to order welcome everyone um Tom is on a flight right now so I am uh stepping up for the night um I want to start by welcoming our newest school committee member Laura Durgovich congratulations
thank you and congratulations to Tom who was reelected um so welcome thank you i'm really excited to be here to work with the whole group looking forward to it oh we're glad to have you um so tonight we will start
with public comment if anyone has anything to share that is not already on the agenda tonight um then we will do the consent agenda uh we will do reports we have our students here tonight which
is always awesome um and then for new business we will get an update on the school resource officers um the children's cabinet uh math pathways update uh we will vote on the last day of
school we will also vote to approve um a couple scholarships and hopefully adjourn at a reasonable hour um does anyone have anything for public comment tonight no okay
um you want to make a motion yeah I move to approve the consent agenda second does anyone have any comments or feedback on the consent agenda oh all in
favor okay that passes five to zero all right reports let's start with our students uh hello uh please forgive my dish uh appearance i came from a tennis match to a pasta party straight
here um so I've not been able to change busy life yeah I do have a busy life actually um for updates uh the winter drama competition RMHS is moving on to the um next level of competition after an amazing performance preliminary round in Wayland last weekend several awards
were earned by RMHS students to include state managers a stage managers award given by the host school for techn technical excellence allstar Company Awards given by the judges for standout work and performances assistant director Jason Walsh lighting design to Jay
Corowan um acting via Cuna uh Kuna um acting again for Bella Bdon acting again for Meredith Harrington um if you're wishing to see the next round of the competition we'd love to have your laughter and support in the audience um the most recent affinity group that
the school um the yeah school committee participated in this week was with Barbara Best representatives from the reading coalition um the college fair also recently took place um in which over 120 colleges and universities were present um the old house was full of
students and parents from writing and surrounding communities um spring athletic tryyouts uh began and spring sports are in session um so tennis um is this the right one it is okay um just um
so yeah so spring sports include baseball softball tennis outdoor track boys and girls and lacrosse boys and girls um and then school counselors have met with their students on their case load this week um and last week to plan out course selections for 2025 to 2026
and then the RHS DECA has had an amazing performance at this uh state competition and as a result five students will move on to the international competition in Orlando Florida in April one more update uh as happened this week we had Artsfest at the high school that
was a big success we had the middle school and high school choirs bands jazz bands and a lot of other art pieces from across all grades um some quick upcoming events uh and sorry also junior prom happened uh just a couple days ago and I know Sachi can probably speak more to
that as a junior so never mind but um I'm sure I've heard I heard a lot of great things from the junior said it was a really great experience a few upcoming uh important announcements there's going to be an Alice drill the second one of the school year on the 16th of April um on the 2nd
of May there's going to be a Winchester Hospital career panel uh talking about careers in health uh in healthcare uh for all students to attend if they want to may 5th through 16th this is a busy time we've got AP exams coming up so that's going to be pretty stressful but
also uh well welcomed time for when it's over for the juniors and seniors um May 20th and 21st is the math mcast for off sophomores um May 21st is also job shadowing for the junior class they can go around and follow people in trades of
their choice then some award nights coming up at the end of the month may 21st is senior awards night um and it looks like June uh 3rd will be underassman awards night uh and then lastly the science MCCAST for grade 9
will be on June 6th and June 5th so I'm sure they're looking forward to that yeah always a great time when you hear the word MCCAST i don't have to hear that anymore yeah she's done and that is all we have awesome thank you both um as
usual you are welcome to stay and listen to the rest of the meeting if you have things you need to get home to that is fine too so don't don't feel badly if you need to slip out thank you all right um
Sarah do you have a report no report oh sorry dr hold that Sarah sorry which Sarah we feel specific um I do have one quick thing to mention um so as you know we are underway with a review of executive functioning in writing public
schools and that is an internal review that we're conducting this year um we've have uh lots of data collection already underway this is being led um by Dr precise by um director Allison Wright
and we've also had um a number of really great staff in our district that are contributing and helping with the data collection um OT's speech and language teachers special education teachers and recently this week our latest uh form of data collection was to hold two
different forums for families um and there were two different opportunities one during the day and one in the evening and those were helped to be coordinated by Jackie Palooi who's our inclus inclusion specialist and by Alli Sarno um who is a school psychologist up here at the high school and uh the
purpose of that was to talk to families and learn and learn about the experiences they're having home at home with executive functioning also to provide them with a little bit of information about the review um and about how we're defining executive functioning those were very successful lots of rich data was gathered we also
have been conducting staff surveys uh observations within our schools and so that that um review is moving along just wanted to update you on that thanks great i would just like to thank and congratulate and send best wishes to
Barbara Best no pun intended uh who's here tonight with us uh so for those who don't know Barbara uh Barbara is a doctoral resident in our office uh since the summer uh she was in our uh member of our senior leadership team for the entirety of the year working on a variety of projects uh at both the
district and school level some of the common themes of Barb's projects included managing uh managing change leading teams navigating conflict building community partnerships and she's really become an entrenched member of both the you know our school district team and also the larger community uh
Barbara also backing up uh and you know has been in the district for the past three years so she's a part of a three-year doctoral program in her first couple of years uh she was on as a intern as part of you know gaining hours through the program and then this last year jumped on with us as the full-time
uh resident as you may know she's in a three-year program it's the EDLD program at Harvard she's getting a joint degree from the Harvard Business School Harvard Kennedy School and the Graduate School of Education and she'll be defending her dissertation or capstone next Thursday uh so we are super excited for her then her last day in the district is on May
9th so uh I would just like to thank Barbara for starting really three years ago uh picking up the children's cabinet which you'll hear about uh tonight but then also having you know an even deeper impact in so many other projects across our community too there are many places across the country that Barbara could
have selected to do her residency and selected to do with us which was just a huge value ad for our community um I would just like again say I've learned so much from watching you as a leader too the way you lead with warmth empathy authenticity i think that all of us are walking away with different things that
we feel like you have taught us or showed us or modeled for us as a team uh so thank you um so couple things also I'd like to thank the Harvard Graduate School of Education for this was a fully paid residency so we uh did not have to pay anything to have Barbara with us for
the entirety of the year which is incredible uh and Harvard's also committed to next year providing us with a a full-time uh resident as well Ramsay Merritt who you may know too so that's exciting for us ramsay has big shoes to fill the dissertation or the capstone defense is open to the public so if you
want to come raise the heat on I'm just kidding support Barbara on this monumental time for her professionally it's next Thursday uh morning if you want to reach out I can give you the Zoom link or you can come live in person in Cambridge but if you see Barbara please thank her for her contributions and you'll hear a little bit more about
them tonight awesome great um All right reports carla um thank you we had a um joint forum with Kllum and Recalc last on April 2nd
um there was a presentation in person we're repeating that same presentation on Zoom on the 16th at 7:00 um there is a Zoom link if people want to attend it is on kilumschool.com
the vote is May 13th for anybody who is interested um I see some signs up um for both projects right now that's it laura has no reports tonight so you got
to pass all right Sarah still no report no report no report um I have no report but I do want to thank um the uh pair group the friends of reading mechco um and the administration
for what happened earlier this evening which was we were able to watch the documentary code switching um and then break into smaller groups for some really uh rich conversation um and I apologize that because of our meeting it
it it had to get wrapped up but um hopefully it's it's a launching pad for for further conversations so um okay so I would like to welcome up officers Lewis Vatcher and Davis to give
us an update on the school resource officers and don't forget the most important one um I guess over here at this table and Rusty yes Austin rusty Cooper wanted to be here but he had an appointment with his bed
uh we'll forgive him all right good evening everyone i'm SRO Mike Davis uh recently just started um we're just going to um present uh our work over the course of the last year and what we were going to uh accomplish going forward in this the rest of the
school year as well as next school year as well uh we'll start officer Vatcher and Officer Lewis received um state reertification as SRO's um I am currently training with Officer Lewis um in the high school to learn the role of
the SRO and kind of get my feet wet in um just getting involved with the parents the school staff and um the kids and writing public schools i'm also currently um training uh to get my certification as the uh to become a certified SRO this week so I'll finish
that up tomorrow uh SRO's attended training from the FBI Boston on best practices on when to when responding to bomb threats and swatting calls at schools we also have been working with the reading coalition uh to support and assist youth with mental health first
aid training uh in the junior health classes and we will also be working again with the coalition um to teach choose to refuse which is an opioid prevention um in the reading um health classes as well this spring
hi everyone Officer Brian Lewis uh I'm just going to touch on school safety and crisis uh response things that we've been working on uh this year um and in the past so we have assisted the schools with uh alist drills the high school and the middle schools and as you heard from the student liaison we have another
alist drill coming up at the high school uh next week officer Vater and I have led professional development classes on Alice for our elementary schools uh which is our Alice drills are conducted with just school staff in elementary levels uh there are no student le uh
participation in the drills uh we have worked with the schools uh to continue to use the comprehensive school threat assessment guidelines or sestag which is a threat assessment um tool that the schools use to help mitigate uh threats
so we are using that as needed we continue to be part of the district crisis team and the RMHS core crisis team addressing safety issues as they come up um and a big project that we've been working on for the past few years is uh we worked with Dr st and the
district excuse me crisis team to roll out the recent overhaul of the districtwide incident response plans which was a very daunting uh challenge for us there was a lot of policies that had to be refined and combed through um but we we wrapped that up and that was rolled out uh and we actually rolled it
out uh with a video that was sent out to all school staff which was uh fun for us to participate in officer Vasher and I had a good time um recording those videos and uh we're going to just say that we we did it all in one take right
no bloopers no bloopers uh with that but that that was rolled out early uh earlier this year and uh again we we partner with the reading police civil rights officer and the director of equity and social justice to address uh address any hate based incidents that we
come ac across here in the schools which uh I don't believe there's been any this year nope that's a good thing uh hi uh school resource officer Matt Vatcher uh I'm just going to touch on the school and community engagement series is this
not working yeah you need two i need two yeah I feel like a sports star uh so I'm just going to touch on the school and community uh engagement season because we're in it now uh um first obviously Officer Lewis and I
have been working uh alongside our bosses uh comfortably this year as well uh Russy and Cooper uh melting the hearts of hundreds every day uh it's social media and internet safety season uh this
is when I go to the elementary schools and present internet safety and social media safety to the fifth graders and incoming sixth graders uh but I also have extended that to the fourth grade this year because children are getting
devices at very young ages now and uh group chats have become very popular in fourth grade and we're already starting to see you know behavior issues and uh device usage issues so that's going to be starting
and I already have one done and I have one next week one planned and two yet to plan um also next week uh we'll be presenting alongside the US Attorney's Office and Homeland Security uh to both middle schools uh they have uh an
internet safety presentation that we've done for a couple years now uh with the middle schools uh it's uh it's very effective and popular and we help out a little bit with that they do most of the work though uh we we're also doing courtesy of the
Coolage PTO this year we are doing an internet safety presentation for parents it's pretty much uh going to walk them through safety measures they can take so their kids are safe on say Snapchat all the social media uh apps so parents know
what to look for and what to safeguard against uh hopefully we get a good turnout we actually extended that to Parker parents and the parents of fifth grade students who are moving up to sixth grade uh it's also school lunch season
we have been serving school lunches at a few schools now and we have three more to go uh uh us alongside volunteers from the Reading Police Department uh have always enjoyed serving lunches at the elementary schools and talking to the kids
uh I recently did a community helpers unit for all three Barrows kindergarten classes that I tend to do yearly either the first grade or the kindergarten uh which is fun and all the PTO raffle winners are coming forward and wanting their ride to school uh
Dr masheski I believe you still have a ride to school to give away to someone from the Festival of Trees that you won i do uh we should collaborate the look of me showing up to work right in the We should collaborate on uh who we're going to give that to if you know someone who's deserving I
I'm happy to pass it along so if you're going to get a couple couple people in mind then you can I will give you the uh the green light to pass my ticket along okay i'll keep I'll keep you in the loop uh obviously I think March was ReadAcross America month you guys
probably did your fair share of guest reading at places uh I did my fair share and I did a couple of evening events at Baris and Birch Meadow and uh you know we're looking forward to fifth grade moving on ceremonies eighth grade moving on ceremonies and graduation here at the
high school uh which lead us into the summer where uh we help organize and run the reading police youth academy for students going into sixth grade seventh grade and eighth grade uh it was very successful last year and popular and hopefully we get uh a decent turnout
this year uh one one last thing that's not on this um recently we participated with the reading coalition and a peer leader group here at the high school uh called Rocket Leaders in Action running a food drive at Market Basket um and it was a
rainy cold Saturday and we were there for 3 hours and I think we got six six truckloads about six I believe of food and over $600 in donations so that was a huge success that was the second one we did one back in and we also did one right before Christmas um in November
and that was also very successful so uh shout out to um the coalition and Michelle Hawinson and her rocket leaders in action for putting that together and uh getting it done that's a huge huge benefit to the community that's fantastic and that's it and prom was
good officer Ver and I were at prom we're looking forward to senior prom senior prom's coming up that's in Glouster we're looking forward to that and uh and graduation so hopefully we are incident free and everyone's on their best behavior yes said Rusty wears his bow tie rusty and Cooper the same we
try not to do that but they rental there's only so many options they need their own Instagram group to prepare that doesn't happen um does anyone on the committee have any questions or feedback for them aaron I'd just like to thank Lieutenant
Body and also Chief Clark for their thoughtful uh approach to the transition to having the overlap um between uh between Mike and obviously Brian I think has been really impactful and I think is setting our community up for success so just appreciate both of your uh vision around that is is uh I think has been
really important and also something that is just I don't think is is written in here but just like to thank the entire team for what I think is most important is just the visibility in our community too i mean being out greeting students like every time I'm walking the hallways of the high school at any of the schools I mean you're everywhere talking to kids
engaging with kids building relationships uh so those connections are really powerful uh for both for our community so just uh thank you for all of this but also just thank you more importantly for the day-to-day leadership that you show in all of our communities thank you thank you and back at you thank you all very much it's
always a pleasure to come in front of this group and can't tell you how much we appreciate your support all the time um just if I could take like a personal second I would like to just say uh thank you also to Chuck Robinson i missed the opportunity to celebrate Chuck i was away but um he was very support he was
on the board when I first started these SRO too so he's been very supportive of this program of me personally and I appreciate the service and all the service you all give your a ton of time and I can't tell you how much we all appreciate it thank you has anybody ever cashed in a ride to school for middle
school just curious uh no no I don't think I've ever done a street ride to school we actually have one we didn't win through the PTO we won through uh through women's league and uh I don't know i'm thinking I'm thinking maybe we'll we'll see if my middle schooler is bold bold enough to to get a
ride to school i bet they would like it yeah yeah that's special um well we are grateful for all of you and I especially appreciate that you put all this together i think um a lot of people know they see you and they you
know they see the dogs but they don't necessarily grasp like how involved you are and how extensive it is and what a what a vital role you play in our schools so thank you for coming tonight and articulating all of this so that people have more insight into that
thank you so much all right thank you thank you thank you have a good evening careful all right we will move on to our children's cabinet update so I'll welcome up Barbara and Teresa
[Music] hi everyone i'm Teresa Wiggins can everyone hear me good okay um so I have had the pleasure of um working alongside Barbara Best and I'm just going to start
off with a shout out um so the amazing leadership you have shown um and taught to me the ability to um create an atmosphere in a space that uh just just
opens people up and gets people to the heart of the matter um is special so I've learned so much from working with you and I'm going to miss working with you professionally but you're stuck with me for life otherwise
um so just a quick recap of of what children's cabinet is like in terms of definitions it's um you know we're in year two but the idea is bringing together we have over 25 uh stakeholders from the community um everything from
students to parents to town leaders um YMCA clergy um you name it they're probably there um and we come together to identify where we can um close maybe programming gaps or solve
issues that kids are facing and so year one was mostly about identifying what do we agree what do we think are are the issues and through a process we determined and landed on two main two main buckets and one was um accessing resources which I will speak
to and the other um Barbara will speak to so I've been facilitating the accessing resources group and so really just how to look at I always think about it in in we we think about it in two ways one how can we build systems that improve access to resources across the
board um but also how do we how do we also handle the acute needs that arise um it's it's multironged and so this year our focus has landed on within accessing resources creating a a family closet in town so in thinking about
we've got mission of deeds for homegoods and furniture we've got food pantry but we don't have everybody does sort of like one-off clothing drives which is wonderful and people should continue to do that but can we have a localized uh or centralized way to give families
access to new or gently used clothing so the idea is this will be open once um once a month for shopping it'll be free um and it'll be run by volunteers and it's we're working right now on
logistics of securing the place uh we're close but there's some kinks to work out um and the idea would be volunteers would set up the space one you know one day one month one day a month
before it's open and then it's open on a Saturday from about 10 to 12 um and ongoing donations being able to be dropped off from the community um it's going to be called reading rethreads uh and that's that's about it for in terms
of that process but in the meantime we're also always trying to kind of keep an ear to the ground of like acute needs that are coming up um for example last summer we helped with the Saint Vincent Depal food drive so things like that come up and just trying to help match what needs are coming up and how can we
how can we put feelers out to the community to get those needs addressed beautiful thank you so much um I am so deeply grateful to have had the honor of serving this community for the last three years and there's such incredible
generosity and the spirit of collaboration and the way people come together it really is amazing and I must thank Dr tom Milichesky you have a gem you know that but I'm just going to say it you have an absolute gem in your superintendent who is so courageous and wise and strategic and thoughtful and
genuinely kind and it's been a gift to learn alongside you these last three years so thank you and to all of you as was mentioned just for the generosity of time all that you give and do for this community it's been amazing and I've loved working with Teresa Wiggins who is also a lifelong friend um but it's it's
been amazing building the children's cabinet together and building on the strength of collaborative action in this community so I've had the honor of working on the committee to cultivate school and community connectedness and I've really appreciated your support of our approach to lead by listening and so we held uh listening sessions youth
listening sessions with 167 young people in eight different affinity groups at Reading Memorial High School reaching about one in seven students or 15% of the student body i was really encouraged by the strong turnout i mean Rise against cancer girl rising politics clubs the GSA uh students of color for
equity inclusion and justice the captains of sports teams we had 48 captains come uh DECA it was amazing the response the student advisory council i met these two young people brilliant and amazing young people and the turnout 167 young people so we talked about highs
and lows where do students feel connected where do they not feel connected what gets in the way of students feel connected and what would they want to see and I was really encouraged by it because students really want to be in relationships and whether you're in or whether you're out makes a
big difference and so we're looking now at ways to bring students together across the groups the fact that you have these affinity groups meeting during the school day speaks volumes of a school culture that values the whole student so as the for those of us who are at the code switching documentary the barriers
of transportation students can come to these club meetings there's 72 clubs at Reading Memorial High School 90% of young people are involved in a club that's a huge source of strength a young woman in girl rising said what we said what's your advice to other students she said join a club it gives you a support
system to get behind you so what are we doing in terms of next steps our partners at the Reading Coalition for Prevention and and Support and the Reading Office of Equity and Social Justice have been amazing they're going to keep the work going after my residency concludes we're going to hold leadership cafe sessions to bring
students together across affinity groups so that they can come up with their own action plans on how to build a community of belonging the Reading Coalition is generously going to fund mini grants for studentled projects over the summer and then we hope that this will culminate in a youth town hall in um in uh in the
fall so I'm really excited and honored it's been a gift for me to to be here i believe a lot in reciprocity and so returning the gift and I'm glad that the work is going to continue beyond my tenure through these amazing partnerships that you've supported so thank you again and I'm happy to answer any questions i'm sure both of us are
i'm not but you're not I know you're happy i'm just kidding does anyone on the committee have any feedback or questions for Barbara or Teresa i do so Teresa recognizing you
know you mentioned kinks to work out do we have a do you have a like a sense for when expecting rethreads to sort of go into action so I know that they're What's today's date april the 10th um I
need to connect um with um a clergy member who is speaking with their church so I kind of it it's a little bit dependent on what um can kind of come from that team because one of the one of the ideas of children's cabinet is not
that you know we are not um a 501c3 right that can like you know kind of do its own like come up with our own space it's really about bringing all the stakeholders together and someone to raise their hand and say "Oh I've got this part of it." And another person to say "Oh I've got this part." So I'm kind
of we're a little bit waiting on the space to to work out that being said if if if those things happen quickly we we have a bunch of people ready and excited and we have a vision
for it we have a bunch of supplies i don't know hard to say fair enough yeah yeah it it it it could be in a month it could be in four just depending on how the space works out yeah thank you there's a followup um what's the thought
process about the the once per month and is the space um are they going to set up and break down every time or is it going to be a space so if the space that we have in mind works out um and not I'm
not trying to be like elusive with like the the space uh it's just I don't want to speak out of turn if if it's not if it's not but um it it is something that can for the most part stay up and running which is really nice um because there'll be some setup of course like
because we have to sort through donations and etc and lay them out and but for the most part it can be a more or less devoted space to writing rethreads um so the once a month was a starting point um because you know with building a system
you don't want to bite off more than you can chew and so just kind of seeing okay does this time frame work um trying to consider um location being accessible from train if our Boston families could could come but also thinking about how
could we help with access to um the store if you will through other community members that can help shop for families that might not be able to get there but it would be hopefully centrally located and that once a month is really just a starting point it may
stay there or it may grow but we kind of want to test out does that time frame work yeah does that answer your question yeah um one for Barbara as well so Barbara the the um you made a really great point about you know the clubs and sort of how
important it is that kids get engaged in clubs and then thinking about the second piece of of your um of your focus area was you know strategies to help middle schoolers thrive you know we have we have some clubs and some after school activities in middle school but you know not quite the same depth uh or breadth that we do at the high school you know
in your research or or just in your discussions in the community is that something we should be thinking about how do we encourage promote finance you know whatever that looks like you know more of that um does that feel like an unmet need yeah thank you for naming that absolutely i think there is and young people named this as well the need
for more connections in middle school i I was just blown away by the brilliance and the generosity of young people that I mean the 48 sports teams captains they they take very seriously their leadership role and so I added a bonus question looking back to middle school thinking of yourself or a sibling or or
our community what would you recommend and they did recommend more more connections in middle school to prepare young people to be leaders that's what they said um more connections across the two middle schools more connections across grade levels uh they also talked about support and managing anxiety and
developing strong communication skills to prepare students for high school i think what um the reading coalition is doing is amazing the mental health first aid training that's very powerful and students have talked about that knowing her your five people are that you can
call for your unique needs that's very important and so they've done a great job and principal Jess Kalinan's been very supportive a champion of bringing that into high schools so how do we then get that into middle schools and Dr tom Milichesky and Dr sarah Hardy have been great in giving us the opportunity we presented the full listening sessions
findings to the entire district leadership team to all the building leaders to all the principles so they now know and they're thinking about how do we build these connections um but they students also talked about building a culture of empathy starting in elementary school the the gap what gets in the way is an inability to hear and
listen to different viewpoints it's a societal lack of respect and so how do we build that culture of empathy and respect and connections thank you um so thank you both this is incredible the work that you're spearheading here um I'm just curious where does the
children's cabinet go from here that's well that's a good question i'll hunt that over to Tom perfect yes we had we had a conversation about this the other day too uh couple of things I think for both uh pieces of work we'll start with the buck for Teresa's bucket
uh we feel like once we have uh sort of able to get things in motion that feels like that's something that can sustain um something that we feel like for on Barbara's side of the work is we feel like she's done an amazing job building the capacity of people in our district
and in our community to be able to lead this type of work of you know of learning through listening and uh giving a space for students to be able to share their perspectives and and act on them now what we feel like kind of the the connective like the connection between
all this is the leadership they've both shown behind the scenes so we are having a meeting upcoming in the next couple of weeks with all of the organizations represented on the children's cabinet to say in the future we have to do one of two things either one we need people in
this group to step up to say you want to be the leads of the children's cabinet to be the the ones to organize facilitate everything moving forward or can everyone contribute a small amount of money uh to be able to make sure we can pay a facilitator an outside facilitator to continue the work
my guess is people will probably choose the latter um but it the point of a children's cabinet is all of the work to support young people can't fall on schools and time and any sort and resources you know time you know people money so if these organizations who are
involved with us you know part of it is that we all share the responsibilities to do this work together so following that meeting we'll have more uh kind of a clear direction my guess is they'll want to have an outside facilitator sort of like we have you know sort of hired
Teresa and Barbara to lead this work uh so I would then suspect someone to lead the work Teresa's work to still continue through the sort of same structure it is now and a lot of Barbara's work to then fall on coalition office of equity uh and social justice and still continue
members of our team awesome i would hate to see any of this like fall through now that you put so much work into it um Barbara thank you so much you've been such a gift to our district and it's been really a pleasure
getting to know you and I really appreciate everything that you've done um this is what a nice way to cap it off too for you to be able to present here and talk about it so thank you thank you barbara do you mind sharing a little bit about what's just ne future
work for you just sort of what field you're sort of entering into what you'd like to do things like that i'm I'm really passionate about bringing deep listening i was just talking to Carla about this actually uh bringing deep listening compassionate understanding into systems and so there's some professors at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who've been watching
what we what we've been doing and they want to do this and uh like MGH has approached about having peer coaching like 88 people signed up to do peer coaching people really want these deeper relationships and systems so that's what I'm looking to do and uh we're going to finalize that but it very much builds on this work building relationships
building uh deep relationships for work uh across lines of difference and to make a positive impact that's great thank you so much thank you very much please send good vibes on April 17
Thursday and I should have said earlier Barbara's defense so in is part of the uh part of the program her capstone which is called is uh is around a project that she's led in our community uh so her her capstone is all around the
work that is you know outlined here in short in the c you know through the uh through the cabinet um so we are it's really exciting for us that this opportunity ties directly to our community so best of luck on Barbara's last day is May 9th thank you all so
much thank you thank you all right we will turn it over to Sarah Dr hardy um to talk about uh math pathways excellent um I did prepare a memo which is in the packet to give you
some more detailed information i'm just going to hit some of the highlights and then I would love to answer any questions you have um so as you know um one of the tasks that um we continue to work on is ensuring that we have the
strongest math instruction possible for our students we know that um high quality math um education for our students is essential for success in college career and beyond and um also really important for our students to
feel successful in math and um establish a strong math identity and um as we move through our math pathway um students start to sort of differentiate math courses that they might take in reading starting in
seventh grade and um the reason for that is just we want to ensure that um students have access to the math courses that they need that will support them um in their their future goals and their their disposition towards math and so
what we've been working on over the past few years is just to ensure that our pathway has lots of great options for our students um that regardless of where in their middle school or high school career they decide that they really want to take on an extra challenge in math or
that they feel ready for something a little bit different that we have on-ramps for them um and then we also have been working really hard to ensure that for our students that are on the onrade math pathway that they receive exceptional um rigorous math
instruction so this year um one of the ways that we've been working on that we continue to look at our 12th grade math courses for on grade level um we want to make sure that when students get to 12th grade that they have rigorous math
options that will prepare them um for what comes next in the upcoming school year we are making a small shift um in the past we offered a course called financial algebra um and we are putting in place of that a course called advanced algebra with financial
applications um and this course is similar in some ways but it has a more rigorous math application and it also um provides like a deeper um level of uh work around the financial aspect of
things where so in the previous course where students might have been given formulas and just sort of worked through problems the new course actually helps students explore um the meaning behind those formulas and have a much um more in-depth understanding when they leave
the course um another uh adjustment that we've made this year based on um sort of looking at how things went last year we're going to continue to offer um a number of options over the summer that will support our
math pathway one of those are some summer modules for our middle school students and we um we offered that first last year we were happy um to get that launched and received some really helpful feedback from students and families so we've made improvements to
those summer modules probably the biggest one um that I will mention to you this evening is for our rising eighth graders there'll now be sort of two paths in the modules one will be for um students who want to review that seventh grade material so they're ready for eighth grade we hope all of our
students will take advantage of that and then the other um path there will be for students who may want to go from seventh grade math into algebra 1 and eighth grade and that will um not only review but it will teach new material that the students um would have had if they were
in seventh eighth grade math and that will enable them to go ahead and take an assessment at the end of the summer to see if they've moved along enough um to accelerate right at that point again this summer we're going to offer our summer honors geometry course if you remember we launched that last
summer it um avoids students having to double up in math if they want to um accelerate their pathway when they're in high school um we had a really you know great start to that last summer but again got some significant feedback from families and students and from the
teacher of the course so we've made some changes to the logistics they'll still have the same number of in-person days but what we're doing is we're putting some independent work weeks in between we felt like students just needed more time to absorb the material the other thing is that we felt like the summer
course we offered previously didn't have enough algebra embedded in it and our honors um geometry class actually has a good deal of algebra algebra embedded in it um and so to be ready for um honors
uh algebra 2 students really that would benefit from that so that's another shift and another reason we needed the independent weeks um so that course is being developed right now it's going to be taught um by an RMHSS teacher and so
we are excited um to to bring that back um one of the other avenues that we continue to work on each year is to ensure that our teachers of math are receiving strong professional development um elementary you've heard me talk a lot this year about the
learning labs that are in place in middle school um seventh and eighth um we continue to leverage our math coaches to work with our teachers there and this year our high school math teachers had a new professional learning opportunity that was brought in by
um the department head um and this was around the concept of guaranteed learning experiences and this is exciting because it's the first time in my time here in writing that really the math department is working together to say what are the things that we want our students to experience developing some
of that together and then after students go through the experiences coming back together to analyze what was successful um and what changes might we need to make to support students so we feel really good about the work going on there and then the final bucket which I
think is an important one is we continue um to bring forward um what I think is strong communication to parents and guardians um we want them to understand the process understand that while we have sort of a set pathway we also try
as much as possible to embed different ways to go depending on the individual student um and just making sure things are transparent and clear and um sort of take the mystery out of it and make sure that um families understand too that our on-grade level math courses are going to
be rigorous and and very good options for students as well um and so we we continue um to u develop our communication that is something um that will happen each year going forward and um we feel like that has made a
difference in uh our ability to support families and students so those I think are the highlights but if there's anything I didn't talk about that you'd like to hear more about happy to or if you have questions so for the summer modulars for
the or modules for the um middle school students are those entirely self-directed including the ones that aren't just review but also include the new material is there any support available for the students if they are going through you if they say they took
seventh grade math not seventh eth and then they want to jump ahead and get into algebra 1 is it entirely on the student to be able to process and get through those modules independently or are there other support structures in place for that great question yes there will be other supports we that's one of
the things we are still working out last summer we uh we tried a few different things um one of them was having one of our middle school teachers available once a week for a Zoom call okay we had one student come on all summer once so we you know we're going to pivot because that wasn't clearly the right way um but
what we did find last summer is we had a lot of kids that were emailing or messaging through the Google classroom um and so that is something we can support again this summer by we have a couple of middle school math teachers who are willing to do that to sort of be checking in regularly checking in with
students um we also use um an online system that can sort of grade if you will and so students get feedback right away but then some of the more open-ended questions will have staff also who are going on taking a look and giving feedback um so again we're able
to customize it a little bit and trying to work within the constraints of what our students and families are going to access okay thank you go ahead um more just a comment or piece of feedback you know uh we're in the thick of the sixth grade you know math
thing erin I'm sure is as well um you know I don't have any past experience to compare it to but I think the communication around it has been excellent this the sort of stage gauge approach has been really good um it's very clear sort of you know um what's expected of parents what's expected of students um I think it's been great so
so kudos for kind of revamping how that works thank you i really would say our our middle school principles have done an outstanding job um putting together a presentation but then I think also just at each step along the way to inviting families in to know what's happening
I'll just piggyback on that because I I did make that point to Sarah before so I have been through it twice before and it was like night and day um I just regularly felt like we were getting updates on on the stages it was it was
very clear the steps that were going to happen um it allowed me to have those conversations with my child so it was very clear to my son um I just phenomenal um keep keep it up to
here that's great i do have a question um I noticed um so it's wonderful to see that we had some higher numbers in 78 math in the current school year but I noticed that Parker
had 53 students was that in two classes i don't know that answer off the top of my Can I get back to you yeah um you know it's it's wonderful if we are getting more students in it's less wonderful if you have to have 27 kids in
a in a classroom um so it would almost feel like a disadvantage um to those kids so so I' I'd be curious um particularly because hopefully we're maintaining those kind of numbers um and can I pick up on that
question real quick too this also what this is on page 33 of your packet in case you're following along at home too if someone were to ask me are you encouraged to see you know more students in coolage you see the highest percent in the last 5 years of students in 78 math and then a pretty you know higher
number you know relatively high number at Parker as well is that encouraging i would say well let's track how those students are doing over the next couple of years because as we've talked about with the pathways our goal is not just to get more kids in you know algebra earlier our goal is to get them in
algebra earlier if they're ready right and ensure that they're positioned for future success too so I think we are very careful to say like the one metric that we're we're not just looking at to say yes more kids in early you know 78 math success if we're seeing you know because we know that there's a lot of
research on saying you know don't push a kid too early into algebra as well so we need to see how track how these students are doing every year and ensuring that they are truly that this was the right placement for them right so this is not the only metric that we can be looking at to say whether or not these shifts
and pathways are you know what we'd call successful yeah I appreciate you saying that a parent asked me what happens if a student in eighth grade struggles with algebra 1 and I said you know they might very well repeat algebra 1 in high school like that would be an option if they you know really had a tough time
with it i said I don't know what the threshold is but um yeah I think the important thing is that there's there's uh the ability to go up and down and at no point do you have to be locked in a level that that that to me is the the
most important aspect of all of this um one other on that too and we feel when we're talking to teachers and our school leaders that the students were in these classes are ready almost for the right and we feel that sort of the the curriculum now having IM for years a lot of the investments that we've made in
our younger students are going to start to pay off to have more kids who are ready uh so again I want the data to back that up but I also for you know did want to mention too we feel like these are kids who belong here and can be successful here yeah and we have our
first freshman in honors algebra 2 this year right correct two two but still that's new and um so quick question the math lab did they end up finding a better location for that they did not okay yeah so it's still
here in the library okay have students been using it yes students have um I think you know as I mentioned one of the obstacles is um if students don't have a study hall or a free period they don't have access to it um so that's the
challenge with the current setup yeah okay um well as always I really appreciate the efforts that are happening it's it's really phenomenal how much has been implemented in a short amount of time and and the impact that
we're already seeing so I am encouraged by that um and I thank you all right uh last day of school yes do we need any preamble or do you want a motion uh can I give a tiny preamble just to in support of you yeah
so there was a a rumor swirling around today that the vote was a choice by the committee to end on Friday the 13th or Monday June 16th so I just want to have your back to say that this is unfortunately it is a formality that
school committee has to vote on the last day of school we have to have per DESIE regulations 180 days and unfortunately the 180th day falls on Monday June 16th so I am sorry that that's that's the way
that the calendar fell but I just do not want people to be upset to say "Why did the school committee not decide to have Friday as the last day?" I'm sure we would all love that but that's not something that we can do i I think Saturday June 14th might be more popular than this but this is where we are
so I I I wish I called a snow day i don't know if that would have made people feel better i'm sure that's better i don't know so yeah I'll accept a motion okay uh move to approve Monday June 16th is the last day of school for school year 2425 second any further
discussion all in favor okay 5 to zero we have an official last day of school on a Monday till 11:00 a.m sorry everyone okay
um okay so the first scholarship we are voting on is the David Savio Law Enforcement Scholarship um do you want to make a motion sure um move to approve the
expenditure of $2,51 from the David Savio Law Enforcement Scholarship to be provided to one senior in alignment with the scholarship criteria second second seconded by Sarah um any questions
discussion okay all in favor passes five to zero and the next one Sean move to approve the expenditure of $400 from the Arthur L spencer scholarship to be provided to one senior in alignment with
the scholarship criteria second second second by Sarah any uh discussion okay all in favor and that passes 50 all right motion to adjurnn yeah
that's it seconded by Carla all in favor okay will you journ it's your first meeting in under an hour not bad