Okay, I call the October 2nd meeting of the school committee to order. Um me run through our agenda and then we will jump in. So we'll open tonight with public comment for anything that is not on the agenda tonight. Uh our focus on excellence. We've got a healthy healthy host of National Merit Scholars here
that we can celebrate this evening. We'll take the consent agenda reports and then as we move into new business, we're going to introduce our student advisory committee members for the 2526 school year. Um Lena Williams and and uh Principal Kalin are here to talk about the high school counseling annual
update. We'll have our 2025 MCCAST results presentation. Um we will audible slightly hear from the agenda and discuss the competency determination policy. Uh and then we will discuss and and uh take a vote to approve a proclamation of CPAC awareness month for
November. In old business, we'll finalize and approve the superintendent goals, discuss and approve focus indicators for the superintendent goals, and then have uh an additional follow-up discussion about the Forest Montasauri School. So, with that, um I will open it up for anybody who has public comment for anything that's not on the agenda
this evening. Mr. McFaden, if you could just come to the podium, please. and you know the drill. Name, address, all that good stuff. Uh, good evening. Carl McBan, 33 Wakefield Street. Uh, three quick things. Um, first, Fieldhouse is
phenomenal. Um, thank you Dr. Malachesky for making it happen. It was taking a long time to be there. Um, second, um, the unified basketball team. If you ever get to see this program, it is absolutely amazing. They have 40 kids
down there. They played Stonem for their first win of the year. Um it was 40 kids against seven. So we liked our odds and we did well. So credit to Tara. Um but the reason I'm coming here tonight is I'm actually your representative on the
Burbank Ice Arena and we've been working um with the town because the town needed access to the uh the dirt parking lot behind the rink um to build the recal center as well as the pickle ball courts there. and we worked with the town manager today and I'm pleased to
announce that we've come to an agreement. It still needs to be um approved by the select board uh as well as town meeting hopefully in in November where uh 50% of the net income after the
stabilization fund is um fulfilled um is going to be earmarked in a stabilization fund, however the technical names of it is, is going to be going to the unified sports program so that can you guys can keep expanding. And I know you're down to middle school and it'd be great for kids in elementary school to be able to do this. Uh Dr.
Malachesky has been really been leading the charge on this. Uh Reading certainly has in adaptive sports arena. Uh no, it's not even close in the Middle Sex League. It's not even close, but I would feel pretty confident in Eastern Mass. I can't imagine there's a better uh adaptive sports program going on there.
So hopefully going forward in real time, uh well, I should say in the past and since Burmeck's been open, they've given back uh $3 million over the past 25 years to the town. Uh so we have 17 years left on the lease. So you
can kind of do the numbers what type of capital contribution would be going towards uh the school system adaptive sports to be able to be there. Certainly a wish that the Burbank family wanted to have happen and as long as uh the selectman sign off on town meeting approves it uh you guys will be getting
uh funds every year from the Burbank Ice Arena. Have a good night. Going to go watch the Red Sox then we'll be back to eight. Uh congratulations to everyone tonight. Thank you. That deserves a round of applause. Mr. Yeah, I just like to thank Mr. McFaden too for his leadership and the leadership of so
many others and advocating for continued uh funding for the unified program. As many in this room know, the unified program blew up way quicker than we could have expected uh because of the leadership of so many including Tara Hurley, but also because of the interest of our students and of our community. Uh it is so exciting for us to have to keep
up with the demand. Uh as as uh Carl was just sharing too, we had 40 student athletes participating yesterday in the game. We have uh students at the middle school level who want more opportunities. We have students at the elementary school level who are now asking for opportunities. So there is uh so many different ways that we can use the funding here to expand programming
for our students and for our community. So I just like to thank you, the Burbank community, others for just your advocacy. Uh this means so much to our student athletes and to our community. So thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh, any other public comment for things that are not on the agenda?
All right. We'll move to our focus on excellence and Dr. Millesk, hand it to you. Great. We're going to announce some students, so I think I'll go up with Principal K and to the podium. A few of them aren't here, but I think we should read their names on your way. Perfect. Okay. All right. Good evening, everyone. It's nice to see you. It's nice to be here
and celebrate and recognize uh what is a tremendous academic accomplishment. Uh so in the room here today we have many of our uh 12 national merit scholar uh recipients. So for those of you who are not familiar with the program uh the program is intended to recognize
academic excellence. More specifically to recognize students who score uh the highest PSAT scores from across the country. So each year 1.3 million students participate uh in taking PSATs as juniors and the top 3 to 4% qualify
to be recognized as commended scholars through the national merit scholarship program. So tonight we are pleased to recognize 11 students who received that recognition. also one student who was also uh earned the National Merit Scholarship uh semi- finalist recognition which means that they were
in the top 1% of all PSAT takers as juniors and also qualify to continue on in the process in the finalist process. So uh first of all what an accomplishment obviously it is uh based off of one test but we know that this reflects uh more than a decade of
commitment and dedication to your studies and to academic excellence. So just like to congratulate all of you on this marker of what you've done, what you've done in terms of academic excellence. Two, like to thank your families. As the families know, this does not happen without your support, without your partnership. Students,
please make sure to thank your parents who have been a part of this journey with you and supported all of your academic endeavors. And then three, uh what a huge uh honor for our school system as well. I think you can all probably think about so many of the teachers and educators who have played a part in your academic journey. So just
uh many of them who are either watching or will hear about this know are celebrating you and recognizing you but also please make sure to reflect on the impact that they had on you and your journey as well. Uh so with that we have students that we would like to call up today. We have a certificate from the national merit national merit
scholarship program. Uh we'd like to give a round of applause uh one at a time here as well. So principal calendar will call the names and I have their certificates and there are a few that are not here this evening but we're going to read their names anyway. Doesn't matter which which mic we're using. No. Um, first is Hans Donkers.
Hans is not [Music] Barakette Gabby. Also not Cole Grant. Congratulations. Congrats, Cole. Great job. Clara Healey.
Congratulations. Great job. Congratulations. Congrats. Good job, Samuel Hillary. [Music] Isa Lusk. [Music] Congrats. Great job,
Charlie May. [Music] questions. William Merkel, Jessica Richter. Good job,
Jason Walsh. [Applause] [Music] Angela Wilder. [Music] And our semi- finalist, who unfortunately is not here this evening, is Indigo Buco.
we do not have her certificate either knowing that she's continuing in the process and we don't know if we'll end up as a semi- finalist or a finalist as well. Um so just again a huge congratulations for your demonstration of academic excellence as a proud moment for everyone in our Reading Public School community. Okay.
All right. [Music] We we do have to embarrass you one more time. We always ask our our focus on excellence winners or recipients winners recipients to join us at the front for a fixture together. So if you could please join us and then we'll let you go. I promise.
Congratulations. This is a little awkward. That's a little [Applause] Jessica. You're fine. You're fine.
run the gamut. Congrats everyone. Just like that. [Music] motion. I move to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second with amendment.
Yep. A couple of words on the amendment. Uh we are excited that uh we are potentially uh going to be in receipt of a large donation from an alumni uh and all the funding would be used to totally revamp our uh fitness center and our athletic training center. So more
information should be coming in the next uh couple of weeks and that process would also start over the winter break. know seniors, you would have the chance to be able to access the new space as well, too. So, uh again, more information over the next couple of weeks. There was a chance that that donation was coming through before tonight, so we had it on the agenda, but
expect that to be uh coming very soon. Very exciting uh to be able to share more soon. So, the consent agend the motion will delete item 13. So, allow for an amendment to remove item 13 from the consent agenda. Second, second. All in favor of removing item 13. Okay.
So, now it's as amended. Uh any further discussion? All in favor? Carries 5 to zero. Okay. Uh reports Dr. Milicheski. Great. I just like to give one thank you and this thank you goes out to some of the character demonstrated recently by
our boys football team. Uh there was a member of our a younger student in our RPS community who lost everything that they had had due to a a tragic fire. Uh this student was also involved in supporting some of the uh you know through water boy ball boy activities over the years supporting the football
team. The football team on their own as a group of student athletes rallied around the students uh and read like a studentled fundraiser to provide gift cards, clothing, other materials and then presented that uh to uh our the younger student in our locker room. So just a really awesome demonstration of
character to see the student led leadership and supporting a member of our community in need. So, I just like to give a thank you to the football team, the football captains in that community for uh really supporting uh our community and a student in need. So, thank you. Uh let's go to leazison reports and
we'll start with Tom. I don't have one other than what's in the packet. There you go. Laura, no report. Aaron, no report. Carla, I can I know I can depend on you. Um we we got the officially signed
project funding agreement from uh the MSBA. So we're getting the money. Um and we're really excited about that. Um we are just we had a um community meeting uh an abutters meeting last week and we actually walked the site and walked with
the abutters and told them what was going to happen right on the project adjacent to their property. Um, so we get to hear what kind of trees they want planted because we have some leeway with stuff like that. Um, and everybody left
happy. So that's our goal. Um, the meetings are going well. We we're going through like a whole another round of design meetings. So we're looking at furniture now and EV charging stations and just more design. So, at one of our
upcoming meetings, we're going to bring in actual samples of the exterior of the building and the interior so people and the public can be invited in just to kind of see what things actually are going to look like in the colors and things like that. It just becomes more
real when you're able to kind of see things happen. So, it's kind of exciting. That's it. Great. And I have no additional report tonight. So, uh let's move on to Sorry, one quick thing. Yes. It's not a report but a reminder and so we get posted for it. Next Wednesday is the
first financial forum. Um so just wanted to remind ourselves of that and we are posted. We are posted today. Great. Okay. Let's move on to new business. We're going to start with the introduction of the student advisory committee and I think Principal Kalan um probably best off to join Dr. Hardy up
here so you can be on camera. But she fine. Rob said that the camera will get her. It will get her. She's all the way over there. I don't know. It's not showing up here. Oh, it's okay.
Okay. Actually, no. Uh, good evening. Uh, thank you for having all of us. Um, I am proud to introduce our five board members from our student advisory committee. four of which are returning and then we have one
new member uh because Tama graduated so we had a vacancy um and all of the other four wish to continue uh and they do an amazing job so we're so excited about that so we have Jason Walsh uh Sachi Salvakumar Alex Vincent Sebastian Orsini
and our new member is Thea Cuna so welcome um they do have some things that they want to share if there's time um I think I don't want to put them on the spot uh But if that is something you guys want them to do, I'm sure they will. Yeah, absolutely. No pressure, guys. Here's
just um Are we doing is this for student reports? Just a little bit about ourselves or you can do all of the above. But all the above start introduce yourselves. Yeah, introduce and then we'll do our report sections. Okay. So Sasha, you're first. Aren't you introducing yourself?
No, no, no. Okay. All right. So, um I'm Alex Vincent. I am a returning member. I've been here all of last year. Um I plan to hopefully come back next year, but it's great to be here um with everyone again and I guess I will jump right into
student reports. So for our upcoming events on October 16th, we have the activities fair during flex for all students. So that'll be for all the um not just the incoming freshmen, but especially incoming freshmen to come and look at clubs, sports, activities, see what they want to join, extracurriculars
and stuff like that. On the 22nd, there will be a PTO board meeting from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., which is their quarterly meeting. Uh, sorry, that's incorrect. The quarterly meeting is at 7:00 p.m. Um, then big and exciting, we have homecoming week coming up from October 10th through 19th. Um, and that will be,
sorry, 15th through 19th. Gez, what's going on today? Um, then that'll be just a bunch of spirit days. We have jersey day, pajama day, class colors, and senior shirt day. And at the end on the 17th is unity day where it's a big fun um just group of activities that everyone does splits up in the school. It's a really great day.
Hi everyone, I'm Sachi. I'm a senior. I've been in student advisory and on the board for the past two years. Fortunately, I will not be continuing last next year because I will be graduating. Um yeah. Um I participate in a lot of activities both in and outside
of school. Um, and I have and I currently run and I've founded quite a few clubs. Um, so next up on the student reports is um the Walk It Like You Rocket 5K. Um, on the 18th of October,
it's an 8:30 a.m. fun run and a 9:00 a.m. 5K. So fun. Um, on October 18th, we have homecoming. Um, and then on the 19th is Sunday night lights. Um, and then for school counseling events on the
7th of October is freshman guidance parent night from 6:30 p.m. in the uh at 6:30 p.m. in the pack. On the 8th of October is financial aid night at 6:30 also in the pack. And then on the 22nd of October are the PSATs during the
school day. I don't know how to speak. You can go ahead Thea. Awesome. My name is Thea Cuna. I'm a junior. I'm the newest member. Hooray. Um I am a member of the drama club, the mock trial club. I am a registered peer
mediator. Um all that good stuff. Uh so we have some accomplishments from the student advisory committee from last year, which I wasn't here. Um for making RMHS more welcoming and functional for students. And I'll list some of these
right here. addition of trash cans and recycling bins in the calf and on Main Street, which is very great. Advocated for additional water uh bottle filling stations around the school, and one was added as a as a result of PTO funding. And another one is being added this year
also. And we worked with PTO uh with the PTO to get new tables on Main Street for students to use with charging stations embedded inside. So, it's very great. Um, hi, I'm Jason Walsh. Um, I'm
returning. This is my third year on the advisory committee and my second year as a board member. Um, about me, I am the new senior class president. So, I'm very excited to share a lot of our fun events that we're planning, especially
homecoming week, um, all the pep rally information. I know all that stuff going on. So, very excited to share that. Um, as I've shared in the past, I'm very involved in the arts, the drama club, and the choir. Um, and I love to talk about all the successes of the arts at these meetings. Um, so very good to be
back. I'll continue with some of our accomplishments from last year. Um, we did a lot of work with updating the bathrooms in the school, both fulfilling work orders and improving the maintenance of the bathrooms, as well as, um, creating gender-inclusive
signage for bathrooms in the drama suite in the main office. And on the fourth floor, um, we also unlocked some new bathrooms for students to use during the day, uh, just to allow more accessibility throughout the school. Um,
okay. Um, so my name is Sebastian Rossini. This is going to be my second year on the student advisory committee. Um, a little bit about me. I play soccer here for the varsity team. I'm on the science team, the Spanish club, and with Jason, I am in choir as well. So yeah.
Um, some stuff that we also worked on is we emphasized the importance of the Remind app for communication and as a result, we actually renewed it this year. So that's a new way that teachers or not new but we can communic uh teachers can communicate with students again to help and um that was really
helpful at least in my freshman year. Uh we also met with the food services director and provided input about wanting earth friendly packaging and new meal options. um part we also participated in the read and youth listening listening sessions in 202425
and we will participate in the upcoming leadership cafe on November 5th as a follow-up to listening sessions to hear about many grants available for student projects. So last year I know we also advocated for the addition of new AP classes and dual enrollment classes for sophomores which we did get and that's
really great. I've heard good things from sophomores about like the opening of psychology. Think micro and macroeconomics. So AP gov as well. Yeah. So I've heard a lot of good things. They're happy and excited about that. So yeah. Great.
Well, um so so thank the four of you for coming back. I guess that I guess that means it wasn't a terrible experience with Tom last year, so that's good. Um and thank you for stepping up as well. We're excited to work with all of you. Um we'll work with Principal Ken. I forgot where you are from. I'm here. work with principal count to get some uh
regular meetings set up and sort of figure out what things you want to bring forward this year to keep that momentum going. So, thank you all for your leadership. We we really appreciate it. Anything from anybody else? We did also have topics of discussion for 2025 to 2026. Um some of them were
the Wi-Fi infrastructure is still a very big problem I think for a lot of us. Um, one running joke um, between a lot of people in the choir and drama department is that choir room and drama suite has basically everything. You've got air conditioning, you know, you've got all gendered restrooms. It's great, but it
has no Wi-Fi. Um, a schoolwide cell phone a cell phone policy, which is what something that we talked about. Um, I think everybody has a variety of opinions on that. Um, this uh, imple uh, adding AI usage in the student handbook. Um, I think Miss Kanan mentioned
something about that. And then cross-pollination of high schools and middle school clubs and even elementary schools, more arts and sports in elementary schools and middle schools, I think was another thing that was brought up that we would really like to see I think more participation especially from
the youth on clubs like that because for a lot of us we didn't have access to um clubs and things where we could also work with older kids um on a variety of stuff. So yeah, great. Best. Yeah.
Policy head. What's that? Sounds like it's policy heading. Yeah. No, it's good. When are we discussing cell phone? So regular we have to have a cell phone policy districtwide starting at the
beginning of the 26 27 school year. So has it p the law passed yet? The law hasn't has it. I believe so. I don't think it's shaking her head. No, only through one of the houses. Has not passed through both houses. Didn't get through Senate. I don't think halfway.
Still pending. Still pending. Yeah. I mean, that one's clearly on our radar and I think we've all said in the past that when we get down to developing that, like there's going to be a ton of stakeholder involvement in that because, you know, people have a lot of a lot of opinions about it obviously. So, um, you all
especially, I would imagine. So, yeah. So great. Um, anything else from anyone tonight? Okay, great job. Great to see you. So, as we always say, you're welcome to stay. You're also welcome to go. We know
you're all busy folks. Um, and we appreciate and looking forward to working with you this year. Thank you. Good job. Okay. Uh, are we ready for the high school counseling update? Am I sharing materials? If you don't mind table,
I think so. Or we go over there. Yeah. Where do we share? Um, you can either come Oh, we need either either spot either on Tom. We go next to And I'll bring this over. Oh, you guys are staying there. Okay. Oh, sorry. No problem. Do you need um an extra need? We need
one of the bigger mics. We got We got two over here. Yeah, we do have two here. I'll bring one of these over there. Oh, okay. Yeah, [Music] I sold that.
Sean, do you want me to click through or do you want to click through? Okay, it's up to you. You can if you want to. Is it okay for me to start? Yeah, you're good. You're good to go. Um, thank you for having us here. as you know, you know, you've seen me do this presentation for many years, and I
always love coming here um and celebrating our students and all the great accomplishments. It's it's wonderful to be here in October um versus in the past, I've done it later on in the year where it's January, February, and we don't have all the results from college admissions for that
particular class. But being here in October, I can report on the full class of 2025 and how they've done how they did last year. And it's perfect to come right after um celebrating National Merit um students because you know we're
celebrating the achievements of some of our top performers on PSATs and our standardized tests, but the reality is we have so many wonderful students who are accomplishing so many great things. So, I'm excited to be here tonight to share that. So, I'm going to start with
where the class of 2025 went last year. slide two up one more up one more. There we go. Um so this is overall post um secondary um plans. So 84% of the class of 2025 went on to a
four-year school which is consistent from the last few years and then 5% with um went to a two-year school. So that's a slight increase, not a surprise when Massachusetts went to um community colleges being free for students, which
is a wonderful benefit. So there were definitely more students who were talking about that possibility. Um so as long as you are a Massachusetts resident, have a high school diploma, and attending full-time, you can go there for free. And then um many students were choosing to do that for
two years and then with the goal of um transitioning to a four-year school. So it's a a wonderful way to save money. Um 1% um attended prep or technical schools and then 10% are employed in other and that's a range of we had a few students
join the military as well as doing gapyear programs but a high percentage of those students were going off and working and um I just want to say like I I'm really proud of where we've come. A few years ago, we really made a push to celebrate all students and their
interest and having students feel um good about what they're doing. And so in our developmental guidance and our guidance seminars, we're really talking about students pursuing their interest and what are their passions and what are the things that are important to them. And I think this number um is just
showing that kids are feeling more comfortable about talking about all the different options. So, um, I'm pleased that every student who graduated last year could confidently like when they were crossing the stage and meeting with us could say, "This is what I'm doing
and I feel good about it." So, out of the 89% that went on to college, um, they attended 26 different they attended colleges in 20 26 different states as well as two countries, Netherlands and Canada. Um but you'll
see later on admissions wise they were um accepted to stu schools all over. 50% attended private schools throughout the country. 78% stayed in New England. Not really a surprise. I've been doing this for a really long time. Juniors always start off saying that they're going to
go far away and then when time comes for them to make a decision they stay closer home. We have so many wonderful colleges in New England so it's not really a surprise. um of the class 51% stayed in Massachusetts and of that percentage 41%
attended a Massachusetts state public um college or university. So here the next few slides are all of the college acceptances for the entire class. And I just want to highlight a few things from some of our most competitive schools in the country from
Harvard to Dartmouth. Um there's UVA, UNCC, Chapel Hill, um University of Chicago, um Amherst College. We have students getting in all over like some of our most competitive colleges. So, it's really impressive. But one of the things that we noticed last year um
compared to um past years, the students in the middle of the class did exceptionally well and they were um you know every year we always shared you know you should have a few schools that are reach schools the the bulk of them right in that middle ground and then likely schools but those reach schools
students were getting in all over the place and there were times where I thought and many of the counselors thought these were clear reaches and then they're coming back and saying that they got accepted. So overall, we were very pleased with all the different colleges that students got accepted to.
In addition to um that I just want to highlight we had more students um interested in H.B.CU colleges. I over the last few years we've definitely um advertised those more provided opportunities for them to go to the H.B.CU college fair. So we did have a
student last year. We had a few students um interested in them get accepted and one attended um and then in addition to that students getting accepted to some of the top engineering um business nursing programs throughout the country.
So definitely a class worth celebrating and then we're going to talk a little bit about our scores. Yeah. Um, so we want to highlight and also celebrate our the advanced placement scores from last year. Uh, and
I've had some consternation about this chart, but we're going to I'll explain it thoroughly. Uh, and so the positive takeaway for me here is that we have more students taking AP classes and AP exams. And what when we're doing that, we're also seeing the scores of those
students continue to increase. Um and and I think that is a those are two really positive pieces of information. Um and that is a tribute to the work that um our teachers are doing in the classrooms and the kids are doing uh when they go home and have to complete
that work. Uh a few things to highlight uh is that we had the highest scores ever in history of Reading Memorial High School uh for students passing AP exams last year with passing being three or higher. we had 83% of the students uh
that took AP exams passed uh compared to two years ago which was 63%. Um and just to pull out another positive piece of I would say success of data is that um I know a lot of work and discussions have gone into the math pathways and our math
departments. Um a lot of that work is tribute to Dr. Hardy and 96% of our students that took an AP exam last year had a three three or higher. Um, and that is an that is a phenomenal statistic. Uh, and two years ago it was
uh 68%. Um, and so I just I really want to highlight and celebrate and and and I and Lyn and I talk about this a lot. We want every student to reach their academic excellence. Um, but this I think I do not want to gloss over in any way how well our students are performing
on AP exams. Um, and so just a positive takeaway. One thing I just want to add about AP exams for those that are watching at home and may not realize that there are benefits not only in the college admissions process if you do well on the exam. You can send the scores and stuff
but there's a benefit when you attend school. So some of our students don't necessarily understand that piece of it. Um we have a student um last year I think two students that reported that graduated last year and reported that when they got to college they were surprised because of all the AP credits
that they got. they um could graduate college in three years. Now whether they choose to do that or not, that is um their choice, they could also use that as an opportunity to double major or save themselves a lot of money. So there are benefits and for students who don't
necessarily want to use it um for credits in college, there's also a benefit to taking them having the experience. Um, we have students who are challenging themselves in AP classes and working really hard, but maybe they're not getting the scores that they
necessarily would want or need to get credit at the college. But when they go to college and they take those courses, again, they're doing well in those classes. So, there are benefits um to taking the AP classes. I do want to emphasize um that there's some people
who feel like you can't get into college if you don't take an AP class. And I just want to emphasize that there are 4,000 colleges out there. There's a college out there for everyone. And we want students challenging themselves. And that may be AP classes, but it may be honors and it may be college prep.
Everybody has a different level of what they can handle. And that's part of our job as school counselors is just making sure that students are challenging themselves but not overdoing it. One other thing I just like to note too, you see the orange line, I don't think we hit on there too, is the exams four plus. Oh yeah.
Uh some encouraging data and you might may ask why is that important? Some colleges are only accepting fours and fives sort of four credit too. So that's a data point that's really interesting to us. Not only are more kids getting uh fours and fives, but the the percentage of kids pass, you know, getting a four
or five is higher, too. So, for example, I have in front of me in 2023, 40% of all exams were a four or a four or five compared to this past year was 61%. So, we've seen some consistent growth in our four plus, which I think is really important to continue to, you know, push
kids to be able to get score in that top echelon scores as well. You explain the next slide. So that was No, it's fine. I stole Jess's headline. All right, you can you can do the whole thing. Uh, so yes, that's what the emphasis was
with this slide of delineating the three or higher or four or higher and that 50% of our 11th and 12th grade students are attempting at least one AP course. Uh, which is also a very positive statistic. And next year I hope to add in um our 10th graders as well um now that we
extended um as many courses as we could down to the 10th graders. Didn't go out. Yep. Okay. Sorry. Um I again I just want to highlight uh the math pathway and that there have been many changes um to the math programming.
a lot of discussions about how to improve and push our students uh to support all students along the way in their journey with math literacy, but also to provide uh areas of acceleration where students have that capacity to accelerate. Um and I think that one of
those things that we did was we added in AP pre-calc. Um a lot of students are attempting that class. um some as juniors, some as seniors. Uh and that you know as a result I think that we're seeing the positive increases in the
scores for um not just AP pre-calc but also AP calc also AP stats um and the different courses that our kids are attemp attempting. [Applause] Um I think that this is a very important slide because I quickly did the math. Um
and this last year in 2025 um we had 116 um students recognized as AP scholars of some level. Um and that is uh the most in the in the last 5 years. In 2021 it was 50 students and last year it was 116. Um so again all positive data going
in the right direction for our students that are attempting their the AP exams or and some are taking a lot of AP exams. So, not necessarily recommended, but they're achieving. This this slide to me is incredible. I was looking at this one earlier. You know, this means it's not just the top
top echelon of students. This is like 45% of the class was was at least an AP scholar, which is really impressive. Yes. And and it is for 11th graders, too. There are 11th graders. Oh, there's 11th graders in there. It's still very impressive. It's all all four years in high school,
but you know. Yes. Agreed. Um, we can go. There aren't many, but there are some 11th graders in that list. What' you say? I said there aren't many, but there are some 11th graders in that list. Oh, yes. Yeah. Um, so I just want to highlight too that um and I our student
advisory committee did mention this, but these are the dual enrollment courses that are up and running this year. Uh, all these are all through UMass LOL. uh they're all semesterbased and a lot of students are attending these dual enrollment classes as maybe an alternative um either an area of
interest or an alternative to AP. Uh it all of them are set up to where there is a professor from UMass that is either teaching in person or virtually alongside one of our teachers. Uh what I love about this is that kids can pursue different areas of interest. Um, but
also that we're able to provide accommodations for students that have IEPs or 504s. If they were on campus at UMass, they'd have to go through the office of accessibility and they may or may get the um services and support that they needed, but we're able to do that inhouse, which I think is really
important to open access to students um for these courses. Uh, and I just want to highlight the the three new AP courses that we've started in the last couple of years. And then do you want to speak about the importance of the social emotional balance? Yeah, I I talked about it a little bit
um just in the previous slide. I kind of jumped ahead. Um but I I just think it is really important for students to pursue their interest to make sure that they are taking challenging classes, but also making sure that they have time to have fun with their friends, eat meals with their families, sleep, um you know,
just exercise, just enjoy life. and because it's not um you can take a ton of AP classes and um all these extra classes that we have which is really wonderful but if it's taking a toll on your personal life then that's when I
get a little bit worried and so that's something that the counseling department is just making sure that students are um being healthy. Um so this slide is to show our SAT scores over the past five years. But yes, five years. Um, and then the
numbers in parenthesis are the Massachusetts state mean. Um, we do acknowledge that the scores have dropped slightly. Uh, and we I have a data team that was stood up last year. Uh, and we're continuing that work this year.
One of the pieces of data that we are interrogating is why is this happening? Uh, I have several theories, none of which are proven. Uh, one of the things that we did two years ago was we pulled the SA PSATs into the school day. Um, Tom, can you just flip to the next slide
and then we come back to this one. So, you can see two years ago the number of students taking PSATS doubled and that is because we emphasized 10th graders also taking the PSATs. Uh, and so the national merit run year is 11th grade here. And so one of the things that
could be happening is that students are taking PSATs in 10th grade and then jumping right into the SATs in 11th grade. I don't have the data available right now because this there's a lot of it. Um and to peel apart this information with demographic and who's
taking uh the exams, how many times are they taking SATs? When we're pulling that data, are we supercoring uh their scores? I don't know if they're taking it multiple times. Um, or is it all just cor, you know, correlated all together? So, if I took the SAT three times, is my
SAT score getting put in there three times? Are we pulling my best English score and my be best math score? Um, all of which is worth looking at. Obviously, we think that this is very important. It is another measure and more students take
SATs than an AP, for example. Um, and just like other large scale pieces of data like the PSAT, it's something that we're looking at and then we're going to look at areas of strength and areas of weakness on the PSAT or the SAT when students are taking it and talk to our
English and math departments about different things that they can do inside the classroom and inside the courses that the students are taking and also what's the most appropriate time for students to take the SAT. um I feel like it's after they complete algebra 2 um in
terms of math, but that may not be the same year that it's the best time for them to take it with English. Uh another thing that happened last year is the SAT went uh all electronic, which is really fun for Lena when she's running the SATs. Uh but we've got it. And um and it
also turned into an intuitive test. So, if you've ever taken the GRE, um, as you answer, you know, it gets harder or easier based upon if you're answering it correctly or incorrectly. So, sometimes if you feel like you're whizzing through the test, that means that you're getting a lot of things wrong. Um, not not
always, but it can mean that. Um, so there's a lot of pieces of data for us to look at. Um, a positive uh piece could be that more students are taking the PSAT and then they're they are jumping into the SAT earlier. Um, but just like Lena brought up about thinking
about students social emotional um, balance is we want to make sure that they're putting themselves in the best foot forward and taking these tests when it's uh, the most poignant and meaningful for them in their academic career. You know, the SATs are important to me
and I'm glad that um, being part of the data team that we are looking at this. Um although that there are over 1,800 um colleges that are test optional um if you do well on the SATs that can help in admissions and that can help with them
deciding merit-based scholarships and also placement for in courses. So while there's a benefit to test optional um there's also a benefit to taking it. So what I would like to see is us focus on the SATs. Um how can we improve the
scores for more students and give them the option whether they submit or they don't submit. Um one of the things that we've seen with colleges now because of test optional is some of their averages at the college level are skewed because the students are only choosing to submit
if they have really high scores. there's a benefit from the college business aspect of the things in their rating. So that definitely makes it more challenging for students who are applying to see like, well, where do I fall? Should I send, should I not send, am I really not celebrating the fact
that I got a 760 on the math, you know, and um so it's work that we're doing with the counseling department, but I'm excited that the data team is looking at this um more closely. I also wonder because it's test optional if we have
more students in that middle range of the class only taking it once and choosing not to take it twice or three times whereas in past years that was kind of a given. Most students took the SATs at least at least twice. Um I can
say that I'm hearing a lot more students say um it the schools I'm applying to test optional. I'm not worried about it. Like why stress out over the SATs? And while I love that mentality because I don't think that that necessarily like one test defines who you are as an
academic student, um that could be playing a factor into it. So, we're going to look more closely at um all of that information and I think looking at um accessible test prep. So, if you take the PSAT, there is a free test prep link to your College Board account uh that you can
work on. It does take persistence for the student to to do a little bit of that before they're um taking the SAT, but it's geared towards how they did on the PSAT. It's it's their own test prep. And so not a lot of SAT uh prep programs
are they're exp they are expensive. And so I think things like like Khan Academy or or different options like that that are free and accessible to everyone um are a better option as well as talking to our teachers about areas that we could cover better or maybe more in
depth um in uh math and English courses. Want to share one thought on that too is someone at home may be wondering well the story around AP data is really really positive yet I see a slide here that shows decline of the last five years at the same time in ELA and math. So it's like an interesting you know
divide there. Our our thoughts the team I you know again the the data team is diving deeper into that. But a couple quick thoughts. One is there are as you can imagine for folks at home different groups of students who are taking AP classes and taking SATs. More students are taking the SAT right now. There are
obviously implications for us to think about what does this mean for us for what core instruction looks like? You know teaching and learning in all of our classes. What does curriculum look like? What do our assessments look like? all the things that we look at when we look at sort of what's happening around academic outcomes are certainly uh at
play here too. Um so I think our team is committed to making sure that these scores trend in the right direction. I think we have a lot of different theories on sort of what could be going on. I know I've heard from some people in the community is it have to do with leveling, you know, delelling classes? Do we need another level? I I don't know. These are
all things that we're trying to figure out. What are the root causes of this decline the last at least 5 years? And then what are some of the best action strategies to to move forward to? But certainly want the committee to know that this is something we take very seriously and we want these scores to be going in the other direction. Yes. And we always want to be the best.
Um but it also correlates with the scores um across the state, you know, pretty much. Um and in the last there was it was a weird time after the pandemic where college was like, "Ah, we don't care about SATs anymore." And now they're like, "Now we do care about them again." So, I think we're just trying to
figure out what that world looks like um for our kids and give them the best advice about whether or not they use the SATs that they take or they don't use them um for the colleges they're applying to. Um so, Miss K, thank you for that, especially the fact that you outlined
that the data may not be just the graduate of this year, right? the way this presents itself is graduating year 2025 which is not necessarily accurate and from what you're saying. So getting into that next level of detail I think is going to be
important as part of it and I appreciate that's happening. One other thing and I told Dr. M this earlier today that is out of your control but is an impact is everything that happened before they got to high school. Everything that happened before they got to high school. And many of us on this committee know that this graduating
class was the first class that had to deal with math and focus when they were in kindergarten and first grade, which is the most horrible math program we've ever implemented in this in this town. They're seeing that now. You guys probably dealt with that. Um the first class that had to go through with Lucy Caukins, which we've since gotten rid of
as well, um as part of that as well. So, foundationally, it's not going to be just you guys fixing it. It's going to be the fixes that we're making in in K1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 that's going to help this in the in the long run. But it's no surprise to me that we're seeing 2022 through 2025
having the challenges that they did considering they were fourth grade, first grade, third grade, second grade uh when we were rolling out those programs back in 2013, 14, and 15. And I still think we don't fully understand the ramifications of the pandemic. Like, you know, I mean, it was and I think
Reading did it as best as any school district could handle the pandemic, but it was a it was a very challenging time to be a student and to be an educator. Yeah. And we're we're seeing that in in some of the later presentation we have coming up a little bit later with some of our fifth grade scores from that
we're going to see shortly, too. So, it's that is that is an impact as well. And obviously you can see the pretty big drop from the state just in 21 versus 22. Um but diving into the details like you guys are asking for will be great to see. Um what are the what are the 11th graders when they're taking it the first time? What is it, you know, when they're
seniors and it's maybe their their scaled score or or the super score. Um and how does that look versus this is going to be interesting. Um you know, I'd appreciate that next level of grain as well. Thank you. Please. Um, so I also I I really
appreciate everything that you're sharing here. Um, I let me think what I'm trying to say. Um, I think it's very different when you're like taking a concentrated AP course and the whole course is geared toward, you
know, essentially preparing you for the exam. And it's the same whether you're taking it here or whether you're taking it in Kentucky. It's it's the same curriculum, right? versus the SAT is is so much broader and it's it's meant to be accumulated knowledge from from years
of high school English and math. So, um but I agree with Lena. You made the point. I I think it does matter. Um I think more colleges are starting to go back to it. Um I've read really mixed
things on how they interpret you not submitting scores. I think, you know, there's a lot of different opinions on that. Um, but the merit scholarship is is a huge one because financial aid has such low low threshold for families. So,
merit scholarship can be a makeorb breakak decision for students to go to certain schools. So, um, I love the idea of of looking more at what can be incorporated into the classroom. And you know, I think part of that will be the
importance of it being consistent. Um, so you know, I've heard of some English teachers that are incorporating vocabulary sophomore year and I've heard that some that aren't. So something like that, like you know, cuz half that
vocabulary people are only learning because they're studying for the SATs, right? Like they're not really changed a lot since it's not in everyday use. it's not, you know, um, in all the books. So, um, and the your point like it's so
expensive to like hire professional help, but there's incredible resources out there. Like, I know Khan Academy will literally look at your PSAT scores and then gear mini workshops for students and it's completely free, but so many people just don't know it
exists. um and you know maybe need some guidance on on getting going on that. So I think there's a lot of ways that students can be supported without like completely revamping curriculum without you know really changing the way we do things but just putting a little bit
more of an emphasis on it. Yeah. Um thank you for the presentation. Lennena, you mentioned that um for this graduating class that a lot of them their reach schools they got into. Do you have any guesses as to why that
happened? Did that have anything to do? And and then my second question is did that class submit more did the majority of that class submit SAT scores because I know that pushes I don't think the majority of them
submitted SAT scores. Um I don't have that off the top of my head. Um SCORE just started tracking that where students last year had to put if they were um choosing test optional or not. So I can always go back and get that data. Um I I'll be honest with you,
Carla, I don't I don't know the answer of why they were doing so well. Um they're awesome students. I don't know. I mean because it can be the flip side, too. like you should have gotten into that school. Yeah,
you didn't. So, you know, it just it's interesting, right? You just don't know. There were definitely students that um I I will never tell a student that they're not going to get into school. So, any parent who hears that Mrs. Williams said that that is definitely not the case.
That's not my strategy. But in my head, I might think that is definitely a reach. Let's make sure that we have other schools in place. And then there were students coming back like, "Mrs. Williams, I got accepted and I'm like so excited for them, but I'm like, what is the change in college admissions, you
know, here? So, um, it could be they're just doing a really thorough job with their applications, great letters of recommendation. They're not submitting test scores. There's a whole variety of of different things, you know. Well, and I think too, like you've mentioned to me, Lena, that there is the SCO score,
which is a system that we use has this scatter plot system, so kids can see visually see kind of where they fall and like what schools are in their wheelhouse. I'm not describing it as well as Lena could. I also think that uh Lena writes a very strong school
profile, which goes out to all of the colleges. Um, and we have a strong school profile. Um, but what she's submitting also reflects the strength of our school. Um, and that helps kids get in. You know, if you're from a school with a good reputation, um, and a lot of these schools have, correct me if I'm
wrong, but they'll have the same reader of applications from the kids from reading every single year. Um, and so I think you work hard to try to build relationships with those people and ask them frank questions about um, why a student got in or didn't get in and things like that so that we can be more
informed and they do an amazing job, you know, from year to year. like I don't think we highlighted it but on the first slide of the college acceptances there were almost 1,600 applications submitted last year uh almost acceptances
um you know in score uh to 221 colleges that's a lot for a class of about it was less than 300 kids um one of the things that was interesting we had an increase this school year with the number of colleges asking to come visit us um
during the school day so we're close to 100 colleges that are here. In the past, it's it's hovered around, you know, 70 to 80. Um, and I we do our best to make sure that we meet with every college rep and we are constantly hearing back from
them that not all high schools do that. And I think these little touches of having the college fair and taking the time and letting them visit, we have a lot of seniors who do come down. uh there are other schools who do it only after school or during flex and stuff
and the colleges are not getting um the same number of students that they're seeing here. So there's all these little things that could play a factor into it. I I don't know, you know, but we're going to keep doing what we're doing because it's working. It's working.
Thank you. You know, I um in a vacuum, you look at these scores and you say we were at a mean score of almost 1,200 in 2021 and we're at a mean score today of like 1150. And that feels like a massive drop. But, you know, you highlighted this like the the delta of our scores versus the state scores is
actually gotten bigger, you know, since 2021. College Board doesn't publish an overall mean, but if you look at the percentiles, like we're kind of in the same percentile range as we were in 2021. So those confounding factors you talked about, the changing mix of test takers, students taking it less seriously because it's test optional,
all that sort of stuff, those are, you know, those are applying across the board. So my takeaway is this isn't really reflecting, you know, anything that would suggest a a reduction in our competitiveness, you know, in in the in the SAT in the SAT
process, I suppose. So, um, I think everything everybody said and focusing on it and finding ways to do it in the school day to support families who can't afford the private options and that kind of thing makes, you know, those things all make a ton of sense, but this this isn't like a, you know, as much as in a vacuum it looks like this massive drop.
Like this is not a disaster story in the context of what's happening with the SAT broadly, right? So, um, I'm not and I think Massachusetts scores tend to be higher than a lot of other states. So, that's why I think Linda uses Massachusetts and not national. Well, the College Board doesn't publish the
national means. Um, as far as I know, I think they publish they publish percentile bands annually, but they don't they won't tell you, you know, the mean was, you know, whatever 564. And you have to dig for the Massachusetts. Yeah. It's not an easy.
Yeah. Hi. Um, I just want to give like a student perspective on what Miss Gaffin was saying earlier. So, between last year and this year, I would have taken like 10 APs hopefully if I do all these APs. Um, and I would have taken the SAT twice and I would have super scored. Um,
I do want to add that like exactly what you were saying, our AP classes are specifically geared to teaching us to do well on the test. We don't, it's not like we have an SAT class unless you go online. Like I I know my parents very kindly paid for a very expensive SAT
prep course for me to take. Um, but a lot of people don't have that option. But one thing I do want to say is that like the last time I learned grammatical like syntax and like where commas go was sixth grade, right before co and entering into specifically entering into
the seventh eighth math program was the beginning of co for everyone in my grade and the I think the year a year career. Um, so I think that may have also had a huge impact on SAT scores. But I do also
want to emphasize the fact that like a lot of what we're learning now in the curriculum isn't exactly super helpful to doing well on the SAT, specifically what the SAT asks of you. And I agree with what Miss Kalinan said about taking the SAT after honors algebra 2 or just
algebra 2 in general because that's kind of where the threshold of like what they put on the math aspect of the SAT like stops. So instead of like cuz I took AP pre-calc last year as a junior. I was already well into my AP pre-calc when I
took the SAT and it was definitely a little harder for me to like cuz I'd have to recall that knowledge from algebra 2 and just algebra. My algebra foundations in general were really shaky because of the fact that seventh math which is basically pre-alggebra was taught to me during co 19 and I was
fully remote. So that was taught to me online and at the time teachers were definitely struggling with finding stuff for us to do or working with us to better our grades. Um so that was kind of just student perspective I wanted to add. Superc scoring is when they take the
highest score on math and the highest score on writing or on English. Are we um Do we I mean do we ever advise students to take it earlier just to max out their math score postal algebra 2? Is that a strategy we've thought about? So
it depends when they take algebra 2 also like some students take it as a junior. Yeah. Um some take it as sophomores. Wow. And and now last year we had some taking as freshman. Right. Freshman or an eighth grader taking algebra too. Um true true story. Um
yeah. So there's pros and cons. Yeah. You know, um I also think that there are questions that are beyond pre-cal. So some of our higher level kids like if they are doing well in the algebra 2, there are harder
questions that they would be missing out on if they didn't have the pre-cal. So there's pros and cons. It is a discussion that we've had just because there were a few juniors that took the SATs in September and did really well. Um, so I've talked to the math department of like, um, okay, why don't
we look at this and go back over the years and see which juniors took it in October versus later on and stuff like that and then convince them to take the PSAT as 11th graders so they can compete for national merit because they took it as a 10th grader and you're not in the running when you do that. So,
you know, there's just there's a lot of gaming that you can do to try to, you know, but you also don't want to take the test 15 times. Like, it's it's excruciating, you know. So, you get used to it, though. There's there's something to be said about practice. It's possible I took it five times.
Could I add one more one last thing? Right. So, I took the SAT the be I took it in October. I mean, not in October. I took it in September, then I took it last March. One thing that seriously helped my English score was the fact that I took AP Lang as a junior and that
focuses specifically on argumentative writing and also writing based on um like when you're given documents. Same thing goes for AUSH. A Bush gives you documents you have to analyze and write about. Both of those subjects seriously helped me with my English score because they give you excerpts to look at and
read and then write about immediately in AP Lang and in a push. before that I had never really had that experience in um honors freshman 9th grade um English and in honors 10. Um so I know my English
score increased because of the fact that I was able to you know take that and practice that. So that was also just really useful. insight. I just want to highlight because Linda does not always celebrate the amazing work that she does with her department
um and for the community that there is a new website um updated website for the uh school counseling department uh that has so much useful information. Uh the snapshot in the middle is what is one of the pieces of information of all the different offerings for parents and
students um that the school counseling department is holding throughout the school year. Um and then do you want to talk about the flyer on either side this thing? Yeah, I one thing I just want to say about the dates, one of the things that we've noticed over the last few years is a decline in parent um attending some of
our events. And I'm I'm not exactly sure of why the shift happened, but I just want to encourage parents to come because even though there's a lot of similarities of the things that we cover from year to year, there are tweaks in admissions, there's always new things
that are happening. Um, every year we're trying to bring new things and get new information out there. So, I do really encourage the parents to attend um some of our evening nights. And then on the left and right hand side is um our post-secary
um planning resource guide that just talks about all the things that we do to help students um and families through the post-secary planning phase. And I do think that we um compared to many other guidance departments offer a lot of
things for students and families. And I just encourage people to take advantage of this. We've we've heard an increase in people paying a lot of money for college coaches and I while it is good for some families and it's the right thing to do. Um I don't want families to
feel like they have to do that. Um there's free resources here and when we hear that there are families who are working with coaches um then we're putting our effort into although we're helping everybody but we're definitely putting our effort more into the
families who are not just so there's not conflicting information with students and them getting all stressed and confused. And I just want parents to know that we are happy to meet with anybody and walk anybody through the process. Um, parents included, parents included from freshman um, all
the way through senior year. And, um, as they said earlier, we have a freshman parent night next week. And although we're not talking specifically about college and postsecary, it is the building in the stepping stone into getting the students um, active in the
community which all plays a part in helping them figuring out what their interests are that are going to benefit in future years. So, I hope parents attend. Me, too. Yeah. Okay. I I I have to say that even with, you know, having different children and
having, you know, some go-getters and some not so go-getters, the the guidance counselors are just they know how to target each kid and each kid's set of um qualifications and what they're good at
and what they're not good at. And um even just a little tip for parents, if you're having a hard time getting your child motivated, the guidance counselors can get them motivated in a totally different way. So, it's just it's it was
a very helpful process um for me and for our family, but just for everyone. And and I like what you said about you don't have to go spend all this money because we're offering that service, which is true. So, and I think highlighting our partnership
with college affordable um who the we have the data from them about how much how many of our families you're using them from the first year we partnered with them to um this last past school year uh which went up exponentially and
they you know if you've if you're a child if it's your first child going to college it is a wild ride to figure out the financial side of it. Um and then if you have space in between children, it changes dramatically from one to the next. Um so it's free. Uh please come to
financial aid night so that the you can use that resource. Um it's it's really amazing and they can dig in and really help families with appeals and things like that. Can I ask a slightly unrelated question or tangential question? Slightly potentially. Yeah.
Um, is there any sort of alumni network in place that's available for students if they're really interested in particular schools that we have the resources to be able to say, "This person went to that school last year or this person went to that school a few years ago. certainly put you in touch with them so that you can talk a little bit about what that experience is like
and what their um you know I I think all of these sort of highlevel resources are really fantastic but I also know that it's really hard to get a sense of what a school might be like just from those highle resources. Um do we have anything
in place that that would connect individuals more on a onetoone level? So I on an unofficial way um counselors know where students have been and we're always thinking of like who went places. So there are um some students that we
connect. We don't do it in a an official large scale piece. We do have an alumni panel that we bring back alumni every year. It's 15 to 20 students who talk to our senior class about their experience in transitioning to college. But you're talking more of like kind of like a
resource where students could know someone went to Stonehill or some someone went to, you know, Rice University or something. We don't have that specifically. Um, but it's always a possibility. I like the idea. I just it would be, you know, graduating seniors could opt in somehow to say
like, "Please add my information to this database and make me a resource." Yeah, I'll look into it. Some students will do that on their own. Yeah. Yeah, they do kind of know who goes where. That's how they That's why all all of a sudden kids are like, "I'm going down south." I'm like, "Okay."
And then they come back sometimes, you know. All right. Awesome. Thank you very much. Oh, Dr. Corum, sorry, you got the rice call out. Jeffrey Corum wouldn't become school community meeting if I didn't say
something right. I I thank you for for the presentation. Very interesting information. One question. I you I see all these these new AP classes and I just wonder a little bit is that making your job a lot harder as you know when you go to build that schedule for if that everyone wants to get into all of the different AP classes and then also
that you know with some of the colleges say hey you know I see you took honors English that's great but hey there was an AP class that you didn't take is that then a you know disadvantage to our kids that there are so many of them and they can't do every single one of them but you know and maybe so anyway is this making things difficult and and how are
you able able to to mitigate that difficulty. Well, the schedule is a the a giant puzzle um which I actually like uh working on and Lyn and I do work with that, but Chuck Stout really puts the whole uh masterpiece together. Um
I will say just give a a isolated example. Uh last year we had so many students that wanted to take APsych uh that I could have we could have run five sections. Uh but you don't always have the staffing to do that. So we made the decision to have honor that and give the
seniors they we put them in AP psych which I think gave us two or three sections and we told the juniors sorry you got to wait till next year you know and those decisions we we sit down with each department head and go through you know based upon the student requests what is makes the most sense for courses
that we want to run and can run with the staffing that we have and um you know sometimes we have to run courses concurrently that happens a lot in the language department. Um, and I think that, you know, we try to push students to take the most rigorous schedule that
they can. Um, and then that should result in the strongest GPA. Uh but also the counselors do an amazing job um because they know their students so well starting from freshman year because they have so much facetime with them um one-on-one but also in those flex blocks
uh that uh that they meet with each class throughout the school year and they meet with the kids on their case load throughout the school year. So by the time the kids are seniors, um they just have a really close relationship with their students. And so I feel like the kids get really strong guidance about what courses to take. Um and we,
you know, you try to push them within reason, but also knowing that a lot of these kids have so many things that they're doing outside of the school day. So just trying to get them to maintain a healthy balance cuz we don't want them sitting in our offices crying because it's so overwhelming you know and that
does happen sometimes and uh sometimes we just have to reccalibrate. Um and you know for most of them college is going to happen um and it's just let's do something that's going to make you happy and get you where you want to be you know professionally uh as a young adult.
And you know just to go to your question Jeffrey I think that there are some singleton AP courses so it does make it a little bit challenging when we can only offer it certain times but I think this comes to helping the students figure out what is the most important
and they have to make choices. You can't have you know seven AP courses every year and colleges also are not expecting that. Um, and if there's a course that, you know, that would really benefit them from their major, we're helping them
figure that piece out to make sure they're getting into those courses that are really important. But if there's something that truly just is not going to fit, um, we can address that in our letters of recommendation, too. So, thank you. All right.
Yeah. Thanks so much. Yeah. Still here. Okay. Well, good luck with the rest of the night. take CD out of order for Jess. Is that okay? We can um bear with me. Let me find if that's okay with you.
Yeah. Um I do want Sorry. What What is it? Oh, the competency policy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can we um take a motion to take E4 out of order? I move to take um E4 out of order.
Is there a second? Second. I'm going to give it to Aaron just to mix things up. Uh all in favor, all oppose. Five to zero. Okay. Uh so we'll go to competency determination. So here we are again talking about the
competency determination policy which we did pass uh the school committee passed last year that Dr. Hardy and I um worked on based upon the guidance that the department of ed gave us at that time um over the summer. The department of ed gave us new guidance um and then a deadline of the middle of the school
year. I think it's in January, early January that we have to submit an updated competency determination um with uh so all I'm going to do is quickly highlight what the differences are and then everything else that's in there um in the in the I think you have it in
your packet is a duplication of what was already approved uh with the additional requirements that the state has asked us to include. Um, one is the addition of one year of US history as part of the competency determination, which was not p previously part of the CD um for any
high schools um in Massachusetts. Uh defining how students will demonstrate both completion of the courses that we say they must take um as part of their competency, so English, science, math, and now US history. Um and also what
mastery is defined as. So two separate things. Um and so how we define them in the the draft that is in front of you uh that we ultimately have to submit to the department of ed in their system called gems. Um is completion is completing the
course. Um and if it is failed they it does say in the pol in the guidance they provided us that they can if they did not pass the course we have it they have to have at least a 50 to qualify for summer school. they could uh do a makeup or credit recovery in summer school um
either with a summer school program that's approved locally or um our online uh platform that we use which is called egenuity. Uh and they need to earn a 60% or higher which is our passing uh for courses per our grading policy that's already published in the student
handbook. Um and then mastery um so mastery is I am defining it as and Dr. Dr. Hardy and I discussed this as in or or or right so many uh some courses have final exams some courses have final projects some courses have capstones um
act you know so now we're talking about 9th and 10th grade English algebra and geometry uh at least biology chemistry or physics and and now US history so we're there's a lot more courses that we're talking about so that mastery
would be also passing with a 60% or higher or passing a final exam or assessment or passing a capstone or a final portfolio project. Um, and so that that those would be the three options that students could demonstrate mastery of the course. Uh, which aligns with our
grading policies for students being able to move on to the next course if they demonstrated any of these things. Um, you know, passing the course overall, passing the final exam, um, or passing a final project. Um the other new thing that the department of ed is asking as
part of this which was already part of the policy that the school committee approved was our graduation requirements are they were both included in the policy that was approved last year but now the department of ed is asking every high school to submit our graduation requirements as part of this policy. Um
to my knowledge that has not been requested before. Um and so that's new. uh our um graduation requirements surpass uh the mass recommendation. So I don't have any concern that what we're publishing as our graduation requirements wouldn't be something that
would be accepted by the Department of Education, but they reflect exactly what is already part of our policy is what is in what I we typed up. I think that's those are all of the changes. It is in a little bit chopped up format
because we have to plug it into the it's almost like writing a grant. Uh plug it into the system. Can I ask a clarifying question? Sure. So if a student fails US history, it's typically taken
what 11th grade. So we teach an integrated history um and through 10th, 11th or no, I'm sorry, 9th, 10th, and 11th grade. um 11th grade sometimes they start taking a push so it's a little different um so technically any of those years I could
qualify but I think I wrote um hold on one second history 9 or 10 nine and 10 um because both of those would cover a full year of US history within that content okay but they could fail the course and pass the final and that's
to demonstrate competency um they would still have to for are to graduate, they would still have to pass that course. Um, so like it's kind of like if you think about the CDs as the MCCAST, right? So they're we're saying this is what they need to demonstrate competency.
This is what they need to graduate and they are two separate things. So it's an Yeah. Okay. I struggle with the 60% benchmark. It feels incredibly low. So I'm just trying to wrap my head around. No, I think that if we're saying that a student can move on to the next course if they have a 60%
or greater as part of our grading policy, which is our public grading policy, then then that is demonstrating competency. Um, you know, and you know, I don't want to make the bar and that would also be the same for the MCCAST just, you know, the MCCAST
demonstrating and proficiency is about the same percentage. So, it it it does align Go ahead, Tom. Um, okay. So, I want to back up a little bit because I don't think we passed a competency
determination policy last year. We added competency determination to the graduation requirements policy, but we never passed a competency determination policy. We don't have such a policy as it stands right now. This was included in the policy that was
approved. So maybe it was we added it to the graduation requirements policy, right? Um so I was just looking at that um because that's the policy we need to change to align to what you're asking references that it's IKF IKF. Um there's a section in there that has
English, math, and science. So we'll have to add history is what I'm hearing right um appropriately. It sounds like you have a filing you have to complete. Is there again? I'm sorry. It sounds like you have a filing you have to complete to actually fill like submit this.
It is the deadline is uh Sarah December 31st. December 31st. Um and then if it works kind of like our grants or the other applications that we've had to submit, it'll be in there and then if there's something wrong with it, they will kick it back to us to make edits. Um and I
have talked to other principles in the Middle Sex League. uh we were actually out in front of doing our policy and I shared it with them and you know what the draft that we had and I said you know do do your do your worst right um but everybody is is trying to figure out
exactly what you know what they're asking for so I do anticipate that it could get kicked back and similar to the grants that we submit and then you make an edit and then it goes back through the whole signing process again and they tell you whether or not it's approved. Yeah, I guess where I was going with the
question or questions is I I I'm going to motion that we table this as an approval because we need to go through the proper process to update the policy so that you have that to refer to in your document. Um and then it's going it's a small edit to add add this portion the history portion to it. But
Jess, you and I can figure out what else you need to add to it. And if anything else, it sounds like it's just history. Absolutely. Um and then you know Aaron and I can discuss if we need to have a meeting on it and just bring it back to this body. This is probably one that we can probably probably just bring it back to this body um with the adjusted IKF. Yeah.
Um and then you have a way to go forward from there. Yeah. I I also um should kick the tires. We embedded it in IKF, but that was before that was before the um it was before the the regulations. Yeah.
Well, no, it wasn't it wasn't before the ballot. It was after the ballot, but it was before the regulations came out. Before the regulations were propagated. That's right. But we can look at the regulations if it requires a separate one. And I can or IFA or something else and break it out if we need to. If we do that, then we'd probably be a conversation for us
first before we come back to the body. But I asked the 1231 deadline because I want to make sure we can fit it in for you and not put you behind a eightball of not having something to reply and not having something to submit. Yeah. Um appropriately. Yep. So I don't know if that make does that make sense?
Yeah. Yes, completely. 100%. Okay. Yep. So then I'll motion that we table the approval um for the time being and we can move it to the policy subcommittee and or just bring it back. That's right. Depending on this on the dis dispensation. Is there a second on the motion to table? Second.
Seconded by Carla. Any further discussion? All in favor? All oppose? Okay. We know our marching orders. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks you for bringing up. I didn't know we had to make that change. So I appreciate it. It's always fun. Oh yeah.
Can I ask one more question? Do we anticipate that they're going to change those regulations again? I mean, do you have any reason to think one way or the other? No. Um, I don't. Sarah's like, "Yes, it is kind of like it has been a little
bit of a moving target." Um, I mean, I'm trying I'm getting on every webinar that they offer to try to stay ahead of it. Um, and I have somebody's cell phone number now at the accountability office, but she's probably very sorry that I have that. um to ask these questions about what next, you know, like what are
our responsibilities? So, yeah, I don't know. What do you I'm just thinking I know that we we were given an update from the um Marramac Valley Superintendent. So, there there is a a um high school graduation committee, you know, they're looking at like what the requirements should be um
for high school graduation in Massachusetts. So these are things are all connected and you know where that committee ends up landing and how it impacts the competency determination I think is just unknown at this point or it could impact your graduation requirements. That's it's never been asked before for schools to turn in
their grad requirements and most high schools just align themselves with uh the mass core recommendations which is what colleges say they they want to see on a transcript. So who knows? I mean I I feel like we're in safe harbor but I don't know what other schools are doing. necessarily.
Yeah. I mean, what I was going to suggest, and if if we don't have any particular reason to believe that things are going to change again, is maybe we explore drafting a policy that's a little bit a little bit more open-ended and using like a procedure to to drive these specific changes that the state is promulgating potentially
year-over-year, right? Um but in the absence of any reason to think they're going to change it again, maybe for now we move forward with this this approach and then we revisit that in the future if this becomes an annual an annual occurrence. So just a thought.
Okay. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um let's return to our regularly scheduled programming and we will go to the MCAST update. So Dr. Dr. Milesky, Dr. Hardy, we'll kick it to you. Great.
All right. Good evening everyone. Excited to present high level overview of the 2025 MCCAST uh data from the district level perspective. So, in this uh presentation tonight, we'll open with just a little bit of context, some of which you've heard, some which may be new. Focus uh dive into a couple of the headlines that we pulled out as a team
around district performance. uh shift into some of our focus areas for moving forward as a district and then close just to orient everyone on what's in the packet and in all the materials so that people who wanted to dive a little bit deeper can have more information. So again in this presentation I will be briefer than maybe I have in the past uh and also try to then open to have more
time for conversation or questions and that skip sorry to make you dizzy at home skip to the last slide. So, couple pieces of overview just to start. As uh you've heard many of times over the years, this is one we believe the MCCAST is one piece or one assessment that we
use to measure academic performance. Right? I don't think is the entirety of to measure how our students are doing, but we think gives us uh important information at the district level, school level, classroom level, grade level, uh student level around performance and then what we should do in response. So again, just want to emphasize that this is uh one metric
that we use to measure how our students district schools are doing. two, what's the new piece of context is the sort of the the new legislation that we have just discussed a couple of times already tonight. I do wish Sachi and Alex were here to share their perspectives on this. Uh you'll see in the Globe the
other day there was a headline titled mass sophomores fare worse and MCCAST tests when uh or MCCAST when tests don't count for graduation. You saw high statewide test scores plummet similar here in Reading. It is uh therefore with that uh I think it's just important that
we are mindful of that and take that into consideration as we evaluate sort of our high school scores. Uh we know that high school students are aware that this is no longer a graduation uh requirement and some students uh just anecdotally are very open in sharing
that this test uh maybe uh how much it matters to them and to their future as well too. So I just this is a it looks very different in terms of looking at high school results than I think it has the last couple of years. So you're probably going to hear me speak a little bit less about the high school. Uh given that I think we need to emphasize some of the other metrics that we are looking
at given this legislation. So uh diving in starting at just three headlines to pull out. First headline that we'd like to pull out is around statewide achievement. You'll see Reading Public Schools continue to push towards the 90th percentile in statewide achievement math and ELA. We have said it publicly. We say it internally. We are a district
that believes we should be and push for the 90th percentile at least in both math and ELA and all grade levels. Looking at uh what you see on your screen here, over the last couple of years, we have continued to push closer and now maintaining around that 90th percentile in 3 through eight
achievement. Uh this the blue line representing ELA and math representing uh is represented in the red line. But again, we believe it's important that as a district we are performing an achievement at around the 90th percentile. Breaking it down a little bit more specifically, you'll see on the left grades three through five and on the
right grades six through eight. But even when you break it down, uh 3 through five and six through eight, we're at a similar level of right around that 90th percentile. You'll see a lot of conversation at the state level around uh 2019. Why 2019? Uh the state has emphasized very publicly
around the push to bring uh districts back to prepandemic achievement and then beyond. So you'll see there's 13 districts, I believe, that were highlighted who have achieved uh exceeded prepandemic levels in math and ELA. We were one of 63 districts who were recognized uh because we achieved
uh surpassed pre- pandemic achievement in math. On the right, you'll see looking at n 2000 from 2019 to now where we rank in statewide uh achievement percentiles. In ELA, we were in the 82nd percentile. In 2019, we are now up in the 90th percentile. And in math, we are
at the 78th percentile. In 2019, we are now at the 89th percentile. So I think that first headline we are encouraged that we are seeing trending in the more positive direction around that 90th percentile of achievement statewide which is where we want to be. Two pairing that achievement with growth RPS
continues to sustain high levels of growth at all levels elementary middle and high school in both math and ELA. You'll see here on your screen on the left ELA on the right math. These are uh student growth percentiles or SGPS uh which in short for those of you who maybe this is an unfamiliar metric. It
compets everyone who's had a similar who had the same score the year before in a bucket and says that following year what percentage of those students did you outperform. So obviously looking for SGPS above 50. We were one of eight districts or traditional public school districts in the state with average SGPS
of 50 or higher in math and ELA and all three levels in both 24 and 25. And if you compare that to maybe where we were 2018, 19, 20, uh, 21, what the difference for us is that this is showing consistent growth uh, at all levels of the system in both content areas too. We believe that we should be
able to maintain uh, SGPS in the 50s and both content areas moving uh, you know, sort of every year uh, at every level of the system. So encouraged by not only our achievement levels but our growth levels as well. Now I did want to take our uh time on our third headline to point to some of the data around they're
showing promising results of what's happened uh in literacy since the adoption of our core. Uh you'll see here noting that we've can seen and continued in increased growth and achievement compared to peers across the state since the adoption of our core a couple of years ago. A few metrics that we use to
sort of showcase that. You'll see on the left in those pink bars, this is our uh statewide ranks in growth percentiles uh from the last dating back to 2018. You'll see in 2023 we are in the 99th percentile in growth which is awesome.
Uh falling 24, 25 and the 86th and 87th percentile respectively. We are seeing that since the adoption of our core our students are consistently growing at high levels when compared to state level peers. on the right, that's an achievement metric looking at how then how does that
growth translate into sort of where we rank among achievement with our fincom comparable districts. Uh later in the appendix, you'll see kind of more detail about our fincom comparables, but you'll see especially at some of the grade levels that have had access to ARC. Uh you'll see that with grade three, fifth
and then a couple of first and then 11th and 10th. There's also more information about that fifth grade cohort in the appendix as we know that's been something that we've been monitoring the last couple years. But overall, you'll see in the bottom we've scored in the 88th and 87th percentile in elementary ELA achievement and growth respectively
in 2025. So we are encouraged since the adoption of ARC what are how our students are performing in growth and achievement. One step deeper, this is just a different way to represent a couple of those data points, but a new one I wanted to flag was the exceeding percentage percentile. As you may
remember when we talked about our core, we felt we also needed to do something that was going to push our higher achieving learners as well. Uh you'll see back in 2019 73 uh we are in the 73rd percentile statewide of of students uh a percentage of students achieving
exceeding expectations. Move up to 2025. Uh we are now in the 90th percentile statewide of percentage of students uh in the exceeding category. So we're obviously seeing an encouraging bump of students who are achieving at that higher level as well. One last thing about ARK 2, especially
this year, uh, and you can even look over the last couple years, uh, breaking down our student growth percentile by, uh, demographic groups. Uh, this year, students on IEPs, students, uh, our lowincome students, high need students, and our Asian students set uh, historical records in the uh, next
generation MCCAST era for their growth percentiles. And all but one category, I think, had some encouraging over the last two years encouraging SGPS as well. So we're seeing some encouraging uh gains in growth and achievement under ARC. So we could talk sort of at length or
what do we think are the you know things that are contributing to sort of those uh you know those headlines. You've heard them all before investment high quality curriculum materials uh investment in job embedded quality professional development uh new systems and structures like it such as our
systemic screening and targeted intervention especially early on. We can talk about those or you know later on if you have questions or thoughts. So focus areas for improvement three here that I want to highlight tonight too. Uh I actually want to start with the second one too which is interesting. So he said
overall 66% of students districtwide are meeting or exceeding expectations in ELA and 65% math. So indicating that still about onethird of our students are not reaching proficiency. So someone at home may say, "Wow, we're getting these encouraging gains in state percentile rankings, which are great, but we're
really not moving the needle a ton." When you look at, you know, sort of how our students are doing towards proficiency. So I think this metric shows that, right? Looking on the we'll start on the right with math. You'll see that you know at the elementary level and at the middle school level we have start especially started to either meet
or exceed prepandemic expectations but haven't drastically improved the amount of kids who are reaching proficiency. And you see on the left in ELA, you know, we are still trying to get back to reach what was prepandemic levels and percentage of students achieving
proficiency. So yes, we want to be in the 90th percentile. that's where we want to be and we want more students achieving proficiency as well. So I think it's important to know that yes while we're encouraged by those you know statewide ranks we also internally know
that there's this also represents a huge group of students who are still not meeting expectations. Similarly we in that commitment to 90th percentile uh we know there's still grade levels schools that are not yet where we need to be. You'll see on the
screen right now we have school accountability percentiles which measure both growth uh achievement, chronic absenteeism, uh in some cases progress towards uh ELLL targets. Um there's some things here that are encouraging and there's some things here that we need
some work. So I don't want to dive too far into school specific data, but I did want to pull out a couple of pieces on the positive side for Barrows. Barrows is in the ranked in the 93rd percentile statewide, which is the highest ranking we've have had the NextGen MCCAST era uh for an elementary school. Barrows can
look at that steady in increase from 2016 where they're in the 65th percentile. Quick note to Coolage while you'll see here staying at the 88th percentile. Coolage also set a record for math achievement with 75% of students proficient uh grades six through eight in math performance. And also like to
give a quick note of Kllum here as well as you see the upward trajectory from last year from 74th to 80th for Kllum which is a pretty good bump too. You a couple of things in here like a as our schools receive the data we are obviously working very closely with each school principal each school staff to
figure out sort of what worked here what didn't work interventions are needed etc. A couple of things I want to flag. Last year we came to this meeting really encouraged by how we had uh closed the gap and in some place uh Parker outperformed Coolage. Unfortunately this year uh that gap we still have we see
that gap again. And while gap the gap is not at the level it was in 2022 or 2023 there is now or still a discrepancy in both growth and outcomes between Parker and Coolage that we know needs our continued work. We're continue to both middle schools achieving at a high
level. Also, if you look at the achievement uh overall achievement at both uh Birch and at Wood End, you'll see that those are numbers that have dropped. Uh those are both schools that we feel like uh and the principles, especially the school leadership teams feel like uh those are data they want to see heading in the other direction, too.
So, in a couple of weeks at the school committee meeting, you'll be hearing uh though our school leadership teams presenting SIPs. So in those meetings, you'll be hearing a little bit about what is each school doing to try to move the needle, particularly for some of those schools or maybe they are uh not as encouraged by the results this year,
too. But again, I just want to emphasize that our commitments to making sure all of our schools are achieving the 90th percentile and recognize while some schools took a step forward towards that there were, you know, in some cases we did not trend in the right direction on that. And I'd say arguably one of the most complex pieces which we discuss
every year as well is the third bullet. Despite encouraging growth for many demographic subgroups, there's still significant gaps in achievement uh that persist across various subgroups. I'm going to go quickly through a couple of examples of this. You'll see if we break down our average math and our average
SGP uh both uh by the elementary level, you'll see highlighted in 2025 ones that set nextg uh historical records. There's several spots where we saw some pretty uh encouraging growth. And at the same time, right, while on
the right you see students proficient in math, you see again some historical records, the nextG MCcast error for various subgroups. I don't think those are numbers that sort of any of us are should be satisfied as with with as well. I'll give one example uh for you know our on the right student
proficiency in math uh for students on IEPs it out of 202 students 34% were proficient uh which closes the gap slightly before between IEP students on IEPs and all students I don't think anyone in this committee or anyone in
our district is comfortable with the gap there as well. So I just and these are similar trends at the middle school in terms of again you see some uh in some cases some encouraging numbers of growth. Uh but generally this gap is uh is something that I don't think anyone on our committee or our district is
comfortable with. So just want to highlight and want to emphasize our continued work to have to try to uh target supports uh for and and interventions for students and ensure so we're raising the bar for everyone and uh for the demographic groups you see on your screen. there's a lot of work to do
that to ensure we're in a better position uh in the future. So something you may be wondering is like what do we do about this? Well, I think our team may look at that a little bit differently. We don't necessarily say like what do we do about MCCAST? Like we say what are we doing to constantly boost academic outcomes for
students and MCCAST is sort of one metric too. In your packet in this presentation you'll see a variety of different things that we feel are important. I'm not going to go through them all at one point. I do want to emphasize one that I am most excited about. It aligns to goals, but I think is probably the one that can help us if
we utilize this effectively move the needle uh maybe quicker than we have in the past. And that's having a new data platform that is able to pull in all data sources around a child uh demographic information, academic achievement information from the you know historically this past year and
play with that and uh be able to look at and make interventions, supports, uh decisions in live time. We have not historically had all of that in one place to be able to, you know, see how our students are doing at the student level, classroom level, grade level,
school level in the way we do now. Uh, and therefore, our principles are better positioned and our teachers are going to be better positioned to make more timely informed instructional decisions. So, I think that's something that we feel really optimistic will help us to close the gaps and raise outcomes for all
students. in your appendix there is a ton more data. You can also find more data now on uh Desi school and district report cards which all the data was released on Monday. So you can dig in there. I want to flag just for the community how we've
organized this for you for your review. One you'll see in here a bunch of what we call district level data. Uh flying through it you'll see how we compare with our 24 income comparable communities both in achievement and in growth since 2021. You'll see math and growth by level over
time since 2018. You'll see data from our access test from 2025, which is separate from our MCCAST testing window, but again is our main uh uh standardized assessment for our MLL students. You'll see science
achievement data by level since 2019. And you'll see it broken down by ELA domains. I know some on this committee have been very interested in sort of like what writing has looked like in our performance and writing over time. And you'll also lastly see information about this fifth grade cohort which for us we know we have explored closely as a
committee and obviously internally. Uh again this was a cohort that in 2023 uh and ELA was ranked 123rd. Uh 2024 they moved up to 73rd. Uh moved up to 62nd this past year. But still that is the group that is our most underperforming
group out of any of our uh groups that have had access to our core. You'll also see access to school level data. uh tonight we didn't think it was sort of the time to be presenting data on each of the individual schools. Uh each school will be presenting uh their MCCAST data, their respective school
communities. They'll also be presenting their SIPs coming up with a school committee meeting in the end of October. But here you will find student growth percentile since 2018 for each school, achievement by each school since 2018. Um and also
yes, at all three levels. Lastly, if you're interested in kind of trying to contextualize some of the data, we also put in a ton of the state level data as well. So again, just this last piece of state level data. So with that, would love to open up just to questions, thoughts, comments from
the committee. Anybody want to start? I know you got questions. It's more points than questions. So I'm waiting for somebody else to ask questions. I I can I can I'll start with one. Dr. already. I think one thing that might be interesting to look at, I know that you're going to look at a lot of things in this data, but um
uh you know, one of the things that I've appreciated about ARC is that they've been sort of responsive to feedback and and that kind of thing. Um it'd be interesting to look at other districts that are using ARC and look at their growth percentiles for black and African-American students, um which is our one subgroup in ELA that
is, you know, kind of a below water on SGP. um you know, I wonder if there's anything about the content that's maybe not sort of, you know, I don't know, culturally sensitive or whatever the right phrase you would use. Um that maybe that's an opportunity um but again, we'd want to look at other
districts that are using it and see if they see a similar disconnect. Okay, it's a good suggestion. Just a thought. Yeah, Sean, one thought. If this group, this is interesting data, too, because if you look at that's the one group, they are the only demographic, our black and African-American students are the
only demographic subgroup that we capture here that has SGPS below 50, right? And they last year set a historical record for a for proficiency in ELA as well. So, what's the disconnect? Uh, one piece that we noticed was our third
grade, our black and African-American students in third grade achieved better than the fourth and fifth grade students. Fourth and fifth grade is only is you only assess SGP in fourth and fifth grade. Right. So that's so there is a I I think your question is a good one and I also thought just important just to name
there's also some cohort shifting in and out correct kind of thing. Correct. Sure. I'll dive in now I guess. Um, I was going to hit on that point, but you hit on it already. Um, so that was one of the bigger ones for me. I I think it's great to see some of the achievement growth across some of the sub subgroups,
but like you said, we're not there yet. Um, I some of you may remember, you may not, but we need another group in this that is non high needs, right? So high needs is IEP, lowinccome,
ML. Mhm. So, it's actually a bigger gap than what you see here when you pull out non- high needs, right? So, it's not 64 versus 34. It's probably 67 or 70 versus 34. Correct. When you pull those numbers out. Um, so
we when you need to recalculate it, I think you guys actually have it. I've had to recalculate it because it's not public information, but it's possible something to think about and something the real goal is to close that gap, not them versus themselves and everybody else. You're exactly right.
Um, you know, you and I talked a little earlier today and, uh, we have to figure out, Barker, right? We just we can't keep letting it be. Um, I know we've had one year bump and
whatnot, but um, systemically, we have to figure out what what we're going to what we're going to do for Parker to continue a growth so we don't have a one-year bump and then fall back again. One-year bump and then fall back again. Um, so I'd love to see us figure out what we're going to do there. And whether it's the SIP, whether it's,
you know, a task force or whatever the case might be. It's been years now. Yes, we had one great year or one good year. I wouldn't call it great year, one good year. Um, but we need to figure out how we're going to get that to be a a higher performing school in the long run, not
just a one one over one over year-over-year type thing. Um, so I'd love to hear strategies about that this year as we go through it, whether again whether it's in the SIP or whether there's more focus that we bring to this body or something else that we we work to continue to see growth in a
year-over-year basis at at Parker. I know there's other contingencies or other issues or things along those lines. Um, and other plans that are in play as well, but I just, you know, the focus needs to continue to be there. Um, because one year does not determine success. Um, I have a quick thought on that.
Yeah. Um, I just also liked I I mentioned there was a gap between Parker and Cler. I just want to contextualize a little bit that the level of the gap. I think that's important for the community the community too. So if you look at ELA proficiency uh Parker on the left of your screen, Parker actually in 2025 had
the highest proficiency that they've had since 2019. Right. So we Yes. And it was actually a step up from last year. So I just want to say Parker actually improved ELA outcomes and proficiency by four percentage points. is a pretty decent bump, right? So I I think that's
important to name, too. Yes, there's still that gap with Coolage and that gap widened, but Parker also improved there. On the right, Parker dropped 5 percentage points in math. That 59% achievement is still better than 2023,
2022, 2021, and back 2019. So that is by no means to say I don't agree with your comment that we want achievement up at the level where we're seeing coolage consistently, right? And I also just want to say this is a diff when I talk about the the gap, it is a different gap that I'm talking about now versus in
2023. I just think that's important to name for the community as well. And I didn't want that data point of the 65% that continued trajectory in ELA to be lost in that conversation either. No, that's appreciated. I mean, I don't want to minimize the the improvements there either. You know, I look at it in
much lower grain than this as it is. Um but it is what it is. um you know we and we know last year there was a new curriculum being rolled out you know in the middle school um which in one year seems to show positive for both cases although more positive for Coolage right so
comparatively again it's how do we make sure we we keep them on par as we move that forward and Parker's got to catch up then keep on par I guess would be a better way to say it um we also have some other you know pockets of struggling performance in some other places as well that we're not
highlighting tonight but I I think we just need to make sure we pay attention to some of those and we don't let those slide by. Um, you know, this fifth grade class, uh, for last year's fifth grade class, this year's sixth grade class, um, it's we've had three years now of data to try to fix it. And yes, that
we've gone growth and we've done better versus the state, but guess what? That's because the state's falling backwards, not because we're actually doing we have some growth. It's 54, 56%, whatever. But if you look at it, our absolute performance hasn't improved um, overall in that group. So, I'd really love to
see a strategy for that sixth grade class, right? They're going to be in high school in two years and they need to catch up so that more than 50% of them are proficient before they get to high school. Um, and we should have the data. We do have the data about where they struggled, like what can we do to
support them um in school, after school, you know, family conversations, how can we, you know, whatever else. It's not going I hate the term, but it takes a village. So, how are we going to support them? Yeah. Right. um and and that group needs more focus than what we pro either I know we
provided a lot of focus but we need to figure out what's working not working and then really focus down on what's what will work uh to close that gap um and it's going to take like I said it's going to take the parents to be involved too not that they're not but it's going to take you know how do we engage them
how do we help them where when can we go and do certain things for them when where will they bring their kids to certain after school things how much more can we do before school how you whatever else to help close those gaps. It's going to have to be creative. Um it's not going to fit in the school day in my mind. Maybe I'm wrong. Somebody
correct me if I'm wrong. But I think it's going to be has to be a more intense focus on that group uh aggressively to close so that when they get to the high school level, they're ready to go. Y just a few of my points. Agree. Can I ask one small thing since Malan's
here? So, um, one thing that sort of jumped out at me was the high school science, um, partially because that was such a hot topic last year, 9th grade biology, and these are the kids who took the exams.
So, um, are those classes being structured differently this year compared to last year? Yes. uh to answer it succinctly. Uh we've had Jess, do you mind coming up to the mic just so they can
always Yeah. Um so to answer your question, Miss Escaffin, yes. Um we are not using modern classroom which was one of the not specific to biology but that is not uh in practice. uh moving forward uh returning to more
traditional instruction where is not not not boring but um a little bit more direct instruction not the flip classroom um approach uh and I think that I've had I know that I've had very direct conversations um with Mr.
Albbright, the department head, who's also the AP biology teacher, about my expectations for um all classes, but um one to we set a goal of 85% or better for AP exams. Um he also teaches a AP biology. Uh but that I want there to be
consistency across the curriculum um in biology for 9th graders as well. Uh and one of the one of my goals on the SIP uh for this year that my department heads are working on is draft having a solid scope and sequence for every single course that's all in one location. It's
not been all in one location. Um and then comparing that to the public facing um curriculum guides that are online to make sure that those are still accurate. uh and uh working forward from there to make
sure that we're all in lock step. Um and and I feel confident about that work. Um and we're in classrooms every day um giving feedback to teachers um both department heads and the administrators. Thank you,
Sarah. And Sarah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Um I I would say in general we're not satisfied really with the science scores for any of our grade levels. I do think another you know layer to the high school scores is what Dr. Milichesky talked about at the
beginning. Science is just as susceptible as the 10th grade exams and you know this ship this drop is similar to what we saw in math and ELA as well. Um but I will say that we are we are launching a science curriculum review at the elementary level um because we feel
like bolstering the instruction that our students are receiving um K to five again like as Mr. Wise was talking about earlier science is not even though it's assessed in just these three grades it really is the foundational years and the instruction that our students receive
throughout their schooling here in Reading. Um and so and and also we're in year three now in working with the middle school and just this year beginning to revamp some of the curriculum that um that our students are experiencing. And so in general we
really aren't satisfied with any of these science scores. And this is neither here nor there but that is for high school that's grade nine and then the math and ELA is grade 10. So it it is different students. Um so different cohorts of kids.
Just Jess, stay there if you don't mind. Okay. You you opened the can a little bit about the AP scores, but just so you know, this one subject is far and away our worst AP subject as a as a collective bio. No, science in general.
Science in general with exception of AP chem and AP physics. Uh the upper AP physics at the higher levels. Yeah. Physics one we did pretty well in, right? I think. No. Okay. So the numbers I'm looking at are you know academic areas 3 plus 96%
for English 91% for history and civi civics 93% for math 63% for science as a collective right 88% for world language and 100% for the arts 3 plus you go down to four plus and the numbers are in the 30s for
our science so that is an area for focus and I'm glad you asked that Erin and I and I'm I'm very excited to hear the the focus and feedback there as well to tighten things up and and tune that out or tune tune it up. I should tell you not tune it out. Um, one other thing I we didn't talk about at all yet is
civics. It showed up on the this the test scores for the first time this year, I think. Um, the numbers are middling in the grand scheme of things, but is there anything you want to share or say about civics as an MCCAST um subject and topic that we should be
aware of or think about? I I think one, you know, one concern that was brought up by the middle school staff was just the test fatigue. Um, our students were taking that I think the first week in June or the last week in May. And for our eighth graders, that
was their fourth MCCAST MCCAST exam. Um, and so, um, I do think that that, you know, is a concern for that that grade level in particular. the, you know, the testing format is interesting having um the two days of assessment, one looking
more like a traditional MCCAST with the multiple choice questions and such and the other um building off a performance assessment that they had done collaboratively in class. Um so it we I think we're all curious to see how that plays out and looking at you know a
different way of approaching standardized assessment perhaps. Um but every year we'll get a a slightly different topic that our students will be assessed on. We will know that um ahead and the performance task, you
know, will align with um the area that we're assigned. So every year also will it will be really like a very different assessment for our students. Interesting. Okay. We're watching it closely. Very curious to see how it plays out.
Go ahead. I didn't even think of that. So, so in the spring of 8th grade, they're taking four MCCASTs and two I Ready, like because they would also do their third round of I Ready. We did decide to not give our eighth graders the final I Ready, even though
we were sad not to have that data piece, but um I mean that's and and the other thing our our eighth graders also take our world language uh the their um proficiency assessment. Um, so and I know these are hour and a half,
two hour test. I mean, they're not exhausting. These are, you know, I I know that my my own middle schooler comes home and said that she wrote three essays. I I I mean there's these are in one sitting. Like these are it's it's tough, right? So I think
Sarah's point about fatigue is Yeah. is legitimate. Anything else on MCCAST? Wait, I have to do it though. Actually, well, one thing not directly about MCCast, but um you in the sort of strategies for
improvement. You highlighted the edge of climber. Is that also going to give us uh more detailed level data about some of the SAT stuff that we were talking about before? Yes. So, be able to address some of those questions at the same level. So the so edge of climber can can hold and
organize anything that we we want to be able to put into it. So at the high school level we'll have SAT, AP, GPA, uh MCCAST, uh all historically as well. So it would be really interesting for us to be able to pull out a kid who
struggled on SATs, you know, say from our perspective, how did they do on MCCAST historically? How did they do on I Ready? how and we just haven't been able to to to do that and now we will have platform is available now we have the ability to do that so okay great honestly our big challenge now is to
think about like the rollout process it's it's overwhelming to think about like how do you get teachers to be able to you know utilize all of that data in an actionable way so I think that's the challenge for us but having all the data is is not the problem for us now it's amazing
okay now we can let you go on this thank Thank you. Okay. Uh let's move on. I believe we are on the CPAC awareness month proclamation. So I can tee this up and then Tom feel free to jump in here. Sure.
So um November is is uh CPAC awareness month or are often recognized as CPAC awareness month. Um, I think the CPAC board in cooperation with Tom, you know, asked that we uh sort of reach out to the select board and ask them to recognize it formally on behalf of the town as CPAC CPACware awareness month in
November. Um, so what's in your packet is a a proclamation which we would issue to the select board which they then theoretically could sort of reissue as their own uh you know as their own proclamation you know formally asserting it as CPAC awareness month in November.
Um I think the other thing, you know, in addition to in addition to uh adopting this proclamation, um you know, maybe we can have just a quick discussion on what else we can do as a committee independent of whether or not they choose to, you know, for issue their proclamation. Um what we can do as a
committee to help u just bolster November as CPAC awareness month and and bring further attention to the great work that they do. So Tom, anything you'd add or uh you summarized it phenomenally. Um I think uh the only other things I'll add is um the construct is driven by the
state level one that exists and has been executed at the state level for quite some time. Um you know we adjusted it to be more reading specific in many of the ways after we got down from like the legal ease for lack of better way to put it. Um you know Maria Morgan did a great job starting it and then I took it and
twisted a little bit and added a little bit more detail. Uh and the CPAC board has has reviewed and provided their feedback and they liked it as well. Their one request is if we could just take out the 2025 and just make November. I was wondering about that. Uh the proclamation process is essentially an annual proclamation
process. We do the same for tree country or USA where we have to proclaim writing a tree country town every year. Um you know in other places, tree city or whatever it is. Thank you. Tree town, whatever we are. Um but so the proclamation process essentially is an
annual thing anyway. Um so we'll uh we'll go forward with that as it as it is. Um, so I tried it everything where it was like they spelled out certain things. I recognized it. I focused it with a lot of Maria's feedback um about
certain things that they do a lot in town in terms of networking and and cross trainining and you know working with our administration etc etc. Um and they do a phenomenal job and to Sean's point what we can do to help them in November is going to be an interesting problem because we don't have a lot of meetings in November. So maybe it's more
town meeting type conversation or something else where we try to bring it up there or something we can figure out in addition to any website postings or social media or anything else to support them. One other thing that we did have a conversation about briefly in email is you know CPAC awareness um at a state
level or others is a yellow color um you know when you think about what people wear or things but our CPAC is teal in in nature and in color. Uh RCPAC didn't want to change their color or change the awareness color. They want the awareness color to still be yellow while their their color that they use is gonna is
going to continue to be teal. Um but just FYI, that's just one other minor note. In fact, we don't have any meetings in November. So, um October 30th is the best we can do. Um okay. Uh let's take a motion first and then we'll
motion to approve the proclamation of the special education parent advisory council CPAC awareness month. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Laura. Um any further discussion on adopting the proclamation? Okay. All in favor? All opposed? Carries
five to zero. Um all right. Can we just we'll we just have a brief brief discussion here. you know, thoughts folks might have on what we, you know, I think social media postings is an obvious one. Um, what else we can do as a committee um to help promote awareness here?
I think maybe what maybe is less a committee, but maybe more Tom for the principles and whatnot is to make it broadly known in the newsletters um as well in some way, shape, or form across each of the schools and in your newsletter, which I don't get anymore,
by the way. Um, but Oh, opt in. Probably there's no way to opt in. Get you back on. Don't worry. You'll get you'll get that flyer in the mail once a year. Dr. Corm, I'm still in, right?
You opted in? I did. Oh, you have to tell me how to opt in then. So, um, so anyway, and maybe that's that's one big way we can do it in in terms of getting the news out more broadly. Um, I don't have their schedule yet for the
year. I think they're scheduled to meet with the administration here next week, but I don't have the rest of their schedule set up yet. Um, so I'll have to reach out to them to see if they have anything in particular that we can also broadcast in addition to the month. Um, but maybe that's a few things. So, if anybody else has any other ideas, I'm
all ears and we'll take it back as necessary as well. How can you push it through special like through meetings and and things like that through CPAP through um through Jen's group and everything? Yep. Yeah. Just to piggyback on the principal
newsletters which um by the way have come so far so so far from what they used to be. Um CPAC is part of the like standard inclusion but it's like way down way down. So you know if you're someone
who's like scanning for new info and not necessarily reading the whole thing um which I've never done. I always read the whole thing. Um, you know, it' be nice to put it Yeah. front and center for for this. Great.
Especially if we can pair it with here's their schedule for the year or events or Yeah. We'll see if I can get that in the meantime. That would help. Great. Okay. I think technically this month they have to reelect their board or elect their board. October is their election month,
but I haven't seen when they post the meeting yet, so I'll find out. Okay, good. All right. Thanks, John. Thank you. Um, all right, Dr. Milleski, let's uh move to your goals.
Great. So, uh, back in August, back in the summer, I presented a set of draft goals for your review and a little bit of context and information around sort of the rationale behind them. I know I've, you know, met with all of you to discuss them and we've talked about maybe some some tweaks or modifications.
I don't have any sort of formal there hasn't been any formal feedback provided to have me come with a updated draft. So therefore the draft on the table tonight is the most is the same one that was here in August open to ideas, modifications or things that you want me to keep in mind as we move forward as
well. So we have um we'll vote to approve these. Uh so let's take a motion and then we'll see if there's any further discussion here. I move to approve the superintendent goals as outlined. Is there a second? Second.
Seconded by Tom. Okay. Any discussion on the goals as presented here in the packet? Go ahead. Um again, as I talked to Dr. M. Um I'm not going to stop today's vote at all. I think what we have is is good. Um, I
think what we should, you know, think about and what I'd ask that we think about is the goals have like numbers to go to and we know what the numbers are now, but they're hidden in a lot of our data and reports. It would be great if the goals say from X to Y, right? So, it
says, you know, go, you know, AP exams taken to 650. Okay, where are we now? Right? How big of an increase is 650? Um now we we know from the previous presentation what it is but it would be good to to see that right um as we go
through it you know four plus exams to 400. Okay, where are we now? Right. Um, and my feedback to that is, okay, it's we're trying to get smart goals. So, is it reasonable and attainable? Right? But is it also a stretch? So, how do we make
sure that we're we're doing that? I'm not going to again, I'm not I didn't have time to go back and and change the wording. And I don't want to do it on the floor necessarily, but you know, maybe there could be a small amendment that we go through sometime h through the half year or something like that that we just kind of tighten up some of it a little bit. Um, that was one thing
on on the first section and the the other two were kind of the like so what now what like how do we tie this into achievement or into outcomes for our kids. Um, you know, we've had the coaching and supporting and developing
one for multiple years now and we've seen some good progress. Um, but it I feel like I I I feel like I want more association to outcomes um in some sort of way, right? I don't know how to measure that and that's the
challenge. That might be why it's not measured, right? But so what now what right? We're coaching it. What do we We're seeing retention. Okay, maybe that's a number we can retain. We can talk about that's an outcome. Um we're seeing internal promotion in certain hopefully in some
cases that's an outcome. Um we hopefully will see certain student outcomes improve which we are seeing in certain cases but how do we tie them together um to to try to these all all these lead towards the same thing um but they don't necessarily call themselves out as
leading toward the same thing. And so I was just trying to figure out how best to craft that and I didn't have a good answer. So I guess I said I'm not going to stop anything on the floor but that was kind of the feedback as I was thinking it through. So if anybody has better ideas, I'm all ears. But that was just what I was trying to figure out.
The same sort of holds for the second goal as well. Like how do I tie the data analysis to true outcomes, right? We know it can drive it. We know it's a proven strategy, but we need to see it become, you know, the fruit needs to bear itself. We need to see what the fruit
is. You know, I I so I totally agree with the sentiment. I I do think that there are outcomes captured in the benchmarks for both goals two and three, right, that we would expect to be presented as part of the evidence package and and then it's up to us to assess, you know,
did we see good activity but not enough on the outcome side and what does that mean from an assessment perspective? Does that mean, you know, it's a meets versus an exceeds or or you know, what have you, right? So, um I I I think it I think it'd be difficult
to land on a reasonable subset of metrics to say these are the ones that you're going to hit if we get all this right. You know what I mean? And that was the struggle. Yeah. No, of course. Of course. So I, you know, as I read through this, I personally was satisfied by the notion that having those explicitly called out as benchmarks means that we would expect
to see that in the evidence package and as part of the assessment um of performance against goals. But yeah, it's a fair point. Yeah. The only thing I would say to that is like if you look at the outcomes as they're written in the benchmarks, there's nothing smart, measurable, attainable against them. It's just a benchmark, right?
And there's nothing that's a measurement in there. They now to a degree two and three tie back to one. One's not achievable. two and three don't work to to some degree. It's not a direct correlation, but if you think of like it says analysis of statewide student growth measures, common assessment, student work samples, and teacher
instructional practice is an outcome. Okay, the demonstration could be okay, we had a meeting that we did this analysis that that doesn't do anything for me. You had a meeting. Okay, great. But what is what does that drive from a student performance perspective or or a teacher competency perspective or a
principal leadership perspective or whatever else the case might be? So that's where I was having to struggle between what was cast classified as an outcome and what I would consider a smart goal that aligns to that. But again, not stopping anything, just
food for thought. Okay, others. I do I do like your suggestion on the first one um for for a couple reasons. I mean two from is always is always good to capture. The other reason is um you know if we get to the the evaluation uh evaluation stage and you know we didn't
we're not at 650 and I don't remember what the number is the annual number that we just heard heard but you know if if we were saying to go from 400 to 650 let's say and we land at 645 that's helpful context you know to know that we came 97 you know whatever
whatever percentage of the way there that is right so um I do I do like the idea of us sort of amending these at some point just to capture the two from context on this one in particular. I can so I thank you for that feedback too. I know we talked about it. Two two thoughts. One, yes, I can put together
like a cover sheet on this or amend the goals a little bit that has just the from where to where and make that more explicit. And then two and I agree with your feedback on that. It's just the challenge of capturing that reflecting I think a pain we feel in education. We just it's it's hard to figure out. So how do we do that? So I'm open to
continue conversation on that. Um, but I appreciate you raising that because we felt that too. District goals as well. Yeah, they're district goals which is a challenge with the third one in particular because where my head started to go on the third one was well do we think about some of the, you know,
individual schools or or individual grade levels or individual um subjects where we have, you know, particular gaps we want to address and maybe tight, you know, refine the benchmarks to address those. But these are supposed to be district level goals, which does make that a little bit challenging. Well, you could tie the district I mean
the one of the things that we just got done talking about is consistency across schools. So that's a district goal that is demonstrated by school specific information. You know, we could but and coaching, developing and supporting leaders can be one of your mechanisms to achieve that, right? Say this
data analysis to do the coaching and supporting and developing of leaders can can be another you direct alignment to it too, right? So um but yeah, first goal does have meet 80% of DESI determined MCS growth achievements targets at school and district level. So I do have to and you know at the end of
the whatever at the end of the cycle present data from each school and that's a part of that as well just to flag. Yeah. and you do it and we have done it um and we did well the last couple years. The conversation we had just so everybody else knows is are those targets hard enough. Right. I mean if we
look at where Massachusetts is right now and we just all the state scores is that a good bar? I don't know. Right. Well and the school targets are based on where we are where those schools are today. So if there's a delta between schools even if you hit your targets there's still a delta between schools.
Correct. Right. Correct. So correct. So it's not it's not perfect. Nope. But it's it never is. Right. Nobody's asking for perfection. I'm just continually striving for a little bit a little bit closer. Okay. Cool. Any additional discussion on
this one? Okay. Uh all in favor? All oppose? Five to zero. It carries. Thank you. Um okay. Uh, next item is approving discussing and approving focus indicators for superintendent goals. Um,
I can anticipate where this one's going to go. Uh, so the the guidance the guidance in the rubric from Desi is to choose six to eight uh focus indicators. You know, um, I think they suggest one to two aligned with each goal. So that would put us maybe closer to six than
eight. But um, in the past this committee has opted to utilize all focus indicators, which is a a departure from that guidance for sure. Uh, so you know, I won't put my thumb on the scale, but I'll I'll open up the floor to what, you know, what folks thinking is here. Um,
I'll open the floor to what folks thinking is here before I share my opinion. Anybody who wants to go first is welcome to do so. So, two cycles ago, we chose seven, didn't we? But the last one we did. Yeah. two cycles ago.
Tom's first two years we did a smaller subset and this last one we did the whole set after two years for a two. It was when we moved to the two-year review cycle that we also went to the whole we all but prior to Dr. Milchesky being here we had this conversation with the previous superintendent and due to
his tenure we decided to keep it keep it to the whole list as well at that point in time. So part of the argument we made ourselves for when when Dr. Dr. Milky started was, "Okay, he's new. Let's let him focus on a few things. Let's let him focus on a few more things. Now he's been here, got his grounding. It's a
two-year cycle. There's a lot to achieve in two years. We should look at it all." That was the argument at the time. Sean, I might surprise Sean by saying, "I don't want to look at them all this time." It does surprise me. Surprise me. My mind is my mind's blown to be honest.
Yeah. So, Tom, what what is your what is your suggestion? My proposal is simply to follow the goals Tom Tom outlined them already. 1 A 1 B 1 C 2 C 2D 4 D 1 E etc. And just as he's directly tied them to the goals, those are the focus
indicators. It's not all of them, but it's not it's not a small set either. So it's not six to eight, but it's not right 100%. You're missing half of half of three, half of four, and a little bit of two, I think. But you have almost all of one which is
curriculum instruction. You have most of two and then three and four. I think most of us when we think about communication is not a weakness in any way, shape or form um for the organization as it stands right now. Um and that's really what most of the like parent family relationship type stuff
fits into three and four. Um so I'm I'm pretty comfortable myself with the partial focus on three and four, the heavy focus on one and the majority focus on two. Other thoughts? So it's 1 A B C E and F
E and F. It's 3 A D. I'm trying to get a full counting. And then four D 2 B C D 4 A and 4 D. I love how everybody's going back and
forth right now. Yeah. Doing the same thing I did before. So, three is completely skipped. Here's what I have. One A, B, C, E, and F. 2 B, C, and D. 3 A and D. 4 A and D. So, it's a total of uh 11. Yeah. No, 12.
Yeah. Yeah. Which is just over half, I think. There's 20 total. 20. Yeah, we'll get the motion. Don't worry about it. Hold on. Carla's like, "What are you
Carla's going to play alphabet soup and see if she doesn't laugh." All right. So, so the premise, Tom, just to play that back is Dr. Milicheski's already sort of identified the focus indicators that he feels are most closely aligned with these goals. Yeah. Which we've just approved. Let's use those focus indicators as the evaluation rubric.
Exactly. Makes sense. I'm just going to make it a little I don't I honestly don't really care a ton on this. I I'll be supportive whatever way the committee wants to go. I do think I view the goals a little bit differently than like this the the goals are a little bit more targeted some of them than like the breadth of what the
scope of some of the in what the indicators reflect. So I'll give an example right now we don't have 2e and I think probably one of my big that's fiscal systems and I think probably one of my biggest challenges in the next two years is going to be navigating what we know is a really challenging financial
landscape and continuing to support our district. So, I think that's something I think would probably be an important thing to measure superintendent progress. You know, if you're looking at my, you know, say it was um
uh let's say three, my goal three and it's onee. Are we only looking at data uh co are we only looking at data in foreign practice through the lens of coaching support and developing principles or are we looking at it through the the entire breadth of that
indicator. So I my only Well, you have it. You have Okay, go ahead. No, no, no. Go for it. No, you got it. Keep going. Go for it. I miss I You said onee, right? Or three E? One E. One E you have in the data practice one as well. Correct. So I'm saying under goal three.
There's one E. So is it then is my focus then that only is the part of oneE that reflects to principles. Correct. Because that's under the principal goal. So I would argue that there's a lot more to goal this to indicator onee than just that work
directly with principles. Now I understand if committee if if you're saying you're choosing these indicators you're pulling them out and then I can speak to the the entire breadth of the standard. I think that the indicator that makes sense. Yeah. I mean I think what my the way I was viewing this is you know first of
all let it sounds like we missed a goal. We should have financed somewhere in the goal considering where where things are. So, um, we can I'm happy to add that in into the into the focus indicators as opposed to that, but I think onee in particular around data fits pretty
heavily in goal two as well. And yeah, so goal two, go three, they're never perfect. And when you look at this, it's like, okay, what are the focus indicators aligned to it? And how does that data support it overall? Um, but yes, you then have to step back and say, what are the what does the rubric say
about what the focus indicator is as well, right? And if you provide evidence that addresses threequarters of the rubric but not all of it, then that impacts the way we we judge it. Um, right? Even if you did great for the goal, if it doesn't cover all the rubric, then, you know, it's just these
are just areas to look at from a focus perspective that do align with the goals. They don't limit the examination of the of the focus area. there. I would just add that obviously your job is so much more all-encompassing than these three goals.
And it's, you know, these are a focus, but they're by no means like the only focus or the entirety of your, you know, these are these are a district focus. These are a district priority. Um, but there's so much more going on,
including the financial piece. Um, so to me it's it's more a matter of like what ties in with these goals and what are we rating you on. Now we're giving you feedback throughout the year
throughout, you know, constantly um having that collaborative relationship. So, um, I don't take this as the be all end all of evaluating, you know, I see it as evaluating you on your goals, but I
guess I don't see it as um meant to reflect on every aspect. That's that's what to me gets overwhelming on commenting on all of them cuz it's like yeah I I could write a novel on all that you do for the district but like how
helpful is that for you? So, um I guess that's where I sort of get stuck of like and you know I think it's important to call out so just in in the rubric um you know that form that we fill out you're supposed to rate each of the focus
indicators but you also rate the standard as a whole right so even if we don't choose every focus indicator because they're not directly aligned to goals and we only just choose the subset we still have to rate or you still have the opportunity to rate and are expected to rate standard two which is management
and operations and includes fiscal systems. So if something goes off the rails you know from a fiscal systems perspective given the challenges of the next couple years you are allowed to factor that into your rating of the standard and then and then thus into the overall rating. So the focus indicator is more meant to say
just what they're called focus on those in particular in terms of providing feedback because they're most directly aligned to the goals that you're also assessing. So I don't you know I don't think it precludes us from you know expecting you to be competent across the board uh you know across the board if we choose a subset of focus
indicators but it's it's also tied back to his performance and it's it's tied back to his um it is but he could achieve his goals and drop the ball in five other places that aren't his goals and still and and have the rating be driven by those places he
dropped the ball. Right. you know that I mean it's not like a you got a 100red on your goal so you get 100 you know it's not you know I want to be evaluated on the on the breadth of the respon the job and if it makes sense to be able to do that in the way that Aaron you're describing with
focus that makes no I'm that's not what I'm advocating here what is happen it it feels it feel I just want to make sure that still in goal two I should be able to speak about fiscal systems or in goal three I I should or standard three I still should be able to speak about communication like those are two core
parts of the job that I feel like you should evaluate me on. Right. So I think that can be under that the way that Sean's describing I think that makes sense. Yeah. The way Sean's describing it I think as well and whether we do it officially or not it's it's almost a waiting right. Um you know if there's
five things in the in the category and you know two of them are focused they have you know a little bit more waiting than the three that don't have a focus. Whether it's an official calculation as I would do it or an unofficial calculation as some people might do in their head that's that's up to the person that's doing the rating to do. My rec recollection is even when we
chose seven or eight focus indicators some people opted to assess yes far I don't know why I'm looking at you I am looking at you but you know people chose I I think I did as well even I may not I may not have written as much about them but I I certainly assessed more
than that. So um I think focus indicators exist for a reason to keep us laser focused on the goals but it we all understand that it doesn't preclude you know the necessity to evaluate you against the broader set of responsibilities. Well said. Great. Are we good?
Yep. Okay. Ready for a motion? Got them. Um I got them. You got them. Um move to approve the following focus indicators for the superintendent goals. 1 A B C E and F 2 B C and D 3 A and D
and four A and D. Nailed it. Second. Thank you. Seconded by Tom. Any further discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Five to zero. Thank you. Okay. Uh last order of business for tonight is um just a hopefully a quick
follow-up discussion on the forest monastery school. I included in the packet or we included in the packet um the response that I got from from um Mary the director there uh as well as the email that I sent to her sort of precipitating that response. Um you know
I they've certainly addressed the physical plant question there at Rice Moody. You know I think at least from where I say that's a much more appropriate facility. So that's that's good. Um, you know, people can make their own judgments on how how well they've addressed some of the other sort of major areas of concern the committee
had. I guess what I'm hoping to do is not to take a vote, but just to get a pulse from the committee, you know, with this information, what followup or clarification questions do you have? You know, have people been moved on this in a way that makes sense for us to bring them back? Like I, you know, just some
guidance on next steps because as we sit here today, it's not clear to me or Carla where to go from here. um with this one. So curious what others think. So just to be clear, their goal is still even though they are currently operating at Rice Moody, their goal is still to
operate out of uh Matera. I think that they're happy with Rice Moody and probably plan to stay there. their their goal the or the remaining goal as I understand it is I think they're still pursuing us okay approving them as a you know full day
program which you know my best understanding is all that that really does for them is means that the parents who are sending their students there aren't technically homeschooling their students and required to go through all kinds of documentation and things like that that come with that that there that the students attendance with this program would count as a you know full
day program under under MGL requirements um because it has been you vetted and approved by the local school committee. So, it's I think it saves them paperwork. I don't think it does much in terms of changing the actual structure of their program or how they deliver their uh how they deliver their program
in any way. Um but I think it's uh it makes things makes life easier for them frankly is probably my best understanding of what what it means. So, so I'm curious what what thoughts folks have. I I think that they haven't, you
know, I I don't feel like we owe we I don't feel like we have a next step, right? I feel like they if they have a next step if they are still pursuing um that that's kind of where where I'm at, which in your mind would be what? To
formally ask us to take another to bring them to come back. Yeah, they came to us, we said no. and a story. If they if they are still interested, they have to kind of regroup and ask to come back.
Okay, that's my thought. Um I'm on the same page. Um I don't think we've answered the busing question still, right? Uh which is still a financial concern. The other day somebody quoted
me, $80,000 for a bus for our homeless our homeless kids or whatever. So, you know, if it's if we do $80,000 for a bus to get four kids from the Josh Wheaten side of school to Camp Rice Moody, that's not small, right? Um, so I think
that's one question I still need answers on to be comfortable with things andor if that means we have to budget for it in the next school year, then we need to budget for it next school year. But what does that mean for us from a staffing perspective or something else if that's the case? Um, I'm frankly still not
comfortable with the way that certain questions were answered either. Um, if you go back and watch the responses that were given to some of those questions, they should be rising, you know, raising a lot of other questions. Um, so,
uh, unless and until that is addressed, then I'm not comfortable to move forward either way, but I'm just one of six. So, Aaron or Laura, any thoughts on your end? I'm still really intrigued by the idea
the as an educational concept. Um, you know, I I it might be interesting to go to ask if if one or more of us could go and do an observation of some kind um and see what
it's actually like. Um, but from a logistical perspective, I think that the concerns that people have are still very valid. And so I I I want to feel like I can be supportive,
but I'm not sure I am yet. Um, I know I missed our last meeting. Um, I appreciate the discussion that you all had. Um, I'm still really I'm still really disappointed on just how this has unfolded. Um,
and while I understand what you're saying about like should should we bring them back, I I don't want to waste their time if we're not ready, but I also understand what Carla is saying that like the onus is sort of on them. Um,
they certainly took their time responding to your email. Um, I'm still not convinced that everything has been thought through and is ready. And um, you know, I'm I'm glad they're operating under the onus of of
homeschooling for now and we're able to get started with the with the kids that they have cuz everyone should be able to start school in September. But um but I'm not convinced if they did come before us in 2 weeks that they have all
the information that we're looking for to and I kind of don't want to waste their time and bring them back here until they're ready. I gave my perspective on where I thought we were as like a board in terms of do
we reach back out to them or you know we we don't do that form but like we don't do that normally. It's not part of our process. We don't go you know reach out to people for things they want something they come to us and we figure that out.
in terms of like the responses we got, I I'm less impressed after reading the responses because I still see discrepancies in what they're saying. Um, and and I I I found the response
kind of flip. So for me and it's and it's interesting Lara that you said that you're interested in like the concept of the school because um that was not a you know that wasn't the reason for my
even though it wouldn't be something I would personally choose for my children. I would not stop it for other parents being able to choose it for for their children, right? Um, but it's it's everything surrounding it. And I feel like we've gotten non-answers,
um, shifty answers, and I just I just don't have a comfort level with a lot of things still. This did, this email did not answer any questions for me. It actually made me ask more questions, if that makes sense. So, I kind of gave you
where I think we are as a committee, but then yeah, like like Aaron said, I wouldn't waste their time. So, so what I'm hearing is there's not a lot of appetite for us to certainly push the issue and follow up with another set of clarifying questions or anything like
that. Um we maybe we can we can get a some guidance from Colby on the busing issue just next time next time we have an opportunity to talk to her about that about whatever. Um just to check that box if when and if this
does come back around. Um but uh okay then we'll sit tight and see if they come back to us and then um then we'll go back to our original plan and you and I can meet with them and perfect
uh you know try to have a conversation with them to sort of determine whether there's anything they're going to bring that's going to change the outcome and you know if they still want to go forward with the meeting have to figure out whether or not we do that you know um and then uh
you know we'll we'll time box everything and try to keep it focused but um we'll wait for them to take the lead on asking for that versus coming coming back with another round of follow-ups. So good.
Okay, thank you. Cool. Uh that's it. Is there a final motion? Motion to adjurnn. Second. Seconded by Laura. All in favor? All opposed? So we are adjourned at 9:35. Thanks everyone.