##VIDEO ID:18kYG8Mkq6A## um calling the Norton school committee meeting to order for Wednesday November 6 um uned States [Music] uh meeting is being recorded by nor media and nor Public Schools if anyone else is reporting just let us know um first thing up on the agenda is vote to approve minutes from October 21st uh motion okay all those in favor uh and the next heting which was two days after which was the October 23rd everyone got a chance to review the minutes so I couldn't vote under too many parts yeah that um sorry um for the mini minutes for October 23rd all in favor thank you sure you good for the warrant you I reviewed the following warrants um School extense warrant October 23rd 2024 $739,900 at the lgn our students and their amazing families are so close to reaching our $20,000 the funds ra will go to support buing materials fre supplies and en and then from the the yo last week our H PTO with unlikely books brought in another an author presentations to student about his books alliver in The Great Big World students learned about where Mr or had got his ideas and he wrote his graphic novels it was an amazing experience for them as mentioned last school committee meeting our students have done a great job with our PB expectations of being hash respectful Ash responsible and hash safe earning hash theore where we already haded out now close to 150 books for handing in 50 and 100 hashtags for their second booking for coin for the book vendue machine we do not have close we have done close to 100 good good news calls of the day so far our LT Lancer Learning Time RTI response to intervention block for our imss have been running smoothly since the start of the Year where students are getting academic support they need each day during the school days as they rotate through different standards and grouping space on their assessment scores a faet of imss tier 2 Innovations for our students behaviorally have been very successful this year with our check-in and checkout System point students have been earning throughout the throughout the day students on the CCO system have been doing so incredibly well I don't know what any of that means swag um so for the high school um we have a lot of things happening in the next several weeks the student council is in the process of playing the Spirit Week heading into Thanksgiving on Wednesday tomorrow tomorrow next Wednesday over 100 NHS Juniors will be inducted into over 10 honor societies there will be a powder football game hallway decorating spear days in the big competition at the pepperi on Wednesday before Thanksgiving December nor high school have the upper class semi formal dance the Winter concert any questions for students uh next up opening School remarks principal stand sit you can present right from there Mr Barrett I'll use my principal voice excuse me I have to put my old man um so I I did not prepare slides just prep some remark so hopefully that that's okay um so this is obviously a fresh start this year for JCS we have a lot of new staff myself and so what we're trying to do is bring a lot of new energy to school while also respecting the Traditions that are in place because there are a lot of really teric traditions in place here at DCS um I'm excited to share my first opening School remarks with you as principal I've enjoyed my first few months being part of the JCS and greater Norton community and one of the things I've noticed um is how helpful and supportive people have been for me as someone new and I I know you're probably not surprised by that but it's really nice for me someone new coming so thank you for that um and so even though I'm not a new principal it's been exciting and a little scary to start my 30th year in education at a brand new SCH glad to have the opportunity to be here in this room um so I'm just going to talk a little about things that I think you know but just to make sure that everybody knows what's been happening um so because of all the hard work of our teachers and staff and the support of our students families JCS has gotten off a great start everyone's comfortable with the daily routines and the expectations and when I stop in and visit classrooms there's a lot of active learning taking place across all the grade levels including our little lanterns um Maria Blackburn who's our new early childood coordinator has been an excellent addition to our school um and we're building a really strong leadership team together so you know as a school committee there are a lot of new curriculum initiatives in at the elementary schools and teachers are spending a lot of time collaborating within their grade level teams to learn and successfully implement the new Ela program interview um the professional development provided by the district to help teachers get familiar with the new program and the materials has been a really important support for our teachers and they're looking forward to learning more about how to use the new program as effectively as possible for the next few years so for example um I know that Dr Amman shares feedback from the PD the feedback from the PD about inter been consistently extremely positive from teachers not just at JCS but the other schools as well and I think that says quite a bit um my understanding is that the Norton teachers had a key role in evaluating selecting inter reading and I think that's probably one of the reasons why um because they have such positive f for the program I think that's really going to help move it forward um so as you know too in the last three year uh it takes about three years and minimum to fully Implement a new curricular program effectively and our schools building on the work that was started last year when Norton adopted Stepping Stones as a new math program and uh purposeful people from c as a social emotional learning program so teachers have already Express that they feel much more confident teaching math using stepping stones in the second year which is excellent and we're also using the lessons and resources within character strong across our school Community including in our daily morning announcements that we do with the kids um I shared some of those things with parents in in the JCS journal and so um I think from what I've noticed being new probably the most significant factor in the success of our students with these programs is the dedication of our teachers and staff and I've been really impressed in for students um JCS is a school values a culture that focuses on being kind being safe being respectful being responsible every day so three out of the four hashtags match with what you heard from the the yell school um um but we still value having fun while we learn together this is a pre in preschool right kids should have fun sometimes at school and so one of the ways that we have fun as a community is our students leaving the morning announcements every day if you've been in the school during morning announcements it's hilarious because we have little lanchers all the way up through third grade doing it and so they all take different roles and they have a lot of fry doing it so every day um we say the Pledge of Allegiance together the students read it we celebrate birthdays of students staff um and we share things from character strong about working on um we're continuing the JCS tradition of hosting a Veterans Day celebration at the end of this week and so um our student Representatives asked what was happening at JCS and said I'm gon to share that tonight so I I'll hold on um we're really excited two students from Norton High School joining us to play the trumpet as part of the ceremony um many of you or some of you know I'm a former music teacher and my wife is a music teacher and she's a trumpet player so this is very exciting for me and this year um like the past years we um we've had members of the Norton BFW joining us we've also reached out to FS this year and invited any family members who are veterans to come and join us that's something that we did at my PR school and it was really really powerful to have kids standing with Dad M moms in particular were a huge impact on KS Grandma Grandpa Uncle so we're looking forward to that this this year recognize our veterans and than my own father was a VOR um something we've added to the school culture and for the three parents who on the school committee I apologize ahead of time um we've been singing some silly songs together so being a former music teacher that's something that y that's happened as well and that's actually happened um we had one student that moved back to their home um sing District because they had a program that could support their needs um or and sometimes we have kids that we decide that we're out of district and that home program is like you know what foring district is like yep you're right could you please try collaborative um but but they get that bill and it's um then we try to work collaboratively with them moving forward to try to get the kiddo back into District as soon as possible um but it's it's really about building those relationships and that collaboration between us and the sending district and making sure that we're doing what's right for for kids in all parties and V all right here's the next big figure all out what happens with dis can we see students records before the no we cannot however we can ask for them after they've been accepted and basically um any felony charges good so have you have multiple detentions suspensions whatever it may be the applied to come to North our district has no say to say no you cannot come here because your scores are horrible your again just it's the same as the vo think it that way it's the same process right that that do and that's not I mean the least of the high school do majority well I going to say nine times out of 10 that's not that's not is like every once in a while yes we have issue so piggy backing what about like an expulsion somewhere else theold got phone no no no I'm just I'm thinking more at the Middle school/ High School level no but if they were excelled you can only Excel a student for a very serious attraction so therefore with the way that discipline laws go now it has to be a very very serious PR how know though they would have to share that information so we can still ask for attendance we can still ask for the IEP we can still ask for this record we can still ask home language has to be after so that's big Chang we were accepted which was we weren't supposed to be getting it a FR all but if we were to get that and they had they were expelled for something I'm like sorry we need to resend your invitation oh we can do that I mean yeah that's what you just can't say we yeah okay so was expelled we could resend their invitation if if the reason they was expelled was something that was that sign it's not only get of who's in charge is is Department of DES in charge of schools like who sets these rules if I had to guess and I'm yes she I'm going to go on and just give my honest opinion I think what they're trying to get policy in place is that every student flying for school choice off bat is which was fine and then if things come out things are revealed then do have and I think it's very important for you guys to know that none of this language is actually changing for our the only thing we're actually changing our dates everything else has already existed within the within the regulations and within our policies um and and this our policies go straight from the mass saing what unfortunately we were doing is we were collecting information to make a decision to make a decision prior which we were not and I can see people having a problem and I can understand that right like you know when you know better you do better and so therefore we're trying to fix the the issue of number six stud accept blah blah y except that there's a lack of funding for TR what does that even mean um I I guess it are really in dire STS and you know find another 30 teachers then probably have some serious conversation although we also have to remember with those students those year so school choice students leave so I mean you'd almost make the argument the funding of program is basically sending isue ours but it just makes no sense it C us if if for example Dan we had to cut another bunch of teachers done next year and so we are now going from this is very hypothetical situation we're going from Seven fth grade classes after five and we have 15 fth grade I don't know what that would be yeah like who like just so who determined who determines what because like could we have said hypothetic we just cut 30 teachers but by all school choice with us I think you would have to really be able to defend it but and again the one thing that makes me nervous is the fact that with with our school students there goes that as well so I mean no I I'm not correct I'm just saying hypothetically I don't know the answer corre I just don't know who but there is someone in charge of school choice at Dy so is five the and six I assume are these like the um school choice policy items from like the state it's all all that is regulatory Lang so does that mean like except if there's a lack of funding for the school choice program like if the state decides sorry there's no more school choice we're not giving you we're not giving districts any funding can we get clarification on that yeah I think that's kind of very important that all of a sudden we're staring in a year two five 10 years on the road and we have 200 school choice kids and all of a sudden we're looking at cutting ton of teachers but that might be a legit scenario at some point but but then our policy would essentially go to we're not allowing any but this says we can but this says we can kick the kids out who are here which is aw I'll be crystal clear I do not think that should ever happen I was just always under the impression the law stat said you can't do that but now I'm reading that you can if you have no funding for the program I'll bring it with me when we speak next time but the language that we're changing s just no it's fine we we could do this we could do this online but um but any questions or concerns about the language we're going to change is there anything that you guys would want to see changed for draft two are you sure you wanted to go through June 15th you don't want that see I think if we're not making decisions until April or May I think six weeks is probably there that may 1 and then and then we can but I would not go any further cost no you know that was Pam and I kind of came up with that date together just because it's really Pam that does all of the leg work when it comes to the application process time high school schedule for example high school schedule placements all of those things as long as you guys feel like that what is it it used to be October 1st October 1st we first start October all right so no vote has to happen on that night I'll bring it back I will get clarification for you on what that actually means funding um and okay um next up first public uh first reading of public participation at school committee okay so um this policy here is something that has come in front of the committee before um this was worked on by Dr bayetta and our legal council um to provide a little bit more of a robust um set of guidelines for public participation at school our current policy is is very um brief and they basically saying that they can reach out to the chair if they want to be put on the agenda um but there's really no guidelines around actual public comment um for the last few years we' have followed um a pretty you know simple process where if there are people in the audience that want to um comment on any of the items or have items at the end usually the chair will give people a couple minutes I know a few of you have you served in that role since we've started so this um follows the guidelines around public participation and um a lot of it actually does come so this first paragraph and these first three bullet bullet points actually are from our current um language so written correspondents May directed to the committee um 72 hours in advance to have something put on the agenda um and that we can include a public hearing at any time if you so wish I do recommend keeping those things because it's a good way for people to be able to access the committee and it also gives them a process of how far in advance we need um Communication in order um the in the middle that's all pretty similar not language there so um then it kind of goes into the role of of the chair um and how the chair has oversight over the meeting itself um so this is I mean quite honestly as you can see it's much more comprehensive than what we currently have um one of the things that we're seeing across the state of Massachusetts is a big push back in certain communities around um public station um there was a gentleman in na that played the UB at every meeting for over SS so it's having a more comprehensive process in place really only benefits you because it puts the chair in charge of allowing someone to speak or mons I think kind of going back historically I think it's number five is it has to be something we have control in our perfect like for example if someone says my kid got you know 20 minutes in recess they should have had 28 not enough and that should be something you if it's you know I have an issue with the way Dr anyl spoke to me possibly on our perview you know so I think that's the that was the thing because we've had people you know in meetings that are just you know kind of going off the rails a little bit and it's something it's a directed complaint or Personnel issue that one we're not going to discuss in a public media it's a Personnel matter that's not our purview because there only or app position our perview and unfortunately you know a lot of the Personnel issues are start with the building principle start you go through the process and even then it still doesn't fall under ourv that's the that's the critical part of this policy is you know I'm all for free speech if it's free speech in a way that you're not just speaking to speak and hear words and spread the word it has to be something that is relevant to this commit and I think that's really the important part about and that's why I I like the fact that number five is is very specific about what herview of commity is um and that the fact that we will not take um you know Personnel complaints that this is not the forum for them um and so I think that part having that really clearly spelled out is a good thing for all of us um and then you know the fact that it gives us the time um to really um kind of adere to like we're going to just do this certain amount of time and that and that's going to be it um but we can make any changes to this and what I'll do so this would what we what would happen is that instead of having just kind of things a little bit more willy-nilly at every meeting we would have a 15 minute public comment period that would be moderated by the chair and once that is over public speak to and that's it so you guys do the beginning of the meeting the end of meeting I'm SC itly is it is the public comment for what is on that current agenda so the public comment be like last week you guys talk like could someone say next week or next meeting they can come in and say my public comment is about you guys talking about public comment to each yes than to because I think that was the other issue is having something in the literature in policy about it has to be on the current agenda to be discussed com y that's what we do now so that this opens it up a little bit more so this would kind of um you know if we had a parent that wanted to come in and talk about school conversation school choice conversation yeah and say you know this is been the school trade program has been a huge asset for our family these are the things that we want to share with you they could do that they have 3 to five minutes they could share that um anything that's more ly they would have if you choose to me the policy is kind of ambiguous because we're asking them to put it on the agenda but then they come in and under public policy and talk about you know it's on the agenda so don't you don't have to stop and in fact I often encourage you not to just because it doesn't need to be a dial it can be a thank you very much for sharing um if they wanted something on the agenda the committee a would need to decide that it's worthwhile to put on the agenda just because someone requests it does not mean it has to fall just seems like AAL and I don't like a policy that has so as I said this has come before the committee this draft has come before the committee previously um Nick and D oh sorry Dan and Sher I think you guys have voted on this one previous um when we comes to the legality around public comment let me get a little bit more clarification for you but I think we really are like supposed to have like that public comic time we could say I me you can do it at the end right now it's suggesting that you do it at the beginning before the end on the agenda you can always do it at the end to do it based on items on the agenda because I think sorry I think doing it at the beginning kind of defeats the purpose because they wanted if public comment is truly over after that public period have discussion on something the agenda then it would make sense because otherwise it would be allow public mment based on what was on our agenda and then they chose to not follow have put on the agenda to do we know they're more aligned with this than our part I looked at a few Manfield PR much has this do 15 minutes to start no one's there you just start my thing is is the history of what we've seen with people coming in kind of know that they're coming if you it's very rare that we have people come in and say something at the end of our meetings based on S we kind of know this is going to be a Hot Topic we're gonna get people here to me is looking at at the five of us we are Representatives whether we you know however you want to look at it elected reps of the of the resident of so to me having to go get it on the agenda make sure we're doing like to it just doesn't I don't know to me it just doesn't flow right you make people sit around for two hours to then you know give their three minutes of talk like to me it just doesn't flow it just seems like we're all doing things and then we're just waiting for the inevitable bomb to blow up like if we started it with like okay hey we're opening this up anything else anyone want to say anything you know do go for it you know and I do think what I do like about this is me being chair is going to be very different from Dan being chair or whatever and like that gives us the ability to allow the chair to moderate the meetings that's kind of their job you know so I look at it as from a standpoint of there's a few things in here that I would like to take out to be honest with you but like to give people the you want we want people to come to these we want people's voices to be heard I would much rather have someone come here than to you know jump on Facebook or shoot us an email you know and like another thing not that happen hopefully it never does happen but like how awkward would it to be if you wanted to you know talk about Jen and how horrible of a job they are he really going to reach out to Jen and myself saying that no come here say it you know but like so there just there's just certain things to me it's just like I'm all for you have an issue and again I totally agree with that that has to be within our perview because it's not what this isn't a sounding board either you know but I just feel like hey you have something you want to bring it up and get it off your chest that's that's what we're here for we want to listen you know and I think what I've seen my time here anyway at least is is you know even before is when people talk and they're here tend to get a pretty good response from this in terms of like we hear you we understand what's going on you know that makes sense whether it be you know POS the positions we just put back in I mean was anyone thinking about putting teacher learning ship positions back in until they came no I wasn't you know so that's the type of stuff that I feel like by doing a public comment right in the beginning get it out of the way you can then get you know them now now they know hey it's 6 to 6:15 or you know 6 to 620 or whatever and they're out of to me it might open up some doors for us to hear from our community that's that's what we're doing I I do like that aspect of it I'm just curious if like again there's a Hot Topic item so we have the open 15 Point whatever minutes people come and talk and then let's say somebody wanted to talk about mcast or whatever do they get to speak again after we do the mcast item like are we going to have like several public so my thing is I think I think the public comment is directly made for fact I think people stay just kind of say no you can't say anything no no I age up to the chair always when I was somebody spent the time and was here something say I always like yeah so I think it's up to the chair if they speak again in the meeting and and that I mean and that is pretty much in here as well it's the perview of the of the chair to decide if you want to continue all having conversation corre I just think it gives us a little bit more when someone complains or an email or a text message hey we got 15 minutes getting out of our meeting come on down right yeah I don't think we want to be a board that doesn't no no you know have people come and and because again I've said it for a long time I think when you collaborate with other people and you listen things can be learned and things can be you know changed to a better so I think the one thing that if if there is a time that needs to be held in conscience because you know as you mentioned you're chair now someone else will be chair call it ail 15 whatever but the there has to be consistency because I know like you in the past have said oh I'm not I'm not going to time you that's fine but Poli she says there's a time limit and we can't have people just you know s the get's work address for 45 minutes can't have good spe I think we we can't just have public comment be chaos right you know like they can't be like I hadit a pothole my way for what about the high school traffic but again that's the chair moderating me and that's why that's my biggest thing is is and I don't mean this in a negative way but like you can't be for free speech and then tell someone you only get two minutes to speak but if you're making good points and you're sticking to the topic and I'm sitting there be like that's a good point that's a good point you go for five minutes good for you you're probably going to lose my attention within 15 20 seconds to be completely honest but like once once you go like you're either you're either on the topic and your and your making points or you're not and that's where the chair can say okay you understand your point at this point we're going to ask you to you know finish up in 30 seconds you know so that I mean that's kind of how I I see it I'm just wondering though like should there be a line in here that like public comment is for you know youc come whatever but if you want to address a specific agenda item you would wait until that agenda item like I just want somebody to come in and be like for first 15 minutes and they're going to talk about agenda item number four like we're going to just have that you know what I like I just kind of think that's some language something along those lines just so we're not having a conversation twice or you know does that make sense because I think what you could do you could do it two ways just kind of taking out loud it's if you wanted to start the meeting public confence and then at the end like your last agenda be you know public response to agenda or something like like you know so they're still they don't have to wait two weeks go to the next meeting to talk about we just talk about because public I mean right now like if we know there's a Hot Topic usually there's all of our audience here and then typically next theair will open up and say all right who wants to you know does anybody want to talk about this while we're on the agenda item like I think that is still appropriate can we again just kind of thinking about how this is going to go can they identify if they want speak to an agenda item and then so so say someone came in tonight and said I want to talk about mcast recog we say because I just I don't I just don't want to long because that that was we had some long meetings because we had 30 people showing up and a lot of it the problem at the time was it was out of our control and you know going back a few years back state says you're in a mask you're in a mask that's where a lot of this came came out of you know and unfortunately there's different opinions on that but again it's not it wasn't in our perview but we talk on it you know and we have people with scientific experiments just it delved into slight bit of chaos at some meetings the meetings are very long you but a lot of stuff isn't in thatview though and people I think still have the right to come talk to us about it though no what I'm saying is public comment has to be reserved for things that are in our preview it can't just be a sound off well I'm not saying a sound up Bo but if it's something relevant to the schools why wouldn't we allow them to because if we don't have control well the chair will have control no I'm saying as a committee it's not something being control so maybe something that we may not be aware of well we're hearing about it on Facebook that's my thing right and I get the perview because I totally understand whereever false ini but at the end of the day you know what the purview is money that's what everything is always going to come down to and we you're the ones to set the play so when you like whoever controls the money is the one who controls the per I hate to say it that way that's that's life that's how it goes any company the CFO is involved in every decision why all moment that's it's the world we live in you know so yes if they're going to come and complain about a teacher we're going to say that's not on our purview going to chop that down but anything else like you said we don't want to be a sounding board but like at the same point we might not know if something's going there certain things in here about Personnel that that's specified that that can't happen can exactly so I just I would rather hear it here than on Facebook media that's all I'm saying if they're coming here the care right they're typing behind their keyboard yeah they might care about a little bit but they don't care about enough to put their face in a public something about I mean so is there guys not taken out of this before the second reading me I would cut anything that has anything to do with time I would cut anything about 15 minutes we have a very H top I would not be comfortable this chair saying we got to 15 minutes sorry we're cutting all opinion but unfortunately you're not saying as me like you're only the chair for as long as you're the chair the next chair might say I want to be 15 minutes so I think we have to have language because Nick Scher is not the AG so I mean but we can't always keep coming back to policy for each chair's discretion yeah you just keep it 15 minutes and then you have whoever the current chair is has the right to allow more yeah so it actually does say that just um number six however the chair extension of time and extending circumstances so that's there around 3 minutes that's okay okay but I mean still regardless I think you need to have a time there because if you don't have like we're gonna do this for 15 minutes then we're gonna like our meetings are going to be so that's what we signed up for no we did as elected officials we're not forour meetings because people talk about things that aren't with of school committee someone wants to complain about a PL in Point let's let's thr perfect right let's just say we have everyone's mad at jet we have 40 people that's an executive s that's don't just leave it for 15 minutes and the chair has the right to allow extra I understand right no that's yeah I I just don't it is there number six it's the second sentence um however No it should be a number two right during his 15minute public comment period discretion ch um so it is there number six so it does it can apply the other part um unless the chair determines if there's good reason for rearranging the order a public meeting yeah I mean we can just take the sentence in number six and put it in number two yeah that's would be that was actually one of my suggestions like can we take two and six and kind of combine that way kind of all the time in one anything else that you guys want me to change for the next time again we don't have to vote on this I'll bring it back um feel like we should have invited for the next one oh it's his favorite topic topic I know Dr aan was a little bit anxious about presenting those two guys the day after the big boat it's true we were talking today and I'm like just our luck right so it's a student achievement report it's the pass support and here it is it's going to be removed so uh interesting timing so I want to start by saying whomever you watched last night on the election watching all the big board and the screens back and forth whether it's Phil hmer Steve Kaki or John King I'm not close to pay no attention to the man I just lower little expect in terms of in terms of my skill but but all all you know all kidding aside um I just want to step in and kind of reframe you know this is my second year here not and I know that their mcast conversation has been kind of a longstanding issue and I know some people really value it other people really don't and I respect all positions the one thing I just want to say with regard to mcast is it is helpful for us because this is a common Universal tool so that we can look at how we're doing and crosswalk that with other districts so I position all of this by saying this is one point in a much larger context we're not defined by mcast in any way Mr Barrett student Representatives talk all the time about the quality and the care that our school offers and that's hugely important this is one small piece but important piece of seeing that puzzle on so a little bit of a history lesson we had the early mcast it's known as Park then we had the Legacy scores and then all the metrics changed like 2018 because the test became more difficult to bring us back into Focus we then had three years with kind of a different G between going through 2019 to 2021 full tests no tests half tests trying to make heads or tails of that data longitudinally I'm not sure how hopeful that is so the real Focus I and the preface for the presentation tonight is we actually now three years of consistent Administration in a consistent format so it gives us a little bit of an opportunity to look longitudinally at how we're do I think as importantly all the work we've done on curriculum adoption and that's academic so recall when we began just as recently as a couple of years ago we did not have what would be considered like high quality evidence-based inst Structural Materials in a number of areas but between 2022 and 2024 we've on boarded Stepping Stones mid School map amplifi Ela character strong and we're beginning navigate 360 in the High School this year which is social emotional curriculum and additionally this has all been foundationally Guided by our work around imss and I want to make sure that in the context of all the work that we do just examine that this is one part of one scope of a more comprehensive and so imss is still about right on time interventions based on student needs and were finding dedicated times in schools we're trying to use the best data and be most consistent and make sure that our PD programs really match the curriculum adoptions that we work and I feel like as a collective that we've really involved all of our staff so our teachers our administrators our central office folks to try and really make this both a bit of bottom up and a bit up top down so that we all kind of come to consensus on those best pieces so I'm going to walk us through some kind of familiar slides that those of you that have been on the committee of scene before and then for the folks that are a little bit newer I'm going to take a slightly different tack for the second part because I think it's interesting and helpful data to look at longitudinal pieces as well so I want to start with really like what they call that 30,000 foot View and then work into some of our grade level cohorts and then I really want to end this with talking about student growth because that's often something that may not get the attention that it deserves so we've all been in the airplane we're looking down we're seeing what's below us so the first several slides are going to be I think largely familiar but these are kind of big picture snapshots and time so can everybody read this reasonably well or see it on your screen so we really want to focus our efforts and see these blue and green bars be as high as possible and one way to really capture how we're doing is to take the combined exceeding expectations and meeting expectations bar and combining and the more weight we have on that left hand side the better that we're going so if we look at our last year's grade 10 cohort in English language arts if you combine the district excuse me if you combine the leing and exceeding we're at 56% that is just um one point under the state average 57 is the state the best comparison for us no because it's so diverse but it does give us a broad base of in the big picture where are we lining up with our other districts in the city Brian not that we have it here but maybe you have this can you look at the data set as a whole get like like districts say I know historically We compare ourselves to like our TBL companions yes because that's kind of like and we always say like we're not going to compare to addfield and this is we can and this is where it gets a little bit tricky so there's a metric called the dart districts which are by Des comparisons from a socio economic status from a demographic status from a size status that looks similar to us is it a perfect match no but it is one Baseline for us to compare ourselves over time to other districts I just think we always do ourselves a disservice looking at stus versus just after some I agree it's it's a very narrow it's a narrow measure and I feel like it's an excellent starting point and something that maybe could elicit some more conversation and kind of win a win more on that data that that we find really similarly when we look at math again Orton last year grade 10 mathematics 48% exceeding 48% versus the state so squarely in the big picture sense right at about those State Tes moving into um science technology education if you look at grade 10 our district meeting and exceeding 52 the state was 49 so just a tick above where the state is um for the gr s then looking at the Broadband of RA 3 to eight Ela so again your was U meeing or exceeding and this is combined Raad three all the way through eight 40% meeing or exceeding and that's just above the 39% State average again these aren't scores that um we don't want to improve we most certain we most certainly do but they kind of start as a bro basis of comparison then if we want to look at grades 3 to eight now Norton is 40% meeing or exceeding combin and then theate is 41% meeing or exceeding so again very similar picture in Norton than what we see across the so one way to look at growth and to look at student progress is to look at something called cohort data and a cohort basically means if we were follow a group of grade three students in 2022 then grade four students in 2023 and grade five students in 2024 it gives us a little perspective of how they grow over time I want to offer as a reference to this we have a number of new curriculum Endeavors which is wonderful one of the things that happens particularly for a test like mcast which measures a very long window of instruction you may see a little lag at the beginning and that's okay typically and Mr Barrett had referenced this earlier it's a two to threee period so that you get comfortable with the program you get comfortable with the methodology especially if what the new program is is substantially different than what you have in and that really is it's it's okay we want to kind of dive into that so I have a few slides Elementary then Elementary the middle and then middle and middle the secondary just to give us some gr bands to look at for so if you look at our R um Elementary cohort data for mcast um as I referenced earlier there are those four categories so if you look at our Ela cohort data from grade three in 2022 to grade 5 of 2024 those meeting and exceeding scores are down a little bit time and those generally we have more students moving into the partially met category um and then really um very slight change in the KN category so again curriculum adoptions tend to be a lagging indicator but slight um downward Trend over these then again looking at the math um scores as well if you look at the threeyear poort 3 three and 22 through grade 5 and 24 we've had a bit of a DE inter so my immediate first thought when I looked at this data and I was like oh well I read it first thought was oh God but then my second thought was really around foundational skills for kids coming out of lower elementary and into that Upper Elementary and it made me think about okay is this an issue of students not necessarily mastering some of those foundational skills before they reached up our elementary and therefore we've kind of we have this bigger gap of where students are are lagging behind and it made me think a lot about our imss process and you know thinking about who are these kiddos who are these kiddos that are seeing dips in their performance they like they were doing enough doing well enough to meet the standard or exceed the standard when it came to third grade but the work is getting harder it's you know they need to put a little bit more into it what SKS are they like right because I think especially when I think about this particular cohort so and I say this because this is my son's C these are our current sixth graders so they were first graders in March of 20 of 2020 when everything closed and if you weren't a reader in March of 2020 when the doors closed you probably were not going to be a reader until the end of second grade if not the beginning of third grade because we were doing so much online learning learning for that c word of students and first grade is such a critical time for students and in mastering those foundational skills so this makes me want to really and I get jealous of Dr a he gets to do the fun stuff that I love and I get to deal with craziness sometimes um but it makes me want to dive in and look at student specific data and then it also makes me want to look at standard specific data so where were kids doing well in third grade what were the specific standards and where are they now falling apart and are those two things connected because I would put some money on it that I bet they are um and and so that's what those these things make me think about like from using my my teaching and learning hat um but it's discouraging to see that dip right from third grade to fifth grade because our hope is that as they get older and as they move they're going to get more skills and more work and I think about that a lot with these kiddos do you ever think our district a little different because a whole different experience that they both do so much historically talk about that and that's why I was saying ear in my com that like Sher probably tested this too is like when we used to look at LG and JCS they completely different you know and I say that meaning it's almost like LG's off on its JCS has its little on everything else is in the middle that seems to be a little more decent but but it's also just a transition kids coming to school they're in and out learning a whole new thing and then you're throwing all this from too historically if you look at data Trends and I've been doing this as far as I've for a long time you always see a big difference grade four and then you start to see it climb back up in grade every single without fail um so I don't know if it's a transition year the fourth grade test um many years ago used to have a really significant writing portion that went along with it which I always felt was um a big factor for students because all of a sudden they have to write this five paragraph essay that has to be cohesive it to have proper mechanics you have to use evidence from the text it was a big ass for fourth graders um so I always used to blame like say that probably be a factor of it but I I do think it's a transition for kids and I know as well I had a nice conversation with mus6 Deets today who's our math interventionist you know as Jen talked about the kids that were not leaders uh when Co hit similarly the sophistication of problem solving and the and the idea of having to go through multistep processes to come it's something that just for a lot of our kidos just didn't crystalize at that time so that is going to L lag a little bit we are and we'll see in some future slides our SGP rates are you know are are decent but I think that's something it's just going we're going to have to be patient with all that coming I every confidence will'll get there because again the foundational pieces of curriculum professional development are there it just will take us a little bit of time to help recoup that loss because those kids you know missed 250 days of impers stru so I'm curious with um stepping stones and that the way that I understand it is that it has this kind of like Spiral like holding right um piece and I see it in the sheets that I get home with my son um when a student when you increase to the next grade is the teacher sort of like doing this kind of initial assessment if you will of like here this is where we're at oh it looks like they've sort of missed some of these pieces from let's say second whatever we need to fill that in before we can like push on in the curricular yeah we we say universally to our to our teachers as a starting point we have to meet our students where they are right and we start from there and inform our instruction based upon because we are trying to be data driven looking at those assessment pieces and then during intervention blocks or small group times trying to then fill those app with individual or small groups of students sorry um so every fall every student takes the star assessment for reading and math um and then but there are assessments also built into Stepping Stones like there's an end of thee Benchmark there also a beginning of here I just say wasn't that quarterly I'm that was one ofcell ones yes for that for that was because of the end of the year and then teach being able to kind of figure out like all right 80% of this well we need to look at this a little more kind so when we look at I know we've we've had some curriculum changes the last couple of years when we look at curriculum we also comparing that to the mcast subjects because because I just don't like part of me is like you know you always hear the oh you're teaching to test well yeah because that's our Benchmark but when we look at curriculum do we make sure that those Outcast subjects are in that curc we do so in order to be rated as high quality on curator egg reports all of our curricular materials have to cover all content standards and those content standards on the mcast match the content standards that we deliver via our inst Structural Materials so a vendor a steping stones and into reading wouldn't even be a consideration if they did not comprehensively teach those standards so the elementary was you know a little bit mixed um we do have some positive changes for our middle school because one way we wanted to look at this data was then to say if you look at some Elementary Folks at grade four and 22 and then moving through grade five and 23 and then looking at that first middle school year experience in ela here was another basis of comparison so that we can see that the number of students in that meet or exceed category ticked up nicely we had 9% growth in in in that area and um I think that's helpful and I think that BS well one thing to think about and this is an initial point and it will have to be fleshed out over time those students in 23 and grade five did not have you know they used the old Lucy Parkins units of study but then in grade six had Amplified yellow how much impact it has we won't know it's like it will just take a little bit of time but that is something that gives us a nice positive uh data if we look at the elementary to Middle School map cohort again similar um and in the aggregate the combined um scores from gr four to six from 22 to 24 we saw a 9% growth in that meeting and exceeding category so again gr five in 23 used our old program but grade six in 2024 used our mid school math program so again is it causal we don't know but at least it's an initial data point give us some some some and then if we want to look at that Ela cohort data again starting with grade six in 22 so these are students that have been in the middle school for three years over a three-year period having the same test each year again very you know nice growth over that period so if you look specifically those students in grade seven did not have Amplified Ela but they did in grade 8 in 2024 so you see some nice jumps from the exceeded in net categories from 23 moving into those exceeded in net categories in 24 so again an initial data point but showing some some reasonable similarly we wanted to look at the middle school math cohort data and this wasn't as positive as the ELA cohort data but again if you're looking at grade seven those students did not have mid school math in 2023 and did not have mid school math excuse me did have mid school math in 2024 we did actually see a DI again if you're noticing a trend here it's that it's a little bit variable right some areas it's gone up and other areas it's gone it's gone down so we're going to continue to do work we've done with curricular professional development build capacity really continue to move those stor the last cohort I wanted to look at and this is a little bit of a different cohort because I think as Dr O'Neal had stay earlier in M for mcast for ELA students will take it in E grade but then they do not take it typically in ninth grade and then again they take it uh in grade 10 so you notice here if there's a jump from 22 to 24 that that would be the reason and again you know we could talk a lot about the reasons behind it mcast graduation requirement expectation I don't know if that's part of it or not but some very strong flow from those eight students in 22 we grade 10 students in 202 similarly in math looking at that coh data 8 2022 versus grade 10 in 2024 we've seen some nice positive change up a total of three points in that me and exceeded that so this is probably a Sil question but I'll ask it when it comes to mcast testing is there like study guide or review period that the students go through because I remember like again I never took mcast like you know you have a study guide for SATs you a study guide for PSATs it at least kind of is it more just or is the review as simple as these are the type of questions you're got to see but they don't go like content so they they actually mcast has what's called a release items effect and so they're test items actual test questions from previous years so it could be a compare and contrast essay it could be you know solving a linear equation whether or not that appears on the following Year's test we don't know but those are available and I know um I know at the middle school they definitely intentionally practice those um I was able to see raid seven last year they did an mcast ramp up and they combined it with cornhole and basketball to like make it fun and interactive so it people definitely do practice them I know we visi in classrooms particularly the Upper Elementary grades um I will often see for instance fifth graders working on that five paragraph essay that we referenced ear so yes and because it's a cheer P based test now it's just not all the choice like the way they used to be so um there is a practice test that kids can take on their Chromebooks that will show them what the questions look like and help them kind of um practice how to use the tools how to move things from one category to another it's very very different it's well beyond the scant sheets so the final thing I wanted to look at is student grow percentage or percentile so simply put every student or cohor group is assigned an SGP number between one and 99 one means that that student scored at or better than 1% of their peers 99 meant that that's to who scored better than 99% of their why do we look at student growth because if Mr Barrett on the 24 mcast scored in the exceeded category and I scored in the not met category examining our scores as a basis of comparison isn't really that helpful but if Mr Barrett and Mrs luo also scored in the exceeding category in 2023 and then took it in 2024 we would want to compare their scores because it's more accurate barometer how much progress is made and typically we should expect about one years of growth one year of growth for every student every year and so what you'll find is the numbers range from as I said 1 to 99 50 is right in the M if you are within the band of the 35th to the 65th percentile that is within the typical range below the 30 death is considered low growth above the 60 death is considered high growth so we always Aspire especially in light of all the earlier conversation of having the highest growth percent so I just wanted to take a look and share with um is with the committee just what some of the SGP has looked like over the last couple of years so if we look at the green Ela SGP the mean SGP has been hovering right around 50% TI just above that for the last couple of years and so that squarely represents typicals that e grade the math SGP again right around the 50th percentile has kind of stayed in the those 4S but again squarely within that typical Ro just just clarification so on 2022 that was the eighth grade C sixth grade that was the eighth grade they were it was that Year's e gr so we're not looking at C sorry thank you yes and then so this is a those 186 KS 166 KS whatever I the number students because correct you have some variance you know the fewer students you have the greater the variability this SCH changes then kind of the last was again SGP that would be grade 10 this has been fairly solid we were above the 50th and 55 for 22 and 23 took a little BP Below in 2024 but in all of those areas you see that our student cohorts are making what are considered to be typical we Aspire For Hire but we're currently within that typical similarly for math you look at the work that 39 percentile which is on the C of low growth but some nice bounce back 51 SGP in 2023 and then 57 last year which is so so I just wanted to take it the last couple minutes because I think we need to celebrate the things that we've done well and a lot of people at all levels of our schools our teachers our principles have worked really hard and we were de a tough hand with Co that was a very difficult time so I want to acknowledge the work that faculties have put in to really help us we really saw that solid growth from that Elementary excuse me math in laa that Elementary the middle Cort we saw some really solid growth with that threeyear Ela Cort and then that strong growth from grade 8 and 22 to grade 10 and 24 these are not in your slides but I also wanted to reference Jen and I were talking about data and doing some data analysis if when I went back and looked at the item analysis we overperformed the state averages pretty consistently in almost all grades three four and five writing questions so that was a nice thread to tie together that saw Norton perform well and then similarly when I look at the geometry clusters in grades three four and five Mor students perform at or above consistently to so obviously we have are the elementary math in the LA Port we had that little bit of a a dip a little bit of a decline in the middle school math cohort and the SGP scores right across grade eight and 10 are right about an average of 50 that's okay but we always want to shoot for so we're proactive we're always thinking about this all of our work is grounded in continuously supporting our students academically behaviorally and social emotionally you always focus on the whole student we want to continue we've had a real rigorous intensive professional development process with our instructional materials and we want to continue that very important we have an ongoing um and assistant professional learning cycle opportunity so as an example we on boarded into reading in August we had our teachers do a six week interval of instruction on that October 25th day uh vendor um Mary Dr Maryann Perry spent the day with us in the district so we went into classrooms we saw a grp things then the afternoon was all breakout groups with all the Educators uh teaching to read we did the same with Amplified Ela and the same with Stepping Stones now we have contracted again to do a third round so we can continu continuously grow and evolve in January and I budgeted through our ESS Grant um as much not as much but I tried to build a nice cushion because this is a hugely important piece so that we can continue to build that something that's going to be coming soon and Jen had referenced this a little bit earlier we are going to um continue to crosswalk our star data and our mcast data to help us make decisions to help look at the specific standards and look at areas for growth to support our teachers and to look at instructionally we started a lot of that work over last summer we had our leadership team analyze data and we're going to continue to do that as a group and then continue to bring that to our and of course the pool isn't as deep as it's been but we will continue to brush out I know I know a lot of information was just not small used a long term but if you're looking at 20 graphs and 25 minute presentation if you have questions if you want more information conversation like please know individually or as a group I I would welcome that I I know there's a lot of verbiage in here that isn't familiar if you don't deal with it all the time um but I would want to you know make myself available to anybody if you were interested in talking so app [Music] any questions concerns um I was just curious you mentioned here like you looked at the geometry questions and the writing items were there any um particular items or clusters that you saw where you were like we taged all these we we were fairly consistent there wasn't an outlier where we were demonstrably below not to overly peek out on it that's the pref we know exactly if you go into Edwin analytics which is one of the tools that use they do a double line so they will track each question individually they'll have the correct state resp response rate in red then they will have the correct Norton response rate in blue and so you can actually go through item by item and look at what what the results are we did not have anything that like on a quick visual stood out as being you know oh my goodness moment we were pretty con pretty consistent in terms of where where I got questions one so what we look at this kids who are not sorry partially meeting expectations what does partially meeting expectations actually mean so it means that they have apped some of the grade level standards that are necessary but that there are other standards that they have not done so one of the benefits of being in Massachusetts is that our state standards are the ACT are the highest um so it is a it is a rigorous test so now when to go through obviously now this is going to change but our great 10 kids for those students who not need the expect partially meding expectations does that mean they can graduate or does that mean they have to do additional things retake so the actual scale score for passing in grade 10 is in the partially M um students that do not reach that passing score for lack of better words have multiple opportunities to take retakes because this assessment happens I'm sorry just on that section no they would just would just take Ela or they would just take that um but there are also Vinnie could probably sorry Vinnie um probably give you a little bit of info we also have what's called a competency determination for students that have a difficult time test you know not all students are great test takers so we did do that for um I don't remember the numbers i' have to get back yeah a few kids um especially in the math area we have one really took those kids in they had a dedicated block um additional some of them is an additional m for example didn't portfolio kind of like I know you've heard about special education portfolios different in terms of you know past but for these kids you can actually pass and is it unlimited opportunities from is it really like for example I know my daughter took [Music] so is it I guess my question is do we intervene or do we say take another test and really kind of like reconsider it or we say let's work with you a little bit and then you we have inter um at first for a while we didn't have any interventions um and now we have interventions so we we do intervene like that extra math that so so for example our third grader third grader comes in gets partially meing expectations what is the what do we do in that no sorry so like that so that third grade student let's say they finish at GCS or finish uh at LG they will go to grade four at Henry a and so those teachers will have that information what currently goes on at yell right now is just Benson referen this earlier they have the imss or RTI so those students are broken up by skill by with teachers to work on specific GS that they may have it could come directly from MCAS um it could be from different area but that's part of what we're trying to really evolve with imss and with our culture around data to really have that pinpointed level of find need help on numbers and operations in Phase 10 I know that I can get and it's also important for us to remember that that particular third grader that did not do well in some particular strand that's one opportunity for them to show what their leans right they you know perhaps are working with the teacher and and really getting those geometry skills on a day-to-day basis and like for them maybe the question wased weirdly or something along those lines too they can consistently show you that they they have that and like I guess that better work we see those third gr tests we obviously have STAR test we have what doing in classroom do we kind of triage yes to be like wait a second this is a you know we're not just you know saying hey this we got to put them here it's more of like all right hold on this might have been bad we we we don't have the resources every kid I me ultimately so I mean we do we have to use other dat to kind of like narrow your field and especially in third grade it's the first time they've seen this assessment it's super overwhelming for kids um one of the things that's nice about the parent report is you get get parent report and and it's like um it's almost like a little book but it's four pages and it will tell you your child's Ela score where they fell in that range and then it will show you every single question that was part of the ELA assessment and the standard that it aligned with and it will show you the ones that your child thought F so we have that same information as Educators so we can say okay you know Jen did you know didn't do well in these particular Ela standards so it it gives you a little bit of a clearer picture and parents can see that too is it's extremely even for people who know what it is so it third but can we look at it like when you see those questions do we have like a snapshot of what district did on question five yes so you can kind of see like five six seven8 all right we are struggling in comprehension we need a so so it breaks it down very it does and like that double line graph that just had asked earlier is so helpful because then you can actually go on the line see what the question is and then cross walket you can actually see what that standard was and that's actually exactly how the yell school was doing a learning time like they use the mcast DAT and they say okay for this fourth grade group where did they have a lot of trouble and then they also use star data to do the same thing and they'll say okay this you know for these next couple intervention Cycles we're going to work on these three things um so they're using all of that data and they they do a really nice job they've kind of been a little bit they've been moving with that for a little bit longer um go back go back to grade 10 so Ela and grade 10 this past year good between partially meeting and not 44% of our students how many students have we not graduated the last five years do we have like it zero fromc or from man and in the last five years I would say only again yeah yeah I mean I would say the high school does an incredible job of working with students to figure out the competency determination for kids that have a difficult time passing um I can only two off the top of my head but you know better than I do so um and then the same so again these come out kind of like now yeah so a kid who wasn't meeting or didn't pass you didn't pass the test now now with the new determination the law not being the graduation requirement does that take effect this upcoming year it is not we have no information yet in terms of when it will but we do know that any of our current sen still have to meet that determination for gradation the guidance that came up said no earlier than de of this year no in December 5th of this year but they still said this graduating class will have to make so so the class who just took the mcast corre the Juniors now the Juniors now are we have no idea more likely are you that surprised that this is the issue when it comes toil question is they're very if something passes they're very reactive to like there's no plan no leg work ahead of time yeah because the purpose of a ballot question is an outside grp entity can do the work and and ultimately I think there's a lot of people that misunderstood part of the bot question mcast does not go away we are still required by law to administer mcast there is no opt out for students students are required to take it we are required to put the test in front um the vote that took place last night is only for the graduation but the actual M house is part of a pred regulation No Child Left Behind that have to have a SE and then okay so I just so my fear that not just one that not being a graduation reir how is the how are we how are we going to make sure that our kids aren't just coming in and going check check check I have significant concerns about that and that was part of the reason that I think I was not in favor of this St question because there wasn't right now anast has huge to do huge amount to do with accountability systems for schools and districts those accountability systems are published reals use them to Market communities to sell homes um we are put up against that's that's how they decide which schools and districts need support from the Department of Education and which are commendations you take away the accountability piece of students beinging to pass it and we always tell kids it's it's great practice for it's great practice for you but it's really about us and how we're doing right like you guys don't have to worry until you get to high school but ultimately we're going to be judged on something that everyone has well then I guess from Administration St how do we also keep our teachers that's a whole another aspect of this as well to make sure that this is relaying from the teachers to the students that this is still important and I think the best thing that we can do our job as educators are to deliver standards and skills mcast is meant to measure the acquisition of those skills so from a teaching and learning standpoint I know the term teaching to test has always been a popular one but we really don't do that we really teach the standards and the assessment just measures acquisition of those um standards so from from my perspective it's we still have content standards to deliver whether it's 10th grade geometry or it's third grade multiplication still that's the thing just the other side of that every grade up high school they've had that impression for all these years there's still those grades didn't have an end result to take that test where as a high school sof and I feel like we always give our M presentation of Mr I feel times um and that's why I've always stood here and say we can say it not the only thing we can't say it doesn't matter because ultimately it does matter from our perspective in terms of you know the Hoops that we have to jump through and also it's a it's a relevant data point to see how we're comparing with others so I who the year to I think is that from two and a half years now we definitely got more data driven I think from a standpoint of like hey this is what we're looking for I think the kind of make that a priority to certain degree what are we looking at can we do something very similar to this from our Star reports from any other type of Assessments that we do over the grade levels so like mcass is Dense Star believe it or not is even more dense with that kind of data that you can pull so we could certainly look at like if we wanted to look at it from a a progress rate um that would be a logical first step we can do it from a standards acquisition line so the work that we did as cohort last summer is we look at the end of year State Standards acquisition summary report so that we could measure an entire Year's interval teaching and learning and then put ourselves in the position of if that data is from grade two and I am the incoming grade three teachers we actually model this together what do my instructional groups look like what standards did bu did we identify as those first touch points for students so the answer is yes we can do a lot of things with stars yeah I would love to see again I think J just said perfectly but dcast isn't the end all be but like from my standpoint that I've always see is like this is the only kind of data we get to see you know we don't we we don't see student growth you know we obviously get to see you know perfect scores and stuff like that but order to actually see it to see hey where where where are our gaps know where are we doing really well how can we do this better if we can get something similar to this presentation whether it be star I I'm sure it's other assessments up probably as well I think anything that we can get into our hands even if we you know short it down to five or six slides of like hey here's some growth here's what going on here I think that's going to be huge for us in terms of you know ultimately it's our Student Success you know what is going really well what is going you know where do we need to grow and it gives us the ability to say hey wait a second that curriculum is work let's keep rolling with it you know in three years four years five and our vendor for Star they are called Renaissance they have a whole analytics platform um at times it's a little bit funky it's hot but you can actually pull a lot of really good um longitudinal data from it as well to trct you know schools even over over time corre I think to Audrey's point that giving getting extra data from the fourth grade we might be able to kind of start not by putting a finger on it or pinpointing you might be able to start saying hey wait a second here are our decks you know this is what we need to work on foundational learning stamp but this is where we're falling short we're seeing in in fourth grade because do change blah blah blah whatever uh but I feel like the more things we can get you know some some some data what our kids are doing I think anything else good um next that's one other business any else to bring up um so next meeting we I don't think that's yes it was originally thinking about that day but two weeks ago so delete it and the next one's definitely at the middle school yeah Y and then we'll start at Town Hall and yes any else make a plug for the C2 Foundation toy and get Drive um that they're they're putting together so we have our our staff working with families to identify those students in need I think the really important thing to um understand that this toy drive goes directly to students who are in our schools here in nor it's not a toy drive that goes out you know like toys TR which is a wonderful organization but this actually goes right to students here in our schools and families um we're working with uh just not C2 is kind of driving it but um we have Help Services we have PA like a number of agencies were part of that um so that that toy drive is going to be going on they're going to be I think it's the 23rd they'll be out in front of the hay um but they also have drop boxes at all the schools um and a number of the businesses I won't read them all it's gone out to St you go City Alberto like kind of the typical but all of the ones out there a lot of places folks can drop off uh in terms of of toys and then like I said we also get cards for high school age students um clothing and then um C2 will be working with some big donors who are looking to pick up prior families um as well so I just just wanted to get that out there it's really really nice thing I I sat in a meeting yesterday and so many different last week I should say uh this so many different members of the community uh in different boards and different volunteers so a real truly a community event and anything support it I know it's kind of Staff different ways Mone donations yes absolutely yeah so uh I got two things one did we how WEA the positions position um all of our positions that were reinstated have been posted um the elementary Specialists have almost all gone back to their previous FTE we are working on Library we actually posted for four librarian because Mrs Jus is currently um a reading teacher and life4 um so we posted for that and we're doing some stuff there um I came to an agreement on Friday afternoon with the NCA RIT leadership positions we are going to push those back to July January 2nd which is when we come back from the winter break and um with pushing that back till January we're able to bring back all of the roles instead of Select which is really great so I'm going to share that with you guys um a lot of the rationale around it um especially because it's so focused around curriculum at the elementary levels we really had a lot of convers but what made most sense so um we're able to do that and we're also they part of that conversation was that they really would like to um negotiate the goals and the stiens as part of our contract negotiations this year which I actually think is a really great opportunity both for the teachers and for the administration and so um some of the principals and um central office admin will sit on that working group with them and that will be part of our um revision for next next year which would be really great um and then we also posted for all those positions that was going to start in January I know we have a bunch of interests in the art position at North Middle School we're in conversations about the music position um so you know we we're hopeful that we'll have everybody back for January those are all been posted as well Y and as I mentioned mon were all long-term I want to teach out of classro in the middle of the what uh was itation piece was a welled yes yeah so and I think ultimately the back and forth with the NTA around the teacher leadership positions was just the the duties of the role and how challenging especially at the elementary level how challenging it is to be a full-time teacher and also supporting curriculum and data for second and third grade so um we were able to come to an agreement that I think both sides are really happy with and um as you heard at our meeting at PL school earlier this year just um you know some of the challenges that you know exist without those positions so yeah the last thing just so committee has it um tomorrow is our first ground Rules meeting with the n uh for negotiation purposes so obviously those neoti private is our first meeting that is [Music] it they're not um they are requesting um they'll have speaking representatives and they'll have silence so they will obviously when we leave and everyone proces they'll you know be engaged in the conversation but have just one or two people speaking entertain a motion to adjourn everyone at