##VIDEO ID:iZFr8HnqNNw## good all right six o'clock calling the Norton school committee meeting to order for Wednesday November 6th um first thing pledge of legance of the United States of Republic stands na uh the meeting is be recorded by nor media and nor Public Schools if anyone else is recording just let us know um and first thing up on the agenda is vote to approve the minutes from October 21st uh for motion favor uh and the next meting which was two days after um which was the October 23rd everyone got a chance to review the minutes so I couldn't vote on the 20 yeah that was um sorry um for the mini minutes for October 23rd second all those in favor all thank you sure you good for the warrants you want I reviewed the following warrants um School expense warrants October 23rd 2024 $739,900 198 and school payroll warrants October 17 2024 1,142 12056 they wish to enter them into the record public record uh next up student rep up PS good afternoon everybody the lgn um they're holding their annual Boosterthon Fun Run this Friday November 8th at the lgn our students and their amazing families are so close to reaching our goal of $20,000 the funds raise will to support Bing materials resar supplies and enrichment and then from the the Yale last week our H PTO with unlikely bookstore brought in another an author Geor who did two presentations to our student about his books all over in the Great Big World students learned about where Mr War 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 Ash respectful hash responsible and hash safe earning hash score where we already handed out now close to 150 books for handing in 50 and 100 hashtags for their second book in book for coin for the book venue machine we do not have close we have done close to 100 good good news calls of the day so far our LTT 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 the academic support they need each day during the school days as they rotate through different standards and groupings based on their assessment scores our faucet 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 CI slco system have been doing so incredibly well I don't know what any of that means 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 planning Spirit Week heading into Thanksgiving um Wednesday tomorrow tomorrow next Wednesday over a 100 NHS Juniors will be inducted to over 10 honor societies there will be a powder puff football game hallway decorating spirit days in the big competition at the pepperi on wed Thanksgiving December norn High School will have the upper class semi-formal dance and the Winter concert before that's all for any questions from students uh next up opening scool remarks with Principal Paul Barrett want to stand stand you can sit you can present right from there Mr Barrett I'll use my principal voice excuse me I have to put my old man glass um so I I did not prepare slides just prepar some remarks 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 the school while also respecting the Traditions that are in place because there are a lot of really terrific traditions in place here at JCS 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 school really glad to have the opportunity to be here in this one te 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 be because of all the hard work of our teachers and staff and the support of our students families JCS has gotten off to 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 Lancers um Maria Blackburn who's our new Early Childhood coordinator has been an excellent addition to our school um and we're building a really strong leadership came together so you know as a school committee there are a lot of new curriculum initiatives in place 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 interv um the professional development provided by the district to help teachers get familiar with the new program and the materials has been a 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 has 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 bu for the program I think that's really going to help moving forward uh so as you know too in the last three year uh it takes about three years at 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 character thr as a social emotional learning program so teachers have already expressed 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 every um I shared some of those things with parents 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 these first few months um JCS as 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 but we still value having fun while we learn together this is a prek through 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 leading 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 Pride doing it so every day um we say the Pledge of Allegiance together the students read it we celebrate birthdays of students and staff um and we share things from character strong about we're 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 gonna share that tonight so I I'll hold off 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 fames this year and invited any family members who are veterans to come and join us that's something that we did at my prior school and it was really really powerful to have kids standing with Dad M moms in particular were a huge impact on kids Grandma Grandpa Uncle so we're looking forward to that this this year recognize our veterans and family my own father was a veteran 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 that I've been trying to do with the kids and uh Dr aan got to see this the clear favorite song so far has been the swimming pool song which has uh lots of crazy movements and it gets faster in dropping out so we're going to continue adding those types of things to be able to do those um sort of Community Builders together um our School parent organization is also making a fresh start this school year with an entirely new board so the SBO has already been an important partner in arranging a family moving movie night which was terrific helping to welcome our new kindergarten students and supporting our teachers during conferences with an incredible dinner the dinner and the the just the layout that they got for teachers need um we have a book fair plan for next week as you can see the stacks are ready to go and we have additional family events scheduled throughout the school year in addition our SBO is continuing the tradition of a flurry of wishes to support families in need during he um one of our school goals this year and uh Dr will see this is then is really to make clear and regular communication with families a priority and if if you allow me to say so I think we're off to an excellent start using parent Square to share a weekly JCS journal every week um and the teachers themselves particularly the little Lancers teachers so if you have a prek student they're awesome at sending what's going on with pictures what's happening in the classroom which I think is really important um we've made a couple of changes so every weekly JCS Journal is also posted on the news section of the school website so parents that aren't using parents square and no where to find it um and we just started a brand new JC somon School uh Facebook page so utilizing social media to get more buying and information out to the community I've gotten some um interesting comments from grandparents looking at pictures of of what's happening our school which has been really nice it's just a nice way to share the positive news of our school so from my perspective it's been a really positive first two months of the school year here at JCS and we're all really looking forward to a trific year Bo and I don't know if you have any questions it's okay anybody have anything good thank you I'm far removed from the J these are the only updates I get parents we we didn't have any of that no um but you still have those little chairs yes these are probably almost as old as I am they're original yeah but they hold you did they're original every time I man I missed the school yeah this is my my oldest is going to be 21 tomorrow and I I I remember him sitting in these chairs and being in library with them and these are some great years of both of my kids this school is just awesome yeah I feel that way about other schools but this one's super special to me yeah so where family start children this in LG it's a feeling of home and I be to say um Tom Higgins has been amazing in helping me and we're really trying to make our schools be like sisters that's to I I I would be really he he helped me tonight I was like okay what types of things do you normally talk because you know my former District was a little different and he like oh yeah Paul here's what I talked about so really it's nice when the kids come together in fourth and fifth grade had this consistency with these you know this school in LJ so I think that's great I can't speak yeah and we didn't have that continuity for a lot of years so it's good to hear it from both sides that that was a big issue at the time especially like my kids are Cherry's youngest um so these kids came together for the first time in fourth grade and short of having you know maybe they played a sport together they didn't know each other um so seeing a little collaboration it's good to hear especially after many years kids in the elementary great thank you very much thank uh where are we uh number five student Spotlight mcast recognition Dr right thank you very much stand next Mrs Anderson and thr my stuff on in front of her um so thank you all for coming tonight I'm very excited to be recognizing some of our Norton students for their performance on last Spring's mcast exam um It's Kind of a Funny day for us to be talking about mcast because last night um the state voted to remove that as a graduation requirement um so to be determined on what that actually looks like in practice as we move forward um so the mcast exam is given every single year between um third grade and e8th grade and then again in 10th um at the high school um in the areas of ela and math and then also in science in grades five and eight um and then either nine or 10 depend on um when you take your forew so um there's a lot of tricky questions on the mcast exams there are um a lot of practical application for students um you know analyzing data analyzing texts uh there are writing samples for them and so it's something that a lot of students can struggle with um not everyone is a great test taker and we have many students um that that struggle with the exam so tonight I am so excited to be presenting to a few few students that actually scored um had a perfect score on an mcast test last spring so it's it's really incredible um you know we always talk about mcast as like one component of the data that we look at to make decisions about teaching and learning but I think it's really important for us to recognize these students tonight for their hard work so uh first I would like to call up Evan drain Evan is a and Evan got a perfect score on the fifth grade science test last year so we hold it together so Mom and Bon can get a picture for us mom and dad you want to come up and get a picture also perfect score in the fifth grade science test of course all right B you gonna get this one for us too right congratulations EV aome done next is Ben Kesner who's also a sixth grader been here tonight well that's okay we we do deliver certificates when kids can but I think it's important for me to share with you all that Benjamin received a perfect score on the fifth grade math test last year so that would certainly not be me I'm not a great mathematician so amazing job okay Aaliyah Hawkins cro currently an eighth grader and last year got a perfect score on the grade seven mom you want to come up in oh it's okay you sure I I didn't do my hair we're not all right now I have Rogan lavadi Ren is currently a junior but last year got a perfect score on the high school biology Tas which is incredible so congratulations Rogan and Dad you guys want to come up come on right now I have Ben he has a kage Ben come on up after all these years I hope I know so Ben is also a junior but last year got a perfect score on the map test so Cong we have Tyler wus here with us tonight okay so Tyler is also a junior and also received a perfect score on last last year's 10th grade math so amazing amazing and finally kadence Smith cence is a junior and got a perfect score on last year's math andess as well so congratulations thank you so much congratulations congratulations to all these students um just an amazing remarkable accomplishment you guys have a lot to be proud of so congratulations and thank you for coming to join us tonight is this a record for the most uh perfect I I've never be I didn't know that was so we've only done this one or two other times um I think we've only done it maybe one other time when um actually was here that we did this but we actually also had a third grade student that got a perfect score I believe it was on Ela last year but they're no longer with us in the district so um I'd be remiss if I didn't share that as well Evan do you want to share something yeah what's up bu got the perfect score on the uh math STAR test one oh amazing almost had a heart attack that amazing have a nice job bud so congratulations guys this is amazing anything to say uh congratulations I I always I have a junior daughter and I I joke with her that I would be lost to take it I never had to take the mcast that old and I I think I had this conversation with she like yeah it's pretty hard I'm like good T um and I know I mean I know there's a lot of stress around some of these tests I I've lived through with my children that have had to take it um one of them was you know ironically was voting for the first time and she like oh this mcast question and we had a discussion about it but um so to Dr anil's point it's kind of a unique night to be celebrating very good uh opportunities work on these tests I'm not a fan of these tests I've said that publicly and privately um but they do give us some good data which unfortunately we have to go by some but um congratulations to everybody and it's truly remarkable that you do so well in these tests as a terrible test taker myself I'm super proud of each and every one of you it's an awesome accomplishment nice job guys you shouldn't yourself thank you more than welcome to leave that's the everybody thank you so much for coming tonight we appreciate it congrat all right next up is discussion and vote on surplus material Mrs um so we are are to dispose of surplus items that are no longer School in the district um and have resale or Sal value um following items are Ela ccum books materials at the elementaries JCS lgn and um science materials from old pilots at the elementary school that we found actually here um JCS we're assuming there's some um at the lgm um updated instruction instructional materials for World language and math at new Middle School um when Dr and I were looking some of these were from the 90s it's funny brought up the point before would you remember being in these chairs my guess is if you went through the books and um some CDs that are outdated at text material yes you're correct CDs are outdated you don't have any way to use them so we are asking for um requesting any motion second seconded By Justine yeah all in FA thank you was funny one of's friends parents sent took out a book it might from this Library we have a lot [Laughter] of makes sense um all right next up is first reading on school choice policy update Dr okay um so this past summer when we were going through the school choice process from start to finish um was the first time for pamar to go through that the whole process um what we noticed was that our policy and our actual practices weren't necessarily aligned with um you know the day-to-day of how we actually and what we also found is that um the way that our policies were written it was requiring us or or asking us to do a a um Lottery at the very end of June which quite honestly that doesn't work for families if they are waiting on a decision about school choice um so therefore we are proposing some changes um number one that um in line one is that instead of May 1 every school year we'll determine the number of spaces we'd like to do that by April 1 and that um instead of by June 1st to have our open um meeting that's required um we would do that by May 1 so that would be a change to the committee in its process um ultimately we would just be moving that item up on our agenda and as we did last spring committee votes to whether or not we're going to continue school choice for the upcoming year and then we can also um specify the number of seats that are available per building per grade level um and then it's up to our office to fill those um a new item that we are adding here um is I apologize you can see they're they're misnumbered but we'll fix that in the final draft um we are asking that all school choice applications be received by June 15th um this allows us to um if we have more applications than the number of spots available we are required to run a lottery cannot be done on a first come first serve basis um so we would do a lottery around July 1 for that purpose so quick question that this may be semantics really but do we have to do a lottery for the number of spots or does it go down to the number in that grade like for example we have 100 school choice spots but five are allocated for fifth grade do we have to do a whole lot or you just say it would be just for fifth grade so it would be done for grade so what we would do is we would um you know put all the names in like a random name generator or something very Hightech I'm sure um and we would um draw only draw for the five second grade positions that are there um and that would only be if we had six or more applications if when on you know July 1 when we go to to the lottery we only have five applications then it's very simple and no Lottery to happen or if we only have three applications we have five spots again very simple if after that we have more available spots um we can run another Lottery on August post but only if there asons um I think personally for our office doing this earlier makes it much easier I would imagine for Mr Barrett and the other principls for Vinnie and Casey for students that have IEPs like we want to make sure we have the right place classroom placement and the right Services set up for them and all of those things and um our previous timeline was just way too late yeah so two questions one if a student is currently enrolled in school choice do they have to do appliation every year or simply notify us we're staying they are considered ours until graduation so number five um any student who's accepted for admission is entitled to remain in the district until graduation from from high school um except his lack of funding um and then the one down the bottom these those have always existed within the policy um you know not discriminating against raise color religion those things so um our old application asked to see the student IEP and also ask for the um home language we're actually not allowed to ask so um just something that we need to update in our Pro so the the comment and this is more again might be semantics is if we're looking at our calendar I think we need to be aware of an outgoing school committee versus an incoming one agre and I would want to see maybe we get this done one of those last meetings of the current school committee yes because I think there's a lot of moving Parts when a new even one new member this next year there could be three we don't know so I think to put this maybe as one of the last of the current committee and kind of go through that every year because we have with everything know yeah so you guys will need to vote before April 1 based on number one so I I don't know the date of the election off the top of my head but it's usually in the teens is so we will absolutely do this before that we'll probably do it our last March meeting would be my so um just trying to process this yep so if a student um or family submits an application and you have to do a lottery so you pick them say Suzie Q whatever um and then the family then says okay well SU Q has an IEP here you go and then all Personnel look at it and they're like we can't service this IEP we don't have the program or we don't have the room for for them in the program at the time so then you come back to them and you say sorry we can't fulfill this and then you rraw another name so we actually ran into that a very similar situation this year um and we ended up having to hire another St paral support program so if somebody comes in under so we cannot say no or I so even we don't have that is that is so that is so this is this was the scary moment when Pam and I were on the phone with the Department of Education and that it's it's actually interesting because I'm not really sure how they saw our application or what happened But ultimately someone called the department of bed and they're like you can't have you are school choice not say so what would what would technically need to happen is we would figure it out find the program or we would work with the sending District to place that student out of District we would have all of the educational control over the IEP and programming and the sending District would have the financial right us correct so but it's like why wouldn't you just I don't understand why people wouldn't just do that through well person no but I think the the premise of being out of district is hopefully they achieve their goals and they come back to the district and then we would have that student Choice student on I service like when we send them out of District the ultimate goal I think it's almost you know I can think of a few towns nearby that their special education system is not up par name them but we have a great special education system so we might be the middle man but it only might be temporary we don't have the financial bir it's more of an administrative bur which corre you can make the argument yes because our administrators are handling it there's a cost but it's not as sending you the sending District is together so previously what we had been doing was collecting the IP Vinnie or Casey would look at it it was Casey and she would say yes we can do this or no we can't and when we did a no we can't we said I'm sorry we cannot that's so it was a very eye open conversation with Department of Education so now that conversation is is we can't do it but here's your options yes yes so we moved up all of these timelines to deal with those is yes so because to me like June 15th is a very reasonable time to say like if you want to come to Morton you need to have your application in I think by June 15 that's actually generous yeah yeah and if you are out of school child to another Community you know that y um and so we won't be accepting application after that and so it would give us time if if that situation worked and so so I'm sorry just to clarify yeah so um Suzie Q requires X Program she sounds adorable pigtails pigtails and we don't maybe maybe we have that program but we our full capacity if you will we would then be required to hire somebody if Staffing would yeah and that could mean a special ed teacher Andor parah Andor both Andor whatever Andor correct I'm just trying to we would open a whole new program we would not open a whole new that's when you would go back to the dist the other District say this is not working so but it wouldn't be like it wouldn't be like a classroom teacher position like that wouldn't come up it would only be in a situation like because if you have 22 kids in a room you can put 23 right so or a different section so it would be a specialized program right so it might be an additional par but again we can put in for that through the reimbursement process so I think what I'm hearing is that I think we want to be really strategic this upcoming year when we think about the placements that we have um yes we we have and I'm going to say off the top of my head maybe 12 fewer school choice students than we did last year and I apologize that's that's a fall Park number based on number like data that seen year yeah so I was say off top my head it was those kids you know aged out graduated we brought some other kids in um and the head case we've also had similar situations and I just talking about um my son is that we've had similar situations where a school choice or students apply for school choice weren't able to support it but the sending District actually tuition them in to us so so we've got we had one or two situations where public school districts are collaborative Tu rate students here and that's a more ideal situ yeah so for example they may not have program in their school like town around here and then they they kind of go oh well I'll look at school choice and we have a conversation and you know they have their other kids that so it's that's typically if you're G to run into a situation like that then we just work with our partners and get and that's been very beneficial for both districts in those situations and you know case you have great relationships with all of the districts around us and it's just a conversation and there's been there's been situations where we've called on them to say this isn't really working what do you think you kind of work out stuff that two questions one suszie Q comes in the north if we can't ask for the IEP can that student show up on day one no we would need to see it ahead of time because otherwise we couldn't their service I guess so until they're select once they're selected then we can say Nick it's exactly like the vocational process if you think of it that way right South East is not supposed to ask anybody's IEP they have to make the decision off of their application process then the IEP is presented and then so now so yes adabo student from adabo comes into nor accept them into second grade we get their IEP you see that we might not be able to service the student our options are correct me if I'm wrong find a way meaning hiring staff which again we don't probably doesn't happen too often right but but that is a possibility or two our administrators have to go back to adabor administrators work out a thing where does it say that adabor has to pay for this kid well they but if it's five grand pay for the coll ative are out of District so even let's say say for you we have students who have come in to the district and then we know like our our uh programs have not been able to continue to service them so our recommendation is for an out of District place soon as it goes there then we manage the the programmatic stuff but that sending district is that they so do they do that student is that are they still considered a school choice student for us as part of our school choice number so we not to bring this down into money that's not but it is like so we get paid for a school choice student because our team is yes in charge of their programming if you will but the out of District 50 60,000 whatever it is is paid for by their all right see isn't it so much better just to keep your head in the sand and think you're doing everything right so all right so adal sense get we get we get $5,000 hypothetic hypothetic $5,000 hypothetic that student we then can't service we send them out adab now pay why would the student come here why wouldn't we just say hey so there's there's there's a lot of reasons to be honest um so we actually have a couple of kiddos that were in situation right now right so um they um either Ado wasn't supporting out of district for or or special education placement or program at the time and they came to us and they they've come to and we we did our best and then we decided to do an out of District placement um legally we don't have to call adoro and say hey by the way this is what's going on but because we like to maintain good Partnerships with them like I theoretically I could be like I'm gonna send them to Perkins and it's gonna be the harbor of whatever you know what I mean but because we want to maintain those positive relationships we'll call them and say hey this is what's going on if one of your students I don't know how you want to handle this so they'll come into the T they'll come to the table and come to the meeting with us and and try to to negotiate the situation or um offer stuff that they have within their own District prior to us 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 or funding district is like yep you're absolutely right would you please try collaborative collaborative um but they 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 or um but it's it's really about building those relationships and that collaboration between us and the sending District making sure that we're doing what's right for for kids in all parties involved really all right here's the next big to figure out that what happens with discipl can we see students records before they apply no no we cannot however we can ask for them after they've been accepted and basically um any felony charges we good so if you have multiple detentions suspensions whatever it may be you applied to come to North our district has no say to say no you cannot come here because your scores are horrible your behav again just it's the same as the vo schools you think it that way it's the same process right that that doing and that's not I mean at least of high school that's the majority well and I was going to say nine times out of 10 that's not that's not the issue like every once in a while yes we have that issue so piggy bagging off of Nick's but what about like an expulsion you know that somewhere else the 10y old got a fon no no no I'm just I'm thinking more at the middle school high school level no but if they were expelled you can only expel a student for a very serious inra so therefore I me with the way that discipline laws go now it has to be a very very serious crash 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 the dis record we can still ask home language has to be after they been so that's big change we were aced which was we weren't supposed to be getting it up front all along stuck any but if we were to that and they had they were expelled for something like I'm really sorry we need to resend your invitation oh we can do that I mean that's what if that's it is you just can't say we can't your okay all right so was expelled we could resend their invitation if if the reason they was expelled was something that was that sign so it's not just everything so na and I really the only reason you can get expelled very different all of our who's in charge is is Department of Bessie in charge of school chice like who sets these rules if 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 applying for school choice off the bat is getting clean s which is fine and then if things come out or things are revealed then maybe we do have a way to resend the off and I think it's very important for you guys to know that none of this language is actually changing for ours the only thing we're actually changing are the 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 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 you know previous number six student accept blah blah blah y except if there's a lack of funding for the prog what does that even mean um I I guess if we are really in dire stets and you know cutting another 30 teachers then we probably have to a serious conversation although we also have to remember with those students those Milli or $2 million each year school choice money to balance our budget so the school choice students leave so funds m i mean You' almost make the argument the funding of program is basically sending District isssue not ours but it just makes no sense if it cost us if if if for example Dan we had to cut another bunch of teachers again next year and so we are now going from this is very hypothetical situation we're going from 7even fifth grade classes down to five and we have 15 fth grade I don't know if that would be yeah like who like it's just so V who determines who determines what because like could we have said hypothetic we just cut 30 teachers but my all school choice SCH 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 with our school choice 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 desing lovely so is number five the and six I assume are these like the um school choice policy items from like the state yeah it's all all of that is regulatory linku 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 you know what I mean like is that can we get clarification on that I think that's kind of very important that if all of a sudden we're staring in a year two five 10 years down the road and we have 200 school choice kids and all of a sudden we're looking at cutting ton of teachers like 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 we're here which is awful is and I I'll be crystal clear I do not think that should ever happen I was just always under the impression the law states that you can't do that but now I'm reading that you can if you have no funding for the program no I I'll bring it with me when we speak next time but the language that we're changing sorry just no it's fine we we we can do this on night 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 15 you don't want that sooner I think if we're not making decisions until April or May I think six weeks is probably fair that may 1 and then and then we can but I would not go any further past that 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 when it comes to um the application process and that is time like high school schedule for example high school schedule placements all of those things as long as you guys feel like that's what is it now Aug it used to be October 1st October 1st when we first start SCH 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 in terms of funding um and okay um next up first public uh first reading of public participation at school committee me okay so um this policy here is something that has come in front of the Comm committe before um this was worked on by Dr bayetta and our legal council uh to provide a little bit more of a robust um set of guidelines for public participation at school meetings 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 um I know a few of you have you served in that role since we've started doing 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 form 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 fora um the in the middle that's all pretty similar 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 speaking um there was a gentleman in Nic that played the ukil um at every meeting for over two years would make up songs about the 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 not I think kind of going back historically I think it's number five is it has to be something we have control over agreed in our perview like for example if someone says my kid got you know 20 minutes of recess and they should have had 28 not enough perie and that shouldn't be something you know if it's you know I have an issue with the way Dr anyel spoke to me possibly on our purview you know so I think that's the that was the think 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 in our purview because there only four or five positions under our purview and unfortunately you know a lot of the Personnel issues are start with the building principle start go go through the process and even then we it still doesn't fall under our purv 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 committee that yeah and I think that's really the important part about it and that's why I I like the fact that number five is is very specific about what her view of the committee 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 adhere 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 Speaks Over and that's it so you guys could do that at the beginning of the meeting do the end of the meeting is I'm scanning it quickly missing it 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 come in and say my public comment is about you guys talking about public comment two weeks yes thank totally because I think that was the other issue is having something in the literature and in the policy about it has to be on the current agenda to be discussed in public comment 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 the school Pharm Stu school choice conversation yeah and say you know this is then the school choice 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 three to five minutes they could share that and um anything that's more lengthy they would have if you choose speak and to me the policy is kind of ambiguous because we're asking them to put it on the agenda but then to come in and under public policy and talk about it even though it's on the agenda so don't forget in public comment you don't have to respond 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 go on the agenda it just seems like a loophole 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 and D oh sorry Dan and Sher I think you guys have voted on this one previously um when we comes to the legality around public comments we let me get a little bit more clarification for you but I think we really are like supposed to have like that public comment time we could say I mean you could do it at the end right now it's suggesting that you do it at the beginning before the items on the agenda you can always do it at the end people to do it based on items on the agenda because I think sorry step on I think doing it at the beginning kind of defeats the purpose because they wanted if public comment is truly over after that public comment period and then have discussion on something the agenda then it would make more sense to because otherwise we wouldn't be allowing public thatment based on what was on our agenda and then they chose to not follow and have put on the agenda then back one policy that to meed do we know other districts they're more aligned with this than our current I've looked at a few Manfield reallyy much as this where they do 15 minutes to start no one's there they 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 it's very rare that we have people come in and say something at the end of our meetings based on some 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 representative whether we you know however you want to look at it elected reps of the of the resident so to me having to go get it on the agenda make sure we're doing like to me 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 opening this up anything else there anyone want to say anything you know to 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 meeting 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 me 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 this happen hopefully it never does happen but like how awkward would it to be if he wanted to you know talk about Jen and how horrible of a job they have they really gonna 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 if you have an issue and again I totally agree with Dan that has to be within our 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 when I think what I've seen in my time here anyway at least is is you know and 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 sh positions back in until came no I wasn't you know so like 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 615 or you know 6 to 620 or whatever and they're out of here 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 20 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 gonna have like several public so my thing is I think I think the public comment is directly made for that I think if people stay just gonna say no you can't say anything no I no IE up to the chair I always let people speak when I was chair somebody spent the time and was here they had something to say I always let them yeah so I think it's up to the chair if they speak again in a meeting 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 allowing conversation correct 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 for the better so I think the one thing that if if there is a time liit that needs to be held in conscience because you know as you mentioned you're chair now someone else will be chair call it April 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 if policy says there's a time limit then we can't have people just you know s the Getty's bur dressed for 45 minutes we can't have good spech I think we we can't just have public comment be chaos right you know like they can't be like I had a pothole on my way or what about the high school traffic which but again that's the chair moderating meeting though 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 like if you're making good points and you're sticking to the topic and I'm sitting there being like that's a good point no 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 you're and you're making points or you're not and that's where the chair can say okay we 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 you 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 or like we're going to just have that you know what I mean like I just kind of think that's great language something along those lines just so we're not having a conversation twice or you know like does that make sense because I think what you could do you could do it two ways just kind of thinking out loud it's if you wanted to start the meeting with public comments and then at the end like your last agenda item could be you know call it public response to agenda or something like like you know so they're still they don't have to wait two weeks to go to the next meeting to talk about we just talked about because public comment I mean right now like if if we know there's a Hot Topic usually there's all of our audience here and then typically Nick goodair 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 can we again just kind of thinking about how this is going to go can they identify if they won't speak to an agenda item and then so so say someone came in tonight and said I want to talk about mcast recogition whatever it is could we say because I just I don't I just don't want to Long me because that that was right 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 people talk on it you know and you have people with scientific experiments just it delved into a slight bit of chaos at some meetings the meeting took very long you know yeah but a lot of stuff isn't in our perview though and and people I think still have the right to come and talk to us about it though no that's what I'm saying is public comment has to be reserved for things that are in our prview 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 over it no I'm saying as a committee it's not something we can control so perh maybe something that we may be aware of well we're hearing about it on Facebook here my other thing right and I get the perview because I totally understand where everyone Falls in you but at the end of the day do you know what the perview is money that's what everything is always going to come down to and we are the ones to set the budget so when you like whoever controls the money is the one who controls the per I hate to say it that way but that's that's life that's how it goes any company the CFO is involved in every decision why it's all about money 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 we're 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 right if something's going there certain things in here about Personnel that that specifi that that can't happen can ex 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 about right if 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 we can put something about I mean so is there stuff you guys want taken out of this before the second reading me I would cut anything that has anything to do with time and I would cut anything about 15 minutes we have a very hot buuck topic I would not be comfortable as this chair saying we got the 15 minute sorry we're cutting all of opinion but unfortunately you're not not saying this 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's not chairman of the AG so I mean and but we can't always keep coming back to the policy for each chair's discretion yeah you just keep it 15 minutes and then you have that whoever the current chair is has the right to allow more yeah so it actually does say that I'm just um maybe we just number six however the chair and his or her May gr extension some time and extending circumstances so that's there number six that's around the three 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 going to 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 meeting because people talk about things that aren't within the of the SP committee someone wants to complain about a PL but one point but let's let's throw a perview right let's just say we have they're all everyone's mad at J we have 40 people that's an executive that's person I mean really why don't we just leave it the 15 minutes and the chair has the right to allow extra I understand yeah right no that's yeah I I just don't it it is there in number six it's the second sentence um however no it should be a number two right during a 15minute public comment period discre Che um so it is there number six so it does it can apply the other part um unless the chair determines that there is good reason for rearranging the order of public meeting yeah I mean we can just take the sentence from number six and put it in number two yeah that's would be that was actually one of my suggestions like could we take two and six and kind of combine yeah but that way kind of all the time is in one anything else that you guys want me to change for the next time again we don't have to vote on this one tonight I will bring it back um when I feel like we should have invited Dez for the next one oh it's his favorite topic I know Dr aan was a little bit anxious about presenting this to you guys the day after the big vote it's true we were talking today and I'm like just our luck right so it's the student achievement report it's the mcast report 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 Bill hemmer Steve horaki or John King I'm not close so I just want pay no attention to the man front of theard just want to lower little expectations 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 nor 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 it 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 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 from together so a little bit of a history lesson we had the early mcast is 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 Pence between going through 2019 to 2021 full tests no tests half tests trying to make heads or Tales of that data longitudinally I'm not sure how helpful that is so the real Focus I and the the preface for the presentation tonight is you 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 Howard 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 instructional materials in a number of areas but between 2022 and 2024 we've onboarded Stepping Stones mid school math Amplified 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 spoke of a more comprehensive we and so imss is still still about right on time interventions based on student needs that we finding dedicated times in schools we're try to use the best data and be most consistent and make sure that our PD programs really match the curriculum adoptions that we want 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 of 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 seeing before and then for the folks that are a little bit newer I'm G 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 a 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 combin and the more weight we have on that left hand side the better that we're doing 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 meeting and exceeding we at 56% that is just um one point under the state average 57 is this 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 state so 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 let say I know historically We compare ourselves to like our TPL companions yes because that's kind of where like and we always say like we're not going to compare ourselves toon Manfield 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 desie comparisons from a socioeconomic 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 state is versus a because it's just it's app I agree it's a 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 we find really important similarly when we look at math again Norton last year grade 10 mathematics 48% exceeding 48% versus the state so squarely in the big picture sense right at about those State Pages moving into um science technology education if you look at 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 grade 10 St then looking at the Broadband of grades 3 to eight Ela so again nor was U meeting or exceeding and this is combined grades three all the way through eight 40% meeting 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 broad basis of comparison then if we want to look at grades 3 to eight na Norton is 40% meeing or exceeding combine and then the state is 41% ME or exceeding so again very similar picture in Norton than what we see across the country 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 to follow a group of grade three students in 2022 then grade four students in 2023 and grade five students in 20 24 it gives us a little perspective of how they grow over time I want to offer as a preface 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 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 a methodology especially if what the new program is is substantially different than what you had in the past 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 grade bands to look at for consideration so if you look at our grade um our 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 in 2024 those meeting and exceeding scores are down a little bit over time and those generally we have more students moving into the partially met category um and then really um very slight change in the not category so again curriculum adoptions tend to be a lagging indicator but slight um downward Trend over these fews then again looking at the math um scores as well if you look at the three your cohort grade 3 and 22 through grade 5 and 24 we' had a bit of a de Brian you mind my inter so my immediate first thought when I looked at this data and I was like oh well my immediate 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 now 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 skills are they lacking right because I think especially when I think about this particular cohort so and and and I say this because this is my son's cohort 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're 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 for that aort of students in 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 Atman because 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 stud 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 our hope is that as they get older and as they move through 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 is a little different because is own building it's a whole different experience that they go through so much we've historically talked about that because you and that's why I was saying early in my comment it's very that like and Sher can probably test this too is like when we used to look at LG and JCS they completely different bus you know and I say that meaning it's almost like LG's off on its Island JCS has its little island everything else is in the middle that seems to be a little more cohesive but but it's also just a transition kids coming to the school they're in and they're out they're learning a whole new thing and then they're throwing all this on them too a lot historically if you look at data Trends and I've been doing this as part central office for a long time you always see a big dip in 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 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 has to have proper mechanics you have to use evidence from the text it was a big ask for fourth graders um so I always used to blame like or 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 M Deets today who's our math interventionist you know as Jen talked about the kids that were not meters uh when Co hit similarly the sophistication of math problem solving and the IDE and the idea of having to go through multi-step processes to come it's something that just for a lot of our kiddos just didn't crystallize at that time so that is going to let lag a little bit we are and you'll see in some future slides our SGP rates are you know are are decent but I think that's something that's just going we're going to have to be patient with all that coming back I have every confidence will 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 Miss 250 days of inperson instruction so I'm curious with um stepping stones and 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 um 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 to third whatever we need to fill that in before we can like push on in the curriculum yes 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 gaps 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's also a beginning of year I just say wasn't that quarterly correct if I'm wrong that was one of the selling points yes for that for that curriculum was because of the end of the year and then the teacher being able to kind of figure out like all right hey you know 80% of this one well we need to look at this a little bit more going third grade I remember that kind of so when we look at I know we've we've had some curriculum changes in 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 curriculum we do so in order to be rated as high quality on curator Ed 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 instructional materials so a vendor a stepping 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 ele Elementary folks like 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 bods well one thing to think out and this is an initial point and 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 El 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 uh a nice positive uh data if we look at the elementary to middle school math cohort again similar um and in the aggregate the combined um scores from grade four to six from 22 to 24 we saw a 9% growth in that meeting and exceeding category so again grade five in 23 used our old program but grade six in 2024 used our our mid school math program so again is it causal we don't know but at least it's an initial data point to give us some some some information 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 and net categories from 23 moving into those exceeded in N categories in 24 so again the initial data point but showing some some reasonable simly 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 it did have mid school math in 2024 before we did actually see a dip again if you're noticing a trend here it's that it's a little bit variable right some areas it's gone up in other areas it's gone it's gone down so we're going to continue to do work that we've done with curricular professional development and building capacity to really continue to move those scores forward 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 stated earlier in M for mcast for ELA students will take it in eth grade but then they do not take it typically in ninth grade and then again they take it uh in grade 10 so you'll 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 growth from those grade8 students in 22 the grade 10 students in 2022 s math looking at that cohort data grade 8 in 2022 versus grade 10 in 2024 we've seen some nice positive change up a total of eight points in that meet and exceeded 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 but like you know you had a study guide for SATs you had 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 going to see but they don't go over like content so they they actually mcast has what's called a release items bank 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 grade 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 when visiting classrooms particularly the Upper Elementary grades um I will often see for instance fifth graders working on that five paragraph essay that that we had referenced ear so yes and because it's a computer Bas based test now it's just not multiple 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 um it's very very different than just piing up it's well beyond Scantron sheets and so the final thing I wanted to look at is student growth percentage or percentile so simply put every student or cohort 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 student of cohort who scored better than 99% of their PE 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 rouso 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 middle if you you are within the band of the 35th to the 65th percentile that is within the typical range below the 35th is considered low growth above the 65th is considered high growth so we always Aspire especially in light of all the earlier conversation of having the highest growth percent all possible so I just wanted to take a look and share with um 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 8 Ela SGP the mean SGP has been hovering right around 50% tick just above that the last couple of years and so that squarely represents typical gr that e8th grade the math SGP again right around the 50th percentile has kind of stayed in those 40s but again squarely within that typical Clow range just just a kind of clarification so on 2022 that was the eighth grade C sixth grade that was the eighth grade they were it was that Year's eighth graders so we're not looking at coh anymore sorry thank you yes and then so this is those 186 kids 166 kids whatever I I want to include the number of students because correct you have some variance you know the fewer students you have y the greater the variability with school Changs then kind of the last was again SGP that would be gr 10 this has been fairly solid we were above the 50 at at 55 for 22 and 23 took a little dip 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 higher but we're currently within that typical in a similarly for math you look at the work math 39 percentile which is on the cusp of low growth but some nice bounce back 51 SGP in 2023 and then 57 last year which is Sol so I just wanted to take it the last couple of 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 dealt 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 na and Ela that Elementary to Middle cohort we saw some really solid growth with that uh threeyear Ela cohort and then that strong growth from grade 8 and 22 to grade 10 and 24 these are not in your slide 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 moreon students perform at or above consistently through those years so obviously we have areas the elementary math and the LA cohort we had that little bit of a of a dip a little bit of a decline in the middle school math cohort and the SGP scores right across grade 8 and 10 are right about an average of 50 that's okay but we always want to shoot for help 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 we 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 it's very important we have an ongoing um and consistent professional learning cycle opportunity so as an example we onboarded into reading in August we had our teachers do a six week interval of instruction on that October 25th day our vendor um maryan Dr Maryanne Perry spent the day with us in the district so we went into class rooms we saw good things then the afternoon was all breakout rooms with all the Educators uh teaching and to reading we did the same with Amplified Ela and the same with Stepping Stones M we have contracted again to do a third round so we can continu continuously grow and evolve in January and I budgeted through our Essa Grant um as much not as much but I've tried to build a nice cushion because this is a hugely important piece so that we can continue to build that brid 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 those 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 great [Laughter] I know I know a lot of information was just not small to you it's 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 I would want to you know make myself available to anybody if you were interested in talking about so I I appreciate any questions comments concerns I had a question 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 items or clusters that you saw where you were like we tanked on these we we were fairly consistent there wasn't an outlier where we were demonstrably below not to overly peek out on it but that's the preface we know exactly if you go into Edwin analytics which is one of the tools that that they do a double line so they will track each question individually they'll have the correct State 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 morning we were pretty con pretty consistent in terms of where where we I got few questions one so what we look at this kids who are not or sorry partially meeting expectations what does partially meeting expectations actually mean so it means that they have acquired some of this grade level standards that are necessary but that there are other standards that they have not 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 grade 10 kids for those students who not meet the expectations partially meeting expectations does that mean they can graduate or does that mean you have to do additional things retake retest is so the actual scale score for passing in grade 10 is in the partially meeting range um students that do not reach that passing for for lack of better words have multiple opportunities to take retakes because this assment happens I'm sorry just on that section no they would just would just take Ela or they would just take map um but there are also Vinnie could probably sorry Vinnie um probably give you a little bit of info but we also have what's called a competency determination for students that have a difficult time testing T we 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 in especially in the math area we have one teach who really took those kids in they had a dedicated block um additional some of them was an additional map for example um they didn't compet see a portfolio kind of like I know you've heard about special education portfolios they're different in terms of of you know pass but for these kids you can actually pass and is it unlimited opportunities fromes or is it really for example I know my daughter took by literacy she had multiple opportunities 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 do we say let's work with you a little bit and then you now we have we just take it again yeah 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 um extra math C that was talking so so for example our third grader third grader comes in gets partially Med expectations what is the what do we do in that regard what or usct no no sorry us as a district us you so like that so that third grade student let's say they finish a JCS 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 yel right now is this Benson referenced this earlier they have the imts or RTI BL so those students are broken up by skill by with teachers to work on specific gaps that they may have it could come directly from MCAS um it could be from a 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 base 10 I know that I can get them and it's also important for us to remember that that particular third grader that did not do well in some particular strands that's one opportunity for them to show what they're learning right they you know perhaps are working with the teacher and and really getting those geometry skills on a day-to-day basis and we're like oh that was a bad day for them or maybe the question was worded weirdly or something along those lines too if they can consistently show you that they they have master and like I guess that for a lack of better work when we see those third grd tests we obviously have start tests we have what you're doing in the classroom so do we kind of triage yes yes to be like wait a second here this is a you know we're not just you know saying hey this kid we got to put him here it's more of like all right hold on this might have been a bad day we we we don't have the resources do that with every kid I mean ultimately so I mean we do we have to use other data points to kind of like narrow your field um 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 you and it's like um it's like almost like a little booklet 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 got wrong 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 it's extremely even for people who know what it is so like let just third grade 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 seven all right we are struggling in comprehension we need a okay so so it breaks it down very it does like that double line graph that Justine had asked earlier is so helpful because then you can actually go on the line see what the question is and then crosswalk it you can actually see what that standard was and that's actually exactly how the yell school was doing their L learning time like they use the mcast data 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're 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 we have between partially meeting and not meeting we had 44% of our students how many students have we not graduated in the last five years do we have like I mean is it zero from mcast or from mcast yeah in the last five years I would say only I hand yeah yeah I mean I would say I mean 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 so again these come out kind of like now yeah so a kid who wasn't meeting or or didn't pass if you will didn't pass the test now now with the new determination the law of not being a graduation requirement does that take effect this upcoming year it does not we have no information yet in terms of when it will but we do know that any of our current senors still have to meet that determination for graduation at this time the guidance that came out today said no earlier than December what year of this year no earlier than December 5th of this year but they still said this graduating class will have to meet the com so so the class who just took the mcast corre the Juniors now the Juniors now are we have no idea we don't more likely than are you that surprised that does this is the issue when it comes to valid questions is they're very if something passes they're very reactive to T like there's no plan in there's no leg work ahead of time yeah because the purpose of a ballot question is an outside group entity can do the work get on ballot and and ultimately I think there's a lot of people that misunderstood part of the ballot question mcast does not go away we are still required by law to ad ad Minister mcast there is no opt out for students students are required to take it we are required to put the test in credit um the vote that took place last night is only for the graduation but the actual mcast is part of a Federal Regulation No Child Left Behind that we have to have a St and then okay so I just so my fear now not be just one that of not being a graduation app how is the US 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 could I was not in favor of this ballot question because there wasn't a plan right now mcast has a 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 and that's that's how they decide which schools and districts need support from the Department of Education and which are Commendation schools you take away the accountability piece of students needing 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 you right like you guys won't have to worry until you get to high school But ultimately we're going to be judged on something that everyone is told to does well then I guess from Administration standpoint is 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 yeah 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 the 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 it's still the same well that's the thing you just as s the other side of that is every grade up until High School they've had that impression for all these years school like there's still those grades didn't have an end result to take that test whereas a high school soft and I feel like we always give our mcast presentation in this room I feel like I've given my room 100 times um and that's why I've always stood here and say we can say it's not the only thing we can't say it doesn't matter right 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 knows the right here to I think because I from two and a half years now in committee like we've definitely got way more data driven I think from a standpoint of like hey this is what I'm looking for and I think the committies kind of make that a priority to a certain degree what are we looking at do 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 the kind of data that you poll 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 lens so the work that we did as a cohort last summer is we looked 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 I did we identify as those first touch points for students so the answer is yes we can do a lot of things with star one yeah I would love to see again I think J just said perfect but mcast is in the end all be all but like from my standpoint that I've always seen is is like this is the only kind of data we get to see you know we don't we don't see student growth you know we obviously get to see you know perfect scores and stuff like that but in order to actually see it to see hey where where where are our gaps you 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 me I'm sure there plenty of other assessments that would probably go off as well I think anything that we can get into our hands even if we you know shorten it down to five or six slides of like hey here's some growth here's what's going on here I think that's GNA 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 working let's keep rolling with it you know in three years four years five years nothing up and our vendor for Star they are called Renaissance they have a whole analytics but form um at times it's a little bit clunky at time but you can actually pull a lot of really good uh longitudinal data from it as well to track you know schools even over over time correct and I think to Audrey's Point like 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 but you might be able to start saying hey wait a second here are our gaps you know this is what we need to work on foundational work stamp but this is where we're falling short we're seeing it in fourth grade because doesn't change blah blah blah whatever uh but I feel like the more things we can get you know from from from the data what our kids are doing I think is very very anything else good um nice last one other business any else to bring up um my calendar stuff so next meeting we I don't think that's happen yes we'll be at the middle SCH the next meeting it was originally thinking about that day but two weeks ago so delete it delete and the next one's definitely at the middle school yeah School yep and then we'll start at Town Hall in suc yes any else make a plug for the C2 Foundation St and gift card Drive um that they're they're putting together so we have our our um 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 North it's not a toy drive that goes out to you know like toy Scotch which is 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 Paul like there's a number of agenes and we're 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 y um but they also have drop boxes at all the schools um and a number of the businesses I won't read M it's gone out to you go City Albertos like kind of the typical F but all of the ones out there there's a lot of places folks can can drop off uh in terms of of toys for and then like I said we also do give 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 entire families as well so I just just wanted to get that out there because it's really really really nice thing I I sat in a meeting yesterday and there was so many different last week I should say uh just so many different members of the community uh in different boards and in different volunteers so a real truly a community event and anything we do to support it I know it's gone out sent stuff out staff different ways accept donate money donations yes absolutely yeah so I got two things one did we how we at with the new position for not new position sorry um all of our positions that were reinstating stating 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 point4 librarian because Mrs gerus is currently um a reading teacher and life at the other Port point4 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 around the teacher leadership positions we are going to push those back to July don't 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 roles 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 conversations but what made most sense so um we were able to do that and we're also they part of that conversation was that they really would like to um negotiate the roles 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 principls and um central office admin will sit on that working group with them and that will be part of our um revision for next year which would be really great um and then we also public posted for all those positions that are going to start in January I know we have a bunch of interest in the art position at norn Middle School we're in conversations about the music position um so you know we're we're hopeful that we'll have everybody back for January what about the read those are all been posted as well yeah um and as I mentioned last time those were all long-term positions I didn't want to be pulling teachers out of classrooms in the middle of the year just not look good so what um was it neoti piece of it but was a well received yes yeah so and I think ultimately the the back and forth with the NTA around the teacher of leadership position was just the 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 the El school earlier this year just um you know some of the challenges that you know exist without those positions so yeah then last thing just so the committee has it um tomorrow is our first ground Rules meeting with the NTA for negotiation purposes so obviously those that negotiated in private but it is our first meeting and we'll keep you up to go that is it those those negotiations they're not um they are requesting um they'll have speaking representatives and they'll have silent Representatives so they will obviously when we leave and everyone caucuses they'll you know be engaged in the conversation but they'll have um just one or two people that is speaking for the team entertain a motion to adjourn not everyone at once thank you thank you guys