster than 63.9% of of their colleague or peers that took the test. >> Yeah. So it's really that that's a nice number to see. Um we have a new math um curricular resource this year. So, I
think when you see data like this that looks so good despite our older resources, it's really um it's really because the teachers are aware of the standards. They know the standards and they've been filling the gaps that
they've seen throughout the years themselves. Um so hopefully now that they have really ready um embedded resources, we'll see even more growth. Um but this looks really nice. Um so this is another one where our difference from the state really stood
out to me. Um our students are are doing very well. Uh many of our clusters are in the 70s um and many are in the 60s. So our students that means that's the percent of those questions they got
correct. Um our students are really able to apply a lot of what they learned. It's really hard to apply everything, you know, for students that are ages eight or nine through 12.
Um, you know, they're kids and they're working under pressure and like I said for ELA, some of them really excel with pressure, some of them get really nervous. And so when we're seeing scores like this, I think it's it's just important to keep in mind that these 60s
and 70s and a couple that are even close to 80 are um are pretty good are pretty good scores um relative to the difficulty of the test uh over the last 3 years. You can see on
the left uh the ratio proportional reasoning 70% um 70% of the points were scored. The number system 72, expressions and equations 62, geometry 58, and
statistics of probability 66%. Um in general, if we're looking at last year's scores, they're looking pretty good. Um trying to think of which one. So our 58% in geometry is was really
kind of brought down by one year just 2023 score. Um I can't go back to exactly what that was at that point, but um I'm going to assume it was a harder year and our scores are trending upwards since then.
for fifth grade. Again, this is a uh fifth grade math is a big leap. Uh I would say fourth, fifth, and sixth grade math really are big leaps. Um third grade is like their first fora into MCAST and and showing their work and everything on MCCAST, but um fourth,
fifth, and sixth, there are big jumps between those three grades. Uh so 55% of our students met or exceeded expectations in fifth grade. their average scaled score was 502 and the student growth percentile was 44.6. Again, 40 to 60 is about that average
range. Um, and so they really are keeping up with their their peers across the state in their growth. Um, they were already ahead if we look back, they are already um very much ahead of their peers in and if we're looking across the state. So the the higher your scores
are, the harder it is to stay in the high student growth percentile because you're then now being compared to all these other students who also scored really high and they're also making that that growth, right? Um
so for fifth grade um some of our our strengths were in the geomet geometric measurement. Uh graphing points on a coordinate plane was a was a a struggle this year. Um
it's it's really hard to know exactly what it was that was hard about graphing points on a coordinate plane. for example, sometimes we're lucky enough that they release questions that are that are in this um standard. And in this case, we were we looked at the question and um it was released and the
question was um asking students to determine a different point. So there's a starting point, they had to determine a different point. they were given a graph to look at or um the coordinate grid but the
coordinate grid did not go as far as the answer was going to go. So it stopped for example at five and the answer was you know 67 um it was off. >> So yeah so it whatever the answer was um it
was off of that. So some students, one strategy is to count on the grid when you move. Another is to know the numbers and be able to add or subtract. And so this was um one example or one problem where they were not able to use
a one of the strategies that they typically can use. Um and so our students I think it show that that's something that we need to work on a little bit more and give them the practice solving these kinds of problems both ways. Um I I'll give you a minute to look at
that. In fifth grade, um our strength is really numbers and operations in base 10. So you'll notice that sixth grade had um different different domains. Fifth grade through third are very
similar. Um they all they have the same um five domains. in third through fifth. So, oops, we were on fourth, right? No, fifth grade. Sorry. Um, so number and operations of base 10, that is really
what our number system is found is is based on um literally base 10. And it is really important in the younger grades, kinderg kindergarten um through 2 grade as well, that they really understand what our base 10 number system means and
how we can use it as a structure to understand numbers. Um and so I've always said in elementary school some of the most important are operations in algebraic thinking and numbers in base 10. Eventually fractions become very important as well
in fourth grade. They look like they look like third grade with uh with the LA they're just plugging along. Uh but almost 70% of our students were meeting and exceeding standard the um expectations their average scaled score was 507 and
their um student growth percentile was 53.3. Here you can see an even bigger um growth or jump in our numbers and base uh numbers in operation in base 10 76%. This is really important that we have that
foundation um operations and algebraic thinking was 71% and number and operations fractions fourth grade fractions are significantly more challenging than third grade. So in third grade with fractions they're really learning how to name fractions,
how to write them. um they start to learn a little bit about equivalent fractions. Fourth grade, they start working with adding and subtracting fractions. They're multiplying fractions by whole numbers. They're making many equivalent fractions. Um they're comparing they're comparing fractions
with unlike denominators. So fourth grade is a huge dump in fractions. Um and they're doing a really nice job. Fourth grade, um Oops. I had these backwards. Sorry. So, this is the fourth grade compared to the
state. For third grade, there's a really um beautiful jump since 2023 as well. And it looks like they were uh the students performed at a similar level as the previous year. Um 71% of our students were meeting and exceeding expectations.
The average scaled score was 512. That's a very impressive average scale score. Um by the standard again if you look at their growth I mean their um difference on the state there are multiple um multiple places where they're either near or above 20 20
points about the state. uh for operation operations at algebraic thinking multiply and divide within 100 that's really about fact fluency and understanding fact strategies um and we got almost 90% of those question of
those points um which is really exciting that they've been doing a lot of work on understanding what multiplication and division means not just memorizing the answers um but they're being able to work with multiplication and division and understand that they're the inverse
versions of each other. Um, and so it's nice to see that they're building that really strong foundation in third grade. Again, over the course of the last three years, um, these top three standards are are really exciting to see. 72% of points
were scored in operations and algebraic thinking, 68% in number and operation of base 10, and 68% in fractions. Um so this this graph shows our achievement gaps. Um again starting with 2019 precoid
and um over the course of the last four years we you see we're kind of going up and down a little bit. We are um we're working on it. One of the things with our new curriculum, both for ELA and math, is that the way they are presented
and some of the resources we have really promote more equity. Um, and we'll talk a little bit more about what they're doing um on the special ed side too at the end, questions, and then we get to science. So, science
is just fifth grade, but the standards are third through fifth grade standards. So in fact, even for ELA and math, students don't just start learning in third grade, we just start testing in third grade. So all these scores
represent the foundation that our students are receiving from kindergarten, first, second, and so on. Um, and then with science, because they don't test science until later, until fifth grade, um, it's even more so true. And because there science is very broad,
there are multiple grades worth of of learning to be assessed during this one assessment. Um, so there are mult there are many types of selected response. This one over here on the left is saying um
animals are eaten in the flowers. Which flower has the best chance of surviving? And I I chose this example to share because it's not something that we're not teaching students facts to memorize. We're teaching students how to think about science and think about how to sol
about how to solve problems and what our information means. So in this case it talks about um that the the deer eat flowers leaves and stems but the red flower is actually the
one that they are hoping students choose because it has thorns that's protecting it from the animals. It doesn't say anything about thorns here. It's for the students to really interpret. Um another type of selected response I mentioned earlier drag and drop. This is an example of Dragon Prep where the
students um will look at a lot of data um a lot of data and then they'll go and they'll answer these questions about the data they're looking at. Science is now much more of an application assessment
than it than a a fact recall. Um there's also simulations. I did not put an example of that, but there's simulations in the science cast now where students actually get to experiment. Um, one of them that I played around with once was um there was rainfall at a construction
site near a lake and they didn't want the mud from the construction site to go into the water of the lake. And so they gave students in the simulation different types of materials and different shaped materials to try to stop the rain. And the students had to do five different simulations and and
take note of how much water how much of the mud went into the the lake. And that part like the measurements were done for them. Their job was then to pick which kind they're going to use as the as the people working at this site that would actually prevent the mud from
going into the water. So, it's an example of how they're they want students to in the moment look at some data that they can find and make make some um inferences and make some decisions on the spot based on their understanding of the science practices.
Um this is a constructed response. So again, it's using the same data which is a nice that they get to stick with it. Um and they're asked questions about So here we have uh amount of precipitation. I know it's small in both Boston and
Phoenix. Here we have the temperature in Boston and Phoenix and the amount of sunshine in Boston or Phoenix. And they're asked to make some some interpretations of this data. Um and then again respond in in depth a little bit more depth to what they said in A to
go a level deeper in part B. Just like um just like ELA and math there are rubrics with exemplars. Uh, I put this exemplar here. You're welcome to read it at um at your leisure. I won't read it right now. Um, but as you
can see, there's a lot of writing when it comes to science. Um, I should have put in an exemplar for math because there's a lot of writing when it comes to math um, open responses as well and of course ELA. Um and so these assessments while they this is assessing
science, technology and engineering, it's also assessing their stamina um and their their ability to kind of hold on to one idea in science and write about it in detail. um they do not get scored on their standards of English language
um the conventions um or any of the writing details just more of the ideas. So our um our students 56% of them met or exceeded the the expectation. Our
average scale score is 500. And again, because it's the first year they take science MCAST, there is no student growth percentile. If we look at the standards and the clusters, so again in bold are the uh domains. These are the clusters. Within
each of these are multiple standards. Um and I can share if you're interested um later on I can some data where these standards again like I said are grades three through five. Um and so this is
things that students have learned over the course of many years and that they're trying to demonstrate on this one assessment. um the energy and life sciences and the matter and its interactions are true areas that we want to look at. Right? So, just like I said in the beginning
where there's many different ways for us to assess our students progress, this is one seeing scores like this um for those clusters might mean something like there's might there may be something missing from our curriculum. Um there may be there may be something that you
know we have but we just didn't realize we were supposed to be teaching and and we need to fold it in a little bit more. Um in general our scores are re are really you know well above the state. But in those two we're going to do a little digging and and see what we can do to
make sure that our students are really getting um are really understanding all the clusters and all the standards. So for our domains again, earth and space science 65% of our um of possible points were scored, life
science is 63%, physical science 63% and technology and engineering 68%. Um science has a similar a little bit smaller achieving gap um as we saw in math and ELA. Um, and I think it's because science is a little bit
different and and it's nice that students with different abilities um can really can really excel and um and you know you can see what interests them just like you can with students without disabilities really. Um I just think
science is a little bit different than math and ELA in that sense. So, like I said, you know, a couple times, I don't think that we really have can look at one grade or one year and and make these big sweeping decisions. But over
the past 3 years, I think it was clear that we have some glows and some grows. Um and some of our glows over the past three years were uh in reading and um in our vocabulary for ELA for math numbers
in base 10 um and then also the number system which is sixth grade version of numbers in base 10 um and also generalizing and ascending place value 73%. and earth and space science um earth earth's place in the universe and um
biological evolution unity and diversity are both um mid70s uh for the number of points we were able to score for growth area of growth um you know like I said throughout writing is definitely an area
of growth um in math one area of growth is measurement and conversions conversions are hard um and I think as adults, we all uh use our our cell phones often to make conversions and so this is a challenging um a challenging uh standard and we'll keep on working
with our students. Um so right now they are 59% of the points uh scored and then for um science physical energy physical science energy was 54%. So that's where those are the um areas where we're a little bit below the state and we're
going to do a little bit of digging. So for next steps um we'll continue to work on our multi-tered system of supports. Um on our website we um I just added it today actually. Uh the website is not live yet
but it's almost there. Um and we do have a whole we have our Norfick's MTSS multi-tered system of supports um handbook. We have a lot we work really hard to support our students in ways that they need in the moment. Um and the
idea of MTSS is a general ed uh support system where we know that every student has different need strengths and needs and um if we feel like a student needs some support in one area, we work to to provide that support before it gets to
be a bigger need. Um, so along those same lines, if students are showing a need for support, they receive the support and they're not making their progress yet or making as much progress as we might want to see, then they are referred to the Norfol Educational
Support Team. You've heard of it as the NEST. Um, and this is where students um or teachers will gather together and discuss what they've seen in the student's growth and discuss ways that they can better support the student. they'll often make um make a plan for
really monitoring their progress closely and then they they continue on their way. So they'll keep monitoring and then depending on on the um on the students growth or lack of that that will determine their next steps. Um this next
one is really our our huge uh a huge step for us in the last two years. the new researchbased curricular resources um we're using them with integrity and what that what I mean by that is in order for these curricular resources to become
you know to be bought by H&H or amplify there's so much research in field studies um done to prove that this that this these curricular resources work they make a difference and they promote equity and accessibility and so
it's a It's a challenge if you've done something for the last 15 years as a teacher. You know, if I if I've been teaching one way and it seems to work, my students seem to be understanding and then somebody gives you another program and says, "Here, try it this way." It's
really they're they're they're taking a risk and going out on a limb kind of just blindly believing and having faith in a program that has been heavily researched and not by them. And so one of the important things um that we've
really been working on is and I've been so impressed with is how all of our teachers here are really they have they are they've jumped in with both feet and they are using both of the programs with such integrity um at our curricular meetings or our daily meetings. They're
spending a lot of time talking about their planning um and really making sure that they're doing best by their students. uh which actually goes on to the next one are data meetings, curriculum meetings. Um there's a lot of collaborative planning. There's a lot of looking at student data and making plans
for the next step what we need to do. Um, in special ed, uh, we're reviewing those resources to make sure that they also, some special ed resed programs are using the same resources, some use some different resources, and we want to make
sure that every student um, in Norfolk, whether they're special ed or not, is using the best program for them. Um, and it's it takes some time, but they are reviewing that a lot this year. Uh, for ELA, this is our second year. We have a
strong focus on writing. I've alluded to that and said I would talk about it. Um, our writing, our uh, ELA specialists, our literacy specialists this year have been really solely focused on writing with our teachers and our students.
They're doing a lot of coaching. They're doing a lot of co-planning, a lot of really studying the data and and kind of making our our best our best guess on what we might need to do and trying it and then seeing how it's worked and progress monitoring. Um, we're doing a
lot I don't want to say a lot more, we're doing more on demand writing. Um it in elementary school we often write over the course of many days or even weeks and we go through all the steps of prewriting and writing your first draft
and revising and editing and second draft. Um but on MCCAST it's on demand writing and that's a different skill. So we are focused a little bit more this year on giving the students practice a few times throughout the year. Not all the time because students need practice.
they need time to learn and that's they're learning through those multi-day multi-week processes but when when we have to give them the opportunity to just apply those skills that they've learned on their own and so that's the on demand writing that we're really trying to um practice at all grade
levels three through um 3 through six for math um we have our new curriculum resource amplified ESMOS um we are going to be focused it already I should say some of the first units of the grade levels. We're already focused on
measurement um geometric measurement especially and we've had a lot of professional development. Our um our January 28th professional development will be with Amplify and they're going to talk a little bit more about problem
based learning and um and it's really a new way of teaching by by presenting math through a problem and not giving them the solutions. That's a challenge. Um, teachers are helpers by nature and so it's it's really takes it takes a lot
of effort not to give it away and to let the students work through some math and really understand it themselves before they found before they learn more efficient ways. Um, and then in science as um Dr. Ardi spoke about a little bit earlier we are still rolling out those
yes engineering units for the Museum of Science. They're phenomenal. They are the students are so engaged. the teachers are really enjoying them. Um, and then next year we are going to be doing a science curriculum review and that is what I have for
a lot of information. So all at once and as Katie said in the presentation there's lots of links. So if you want to see more examples of student work or some of the uh types of questions that are included on the exams you can click on the links embedded. Um, but I don't know if anyone has questions for Katie
on the presentation. I do. >> Yeah. I don't know if you know the answer. Um but h how are the ELA open response questions graded? Are they graded by a human? >> Uh yes, they always have they always
have >> they have been. Um I believe this past year there were some essays that were graded through AI and the state took them back and rewor them. >> Okay. that I'm just your point about the two essays both receiving a four, but
one would technically have been grammatically incorrect because it was one >> one 30 sentence paragraph or whatever it just >> those feel like unequal answers. Like I understand that it if we're talking about language, composition, and structure as components of
>> ELA. I agree. I was surprised when I saw one long paragraph. I was very surprised. But that's also another reason why it's important that we study that. Um, so we know exactly what they're looking for. And the essay prompt was clear about looking for specific things, all which were included
in that. Um, and I think that's probably um the system's way of trying to be fair, like these are the things we asked for. You you provided these these criteria, so based on our rubric, you got it for. >> Okay. >> So that is it doesn't anywhere. It never
says um in the essay or on the rubric how many paragraphs it needs to be. Okay. >> So, but I do understand what you're saying. >> Yeah. It's just a five paragraph essay >> or or three if you want to be great. That's fine. >> But in the past, they were always graded handscored and teachers could apply and
and be trained to be scorers. And if you had two people score an essay differently, then they would go to a third person to score. Um, but we were not advised that they were going to trial AI scoring, but it appears that that was an issue in the past round. >> Yeah.
>> Interesting. Um, I do have one more sort of broader general question. So, if anybody else has a specific data question, I can hold until the end. >> Okay. And I don't know if you'll know the answer. Um, and I don't know if this is the right forum to find an answer.
Um, I have now parented two children that have left Freeman Kennedy and gone through every cycle of MCCAST testing with wildly varying results every year. Um and each year we are I think appropriately counseledled that it's one
day of testing, one set of results, a different test every year. I have now through two rounds of watching a cohort of students move to Freeman Kennedy heard that or move to King Phillip received consistent feedback um that King Phillip does take these
grades into account for math placement. >> Yes, I did I did not know starting in fifth grade. Yeah, >> fourth And so looking for example at the sixth grade math hope review >> they would not see that the sixth graders from last year had passed had
exceeded expectations at a rate of or met or exceeded 70%. They would not see the growth index. They would be looking at stale data from one day of testing 2 or 3 years ago. And so I have I don't have students at King Phillip
and like full transparency. though I don't have a personal stake in this but I'm very concerned if that is actually what is happening that parents are not aware that there is some wait weight given to how their children are being placed into
you know I don't know what they call it acceler accelerator whatever >> I actually only found that out by reading the courses at King Phip Middle says the advanced class placement for math 7th grade you require exceeds expectations in the previous two um
mcast for math exceeds exceeds um >> in two two cycles. So fourth and fourth grade. So if a fourth grader doesn't exceed expectations, right, >> they should just stop. >> I was going to say their seventh grade placement which can roll over to high
school. It is pressure and that's honestly a hu I mean that is why it's so hard to really track students and to put them on an accelerated track. We're not calling it a track. um we don't track students anymore and and so I pre I
shouldn't use that word. The reason that it's not tracking anymore, students can move in and out of it. Um and it's really important that we don't close any pathway to higher math. So there are ways for students who are not an accelerated to still take calculus when
they're in high school. Um and so it's not a track, but it's a path, right? you're putting them on these >> and it does it does it depends you know when are you going to take geometry because then that dictates whether or not you can take AP calculus because then you like I as a parent of a rising senior I'm like this part I know I know
what they're supposed to be taking which year >> um and I'm it it again no it has no personal weight for me because it just it hasn't impacted either one of my our household students but it's concerning to me
because the narrative we have received and the appropriate narrative. I think and this is true just also holistically. I have students in my household who have taken multiple AP tests, the PAT 3,000 times. You know, the ISC, the HSPT, all
these standardized tests and done well. What that student did in fourth grade, >> right, >> is irrelevant. So, I I can answer a little bit from my experience, but my my real answer is that um >> and I think like I think it's a KP
question, but I just I would say I think it's >> the evolution and how that has shifted is uh something that we should talk with KP about so that we can make sure that parents are getting the correct >> information so it might >> yeah so let us get let's we can reach
out to KP and talk a little bit I also don't know if that's something they're looking at um so let us get some current information and come back um >> because this question came up last year and I had asked to reach out and I was told that they didn't need to have But they but they don't need to but without
parent intervention they are therefore not put in the accelerated writing and recommending them to get into that >> parents have to call the recommendation is a piece of it their grades are a piece of it >> but they didn't proactively I just went through it they didn't proactively reach
out to say your student is not going to be in this accelerated math because of their last two mcasts. So without knowing that that is, you know, a hurdle. >> Yeah. >> I a lot of friends didn't know that they
needed to advocate for their child. And so like I'm sending my fourth grader off with his thing of mints that he's so excited about being like, "Use your scratch paper. Show your work." Um, but so I think whatever the standards are for KP, as
long as parents understand that they they >> should pay attention and advocate >> like and we're not telling people it doesn't matter cuz it >> does. >> So I I don't know. I can't speak for KP and I do want to find out because I agree if it matters, especially if it
matters that much, we we do need to know that. Um in my previous district I was responsible for kind of revamping the how they did their accelerated uh math and we included uh a number of things. Some
of them were old MCCAST scores but out of 100 points they were worth five points. Right? So we wanted to have them in our data so we can look over time but it had very little if any impact on their final score whereas the teacher recommendation had me was worth like 25
or 35 points. Um they did another assessment that was worth more points. And so I I'd like to believe that um KP is also doing something where they they keep MCCAST um kind of yeah as a as a a
lower percentage. However, >> it was a knockout this year at least. It was a disqual you are not qualified. You cannot >> I think that's definitely something that we would have to look for conversation. I do think many many districts are are moving in a different direction from that. So um but I can't I don't want to
speak for KPR where they are in the process and I'll get back to you. >> It's really hard cuz you don't even start to kind of think about that thing that sort of thing until your kid goes into sixth grade and then you're like okay this year matters cuz that well to think of that like
>> should know what's happened. >> How long has this policy been in place? >> A long time I looked at shifted a little bit over >> I think it has been not a knockout. Yes. All I looked at was like the prerequisites and the course selection through the middle school website and I
like criteria you're going to put >> well cohort of students into there has to be criteria but it's only fair for the students the parents to know this >> during their elementary school experience >> um
so they can make appropriate decisions and guidance and with not knowing it that feels very nontr Well, >> yeah. And I do think one of the things cuz I've had a lot of conversations about this because I have been going through it. Um, one of the things that
may make it unique is that it's the three different towns. And so, how do you have something across the towns and so that is something that all three towns do, but I mean, maybe the three towns can get together and create a screener >> that isn't an MCAT.
>> I mean, I can't answer for them. I will look into it because I I agree that that's important that we understand what the data that's happening at our level is being used for at the next level. Um I will say just as an anecdote, my daughter is a junior this year. She was
not in accelerated math. Um in seventh grade uh and then eighth grade she took algebra anyway. They just put her in it. Um and then so therefore freshman year she ended up in geometry. So I don't think from my own experience and this is just
one child um that they are stuck. Right. That's what I'm talking about. It's not really a track. >> Yeah. So in in seventh grade and this is like rabbit hole but in our seventh grade with a seventh grader in the advanced math. >> Yeah. >> They learn all of seventh grade math and
half of eighth grade math. So therefore >> I wouldn't say it's impossible, >> right? But there but to move to the next >> absent some bridging curriculum. >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So 8th grade math is pre-alggebra right and so it can also be
some of the catching up can also happen in algebra right with with clear found with more of a foundation. Um but again I don't want to speak too much about it because um but I >> it is it's a KP like I I think that it is
>> I want us to be informed. I want this committee and this district to be informed about what the expectations are so that there's a clear course of communication to parents and students who might think they're doing great in math and they said MCCAST is just one day and then now I thought I would be
>> in advanced math and you know I mean like just to sort of have everybody calibrated to the same expectation and sort of pathway to success and and you know what level of import to put on different markers >> not been communicated to us that it was a gatekeeper. We've always been told
teacher recommendation, end of year grades, MCCAST is all looked at. So if that's shifted, we we are not we've not been advised of that. So I I want to again I want to make sure we have the right information before we deliberate. But >> and it also could just put it putting
out there the people that I spoke to maybe it was just those teachers that saw these two aren't there so I'm not going to recommend like but it was a gate. >> Yeah. So let's we'll we'll find out and if there is has been a shift in practice then we need to know that too. So let's we'll come back to you with more on
that. >> Thanks for bringing it up. >> Yeah. >> I had a question about the ELA or I can't get you down. Go ahead. >> No, you're okay. You go first. >> Thanks. Um so I have a third grader, my youngest, and I'm getting so many worksheets home with grammar and writing
conventions, which is excellent. Um, like so much of it I can tell it's really a focus and it's really sticking. But what what about the fifth and sixth graders now when that wasn't a focus or as much of a focus? They they learned,
sure, but where maybe those skills aren't as strong in the curriculum. Is there kind of some circling back or saying, "Hey, they they did a huge unit on this in third grade, but these fifth graders need to be doing it." Like, does that happen? >> Exactly. And that's why we talked about
how sometimes there's a dip in in the first year or two of implementation because we are circling back. We are trying to fill some gaps. Um so teachers are aware and um you know I can speak for sixth grade this year. They did a grammar assessment at right around
Halloween time and this um my son came home and said that was really hard. And um and later on that night they sent an email saying we gave a we gave an assessment. It ended up being really challenging for the students and then as
we would hope they're taking that information and using it as form uh formative assessment data and reteing and they're going to check in again later on in the year. That's what their email said. Um and I think that's probably best practice to in elementary school there's there's a lot of
formative assessments less summitative. Um and the formative assessments are meant to show the teachers where the students are and what their next steps are for teaching. Um one of my my previous um math and science uh curriculum director used to always say
she probably still does say we assess to instruct, we do not instruct to assess. And by that we mean we're not trying to teach to a test. We're taking the test and seeing what what else do we need to instruct? How else how else do we improve our instruction? Um and so that
is definitely happening. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> Um so check in on COVID recovery. What are your thoughts around that now? How are we doing? >> Um I mean we're making progress. We're not where we want to be yet. Um I can go
back a little bit to it. Are you thinking are you talking about all three subject areas? >> Yeah. or Yeah. >> Well, also in the in the um all three subject areas plus the um um achievement gaps. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um
so, oh you can't even really see it. So, the the least impact >> from CO was the very first year they took the MCCAST after CO um because the students had had they had had the interruption but they hadn't their lives
hadn't changed. If you talk about like it was a year after but they had all their previous schooling was normal whereas as the years went on that impact of co um grew and I don't think it was just co either I do think
it has a lot to do with it's my personal belief um a lot to do with technology and during co I will it's it's true true in my household unfortunately our children were on devices a whole lot more um because
parents had to work. Um and so CO has had other impacts on students be beside just that that loss in instructional time. Um our our students across the state and across the country are showing
um are are in need of some kind of urgent um uplift in ELA, especially in reading and writing. Um, and you can see based on our scores across the state or compared to the state even though our scores are um lower, they're still above
the state average. And that just goes to show that everyone is kind of still in this boat and we're trying to figure it out. There's also been so much more um research on the science of reading. Um and so that co aside that alone
hopefully is going to be continuing to make we're going to make growth now that we're really teaching based on the science and not just on something that we thought was working. >> Yeah. In a nutshell science of reading is what >> in a nutshell science of reading is that
um that students learn to speak naturally. It's just a natural progress um and their brains can naturally learn how to to understand words and speak where and through previous um philosophies of reading when
we talk about balanced literacy it was a lot of really teaching children to learn to love reading to practice reading. Um but what it was missing was a lot of the explicit instruction and so the newer science behind teaching reading um not
as a coin term science of reading but the science behind it is that stu our human brains don't learn to read and write naturally. So you can be exposed to all the literature in the world and your brain is not necess brains are all different not necessarily going to learn
to read and write. There needs to be explicit instruction and that that includes in this case um some of the the weaknesses that we saw that we're now really focused on are phonics and grammar. >> Phonics and grammar. Yep. Yep. Okay, that makes sense. >> Yeah. I would say just from a global
perspective when you look at our uh scores over time you are seeing the as Katie said um during the years immediately following it wasn't the first year after test co but the second year you saw a dip in student scores both in math and ELA and I think you
were seeing the upswing in the recovery so if you look at where we were in 2019 um overall in English language arts >> uh 67% of our students were meeting and exceeding >> you see it dip down in 22 and 23 three to 55 and 54 um and then 54. Now we're
back to 58. So we are on that upswing and we've shifted the curriculum. We're not back where we were pre-COVID, but we are starting to see that recovery in math. The recovery is uh a little more uh pronounced. We're we're about 3 percentage points away um from where we
were pre precoid. Um and that's sort of showing a steady steady gain. Um I think in terms of the achievement gap, if you look more deeply at that data, definitely during the periods of time where we were um during remote schooling and during COVID and as Katie said,
there were many other factors that impacted students during that period of time, but the achievement gra gap grew um during those those years immediately following um for our students with disabilities in ELA and math. And you see the gaps are narrowing and they're closer to where we were back in uh 2019
in both content areas. Now um however there's still a gap that persists. There was a gap that existed precoid um that continues to exist. Um I would say it's not as exaggerated a gap as it was during those immediate years. Um and we are making progress in closing those
gaps. Uh but adopting a core literacy program that really emphasizes some of the explicit instruction, phonics, phmic awareness, vocabulary comprehension, those core elements that are necessary. um having that systematic instruction
across the board across all classrooms is supporting some of our students who learn to read differently. Um so we're implementing new curriculum uh you know through the data meetings and the teacher uh support team meetings, the nest team and MTSS we're differentiating
that instruction and I think we are seeing the results uh we're seeing that kind of steady growth. We're not where we would like to be at this point, but we are definitely um uh accelerating that that that growth and and getting closer um to a full recovery. >> Yeah. And I think it's important that
like >> faster rate than I would say than many of our comparison communities too, which is nice to see. We're I mean we're three from the top of our comparison communities in math and we are above the the midway mark in ELA. Um, so I think we're recovering and and and making that
progress steadily. >> And I think all of those districts outspend us. >> Oh, certainly did >> because the only one that didn't was Berkeley. So, and that's Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, >> um, and and like I said earlier, >> credit to our teachers, too. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Wait, did these towns change from last
year? >> No, these are our comparison communities that Desi had identified, and we're going to talk about in a minute with the benchmarks. They're the same compared for the Yep. >> Okay. They're consistent. Okay. >> Yeah, we got them. Yeah, >> same ones as last year. >> I mean, for ELA, we're we're flat. So,
this year is the only year we've seen like really movement. So, we have yet to see if that trend continues. >> Absolutely. >> You know, um >> but it is a year after again we have that new program. So, this is the first that was at the end of the first year of the program too. We were expecting to
actually see a dip, an implementation dip, but we did not. though it is only one year >> and and I think um it's important to note again that with ELA and math with our new curricular programs um they are really um focused on deeper learning
which takes longer but it pays in dividends in the end. Um, and to give a math example, you can teach a second grader an algorithm and they can perform on a test right after memorizing those algorithms, but they don't they don't really know what it means. So that after
they've, you know, mastered it and moved on, if they forget a single step, they have no way to to check to understand that their answer is completely wrong. Whereas if you really explain BA using place value strategies, that was the base 10 um numbers and operation
standards. If you really explain and they work on it explicitly without an algorithm or an algorithm in um second grade and without an algorithm in third grade, it's not a standard until fourth grade. So, it takes longer, but it makes
sense and they're never going to not know what their answer means because they've learned all all the steps beforehand, but that takes three years as opposed to one year. Um, and so that kind of thing, it's it's slow and steady progress that we're really looking for.
Other questions? Great. Okay. Um we'll probably include this presentation too on the curriculum web page if parents have interest um absolutely for further information because again there's lots of links that we didn't go through but there's a lot more information there. >> Great. Thank you. Thanks Katie.
Uh next on the agenda is a baseline and benchmark discussion. So um there's a memo in your packet that kind of explains the goals around the baseline benchmark report. Every year, usually either January or February, I put together baseline and benchmark report
for the school committee. It is not a required state report. It's actually not something that I I know many other districts that do, but it is something that we started over 10 years ago. Um, and for two purposes. One, because the school committee has responsibility for
oversight of the district and for evaluating our progress through schools as well as looking at overall educational quality. Um, I feel other than the MCCAST data, there's not a lot of information committees have to to base their decision-making and judgments
on. So, we uh I put together the baseline and benchmark report to try to give a broader sense of how our district is doing. When we first created it, we had a lot of conversations with the school committee as well as our admin team to try to identify what do we see as as metrics that help you gauge
educational quality. So, um, class size was something that was important to people. School climate and culture, discipline rates, um, achievement tests, not just the MCCAST, but all of our district benchmarks and and and, uh, assessments, those were all things that the committee and the administration
felt were really measures of of the success of a school uh, a school district. So, we put together this report annually to give the committee information on how we're trending on all of those different dimensions. We have always used the department of education
has a a tool called Dart which is district analysis and review tool and in Dart it will identify the comparison communities that are most like Norfolk demographically, financially, in terms of educator data, in terms of test performance and those are this the
districts that you see we compare to in our district baseline and benchmark report. Um that has been recently uh updated. So Desi now has some different districts that they include in our comparison group. Uh and that would be Amherst, Brewster, and Kingston. And
they have removed some of the prior comparison districts from our our comparison group. So Southboro um um Southboro, Berkeley, Conquered, Lincoln, and Sudbury are no longer in our comparison group. So that said, uh
>> they were sorry just to u interject they were part of our comparison group this year because we we wanted to make sure that from year to year you were able to see the same the same groups but I think that's what Dr. talk about. >> So we didn't change the groups. Desi has
updated their their Dart uh data. So, one question that I have for the committee is, do we want to update our comparison groups and include the new um uh comp districts that Desi is now saying are are most like our community in terms of per pupil spending,
financial, education data or um and do we want to remove some of the others that are no longer so you can see Lincoln and Sudbury spend double what we spend per closely they're not comparison districts from a financial perspective. So that is
why some of them have have been removed. Do we want to make changes to the groups that we compare against for the purposes of the baseline benchmark report? And then um uh a few school committee members asked is there additional data that you think would be helpful to include in this report or data that you
don't think is helpful. So I thought we could have a conversation tonight. Um again the purpose of the report for me is a report to provide you with information on how our schools are performing but I also think we always publish it. is available on our website. Uh in general in most towns and
community and communities, the school budget is the largest piece of the pie in any operating budget and I think it's a really important for the town also be able to have access to data that helps them evaluate the return on investment in education. So the the report as I
designed it has those two two goals. community transparency around our district performance as well as usefulness to the committee in overseeing the um performance of the district. So, two questions, one around the comparison districts. Um if we change
now, it will change some of your trend data. You'll still have many of the communities that remain within there. Um but it would introduce some new communities. Um there's certainly um again the communities in Dart are identified as
most like Norfolk. Some community you may be interested in comparing to a a community that's a high performing community just to see how we're trending. Um so how we define the comparison communities and again if there's other data that you would like to see included in this u were the two
things I was hoping we'd talk about tonight. Was the change purely on um per pupil spending? >> Not just No, they look at um there's four or five different things. Uh
academic achievement, so overall performance of students, student attendance, oh nope, sorry. Um uh demographics, assessment data, so student performance, financial and educator data. So those are are some of the things that are are folded into that.
>> Yeah. Yeah, because it's interesting because like the point earlier about all of the districts that perform better than us on MCCast outspend us, but in some cases like Lincoln is the outspends us by a
whopping amount, but we're way outperforming them. >> Similarly with um Berkeley, I believe >> um the outspend. >> Yeah, they're on the low side. >> Okay, there was which one was it done? I'm sorry. Was it Lincoln?
>> Conquered or South? >> Probably Sedbury, >> Lincoln or one of those? Yeah. Two of those examples where they have huge amounts per pupil spending compared to us. We outperform quite significantly. >> Yeah. >> And so is that an indicator that we need
a different comparison or is it an indicator that we're using the money we do have pretty wisely? Well, I think that the every district is has different things um that drive kind of achievement and scores. So, Lincoln is a little bit
of a a a different community because they have a large military base and they have a more transient population. Sorry, that doesn't mean times up on your question. Sorry. Um so, Lincoln is a sort of a different district and I'm not sure um that it's a great comparison.
So, their costs are driven by other factors. Uh and again there's there's more turnover um in in some of the schools in Lincoln. >> Um again with the comparison districts they're also looking at educated data how how our students perform in
demographic data. So uh and financials aren't just the per pupil spend but it's also looking at the you know overall um uh financials of the town. So free and reduced lunch your population um that you know how your demographic population
breaks down. So it's it's a little bit deeper than that. I I think there's value in thinking of incorporating the new communities that are uh identified as as comparisons. Um, but I don't think there's harm in thinking about do we also want to include some high
performing districts so we can see I mean when we do a curriculum review and we're looking at our curriculum um we always look at comparison districts but we also look at who's doing really well in the state and how do we compare to them and are we making the same growth so we look at high student growth districts and we look at high performing districts. So,
>> um, something to consider is incorporating the new districts and using the Desi comparisons and then maybe setting our benchmarking against some high performing communities. Um, so that would be something that we could also do. Um, but maybe it doesn't make sense to keep Lincoln anymore if they're
not demographically and financially like Norfolk um, anymore if they've sort of shifted. I think originally many of these districts are um regional districts and they're small districts K to 6 or K to8. Um and so I think when Desi was building the tool, those
districts don't have a high school. So they're, you know, their financials are a little closer, but now that they've added an expanded DART, they're more precise in identifying the comparison districts than they may have been originally. >> Yeah. So again the the the goal of this
report is for you and so um what you want to see in it we can certainly make changes. So how is it most useful and how would it be most useful for the uh town and the community? I see value in maintaining some of the
high performing districts just to remind ourselves and future committees um what those high performing standards and benchmarks are >> um as you know kind of an aspirational goal certainly I mean I I but
overwhelmingly um with some of the other towns and community communities that are on this list they're not apples to apples comparisons so no Lincoln with its giant military base. It is it is not that is not a comparison district where
you can look it's that is comparing two different athletes running the same race, you know, like vastly different athletes running the same race. Um and so I think that um I would see value in maybe taking out a few of the clearly
not apples to apples. So I I think >> and Berkeley I think Berkeley is always at the bottom. They're the lowest spending district. It's a very different system, different demographics. So, >> I would be I would be amendable to removing Berkeley and Lincoln and
incorporating the new districts that we haven't really compared ourselves to previously, but keeping some frame of reference for the higher, you know, I mean, that's that's a big jump. Um I think Norphick has been seeing great improvement kind of postcoid and with new curriculum adoptions but obviously
you know there's a lot of real estate between um you know like an ELA 58% and the 73% that conquered is getting at this point. So, you know, having that within the frame of reference to understand just what it looks like, you know, whether or not it's attainable, that is an educational discussion,
>> you know, just to understand. >> Yeah, I I think keeping South Burrow as kind of like a a benchmark just because um like and all the other pieces performing. >> They they are always at the top there, but and also their spending isn't significantly different than ours.
They're kind of in the middle of the pack and then their class sizes are are relatively similar as well. So, it might just be So, keeping conquered and Southboro may be deleting Lincoln and Berkeley. >> Yeah, I'd agree with that. >> Um, and then we can incorporate Amherst,
Brewster, and Kingston. So, it' be a little bit of a different comparison group, but we'd still have some aspirational districts um in there. Um, is it possible to see past performance, not for everything, but just so that we have an idea of where we land with
Amherst, Brewster, and Kingston? Yeah, if I incorporate those when I do the report, I can do the last three >> show the last years. >> When I give you the three-year trend, I can give you the three-ear trend for all those districts. >> So, we're not starting completely. >> Yeah. And you have a sense of how
they've done. You've already done this. >> So, before I shared with Ingred um the the presentation that I put together, I being brand new used the new DART districts. Um and and so when Dr. already was looking at it. She was like,
"These aren't the districts that that we usually share." Um, and so we talked about how because um, you know, we expected that you'd want to see the the same data that we've been comparing to, we changed it
back to the um to the to the previous art districts. But um, I can >> we have the other data, which is that's awesome. That's great. I will I'll um I'll get it actually. Yes, >> we can we can I mean all of this I pull the data from the desi website and so I
can pull down what they scored in and and and so you when I present the report it will have three years of data for all of the comparison communities. >> Thank you. Is there other data that the committee feels would be valuable uh to include in this? One thing that I was thinking
about um and we've tried to we've we include the student discipline data, but for the last two years we've given the vocal uh survey at Freeman Kennedy, which is a school culture and climate survey. Um we could include some summaries uh and information from the vocal data if that is valuable to to
you. >> Yeah, I think so. And I think especially because I think the students really value and appreciate being able to have their voices heard. So I think that's something we should look at. >> I agree.
Is there anything I know we do so much with data and a lot of this is focused on MCCAST like is there any I not the Acadians or any of the >> it's in here. So we include the MCCAST
data and then we give you um the end ofear reading benchmark which is a local uh benchmark the end of year acadance data and the end ofear maths. Um so those are like the the assessments we give all of our students. We didn't we only give end of year data um which is
closer in time to the MCCAST. We don't include the midyear benchmark. We could if you wanted, but that might be data overload. >> Yeah. No, no, sorry. I was looking for >> No, that's okay. Um so, and and we've started to include um
uh uh we used to give the math back fluency data. We aren't giving that assessment anymore, but all of the local benchmarks are included. So, Aadians reading K to 6 is in here. Um the BAS uh reading assessment is in here and then the end of year math benchmarks.
Awesome. >> And we've started to with the the last um report also address the achievement gaps that were identified in the uh district equity audit uh around discipline as well as the academics. So that you can also see the the growth
that we're making in in relation to those achievement gaps. And I think you know there's a ton of information in this so we can also revisit this and you give you some time to think about if there's other data that you think you know in in your role
of looking at the district it would be helpful to know um you know I'm open to including whatever you think is is useful. We also keep um uh something that came up when we were planning for this report also was uh teacher education and
teacher retention data. So that's in here too um as a measure of of quality. Um and and that's something we can continue to keep if that's helpful. >> Um how many years are we for any of the
academic performance? How many when >> for any of the academic performance data here, how many years are we showing? So we can see >> typically three um uh >> including the local like >> Yep. the local data. There's some that were new assessments. So we didn't have
three years of data. So if there's uh >> Okay. Like a cadence. >> Yeah. Because we just implemented it. So it'll show that there's only two years of data available um for that. Most of the rest of the benchmarks have been multi-year. Yeah. Yeah.
>> And I know you're I mean it's just for kind of ease of digesting the data, but we're >> lumping beat and exceeds and >> is there ever a breakout of that that we can see that starts to help us? >> We can definitely So we put meets and
exceeds together because the state typically does that cuz that's the level of proficient. So it it tells you how many students overall are meeting the or or are deemed to be proficient or or proficient plus. Um, so we've done that in in our reports, but we can break it
down by category if you want to see um, you know, the the >> it's probably going to be relevant if we're starting to look more at high performing districts and trying to see that specific >> Sure. >> movement. How much are we engaging students who are kind of in the middle
but have the ability to excel? Yeah. >> And you know, are we also, you know, on that side of spectrum of of diversity, are we also addressing those needs? >> Yeah. So, we can we could do the meets
and exceed combined and then a meets and exceeds. So, we could break that down. So, you could take a look at that or you just have to play with how to make that chart not overwhelming because we give three years of data in the 12 towns. But, we'll play with it. >> Yeah. For those who want to dive deeper into data.
>> Yeah. No, we can certainly do that. Yeah, it's something that a lot of districts look at too when you're looking at trying to improve performance. Can we move some students that are on the cusp from the meets to the exceeds category or from the needs improvement to the proficient? So, we can certainly look at a breakdown of that.
>> I love playing with data. So, I'm I will gladly send some over to you. I just I had I had to draw the line on what to put on these. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's good. And just the um comparison communities are we're not adding any new high
performing communities or >> we certainly can if there's interest in that. We've got Southboro and Conquered which have been traditionally pretty high performing districts in in our in our comp group. Um uh I'm just looking at we can add others if there's others
you want to benchmark against. Um, but I think that the suggestion so far was to keep those even though they've been removed from our comparison district to keep them because they're consistently high performing. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Um, but if there's other communities you want to benchmark against, we could certainly add.
>> No. No, I think that makes sense. I I'm following that. >> Okay. I mean, and I think realistically speaking, I think it's great to see high performing districts again as an aspirational goal and also just to see what else is happening in the state. Um,
>> ultimately for the individual students at FK in particular who are going to be moving into King Phillip, the most important comparisons are with Run and Planeville. And so I think that really having a >> retaining those. Yeah, obviously we're going to retain those, but I think maybe even some of those more
>> discreet data discussions that we might want to have in the future about those kind of the little separate categories within meeting or exceeding and and comparing closely if we can to those districts just to see, you know, what we're actually sending into the fray of of that kind of combined three town
school system might be useful. >> Y divide that out. Good. All right. So, we'll play around with this and again, um, you know, when we meet, I'll probably have this, uh, in February. We have some other pretty heavy things coming on the January
agenda. So, we'll try to have this for February. And if there's anything else you think of that you want, um, we can talk about it and add in in January as well. Sound good? >> Great. Thank you. All right. The last thing on the agenda as we're getting into the later hours, it's exciting. So,
um, as I shared with you, uh, I had sent out an email to the the school committee as well as to the select board. Um after the um unsuccessful ballot vote in February, we had a final meeting with our build
school building committee and uh uh voted unanimously to try one more time to apply to the mass school building authority for the Freeman Kennedy School expansion project with this was our fifth application to MSBA. Um after the first four, we were pretty much
repeatedly told that there's significant need across the state. Um we have aging buildings across the state and the likelihood of our project um moving forward was um impacted by the the level of need and the age of buildings and um we were welcome to continue to try to
apply but we were probably not in their high priority category. Um anyways we did uh reapply in April. We had a lot more information to include in our application because we had completed the full feasibility study. So we had um a
new demographic study to add to our packet as well as um cost analysis, the traffic studies, all of the additional work that was done. Um we submitted that application in April and we were selected to move the project forward for
participation with MSBA. So the board voted on Friday to move us into the eligibility period. So MSBA does everything in phases. So when you're invited, you're invited into the first phase. you have to successfully complete that first phase, then all the requirements to be invited to the next
phase. So during the eligibility period and they stagger the application. So our eligibility period begins on April 1st. There's certain components that you have to complete. Um and that is uh a commitment letter from the schools in town that we um are uh will abide by all
the regulations that MSBA puts forth. Um, also a component of the first phase is that the town would have to vote to appropriate funding for a feasibility study. Um, you have up to 270 days to secure that funding and all the other required components. Uh, another
component that's required is that you form a new school building committee. They have required membership to that. So, there's things that we'll need to complete in this first phase. Um, after that, we have up until December to get all those components together. Then if the town does vote to appropriate
funding for the feasibility, then we would need to be invited into the next phase of building with MSBA, which is feasibility and schematic design. Um and uh and then you move into the construction phase and then close out. So there's multiple phases. Um we knew
that if we build with MSBA, the uh they do cost share the funding. It's a reimbursement program. The Holy Day roof and the Freeman Kennedy were reimbursed at about 50%. So the state uh contributes a significant amount of the cost which brings the cost to the
taxpayer down but we did know that it would uh delay the construction project and and drag it out over a longer period of time. But we are very very excited. Um I think the other opportunity that that we have going through MSBA is uh we
will have a chance to do another look at demographics um based on some changing trends that we're seeing across the country right now. um we will have another architectural firm assigned to work with us throughout this. So we'll have another set of eyes on the project um and have the opportunity to make
adjustments or changes throughout that with the new school building committee. Um the projects that we have done with MSBA have been very successful. Both the Hol Day roof and the Freeman Kennedy came in on time. They were both under budget. Uh there's a tremendous amount of expertise at the Mass School Building
uh authority board. anybody who's been on the calls has probably seen. Um they're very thorough in what they do. Um and so I think it's a great opportunity for the town and we'll be sending a press release out um jointly with the town hopefully tomorrow. So
that's exciting news. Um happy to take any questions that people might have on that. >> I'm all set. >> Yes, you the calls, too. >> No questions. Just thank you. Thank you, Madora and Grace for putting all that time and effort and everybody else on
the building committee. I know it's been, >> you know, yeah, >> a lot that it'll continue, but at least it gets to continue. So, >> yeah, that's right. It's really good news. >> It's good news and certainly >> it will be a belt and suspenders of
feasibility. So, >> that's that's right. >> Once you get through that eligibility period, >> Yep. Is there like a large group that gets kicked out from the next phase or once you get through that most >> people most people move forward the the where towns drop out and and and again
this is my understanding but there are some towns that fail to secure funding for feasibility so they would be dropped out or if you don't comply with the requirements if you don't have a building committee in place that meets the requirements of the state if you haven't um certified all the things. So, it's really about working closely with
MSBA, making sure that you are following the process, that you're able to secure the funding that you need. Um, I I think if you do that, the likelihood of moving on, most districts, I think, move on, except for ones that run into glitches with funding or things like that. >> Okay, great. >> So,
great. >> All right. I think that's all I had for tonight. >> Right. On to policy. >> Yes. So, uh, tonight we're going to basically review the update to public
comment at school committee meetings. Um, I think if I recall the last meeting we talked about that it's an incidental change. So, we agreed to wave the uh three round review and and just go straight to what the edits are. Um, you can see what they are here by simple
strikeouts and amendments. Uh but it increases the overall public comment period from 15 minutes to 20 minutes. Um and basically kind of removes some of the complexity around if five or more speakers sign up. It just kind of keeps
it at no more than six speakers, everyone's allotted 3 minutes. Keeps it simple and clean and allows a little bit more breathing time. And in the events where you do have more people coming to speak, 3 minutes feels a little more generous than two. and we felt that
adjustment would be warranted. >> So, >> and as Peter said, I think it simplifies it. So, we're not dividing the minutes by the number of speakers. It's just a flat 3 minutes similar to um uh yeah, everybody gets the same amount of time and it would be 18 minutes. Everybody
get it gives you a little bit of time for people to transition from one speaker to the next. Have there I'm just and I'm just curious. Have we received complaints that what we had previously was not meeting the needs of the community? >> Uh no. I think when we've had people
come to speak they're often reading a prepared statement and so they're 3/4 of the way through the par and then the alarm's going off and you're cutting people off. Um and I think it's it's a little because then they start talking faster to try to finish. So, um I think the thinking is that if you give them
the extra 30 seconds, then they can wrap up um and it might be easier to to monitor um >> then they'll take the 3 minutes, >> but it's either here or anything. That's >> well, they do get so per our original
policy, if you had uh fewer speakers, they get three minutes. It's only when you have more that it's you're dividing the time. And I know I've had to cut people off, which is difficult, but just to make sure you're being fair to everyone, I've always been just very
stringent about that and aware of that. Uh, I also know that I've spoken to the school committee years ago, and I had to prepare two statements, a 2-minute one and a three-minute one because I didn't know how many people were going to come.
And then I was trying to take out what was important. So, it's just I think 2 minutes flies by and we've had people come and speak on multiple sides of many issues and I think 3 minutes is
would be helpful to people to get their thoughts and opinions out. You know, when when you get up, it's already can be a nerve-wracking thing. And I think just that twominut countdown feels very quick when you're trying to come up here and make a point. just trying to give
people more opportunity to make their voices heard when they want to. >> I think it makes sense. Yeah, I I don't have an objection to expanding it, but just again, clearly I didn't exceed expectations in math, but should it be the public comment period is 18 minutes,
not 20 minutes at at number one, or is that just to allow time to >> We can I mean, we could change it to 18 minutes and you just there is transition time when one speaker. >> That's what I was being. It's a little um up and down. >> We talked about that and it was like, okay, so do we stop the stopwatch after
each person speaks? and >> but I started and the the previous policy also had a map there. >> It didn't match. Yeah, that's I I didn't know if that's why it was done originally. >> Yeah, >> I >> but if you think for clarity we could put 18 minutes um not counting the
transitions or something like that. >> Clarity we should say I mean it just looks weird that the math doesn't math and I and we I mean there's transitions between even our normal agenda and conversation. So >> I wouldn't
if I read 18 minutes I wouldn't think a timer was starting. I would think each person got three minutes. Two six people get three minutes. >> Yeah. Yes. >> That math I can. >> Yeah. That mean just >> I mean do we need to have the time at
all if we're just saying six speakers 3 minutes each? I would just say during public comment period >> invited to address the committee during its public comment period and then just go >> I think that one makes sense just no time at all. I don't know who's holding
it to the 15 or 20 minutes, but >> I would prefer to keep the item in line one only because subsequent items where you're discussing an expansion of the time, you can make a statement or whomever is the chair at a meeting where this might occur. If you are giving someone an additional time, you can say
we will be exceeding if if six people sign up to talk and one of them requires accommodations, you can say we will be exceeding, you know, the policydriven time limit of 18 minutes to this many minutes because someone has requested accommodations that we have, you know,
been notified of and agreed, you know, agreed just just from a in the instance that six people are showing up and jockeying for position to speak at public comment, which I'll come watch, let me know. But like if that
were to happen, something very important would be going on. >> And I think that having more parameters in place allows the district to operate within the rules and parameters such that it does not leave itself open to arguments that it unfairly
treated different people who were signing up to speak or did not adhere to the policy that we're about to adopt. That's it. Like in a situation where there is exposure to the district, >> I prefer more rules than fewer rules because then you have a very clearly defined rubric of what the expectation is
>> and less room to inadvertently transgress. I guess >> and I think the other I mean legal council had had originally uh recommended you have a time limit because you could have somebody come in at 7:20 and want to speak. that's after
our public comment period would be complete by then. So it does give you the ability to not have to stop a meeting and then go back. Do you know what I mean? So I think having a set time is helpful, >> but we could certainly change it to 18 minutes so it aligns recognizing that
we're only considering the time when people are speaking. >> Does that sound good? >> Yeah, >> that's fine. >> Other comments on it? May I would maybe just to be extra specific not including transitions. >> I mean if it needs to be updated again then yeah that's fine. Like like I said
more rules >> make everyone happier in the situation where the rules are called into question. >> Any other comments on it? >> Okay. Do we need to come back to it or can we vote on We have to >> I think these are incidental but we
would I would need a motion to accept the edits to the file BD beh public comment at school committee meetings with changing
20 minutes to 18 minutes in adding not including transitions to the end of item one. So that in total it reads at the start of each regularly scheduled school committee meeting individuals or group representatives will be invited to address the committee during its
18minute public comment period not including transitions. >> So moved >> second. >> Any further discussion? >> No. >> All those in favor? I >> I >> um I think to wrap up the policy committee, the next
meeting will have um incidental changes to ECAB, access to buildings and grounds. Um and we'll also have some incidental changes for JJ student fundraising.
And lastly, incidental changes to JA field trips. >> Great. >> Um, did I miss anything? >> No, I think >> was that would those were the three we'll review next week? Okay. Yeah. >> Could I just suggest um looking back at
the public comment changes I'm wondering I know we already voted so we'd have to reconsider but I wonder if it should say not including transition time between speakers rather than transitions >> just to be more explicit just >> not including transition time between
speakers. Is that okay? >> So you need a new motion and a new vote. I just think otherwise people might not know what we mean by transitions. >> Okay. So, I need a motion to >> I I move to accept the proposed changes
to BEDH with a friendly amendment to subsection one such that it reads, "At the start of each regularly scheduled committee school committee meeting, individuals or group representatives will be invited to address the committee during its
18minute public comment period, not to include transition time between speakers. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Great. >> She moved. Second. >> Moving on.
>> Further discussion. No. All those in favor? >> I second. Budget session committee. >> Well, we meet tomorrow. Yeah. So, 12 tomorrow. Yeah. >> Building committee.
just talked about it. >> Just talked about it. U King Phillip. >> Um so King Phillip's actually meeting tonight. Um but because of the MSBA news, I chose to be here. Um the one thing from the last meeting that I think
is relevant um especially given the MSBA news that we have is that in the last meeting um if you recall KP had put in for MSBA for the two roofs on the middle school and the high school as well as um
heat pumps in both schools which would potentially help bring air conditioning into the schools. Um so we were approved on all four projects. Um the cost estimates came in for all four projects.
Heat pumps are exorbitantly expensive um and also are not um it it's a new thing that MSBA is getting into. And so therefore the committee decided not to move forward with the heat pumps at this time because um it would be asking a lot
of the towns and the roofs are also relatively expensive. Um so uh we voted to not move forward with those which is a good thing. We can go back you know if pushed on spending from the town that we
actually took this off um of the of the financial burden. So, um, and then all the fun updates about, you know, band and sports and all that. >> You're missing the one about the Super Bowl. >> I am missing this. I went to band instead of Super Bowl, which tracks I
don't know. So, that's my update. >> Uh, CPAC, I spoke with Mike and Kayla. They had their holiday social last week and they have a few remaining spots for readers in the IARE reading program that
is going to take off soon. We not really relating to us, probably more at the high school level, but we just talked a little bit about the new graduation requirements that the state is putting out um in place of the MCCAST. Um still very new, so didn't really have a lot of
thoughts on that yet. But I think it's up. See how that plays out and see what more information comes out. And then just a remember a reminder that they are holding a rethinking social development in a post-pandemic world workshop on February 24th here at Freeman
at 700 p.m. Um PTO. Were you done? Yep. >> Okay. um PTO um I I did hear from the PTO and um they reiterated uh the very generous gifts that we received earlier
as you will recall totaling what $22,000 worth of amazing gifts from the PTO. So we certainly appreciate them for that. Um they had a successful um sorry my computer died so I'm reading off my phone which is small and uh
successful book fairs at both schools um and they had uh warm drinks and treats for the teachers during or teachers and staff I think during um conferences last week. Uh next big event is family heritage night which will be coming up on January 23rd. Um, so I encourage
everyone to attend. Great. >> Any other partner updates? Um, Norville Community League just had um their Grinch breakfast, their annual Grinch breakfast. Um, which is always a town favorite, especially if you have little kids. Um, so that kind of just wraps up
their holiday events. Um, there'll be more in the new year. That's all the updates. there. Moving on to new items. School committee minutes. Had a chance to review them. I'd be looking for a motion to approve the
November 18th 5 minutes as >> so moved. Second. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor? >> I next meeting is scheduled for January 13th,
526. Crazy. Awesome. Sounds good. All right. Just skip >> January 13. >> Yes. >> All right. Does anyone have anything else? Okay. Looking for a motion to >> second.
All those in favor? I adjourn.