--------- Good evening. Calling to order the the school committee meeting of the whole December 16th, 2025. Will all rise and split the flag of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We have uh >> Miss Milbury Ellis >> present. >> Miss Rizzo >> here. >> Mr. Sella present. >> Mr. Kajiano present. >> Mr. Kingston >> present.
>> Kelly's here. And school committee elect Damiano is here. >> And Miss Montroso is on the Zoom. >> Misso, how you doing? >> Sorry. >> Can you hear us? >> Yes. >> Great. Yes.
>> So, we have the approval of the minutes. >> And attached. Any questions on the ones? >> No questions on the ones. >> Oh, I do. >> Sure. >> Um, and they're just out of curiosity.
Number 13, number 53. Um, legal fees. if it was anything major. >> It's small money so it shouldn't be major. >> So the reason you're seeing two different entries, the first is for uh
legal services to the district generally and the second is around specifically special education related items. And so we receive a monthly bill based on hours uh provided for those two different types of services. and it's separated by
the um the fund that we're covering those costs from. So, every month you'll see them. They're much lower since we're not collective bargaining this time around. >> Um but that's that's why those bills show up in two places on each monthly.
So, >> we have a couple of ongoing um special education situations that we're dealing with. Um and that's the higher of the two bills, the 6,800 for last month. Uh, and we have a couple of ongoing um staffing issues. There's one new one.
Um, I know the mayor and I spoke this morning that he received a a level three grievance >> um from the teachers today and um his assistant will be responding to that and sharing with all of you that information so that you can schedule a
date to hear that grievance. And then just one other one. What percent of us that transportation increased? Um it looked like it increased a lot. >> Am I wrong or is it my math? Because I
always feel like there's a lot. >> So we we moved to a new contract for the inside runs which wasn't >> a terrible increase. It was it was >> I mean out outside I was thinking >> and then outside we're we've spent we
have spent less money compared to last year so far. We're spent outside homeless going out of the city, homeless coming back to the city and foster care. All four of those are are lower. Uh we haven't done a transportation financial report because it's really Februaryish
when you would want to see that with the winter having hit and what was happening with our um homeless populations. So um the percentages are not troubling the way they had been two and one year ago which triggered some of our of our
conversations around transportation. >> Thank you. >> Can I just give a few other financial >> Sure that would be great. Uh so there's no typically no reports in the month of December. In January, we'll have both uh
the second quarter financial report through the first six months of the year. And I'm hoping to have a food services financials report. So this new the new food services management company. We wanted to give them four months of operations under their belt
before presenting u both financials on dollars and on headcounts and participation. So, I hope to have those two reports for the month of January. Um, we're also uh hoping to schedule an informal um kind of a primer meeting for
existing school committee and any of our new school committee who want to sit down for an hour and just get a refresher on here's our budget process and here's the the budget document and why it has what it has and how it flows. Um so that will help both to get a sense
of timetable. You know the I'm doing dozens of hours of work each week getting things ready but we really don't press into conversation until we see the governor's budget and the desi net school spending
numbers >> and then when we do it's kind of like a slalom and the gates are open and we go. So, I'd like to the first week of January or so sit together and make sure anyone who wants to see the process >> and see the budget document in uh not in
theory, we'll look at the real one, but like here's why these things are here. So then when we start putting real numbers in, it's clearer to everyone what we're actually looking at >> and how it has evolved over the years. Uh >> Mr. Mayor, Jacqueline has her hand up.
>> Okay, Jacqueline. Miss Montrosa. I think that's a really great idea and I would actually encourage it to become a PD for the entire school committee just not new members. So I'm wondering if you're working with Robin to schedule that for all of us or if you need any
support on that. >> Yes. Um I'll work with Robin and Dr. Kelly and we obviously wanted to wait until the holiday season passed but would like to do that before >> February.
>> We're holding on to some real numbers. So sometime in that first couple of weeks of January so we'll get the ball rolling on that. But just wanted to share now the concept behind it so that everyone's a little bit not that you don't know but it's always good to go back over and say okay I see
>> what to expect as I'm reviewing the budget document. I think it would be beneficial to all of us if we can make it. >> Thank you, Matt. It certainly would. Miss Montrosa, did you have anything else? >> Seeing how we can schedule that so that
everyone's schedule fits. And you know this is just and I'm not saying saying just for some of the newer members but for all of us you know this group PD would be great but uh are you able to offer yourself up individually if anyone if a committee member who
needs an hour to spend some time on the budget roll up and how it works and I say that because in group settings sometimes and this is no slight on newer members but um asking questions might be a little bit ner more nervous but having some individual time with you asking
most specific points and questions regarding how you work the budget, what where it goes, why it goes, and how it all makes sense would probably be helpful. >> Yeah, 100%. Okay. Uh we've joked that it's kind of like the matrix that when you first look at it,
>> but then over time as you get a sense for here's the the flow and here's the essential places I'm looking for. We we try to make it as simple as possible. It still ends up being a 200page document necessarily, but as a group it would be good to see the basics and individually
you're totally available to press into any specific places that would be. >> Great. Thank you. Okay. Any questions for Matt? >> Thanks. >> Thank you so much.
>> Um, >> you want me to make up some >> personnel? M. >> Any questions on >> I know um at the beginning of the school year we had a number of professionals
not hired yet. I was just wondering if that number has gone down. >> I believe we're fully staffed. Are you aware of it? >> Close to um let me pull up the exact numbers, but we're pretty close to fully staffed. >> You'll have to pull them up right now. I I believe you
>> there. There is a constant change like you see. So, right now on um this report, we've had uh one part-time para, a BCDA, and a school psychologist recently submit their resignation. So, we'll be in the process of posting those jobs and working to fill them. But, you
know, every month we see those um little fluctuations that we don't anticipate. Typically, things like the leave of absences, we anticipate often those are maternity leaves. Um, and we know about those in advance. So, there's those little pieces that we have to work on.
And one thing that I did um mention, one thing that's not on here, like you see Jamie Sharappa, ELA teacher at the high school, is this his retirement. He's retiring in June. And so I just said to uh folks as we get into that season where people start giving their notices,
we can just note that in parentheses so you all know that they're not retiring right now. It's going to be at the end of the school year. >> Um and they'll do that going forward for um for new people. >> Thank you. This is on a long list. Pretty good.
>> Yeah. And I there's one other resignation that we did receive that I wanted to mention to you and that was um Stuart Noazo who is the Kota at the Susan B. Anthony. Um he has decided to uh move on to uh new adventures. His
family is growing. His wife is expecting their first child and so he's looking to get closer to home and um try something new. >> Do you think we're going to fill that position or are we just going to Yeah, we can talk about it. Okay,
>> that was going to be a question relative to what I was going to ask and just kind of foreshadowing for next year's budget session where we had to make some tough decisions >> if we if we know in advance of some open positions we may decide that we don't want to fill because it'll it'll make
the decision making process easier >> in uh May or June >> probably be be beneficial. Uh and then um just if you can give me Dr. Gluchi, maybe you can give us an update uh on the school nursing um staffing levels
relative to and I know this we're still we still haven't figured out finalized city side desi certified school side but where do you have a rundown of how we how we're looking there? >> I believe we're slightly over 50% now on the school side. >> Right.
>> So we've actually a few years back we were heavier on the city side. And is that is the DESIE not that it's easier, but are they being more lenient on getting these um educators or these these um health care professionals certified? >> They're in the process of changing the regulations for school nurses. They
haven't been approved yet by the board of education, >> but they are working on that. >> Okay. >> Yeah, it'll be helpful, I'm sure. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And that's our challenge is that when we want to hire school nurses and they're not licensed by DESIE, our hands are tied. >> Yeah. And it's just it just makes it tough on management. you know, they're
being managed by someone in a building far far away for all that matters and in a different union and then >> working under different conditions. So, it's just it's confusing for everybody. >> Yeah. >> They've been uh really good at ensuring that the nurse candidates that they
bring in have a BSN, which is often a big hurdle because if you don't have a BSN, you can't get Desi certification. Um, so they're a little they're being a little more purposeful in terms of who they're bringing in for interviews and we've seen the fruits of that because a lot of the the candidates that we hire
have been able to come aboard on the school side >> and BSN for people watching at home is a bachelor's in science for nursing. >> Yeah. I was a BSN project. >> A lot of nurses have a lot of nurses don't have a bachelor's
degree. They licensed to be nurses, right? >> But they don't have a bachelor's degree. And in that scenario, they cannot work for the school district. They cannot get a license from DESIE. Um, so that's a roadblock. And so what Richie's saying is Lauren and her team and the principles have done a good job about
really focusing on candidates that already have that BSN so that we know they're eligible for lensure and then we can work with them to get over those hurdles. >> But when that that passed few years ago, it made no sense then. >> Yeah. >> I mean, someone got somebody's ear to change. >> You ready? That had to be 30 years ago,
my friend. You know, the time flies. We having fun. >> 1974. >> The American Red Cross. >> So, >> all right. >> Hi. Thank you. >> Questions on um on new hires or retirements?
>> No, just happy to see a short list. >> Okay. >> Wow. Acceptance of donations. Um, so we act there's actually two donations here, but one of them is listed formally under acceptance of donations because it's more than $1,000 and that's from the
United Way who actually gave us $160 gift cards to I'm going to now stop >> uh market basket. >> Market basket um that we um you know once the school committee approves them, we'll be giving out to students and families in need in order to use those
for the holidays. uh we are going to give them out um proportionately to student enrollment at each school. So the high school will get a larger chunk because 25% of the kids are up here. Uh Beachmont will get the the least number because it's our smallest school in the district and the rest will be somewhere
in between. >> How do you make how do you um make sure that like the same family doesn't get it twice and per school. Do you know what I mean? >> So the social workers and the principles do work with each other on it. So like if there's one at the high school, >> they they connect with each other and
siblings >> just you can spread spread it out more. >> Correct. Yeah. >> All right. Wonderful. That's great. >> So we're really excited for that. And if you want me to just hit the other one while we're talking about donations, it's down the bottom number five. Uh it's a donation of a piano to the Lincoln School. And this is from Susan
Edelman. Um whose husband we've talked a lot about. I mean whose father we've talked a lot about and the impact that he's had on that Lincoln community. Um but uh he she is working on um dispersing his his personal items um
from the family home and wanted to give the piano to the Lincoln school. Uh Kelly Williams, our fine arts director, went and looked at it and thought it would was great and would be a good resource. Um it's actually going to be in the music teachers room. >> Um and so uh we'd like to proceed with
that. Uh, I asked them to give me the value of the piano so that we could assess whether or not it needed formal school committee approval. And it's under $1,000. So, it does not need your approval, but I thought it would be important to bring here and and talk about and um and share that great
donation that's happening at the lake. >> It was very nice. >> Great. And just in reference to the United Way, we we actually met them two weeks ago. Um due to all of the uncertainty that was happening towards the end of October, early November, they they really stepped up, done a nice job
of getting donations to the United Way and dispersing them to community organizations. Um we haven't gotten the f final tally of the additional resources they've given to areas like the Riviera food pantry u first congregational church uh the Arabic food
pantry all so there but they they stepped it up between the three communities that were creating this food resource program and probably are going to give out an additional $100,000 thinking this may have been uh to the three communities in different pockets
>> but they've been very generous. I just I commend them because a lot of charities take in money and it's very difficult to get it out to people. They're very good at getting um so United Way of Greater Boston has been very good at getting it in and getting it out to people. >> So,
>> Miss Merroso has her hand up. >> How do you disperse it as far as with the gift cards? You know, like uh who's eligible, who's not, how does that all work? the principles and the social workers identify which families are most in need.
>> Uh we wish we could say we could give one to every family in need, but the social workers work very closely with the with the students and know them well. They talk to the health teachers and others who are making observations of of of what might be happening and and figure it out that way.
Miss Montrosa >> grants. I saw that Desi just launched today their grain grant when it comes to green initiatives for construction. And I don't know if it had come across to our death Dr. Kelly if it's something that we could even apply for for the new
high school because they award between $50,000 to $5 million depending on uh the capital project that might qualify. What was the name of that again? >> Green. >> And so whether it's um capital projects
for energy efficiency uh >> green >> a ground source. Yes. Ground source heat pumps like I'll send it over. But whenever we come across things that could help us with one thing I like to just see if eligible >> money.
>> Definitely. We always like money. >> Thank you Jackie. field trips. >> Yep. Field trips. >> Um we have two field trips that are in your packets. Um both of them are field trips that we've done every year for for
quite some time. Um the high school is for the model congress to go to. Um they have program in I think it's Cambridge. Oh no it's Boston I think this year. Um shared in Boston. Nice. Good for them. Um and then the other one is for City
Lab for their students to head over to Hail which they do every year in their sophomore year. Um and it's a nice um team building and confidence building program. I'm sorry. Both of them are um off in the in the
winter time. So, any question? >> And the February one is during school vacation, right? >> Yes, it is. >> Yeah. 19th. >> Diane, on the uh one in Boston, most of it's on the weekend, Saturday and Sunday, but they're providing their own transportation. Accommodations can't be
made to work a shuttle or something for them. Um >> maybe a bus in and a bus back. >> Well, we typically say that the clubs and activities have to arrange for their own
stuff and so if they've arranged I imagine they're taking the tea, >> blue line, >> um students will find transportation to and from the event. So I mean if they asked for transportation, we could look at it. It's typically like
$400 or $500, but I think that you get into a whole every other club wants to have transportation and >> No, I just thought with Sandy and Sunday, I mean, that's we got our own vans or our own buses. So, I think it would cost me four or five.
>> Oh, you Well, I mean, if we could hire a a bus driver, one of our own bus drivers to do it on an overtime rate, we could do something like that. >> Just you know what it's worth. Okay. Any other communications? >> Dr. Kelly's evaluation goals.
>> Um, so I can speak to these a little bit. Um they're all pretty much directly from the district improvement plan um and just tweaked the language a little bit um to address you know what we're hoping to do like on the first student learning
goal. Um the real focus is to increase student achievement by looking at looking carefully collecting the data and looking at what's actually happening in the classrooms. Um the second one uh one of the requirements was that over
the course of the four goals that we touch at least two of the elements in each of the four major standards. So I tried to make sure that I did that as well. Um I will say that I asked Lorenzo and Richie and Danielle to weigh in and um and see what they thought uh what the
primary focus areas should be. Um, so that what the data that I'm showing you as we go forward in the months is related to the school the district improvement plan and the school improvement plans and we're all rowing in one direction. I'm not setting up a whole new set of priorities that would
distract from the other priorities if that makes any sense. I don't know you all had any questions on that. just on the da the data that's provided um the graph that was provided on the attendance I had a hard time following.
>> Oh, you're talking about the codas. >> Yes. Um could you give us numbers and percentages? So >> yes, I can do that. Um one thing I did ask because the agenda is so packed tonight, I actually and because um Stuart is moving on, I actually asked
them to postpone their presentation until January. And um I I did give them a little bit of that feedback exactly what you're saying right now that it wasn't necessarily uh clear and I thought that the school committee's focus wanted to be more on the data and less on the this is what the job
parameters are. So uh I am going to meet with uh James and Allison next week um and work with them on crafting a new presentation that they can give to you in January. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> One of those too is on the advanced course coursework completion. Mhm.
>> On the left side you got the percentage >> and on the right side you got gaps and I'm just okay. >> I wanted some clarification. >> Yeah, I understand that. >> Are we finished with my goals? Is that all good? >> Yeah. >> Um so I wanted to share um Mr. Kingston
had asked for an update on AP I think two months ago. And so I wanted to share um the update on not only AP but also where we are with advanced coursework because they kind of go hand inand. And so I want to first explain what advanced
coursework is. It's one of the metrics that DESIE uses in our accountability rating. They look at what percentage of our students are completing advanced coursework before they graduate. And um they define advanced coursework as
anything AP um anything dual enrollment anything early college and then they've identified certain what they consider to be advanced courses like um calculus even if it's not AP um physics even if
it's not AP um and a handful of other courses that they identify. And if a if a student completes at least one course in any of those areas, we get a tick mark for our advanced coursework. If the student graduates without ever doing any
of that stuff, um we don't get a tick we don't we don't get credit for that. I'll put it that way. >> So these are completion. They've taken the course they've completed and passed >> and passed. They have to pass. Yep. So and the same thing with the APs. they have to pass the AP test in order to get
that advanced coursework credit. So, I'm going to start with the AP sheet, which is the one with less data on it. >> Um, and I'll take you through that. And, as you know, one of the things that I've um been trying to monitor as we progress
is what happens when we go back to tracking and having honors classes. How does that impact all of these things? So for AP um I was also thinking about so the first thing I saw was that we have a big decline in the uh number of kids taking
AP and in the number of exams that they're taking and I wanted to actually look at our full school enrollment because I also knew our enrollment had gone down and I'm thinking well if enrollment's down we should expect AP to be down. >> Um so I just wanted to compare that data for you. So in the first couple of
columns um it gives our total high school enrollment. Um so in 20 2021 school year we had 19 1,978 kids. The year after that we're up to 1996.
And you can see that we continued to increase until last year we hit our peak at 2,115. And now this year right now we're down at 1,959. And I just looked at the number changes and then the percent changes just to
give us that kind of data. So >> from last year, our high school enrollment is down over 7%. >> In the next section, you see the number of students enrolled in one or more AP class
and you can see if we go back to 2021 school year, that number was 242 and that number went up the next year to 321 and it continued to go up. Um then it started to then it was kind of stable I would say it and started to go down and now this year we're down to 329
kids. Um so you can look at the changes over the years the increases and decreases. Um we're our enrollment now is down almost 10% over last year. Uh which is a little bit worrying.
Um, and then in the next block of columns, you can see the number of total AP exams taken because some kids will be enrolled in two or three APs at the same time. And so again, if we go back to the 2021
school year, there were only 362 exams taken. As we worked to engage more kids in advanced coursework, we see those numbers go up. Um and then now again they're going down which we would expect because there's fewer kids taking AP this year. We of course don't know
what the outcome is yet. Um we anticipate all of them will take their AP exams because we require that they do. There will be a handful of kids who will end up being having extenuing >> extenduating >> extenduating circumstances that will prevent that. But uh for the most part
we expect that to carry through and then we'll see what what their what their results are. But um our results last year were great. We had our highest passing rate um so far at 62% which is really good.
Um I'll say that the dip that we had in percent passing in the 22 23 school year when we were down at just 43% passing, there were two classes in particular that had really low pass rates. One of them was the AP physics and one of them was the AP US government. Um,
>> where do you see the 43%. >> If you go um if you look under AP exam pass rate, do you see the section I'm in on the right? >> Yep. Oh, I see it right there. Okay, 43. That's percentage. Okay, >> that's percentage. Sorry. >> Okay, no worries. >> Yeah, it's not clear. >> That's right. It says total. It should say percent.
>> No worries. >> Um, >> okay. I see. That's what my question was going to be is how can we tell how many students how many students start out with AP and then end up dropping it or don't complete it. I don't have that data here, but I it it's very few. >> Okay.
>> Very few. >> Um the reason I had asked for it is because when we were going over the MCAT scores, they had dropped and we felt well it was believed and I think proven that because the exam didn't um relate to graduating that it wasn't
>> I don't want to say maybe it wasn't taken as seriously as it had been in the past. So if the AP scores um came back well that meant that you know we were still doing Yeah. things were still happening in a positive direction. You look at just MCAST people on the street say oh and I you know I try to explain
to people that I spoke to that look it was because it doesn't you know it doesn't affect graduating anymore and it's hard to get people to take a test seriously if it doesn't have any real impact in their life. So but this will to me this data shows that you know the things are still things are >> yeah very positive result
>> which is why I asked her because I was just curious because if this wasn't good as well then that tells you something but this is still good. So the you know the the the folks that students that are kind of taking it seriously I guess for lack of a better words um they're doing well and I think that's important. >> And how do the honors classes roll into
this? I know that these are AP numbers but can we maybe is it possible that maybe some of the kids are just choosing to take instead of >> courses instead of AP? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think that's definitely part of it. or kids who maybe were um when we
didn't have the honors might have taken two or three APs are choosing only to take one. Do you know what I mean? So that definitely is could be a piece of that. We have to interview the kids and see if we can try to figure out what exactly is happening that's happening. >> Um
>> population's down a ton. So that that's going through >> it is. Yeah. Although we're I mean the total high school enrollment is down 7.3% but our AP enrollment is down 9.6%. Almost 10. So it's a little more than we
would want to see it we want set up but >> yeah and one of the things that I'm going to um that I am going to share is an idea that we have to try to help boost that. And um I'll get to that in just a minute. >> You're going to pay them. Um, well, there's two new AP courses that I want
to introduce and um, I'll tell you more about those in a minute, but let me just go over the advanced coursework uh, piece. This is the second page that's a little bit more dense. I'd say there's a lot more data there. >> Um,
and so on this sheet um, I am reporting to you um, the percent of kids who are earning that advanced coursework check mark like I was saying. So, they are successfully passing an AP class or a
dual enrollment or an early college or physics or calculus, some advanced um subject area that DESIE has identified as counts as an advanced coursework. And you can see if we go back to 2018 when we first started looking at this data,
our percentages down that first column, 68% of our students overall were completing some kind of advanced coursework before they graduated. Our high needs kids that fell to 54.5%.
Low income was at 58.9. E was really low at 14%. students with disabilities was at 30%. Um, African-American black students 68.6% relatively high. Um, and Hispanic
Latino, uh, 59% and our white students were 81.2. So, you follow how I'm reading that. >> Um, and then you can see our rates over the years as we continued to go. Um,
and the years that we were detracted were from 2020 until 2024. And then we went back to tracking in 2025. And so just to follow those trends, what we saw on the left hand of the table, if you look across now for
all students, we saw a huge uptick in how many were completing advanced coursework. We went from that 68.4% 4% up to 73 to 76 to 79 to 81 down to 77 down to 71 and now we're down to 70 for
the high needs. Again, we saw those upticks up to the high 70s and now dropping off back down to 64%. For our low income, we ticked up to the high 70s again and now we're starting to
come down again. um EL and former EL we ticked up all the way up to 64% which isn't great but it's a heck of a lot better than 14%. Um and now we're back down to 39%. Students with disabilities is a bright spot. They're higher in 2025 than they
ever were um >> because of the resources that we've >> I think the resources is a huge piece of it now that we're scaffolding for kids in real time. They're able to access more rigorous >> um coursework. Um and and you can see
the rest of the data there. The column 2025 and I think this is really a bright spot too. If you just compare that to the column to its left, that's the state overall percentage in advanced coursework compared to our own. So in
the state for all students, 68.8% of kids completed an advanced coursework or got that credential. In rever we were at 70.7. And if you look down those two columns, you'll see that we beat the state every single time.
>> So, we have more students overall. We have more high need students, more socially, more low-inccome students. We have more e students. We have more students with disabilities, uh more Hispanic, Latino students, more white students, and more African-American and black students than than the state
average participating in advanced course work. And I think that's a really important high note to point out. >> Dr. Philly, >> how do we u generate demographics regarding income? I I we don't do like a a form for the lunch program anymore.
Where do you get that? Where does that information come from? >> So um 99% of it comes from the state. They identify families um through their participation in different state agencies like the SNAP program or um uh
Medicare Medicaid whatever all of all of those different programs. So if a student is already or the family is already engaged in some social services program um they're notified there. But we do still work to collect forms from
families who for a variety of different reasons are not engaged with state agencies. In fact, so we we collect those forms. We work with the families to do that. And Desi comes in and audits them to make sure we're not uh making things up to boost our numbers. Um
they're coming this week to do the audit with uh Jamie Flynn who's our data person. >> Um and they'll look at that, but that's how students are identified. >> Okay, great. um to the right of that line and I think Anthony this is to speak to your question. Um the state part of our
accountability system is looking at the gaps between our highest performing student groups and our lowest performing student groups or other student groups. And so what you see to the right of that line that gives the state data is the
gap. So in 2019 um and for us our highest performing student group across the board has been our white students. Um if you look if you look up and down the columns you'll see like if I go back to 2018.2%
of our white students were participating in advanced coursework. That's higher than any of the other demographics above it. Do you see that? If you go even to 2025, 83.5% of our white students were participating in advanced course work, which is higher than all of the students in the
subgroups above that. So what you see on the right hand of the line is the gap by year. And one of the things that I do want to point out is when we saw those increasing participation rates, not only were more kids participating in advanced coursework, more kids from different
demographics were participating in advanced coursework. So for example with our high need stu our high need students that gap in 2019 was 24.4 points which means 24% fewer of our high need
students were participating in advanced course work than our white students. >> Could you say that one more time? >> There were 24% fewer of our highnee students participating in advanced coursework compared to our white
students. And as we increased our participation across the board, you see that gap go down. So in 2020, that same gap was only 17.9 points. Then it went down to 10.6.
>> Does the does the um enrollment does the the enrollment numbers for each demographic where those have significantly changed as well over the last several years? Does that come into play? It wouldn't change. That's why we're looking at percentage of participation, right? So no matter how
many students we have in each category, we're looking at how many out of that total are participating. >> How many out of that total participating? I got you. >> Okay. >> Mhm. So, um you can see that we did some good good
work closing those gaps um over the last several years, but now this year in 2025, we see a big jump in those gaps. >> And that's something that we should watch >> as a school department and as a committee. And it's one of the things
that I want to focus on changing in the next school year. And that's going to bring me into my AP discussion. But before I get to that, back into our AP discussion, is there anything on here that you want me to anything else on here that you have questions on?
>> No, it's clear. >> Okay. So, what I see in this data is that a lot of our students um who are typically marginalized are starting to pull away from the AP. And it's something that we
had talked about um when we had our whole conversation about tracking that one of the negative affects of tracking is that kids understand that to be a message that I'm not able I'm not capable because I wasn't picked for the honors and that has lasting impacts on
kids and I think if we just let this go we would cons continue to see this trend but there are two new advanced placement cla courses that are coming out next year. One is called AP Business and the other one is AP Cyber Security.
They're full-fledged AP classes. If the kids take them and get a three, four, or five on the exam, they still get college credit. Um, at most of the colleges and universities across the co the country, just like other APs do, but they don't require a whole lot of advanced
knowledge to take. So even like the AP business, you don't have to have completed advanced algebra to take AP business. And the same thing with the cyber security. And so I've talked to Chris and Caitlyn. Chris and Caitlyn. Oh, I'm not flash. Sorry, Shay. Chris
and Shay at the high school. And we would like to introduce these two courses next year. And we would specifically like to focus on kids who might be thinking AP is not for me or I can't do AP and really engage them in those classes maybe in their sophomore
year so that we can help them understand you know what maybe I am an AP student maybe I can try AP government or AP statistics or you know whatever the case may be and we're looking at making these become part of the pathways as you know
when we open the new high school we want to go in there with five career pathways. One of them being we've been calling it hospitality, but we're talking about um teaching kids how to run the front end of a house because we can't repeat what's happening at Northeast Vogue. We're not going to do a culinary program, but we were thinking
that maybe we um think of that more in terms of business and hospitality, how to run a business. And so the AP business course would be good for any kid who has that kind of entrepreneurial spirit and wants to start a business for themselves after school after they got
out get out of high school. >> Um the AP business course includes a whole unit on financial literacy which when we get to the main meeting and I talk about the governor's new graduation requirements that they're putting forward, financial literacy is going to be one of the requirements. So
it meets that need as well. The AP cyber cyber security fits right into our robotics pathway where those kids who are going to be on a pathway learning about robotics and programming and all of that are going to need to understand cyber security in order to be able to
build their robots and you know all of all of that kind of other stuff. So, we are hoping um I'm hoping that one of the things that you're going to see when we get to budget time is that I want to allocate some funding to make sure we can pay teachers to get trained to teach these
AP classes, that we can implement them next year, that we can entice more kids to take the AP classes. Um, which does huge dividends to them. Um, but also would help us in our accountability
uh measures as well. And that's nice. >> I think it's a great idea. Dr. Kelly, I was just up at Essex Tech for a financial literacy um event up there and talking to the students. Um Essex Tech has a cyber security major. So the kids
at Essex Tech take cyber security as one of their uh that's their shop. >> So instead of carpenter electric or whatever, they're taking cyber security. So I think that's great. So thank you. >> We can offer it right here ourselves. >> Yes. All right. I think it's great. Cool. It doesn't go out.
Okay, >> good for me. >> Let's see if uh we got the donation already. Thank you. And um any other items anyone wishes to discuss? >> Um I have a question. Can you just
explain briefly explain these new requirements that the state's proposing? I'm I'm getting like little snippets of it, but I really don't >> Yeah, I have a full presentation for the uh regular school committee because I want families to hear them hear it, too. >> Okay. And is this something we can vote
on or is it mandatory? >> It's going to be mandatory. It's not quite finalized yet. This is their interim report. Um they'll be releasing their final report in June. Um I was at a meeting with the commissioner and the
two deputy commissioners on um Thursday was it when was the other meeting? I forget one day last week. Uh and they assured us that their seven um priority areas which I'm going to be talking about tonight are are
pretty much indelible. >> Okay. And then my last question was are there do we offer any AI courses? >> No. Um >> that might be something we want to talk about. That seems I mean that's clearly the future. >> Get students interested in
>> maybe an after school um club >> club or something. Should touch upon it somewhere. >> Yeah. >> So >> I'm sure they're using it too. >> Sadly. Okay, you can tell
>> I just want to go back to um we had spoken about how we have three new members. They have to go the charting of the course route. Um I've gone 16 times. I learn something every single time I learn. Yes, I'm slow, but I still learn
and it's a nice way to meet your peers among the state. So, >> hi. Um the next one, the closest one to us this year is in Quinsey January 24th. So if any of the new ones wanted to go and any
of us that wants to join them, it's a great eight hour course. Um, and if not, if we can maybe sit as a group and decide if we can have MASC come in and at least touch base with a couple of
courses that they offer. So, it helps you get off to a better start than just listening to us talk. >> It helps. And it's great to meet other peers from other places because you see
how things are done and it's not just made up here. So >> I think John and I were lucky. We had ours was at Everett High. >> We had high. We did the two years in high and then so some of the people in this division we're division two. They
didn't want to keep coming over onto this side. Um but if they can go in January that's great. If not, we can have someone come in and pick maybe three or four items from the list that we have to take. It's an eight hour course and it's mandated by the state.
So, if that's not the case, we'll try to come up with a couple courses and do one together >> and Diane will offer us lunch. >> Absolutely. I'll make it myself. >> Can't afford anything around here. The cafeteria.
Maybe one of those small apples. >> Will I start? Are we ajourn? Do you want to >> Are we good? Part: 2
Good evening. Calling to order the Revas school committee meeting of December 16th, 2025. We'll all rise and salute the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation
indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Gluchi, would you call roll? >> Mrs. Bronson Rizzo >> here. >> Mr. Kajiano >> here. >> Mr. Kingston >> here. >> Mrs. Milellis >> present. >> Miss Montto Rosso.
>> Let me just check. Hold on for one second. I'm just making sure that Miss Montroso is able to hear us on the Zoom. >> Jackie, can you hear me? >> Can you hear me, Miss Montroso?
>> I don't think so. I love technology and I hate technology. >> She is. >> I will say the last time I had to do it, I couldn't reply. I could hear everyone but I couldn't reply. >> Paul Jackie said she can't hear me and I
can't hear her. >> Her microphone is off right now. Is off right now. So, she needs to >> Jackie, can you hear me? >> Check your audio button down there. >> Can't hear you, but I can read your lips. >> Okay. >> Perhaps you have to unmute.
>> I can't cuz that gives a reverb. >> Oh, I I get it. There's echo. >> Yeah, >> I'll just wait until you all figure it out. Thank you. >> Is someone else on that can mute? Turn off that microphone. Try it out.
>> Can you hear me now, Jackie? >> Yes. This is great. Thank you. >> Perfect. See that? >> Persistence always wins. >> Wonderful. We're all here. >> Miss Montteroso >> present. [laughter] >> Mr. Sella >> present.
>> Mayor Keefe >> here. We have a quorum. Okay. Recognition. Oh, we have good recognition but sad recognition.
I wanted to um again commend and thank uh our good friend, school committee member Fred Sella uh for his service to our community and multiple years of service to the school committee and of course our district in many different roles.
I know that you're you said you were only 30 years old earlier. >> Well, IQ wise. No, I don't think so. >> Um, and I know that you've served with honor and and distinguished um service to the community. You've always done
what's felt right in your heart. Uh, you've probably been right a heck of a lot more times than you've been wrong, but I think that we all uh do the same. We we um we vote with conviction. We serve with what we feel is the best needs of our community, what represents us, what represents our families, and
you've done just that. You've been an honorable gentleman to serve with. uh always respectful of your word and uh I' I've enjoyed learning from you and I know that some of the other committee members have as well and I'm not sure if they have some some offerings as well tonight but I just wanted to say thank you very much for myself and the school
committee. >> Thank you. [applause] >> So Frederick with two N's and two L's. Um, I've had the honor to learn from you. Um, watching your achievements, your contributions, and last an impact on the
River Public Schools. I'm not old enough to remember when you were in elementary school teaching. I'm sorry. Um, and I am so upset right now that you have made me the oldest person on this committee now.
So although I'll miss you here, um I say congratulations. And you know what? Three times is a charm. He doesn't go away. He always comes back. So you never know what next year brings. Thank you, Fred, for everything. [snorts]
>> Freddy, I would just like to say that it's been an honor serving with you. You've been always somebody that we could go to if we needed to know the historical context of most issues from where they started to how things came to be, which has always been wonderful.
You've been a true gentleman. Um, always a pleasure and respectful and I've really enjoyed working with you and I will miss working with you. >> Thank you, >> Freddy. Even though I didn't know you before I started serving with you, I
really enjoyed our time together and I've learned a lot from you and I thank you for that. [clears throat] >> And I know Miss Montroso, you had some words. >> Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Can you hear me? >> Yes.
>> I just want to say I haven't had many seatmates to my left. Um, Mr. Samoa, I've definitely enjoyed you as being my favorites. It's been great to just learn from you. Like Mr. Kiano said, I I didn't know you when I came in, but you've become such a a trusted colleague
and someone that I have confided in so much. So, I look forward to being able to work with you in other ways, and I hope you can enjoy the time back to your beginning. But it's you will be missed. Um, and it's been a great joy to have
you also as a mentor and a colleague. >> And Mr. Snell, I don't know if you had any u offerings to the crowd. I'd love to hear them. >> Words of wisdom. >> That's that's debatable. I guess [laughter] we could we could take a survey on that one. But it has been my
privilege not only as a classroom teacher, as an administrator, but serving citywide. And example was uh the concert that St. Anony's had. We started that 50 years ago. I mean, time flies, but it's just it's all part of progress.
Um, we like to think we do the right thing, but again, what's right now is probably not right then. And that's one thing the school department has shown through leadership and through uh personnel that were apt to take advice
without hindrance. Um, old-timers like myself, change is hard sometimes. you know, you you can't see the end of it. But working with younger people has been a benefit to me because there are other ways of doing it. And for that, I am
truly grateful and it's it's something that by being of service to each other, it kind of weans a little bit. Uh people are getting wrapped up more and more into themselves. a little more togetherness I think would be
beneficial. >> Um the superintendent and I've worked through quite a few of them good, bad or indifferent. Um you you you sense it, you feel it. It it it's it's not rhetoric. And I think this is the step
in the right direction. Ree is not the rever I knew growing up. It's not the rever I knew in my professional career. It's not the rever yesterday. It's rever tomorrow. And together we will all pull together. And I am grateful for the
opportunity and having the time to do so. Again, thank you everybody. Thank you. [applause] [applause] Uh, and just also to note, we have uh, school committeeman elect Steven Damiano and school committeeman-elect Alex
Rolini in the uh, audience this evening as well. Uh, we'll see you next next month up in the dis. Uh and if I can just offer one a little again on a little bit of a somber note, I think that um as a committee we all want to
condemn the violent acts that um bestowed this world uh the last few days uh regarding the tragedy at the Brown University and Bondi Beach in Australia. Um, you know, I think that the world is all asking a lot of questions as to the wise, but I know that um, we our our
hearts and prayers are with the families and people that were impacted and like Mr. Sella said, you know, we just need to continue to be better people and to uh, seek to understand a little bit more um, and in in hopes that we'll have a more peaceful world. So, if we can just
take a moment of silence. >> Thank you, >> Mr. P. >> Mzo, >> just one more recognition. Um, I want to go back on good notes. I just want to say, um, congratulations to our 2025
graduate, Ethan Day. Um although his accomplishment was last year, this week um they raised a flag with his name on it. Um he's done the boys basketball. Um he's on the honorable banner now that
hangs up in the gym for 1,000 points. He is um up there with S Baratt from 86 87 and Trey Weathers who's like a second son to me and he was in 2010 2011. So
thank you Ethan for allowing us to applaud for you. Thank you. Okay, we have a quest uh consent uh approve the consent calendar. >> Motion to approve the consent calendar. >> Second. >> Roll call, please.
>> Mrs. Bronson Rizzo, >> yes. >> Mr. Kajiano, >> yes. >> Mr. Kingston, >> yes. >> Mrs. Milellis, >> yes. >> Miss Montoo, >> yes. >> Mr. Sella, >> yes. >> Mayor Keefe, >> yes.
Next up, we have the student representative report. >> Should be coming right up. There you go. >> Okay. Good evening everyone. This is the student rep report for this month. As always, we're in accordance with the Massachusetts General Law.
This month in New England Sport Network, six RHS students had the opportunity to tour the NESN studios in Watertown. >> [snorts] >> They were able to go backstage during the Bruins pre-show, tour the audio and visual production booths and met with NESN executives and even stood on set
during a live broadcast. It was an incredible behind-the-scenes experience for students. Middle school Power of Note Club. The GMSP club led by Miss Greco organized a middle school food drive with participation from all three grades. They collected over 400 lb of
food for a local pantry. Donating students earned a dress down day and the project was a great success. The RMA PK club led by Mrs. Gendro has 13 sixth grade members focused on leadership and service. A highly successful food drive led to the RMA food pantry with ongoing
donations and end of the year contributions to the River Food Pantry. Dr. Bob will reward the grade with the most donations. Students also painted tulips in the RHS courtyard with support from P district lead Joe Foley. Equity
Officer. A big shout out to our RHS principal, Mr. Bowen, for supporting student voices and helping to establish the equity officer role. The equity officer ensures that student council decisions, events, and communications reflect the values of equity, inclusion, and cultural responsiveness. Each equity
officer also serves as a student representative on the district equity team. One key responsibility of the equity officer is to seek out and center marginalized voices in decision-m. We also want to thank Dr. Garcia, Miss Montteroso, and our alumni Francojo for
their support in this role. For grade 10, we have Nielli Sha. Grade 11 is Isabelle Londono, and grade 12 is me, Julia Figueroa. [snorts] Um, Project 351. Each year, middle schools across Massachusetts
select one eighth grader to present their school in Project 351, a nonprofit organization that develops community-minded young leaders through service learning, community building, and valuebased leadership training. These students are chosen for their kindness, compassion, and leadership
potential. Teachers shared that choosing among so many exceptional eighth graders in RPS was difficult, and they are excited to see how these ambassadors will contribute to our community throughout the year. Meet our project 351 ambassadors for SBA. We have Ariana
Almeida, RMA Aubrey Buringi, and GMS my sister Jamea Figuroa. Sports roundup. The RHS unified basketball team had a winning fall season. RHS track has begun and we just had our first meet last Friday against
Ling Classical. RHS varsity basketball had their first game last Friday and another game today. RHS club report speech and debate. Speech and debate is excited to participate in the annual Holly tournament, the biggest competition of the year with the new team ready to
showcase their wellpracticed events. Model United Nations model UN held an in-house conference on December 13th to kick off the season, especially for the students new to the club. Continuing the RHS club report is Lasso. This month, Lasso continued its weekly events.
Students actively participated in community building slime activity. They also had a career visit from SSG Malden Marin where they gained insights into various career opportunities. And for the welcome club on Tuesday, December 4th, the High Five News team visited the
school to interview the welcoming club, filmed their activities, and tore the campus. The visit ended with the signature high five finale. Deck the Halls. The senior class of 2026 will host the second annual Deck the Halls event this Thursday, December 18th. This magical evening will feature interactive
activities as the halls of RHS are transformed into winter wonderland. Guests will also have an opportunity to take a photo with Santa. All are welcome to attend and I hope to see you guys there. That's it for me tonight. Thank you. >> Great job.
>> So, Julia, have you have you uh got any um college updates yet for us? >> Um waiting. >> Okay. We we expect news in January or February? >> January. >> Okay. Yeah, we we look forward to hearing from you. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thank you.
[clears throat] >> And I know that we're before we go into public speak, I did um we have a department head from uh city hall that's presenting to us tonight this evening and he has a little bit of a time constraint. So we're going to ask that he be moved up if he can. U so if we can
take out of order the neighborhood middle school locations from Tom Scarski to present to us. >> Motion to accept the board though. >> Thank you very much. All All in favor? >> Okay, >> take it away.
>> Okay, good evening everybody and thank you for the leeway. I'm Tom Scrosk. I'm the chief of planning and community development for the city. Um and I have been working uh with the metropolitan area planning council MAPC over the last few months looking at different options
for um moving from the lotterybased middle school model to one that is more neighborhood schoolsbased to make sure that kids um have opportunities to have school right in their neighborhood not miles away. So, um, what we're going to
do today is just take a look at, uh, the initial findings, the three options that we've come up with, um, talk a little bit about some of the data, and then what the next steps are. Um, next slide, please. >> Do you have any more handouts?
>> I'm I'm working on it right now. Pass these out. So, I also underestimated the amount of people that were here. Um, we can share. >> I'm not at school committee very often. and usually city council. So, I do have some extra copies here. Everyone should be able to have a copy if they need one.
Um, so >> you want to share with me? >> I'll wait till everyone's got what they need. >> Unless you want to leave that with me. >> It's okay. >> Most of the committee members should have one by now. Like maybe one. >> So, could you
>> could I just give a little a little bit of a background? >> Yeah. Okay. So, uh just to remind the community that um the school committee after um the lottery last year wanted us to take a look at is there a feasible way to develop a program where we have
neighborhood middle schools um so that we could eliminate the lottery and take that headache away from the kids and the families. Um you know, all of that anxiety that builds from February till April. Uh, is there a way that we can
get away from that and maybe have a neighborhood middle school program and um in doing so still ensure that we have uh equality across all of our schools and that we have uh equal levels of uh
different demographics for students with higher needs um and students that are English learners um students that might uh not speak English as their first language uh and all of the other different kinds of demographics that we look at and want to make sure that we
are inclusive and everybody has an opportunity to um experience the best the best of everything that they need in their education. Um so that's what led us to Tom who I have to say has been an unbelievable partner and I thank you so much Tom for everything that you've
done. He's taken all of the data on all of our students in the entire district and looked at what these uh neighborhoods might look like and this is in addition to his day job. So he does have a full-time job that he does otherwise other than uh do special
projects for us. So we really do appreciate that. Um >> and so that's why we're here tonight and he's going to share with us what he has found in his data analysis. >> Great. Thank you, Superintendent Kelly. Um, and could we pull back the slides up
so I can remember what I'm talking about here? And Robin, if it' be possible, one of the packets I actually need to review as well. Thank you. Oh, >> Paul, can you share the slide? Oh, there we go.
>> And could you go back one, please? Oh, all right. >> Never mind. Go ahead. Um, so we looked at three potential options working with the metropolitan area planning council on a mapping analysis and basically we provided them with all of the student
enrollment data that was anonymized to protect student identities and actually they went ahead and anonymized it even further by slightly adjusting um student locations in all directions just to make sure that you know they were preserving
that confidential information. But um we worked with them and looked at um mapping the students. We started off um looking at specific census blocks. That was that's kind of the smallest form of geographic measurement we have. Um so we looked at the census blocks that were
closest to schools um by you know as the crow flies but also by walking. Um and then we made adjustments to equally distribute the student body amongst the three schools. Um, and then focused on natural boundaries where we had to do that. So, uh, we looked at things like
railroads, major roads, wards, places that, you know, you just look at a map and if you know river, you know, feel like a neighborhood and areas we wouldn't necessarily want to separate unless we had to. Um that doesn't mean that it it was, you know, perfect what we did with our three different options that we'll present to you tonight, but
we did our best to to preserve neighborhoods as we were um making these switches, but then doing so in a way that ensured students could be closer to um the schools that were most approximate to them. Next slide, please.
And on average, um, amongst the three options we've looked at, it doubles the amount of students that are living within a mile of their school. Um, on average, it significantly reduces the amount of students over 2 miles from their school. So, just as an example, today in the lotterybased system, um,
[snorts] 442 middle school students, um, live more than 2 miles from their school. Um, in each of the three examples that we've modeled, it's now less than 100. Um so a significant number of kids can um be quite a bit closer to their schools. Um the one
important note is that the data that you're seeing today is preliminary. Um and that's preliminary because MAPC they did move things around just I think it's like five or 600 feet in different directions um with each specific data point. Now, it's our job, and this will
be my next step, is making sure that the districts we created are actually um 100% accurate and reflect what you see on paper. So, everything on paper is preliminary, but I think it gives us a good sense of where we're headed here and and I think I feel pretty optimistic about the direction we're going.
So, um just to briefly go over the three um options and and it's understandably hard to see here and and we'll we'll have an opportunity to look at this in more detail and I know you all have packets in front of you as well. Um what you see in that red maroonish color is
um the neighborhoods that would be zoned for this Susan B. Anthony School. [snorts] Um what you see in the blue is Romney Marsh Academy and what you see in green would be the Garfield School. And you can just go to the next slide and I'll take specific questions as we
go later, but you can Oh, um, sorry. If you want to go >> I didn't know if you were going to do the data. >> Um, I am. Yeah. So, then just see briefly this is option one, then option two. So, you can see some slight changes but more or less the same. And then option
three. So you can see within each of them, we just kind of made adjustments at the margins. And we just wanted to look at different opportunities to keep people close but also balance out some of the equity and demographic um sensitivities that we are trying to be mindful of. Um
so those are the three options in brief. Again, you have them on your papers. Happy to answer any specific questions about them. Um and then what the data shows us um in in the next slide. Um, so in blue, um, those are, and actually I'll read the three categories on the bottom because I'm realizing they're
pretty small. So furthest to the left would be students that are less than a mile from their school. Um, the next category is students that are between a mile and a half a mile. Um, the third is between a half mile and 2 miles. And then the fourth is those that are
greater than 2 miles from from their uh, school. So what you see in blue is um students that are currently in that category. So you can act you can see just what I said. We effectively double the number of kids who will be less than a mile from their school. Um the bulk of
the kids not in that category fall into the next one. Those that are within a mile, a mile and a half. And then there's really only a few students that are further than that. Um it's a marginal number that I cannot even read. It's so small. Um between a half mile and two miles. and then
>> and then the last one is I think five kids that have been added um that are over two miles. So for the most part we um were able to really get kids in those first two categories so they have a much more walkable bikable experience if they choose. Um option two is is much of the
same just really marginal differences here. Um and then option three similarly and I think that is the one that is is the most walkable um has the most proportion of kids less than a mile from from their school. Um, and then the the
other data that we we have again is in much more detail in the packets in front of you and happy to talk about them, but just to give you a sense of what we're talking about. Um, we we first looked at enrollment to make sure we had an even even enough distribution between the three schools. It was never going to be
perfect. um you know a third in each but um we tried to have an even distribution but then also using student data from our elementary school populations we projected out for the next three school years as well. Um just you know based off of you know next year we looked at
who's in fifth, sixth and seventh grade and so on and so forth. Um, and you'll see it within that that there's slight variations over time, just like there always is when you have a neighbor neighborhood based school model. And um, but for the most part, it kept it within
a a fair distribution of students within each of the three middle schools. Um, next slide, please. And then we did a demographics comparison that um has a proportional um percentage of data on English language
learners, ELLs, students with 504s and IEP plans um first language not English um and then students from lowincome families. So um proportional data in that we took that whole population of students. So you know the ELLL students
we take that whole group and then looked at in a perfect scenario it would be 33% distributed amongst the three schools. Um you'll see in each of each of the um scenarios how the proportions actually played out. But that that was the goal with the demographic comparisons there
just to make sure we are again sort of equitably um and fairly distributing these um characteristics while you know not overloading one school with any particular um circumstance. Next slide please. And then we also did
a demographics comparison. And I think I mentioned to you at um the last school committee meeting, there have been instances um in other school districts across the country where um you know doing a neighborhood based school model can really lead to some in inequitable outcomes particularly um with regard to
race and ethnicity and and it can um make a school district, you know, liable for uh civil rights violations and so forth. So we really wanted to make sure that we were keeping things on par with the district average. Um, so we also looked at just race, race and ethnicity.
Um, for sake of simplicity on the the charts you have is just broken up into white and non-white, but we have more details and we will provide that in the future. But what what it showed amongst all three of our comparisons is they're more or less on par with the district average. So we have schools that look
like our neighborhoods that look like our city, which is a good thing um, in any of those three options. and happy to talk in more details about the the data once once I'm done here. And this is my last slide. So, um our next steps are to conduct a detailed review of the numbers to correct for any
data adjustments after um MAPC hands the data back to us. Um and then I'm sure Superintendent Kelly will talk about in more detail, but we'll have a community meeting to discuss the the two the three options with parents and the ramifications and answer any questions people might have. Um and then we'll
present to the school committee I'm assuming in January um on on the final option so you all can can choose from there. And the one thing I will note I um elementary schools did we talk about that or no
>> catching what you threw in >> um like the beach? >> Oh we did. >> Okay. Okay. Um so so I think for now um this will be presented to the committee in January. We'll vote on that and then we'll talk next steps after that.
>> Yeah. Uh Tom is reminding me and my my tiredness right now um wasn't picking up at first but part of what he also studied is uh if there's a way to address the overcrowding at the Paul Rivier school by shifting that neighborhood with the Beachmont. So
we'll but that's not quite ready for prime time yet. Correct. I'm not quite ready for prime time and this is a herculean enough task in its own right. So, let's cross this bridge first and then we'll get there. >> So, I know I Tom uh I know a lot of uh us are going to have some questions. If
I can just preface uh the conversation though with we're not going to make a decision this evening. uh Tom is readily available and I'm not saying every hour of the day, but a lot of the questions that you may have um that are I guess you know singular you can certainly you can ask and and this is there's not I
think we just all need to fully understand that option one two three option five that might come out next week there's never going to be a perfect option change as we see with anything is very difficult but we're you know we have to look at what's the reasons for want wanting to change is it going to
make a a bigger impact and it's is it going to be for the betterment of all and you know does it does it at least get us closer to where we want to be. So uh just just understand that there's going to be in every scenario there's going to be five people on one side or the other that going to be totally upset their their lives are going to be
upended. Uh but we have to take and reflect on the 7,000 students and the few thousand students that are in our middle schools and the future. And these are things that it might work today and like Fred Senella mentioned earlier, it may not work 10 years from now and those are the those are the opportunities
we'll have over the next five years to make adjustments. So, committee members, >> and if I could just say one more thing before you go to the committee, Tom alluded to, we're in the process of trying to plan um an event where we can hear from parents. And of course, we'd want the school committee to be present [clears throat] for that and hear what
um folks have to say about this, but we just want to make sure we are including the parent voice in this decision-making process. And so my goal will be to have that meeting the first or second week in January prior to the school committee's January meeting so that you could use that information gathering uh in your
decision-m process. >> Miss Milbury Ellis. >> Um yes, Tom, could you just just break down like just for instance option one, I just want to understand what it is that I'm reading with the with the percentages. Could you just explain to me like just go through like the first
one just so I know how to how to read the the percentages? >> Um, sure. So, and I did omit one key detail when I um introduced it. So, this this would be helpful. Um, so within each of the um different demographics, I assume that's what you're talking about
the second page. Um I looked first at just the current like six through eight population and then looked at um so if we just follow ELLL students um at you know and I used obviously abbreviations there. So um Garfield Middle, Romney
Marsh and SBA. So in this example, looking at just the current 6 through8 um student body, 42% of the ELLL students in River public schools would be at uh at Garfield, 33% would be at
RMA, and 24% would be at SBA. Um, and if you look at what it is currently with with just the the lotterybased model, this is the one just just so you know, in terms of ELLs, this is the one that I wouldn't say is as on par with what the current model is. Um, so the current
model is much more equitably distributed. So 33%, 34%, 32%. Um, and then what you see on the right column where it says preK through 8 all students, I just thought about projecting out. So, if we take the entire student body that lives in that
district and classified them in to each of these three schools, uh, how would they fall? So, um, then you're at 38% uh, Garfield, 33% RMA, and 27% Susan B. Anthony. >> Okay, I got it. So, current here is the lottery system,
>> correct? >> ELLL students. This is the breakout based [clears throat] on demographics, >> correct? >> Of the option one of what it could look like. >> Yes. And so I just wanted to make sure I understood the the how to read it, but I understand that, >> you know, this is a preliminary draft
for the most part, so I'm not going to get into specifics. >> Yeah. And what you might want to uh what the school committee members might want to do is compare that data that you just looked at for option one >> with what how does that data look for option two and how does that same ELLL data look for option three and kind of
judge each one under each category to start thinking about what would be >> a model that you might want to adopt. >> Yeah. And and see what the parents have to say about it. That's going to be a big part of this as well. >> Thank you Tom. This is this is really helpful.
>> You're welcome. >> Um Jackie has her hand up. Sorry. >> Can you hear me now? >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. I'm sorry. I'm trying. Thank you so much, Tom. First, I don't have an electronic copy of this, so I don't know
if Dr. Robert can help me. Yeah, we we don't have it electronically yet either, but Tom is gonna forward it to me and we'll send it on to you. >> Is that right, Robin? >> Yeah. >> And I think also we've all requested
that the community be a part of this once that time comes. So, thank you so much for organizing that, Dr. Kelly. Are you looking to schedule this hopefully in the evening so more parents can participate? >> Yeah. Yes. So, we are going to schedule it in the evening so that more people
can participate. Tom is going to help me with this. Um, and we're going to try to see if we can figure out a an inperson and virtual opportunity so that everybody doesn't have to come down um to the meeting but could still participate. So, we'll work
on those details in the next week or two and we'll have translation services available of course like we always do. And one thing I really liked when we had our cell phone form or a safety form is that we gave people options to vote on things. Personally, I'd like to see if
there is a way to have people just check on the different options from the community on which of the three they prefer. So, um I'd offer as a suggestion as you plan that night out. >> Great. And thank you.
>> Yes. And then Tom, you said that there's more detailed demographic data that will come instead of it just being white and non-white. Correct. >> Correct. I just wanted to fit it on one page. That was pretty much it. >> Thank you. And then the vote on January,
that's your that would be the official asking what option they want. >> If you wanted to do it then, it would be fine. I think if the school committee decided to vote in February, but I do think that families need to know if and we need to know for planning purposes if
there's going to be a lottery or not. We have to start that work and we have to have the kids tour the buildings and all of that stuff. >> Okay. I want to refer to that you needed in January so that we're all aligned with what your team needs as well to make this happen for the next school
year. Okay. It was looking great. Thank you all so much. Thank you. >> Any other any other questions regarding Tom's >> Mr. Sella? >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I I think that what I had stated earlier, their change
is constant. If you look at I believe Lynfield has fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade in their middle school makeup. I read recently where I think it's Pittsfield they're thinking of doing fifth and sixth grade and then having seventh and eighth grade
at the when I taught at the Lincoln school at that time they had a middle school upstairs. So Rockco Melo Fatano principal at the time departmentalized his fifth and sixth grade where the children changed classes they had one
teacher for math one teacher and it got them ready for middle school. When I was at the Whan school a few years, they added a seventh and eighth grade and it's totally different concept. So we had the children from kindergarten to the eighth grade. They got to know us,
we got to know them. So change is constant. So even with what's being presented tonight, that's not edged in stone for next year or the year after. Um, most school systems don't have the luxury luxury of having as many school
buildings. So, they're doing it because of where you can house x amount under one roof. So, where we have some flexibility, you know, we we're looking at it. It's is there going to be 100% no. You going to satisfy everybody? No. We used to
hear my son lives next door to the school. We bought the house here because we wanted to go there. It doesn't always work out that way. We try to accommodate that. So, I I wish well on the new concept and
the new process and it just it just it's the way of the world today. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Sel. Anyone else? Miss Rizzo, >> thank you for all the work that you put
into this. I really appreciate it. Um, and no matter what, there's going to be people that are not happy. When they started the middle schools, I'm not aging myself as much as Mr. Sella, but my kids were part of the process and
they were at three different schools that I had to get them to. Um, and I myself worked at McKinley and so that was four schools. But I think when I look at my kids and how much they grew and got to know people they've never met
before. I I'm really am pleased with the educations that they got at all the different schools, but I know it would be nice for everyone to have their first choice and stick to their neighborhood schools, but I just want what's best for the kids in the long run. And to me,
when you go on to the high school football team, you don't know half of the kids because you didn't go to school with them. But whatever is best for the students, I am going to support. But thank you first and foremost for all your work in this.
>> You're welcome. >> Yeah. I just like to say I'll reach out to you maybe next week sometime. I really want to go over the numbers first before I uh start asking any questions. >> Thank you. >> Sounds good.
More than available. I I would only ask perhaps I'm hoping it's next week once we can finalize the data to make sure it's it's exact. This I think I'd be happy to sit down with any of detailed conversations about the data once we know it's the right data. I think we're
pretty sure, but just want to confirm. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Tom. Okay, next up we have is our public speak. Um, do we have anyone here? Anyone in the
audience wishing to speak on any agenda items hearing and seeing none. Anyone online? M. Dr. Kelly. >> Okay, we'll close that side of the hearing. Superintendent report.
>> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um we have actually two presentations, three two presentations and then I want to share some information on um the governor's proposal for new graduation requirements. But um we're going to
start first with a presentation from um the Whan School. And I want to invite Principal Shanley up. um she's got one of her teachers, Lindsay Conrad, and I know one of their most favorite students in the whole city, uh is also here to
share his learning. And um I'm going to be talking in a few minutes about the MCIEA work that we've been doing for about a decade, uh now here in the district. Um because we've had some developments around that body of work. Uh MCIA of course stands for the
Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Educational Assessment, which I know is a mouthful. Um but our friends at the Whan School have been deeply deeply deeply engrossed in that work. Um and and prior to some developments that came
to light uh toward the end of uh last week, um Rachel had reached out and said that she wanted to share about the work they're doing for her school's presentation at the school committee. And um after the teachers took a the teachers executive committee took a vote
to end that partnership, um she said to me, you know, what should we do? And I said, "You should still do the presentation that you planned and have the guests that you had arranged to come up and speak and and talk about what that experience is." Uh because I think it's really important for the school committee to see. So, uh without further
ado, I will toss it to Rachel and her team. Thank you so much, Dr. Kelly. Good evening, school committee members. Good evening, Mayor O'Keefe. Good evening, Dr. Galuchcci. We are really excited to be here. Like Dr. Kelly explained. Um I
have with me Lindsay Conrad. Lindsay is a fifth grade ELA teacher. She is going to um be part of the presentation. And our main guest speaker that was first one here tonight is Luchiano Chile. He is here and extremely eager. Um I can't
wait for you to hear from both of them. So tonight we're going to discuss our MCIA journey at the AC Whan Elementary School. MCIEA is not new for the district. We have been partnering with
them for about 10 years. I have the really exciting piece to share from a teacher leader perspective. When I was at the Lincoln School, I was part of cohort one back in I believe 2015,
part of a team. We rolled out the the idea of working with our students and providing an opportunity for them to be assessed differently than standardsbased um like a standard test and they were
part participating in task assessment at the time. It was really exciting. Um lots of bumps in the road. We rolled it out schoolwide and over the years MCIA has turned into many different things for us as a district. I think the most
exciting piece of it that I would love to highlight tonight is really the big piece that has to do with um one of the major initiatives of our district which is deeper learning and we will get into that a little further in the district in the slides. Um what we really want to
highlight tonight is where we have been as a district with MCIEA, where we are presently um and we'll talk a lot about at the Whan School and then where we hope to go in the future. So for those of you that are not fully aware about MCIA, like I said, it's not
new to the district. Um just a couple of bullet points that I wanted to really kind of hone in on. It focuses on meaningful student centered assessments. It is an emphasis like I already said on deeper learning and teacher tasks and
it's also a partnership across Massachusetts with many different districts. Why MCIA matters so much to all of us? It supports our major initiative within the district about deeper learning and our priorities around deeper learning.
It also provides an authentic way for us to assess students with projects. It builds teacher capacity and collaboration through MCIA. We have been able to calibrate um educators have been able to sit and look at student work and
really be able to calibrate and Lindsay can talk a little bit more about this, but really get on the same page with how we're grading students um and kind of sit around the table, talk about a task. Is it equitable? is it rigorous and so forth. Um it also offers holistic
equitable measures of student learning. So where we have been rever's history with MCIA I talked briefly about it. We are like I said amongst other districts we meet often
and talk with them. We have built partnerships with these districts as well and grown with them with deeper learning always at kind of the north star for all of us. Each school in our district has had a different piece of MCIEA. Tonight we're going to highlight
Whan's piece with that. Um each team has had a real strong teacher rep part. It hasn't been really administrators pushing it. It's really teacherdriven and I feel like every team has, you know, had ups and downs, but it's always
been really teacher focused and teacher led. Um, it serves as an early found foundation for deeper learning and creating tasks. I talked a little bit about my personal journey with MCIA. Um, like I said, I
was part of cohort one at the Lincoln School. We I also was part of a kaleidoscope team for the district which we worked really closely aligned with DESIE and again our big major huge focus was deeper learning. MCIA has kind of
propelled us forward with deeper learning. It was really it got us um very eager as a district to kind of jump into that and really that has kind of stayed with us at this point. Um MCIA
can we so recently MCIA was just in the news for Maynard. Um I know RHS had sent a team to go and observe some amazing pieces that they kind of have going on there. They have figured out how to kind of do it throughout their whole high
school and um I think there's more to come probably from the team that went to observe over there. So I'm excited to hear about that. um the experiences that we kind that we take away from MCIA are always an authentic experience for students. So
where we are now two years ago we kind of joined MCIA Whan was also part of the cohort one along with the Lincoln and other schools within our district. Two years ago when I became principal, we jumped right back
into MCIA with deeper learning being a major focus for all of us and our admin team and also the teachers as well. We were part of a mini pilot. Just last year, we moved forward um and kind of
jumped in and did the whole pilot, which is a portfolio that teachers are using to assess students. And Luchiano will talk a little bit more about that. Um which I know we're really excited to hear your voice and not my voice anymore. [snorts] All right, so let's
see. Um all grades created MCIA aligned tasks at one point at the Whan. Last year, we decided to really focus and hone in on our grade 4 ELA team. Last year, Lindsay was a grade four ELA teacher. And we'll talk a little bit
more about where we hope to go moving forward. Um, we've expanded a little bit this year from grade 4. And just one other piece that I want to really highlight is that MCIA also lives within within our school improvement plan at the Whan. It shows up in two different
spots on the SIP. So, I'd love for you to take a peek at that and see where I have that highlighted as well. Um, next slide, please. Thank you so much. So, school-based deeper learning showcase. We had a deeper learning
showcase at the Whan School, as many other elementary schools in our district have over the past several years. It was a no-brainer for us. Those of us that had some MCIA tasks that we were able to showcase showcased those very easily. It
was seamless. Those teachers were able to save some of the artifacts and work and highlight that and really show that to everybody. Um, Miss Conrad and Luchiano were part of the deeper learning showcase districtwide that we're going to get into a little bit
later in the discussion. We feel like MCIA is also a a way for us to really elevate student voice. We make sure that within tasks, students have voice, students have choice. Um, they're always working towards a different audience with their tasks.
And the next slide, Miss Conrad is going to take over and talk a little bit about a highlight, which is the grade 4 MCIA pilot that we worked on last year. Thank you. So, a little bit of background. Um, I
joined the Whan team uh three years ago now. I was a fourth grade teacher the past two years and this year I'm teaching fifth grade ELA and social studies. Um, and I joined the mini pilot my first year teaching. I was really excited to hear about deeper learning.
Um, I've always been really excited about including project-based learning in the classroom, but I had never heard of deeper learning before I joined the Whan team. Um, so I uh had never heard of MCI EA. Um, and my second year I
decided to do the full pilot program with the fourth grade team and my fourth grade students absolutely loved it. Um, I found that the deeper learning project-based tasks really allowed my students to demonstrate their mastery of
skills um, in a new way that traditional tests can't truly capture. um they are much more open-ended and allow my diverse learners to show their understanding in a way that works best for them. They're able to show their
creativity um and highlight their strengths um that may not surface on a typical assessment. Um it's also far more engaging. Um my students are very eager to dive into these tasks. They consistently put forth
their best effort um in these tasks and many actually ask for more of these project-based assessments because they feel successful and excited about their learning when we're perfor um completing these tasks in the classroom. I actually
just did a survey very informal with my students the other day where we just sat in a circle and I asked them, you know, I think it was on 67 day and it I said uh we were sitting in a circle and I said, you know, we're 67 days into the
year. What is something that you, you know, either if you had me in fourth grade last year and there was something we did last year and you'd like to do something similar or um just something that you would like to be doing more of in the classroom. Um because that's what
I want to be doing as a teacher is, you know, really giving the students what they would like to be doing. And almost every single student said, I want to be doing more projects where I feel invol really involved in my learning. um which was a great answer because we just
started our first MCIA task um for the year this past week. Um so that was really exciting. But the fact that they didn't even know we were about to start our first task and almost every single one of them reflected on the project
based learning they did in fourth grade and they said, "I want to do a task like um the water bottle task Luchiano's about to share." um or a writing task that we did that was um deeper learning based last year was really great and showed me that they
really enjoyed the tasks and that that work stuck with them moving on to fifth grade. Um, so yes, we have our friend Luchiano here who you can see in the picture was with me at the district deeper learning day last year. Um,
presenting this task. Um, and he was in my fourth grade class last year. Sadly, he's not in my fifth grade class this year, but I do see him in the hallway every day. um and he is going to be completing um the same tasks that I'm
also incorporating into my teaching in fifth grade this year because I'm working with my fifth grade co-teers to be implementing the same tasks throughout our classrooms. So, um if we would like to move on to the next slide, uh Luchiano, would you like to take it
away? And I can hold this for you if you want. So, a little bit of background information. I've basically been at the Whan my whole life. I've really never been at any other school and after we started the projectbased learning, it's
really never felt more hands on or interactive. Um, something I like about project-based learning, it allows me to showcase the answers that I would give on say a traditional test in a more unique, different perspective way.
Um, last year we did a project about the water bottles where we selected our favorite book character and we chose six key character traits and drew emojis that represented those traits and we drew them on a paper water bottle like
this as if this was the character's water bottle. And this year, like Miss Conrad was talking about, we've started another MCIA deeper learning projectbased project um about the American Revolution where
as if we were doing a newscast as if it was seven no yeah 18th century Boston Tea Party, Stamp Act, sugar act, this that happened and we were doing a like a news project about it. So, we'd have the news anchor and the onseen reporter and
the eyewitness. And it feels a lot more engaging and hands-on and like I'd want to do it again compared to like an essay we would have to do about the Sugar Act or the Stamp Act or the Intolerable Acts or the Boston Tea Party or the Boston
Massacre. So, um that's all I have to say. Thank you. [applause] >> [applause] >> Thank you so much, Luchiano. You are an extremely difficult act to follow. Thank you. [laughter] >> Very eloquent,
amazing fifth grader. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Conrad. So, moving on, we are like Miss Conrad alluded to, we have expanded from our grade 4 ELA team that focused on MCIA tasks last year to fifth grade this year. So, the fourth grade
ELA teachers meet with the fifth grade ELA teachers, troubleshoot, talk about things that they're having some issues with. Someone from um Nikki Holland from MCIA is on hand to meet with us, has zoomed with us, has come and met with us in person to lead us. So the fourth
grade and the fifth grade team have each other to lean on if they're having some issues or they're just curious. Lindsay's our expert in grade five where she already went through the experience so she supports them as well. Um so ongoing the portfolio, we're going
to be doing those portfolios in grade four and five this year on the ELA side. And we hope at some point soon to have a preview of some grade five work that Luchiano just explained to everybody. Um the last slide is just our MCIA
journey. It's just basically a summary of what we discussed tonight where we were the early district involvement and foundational work kind of set the stage for where we are today at the Whan um re and energized really as we implemented
some ELA tasks for grade four and five and also showcases to bridge that to families as well. and we hope to expand a little bit more possibly as we move forward if we are going to continue this work um aligned with the district
initiatives of like I said that northstar of deeper learning. So thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Any questions? >> Just before they get to questions, I just I just want to make one comment because I know there's a lot of ether in the in the in in the air about this, but
we will be continuing this work. We're not abandoning our mission and our vision and we're not going to ignore student voice. Uh we understand what good teaching practice looks like and we will still be doing all of this work whether or not we're partnering with MCIA. So I just want to reassure the
whole team at Wayland that our our vision and our mission stays solid regardless. >> Thank you. >> Um thank you. Does I have a few comments but does anyone want to go first? Miss Rizzo, >> you can go. Feel free. Let me I just need to go back to Luchiano for a
second. [laughter] >> Um, >> that's not our mom. >> Luchiano, is that your mom in the audience? Probably your favorite. >> That is. It is. [laughter] >> Mom, your sister, >> I'm sure you have wonderful I I we know you have wonderful educators around you and you're clearly getting a great
education over there, but I think you need to thank mom because she's she's giving you great. DEFINITELY [applause] >> ve very very impressed Mr. Luchiano. Good job. >> Thank you very much. >> Um so I had a question u and you can sit up there Luchiano or if the teachers are
uh >> want you know so this this has become a a conversation tonight. The MCIA and I'm not putting you on the spot Luchiano. Oh no it's fine. >> I'm not going to use you in the middle of this but >> I kind of actually like it. and Miss
Conrad or Luchiano. Um you're an educator, right? You're a teacher. >> Yes. >> Um and so was this were you caught off guard with this decision to disengage from MCIA that
>> um I was not aware of the vote, but um I enjoy working with the deeper learning initiative and MCIA. I'm not looking for you to take sides. I was just, you know, this kind of caught myself and Dr. Kelly offguard. And I'll be honest, I'm one of those that doesn't
know a lot about MCIA, but I know that there's, you know, when you say deeper learning, I know a lot about that. When you say a lot of the student showcase stuff that you've been doing, I recognize those terms more than the the back the back office term >> available, >> right? But okay. I was just curious if
this was like a cons like a consensus decision. I understand leadership has an opportunity to make decisions for the body. So, I'm not trying to get in the middle of that. I don't think anyone here wants to, but I was just curious if someone that's so invested in it had any um saying. Okay. Thank you. Enough said.
M Rizzo. Sorry. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Um you're an amazing young man. Um you're with amazing educators um that are there to support you. I remember when this program first
started, um the showcases at the end of the year were phenomenal. It was nice to learn from different districts also. Um so it kind of really saddens me to know it might go a different way. Um but the
work that you're doing and how you can incorporate it into the daytoday um life of the school is amazing. I think our students learn more with this being on hands um hands on. Thank you.
>> Yes, I agree. >> Yep. Um than just doing a report on something and writing down a bunch of words on paper. Um I'm just saddened that it's going a different way, but proud that your um
the team at Wayland School is going to push for what's best for our students every day. >> Thank you. I appreciate it very much. Thank you. >> Can I take him home? Oh my god. [laughter] >> Okay, Mr. Kingston. And then we'll go. >> I'm just curious. Does he have any
brothers or sisters we'll be seeing in the future? >> Oh, he's only child. >> Thank you. Thank you for coming. I appreciate everything. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, >> Miss. >> Thank you. Um, so this is a question actually for for all of you and it's kind of on the heels of of what the
mayor was asking, but but I am interested because we've seen all the wonderful work that has been presented um not fully understanding really all the benefits of this um collaboration. But but I'm interested in learning and I think for the people at home um we I'd
like to have a better understanding of what we're losing. >> Yeah, actually I agree with that. >> Thank you. if each of you could just kind of uh educate us on what it is that we're what this means like this decision to to um break our our collaboration
with with this um cohort. Um so I feel like a couple there's a couple of different parts of MCIA that we're a part of. Um, one of those is basically the task creation that we talked about and the hope that at some point some of
those tasks can take the place of standardized testing. That's one piece. The other piece that we would probably be losing would be the opportunity for us to have the data which we have um from the MCIA dashboard which each
building and the whole district uses for lots of information about how students feel. Are students feeling like they have a voice in school? Are teachers feeling like they have all of the materials that they need? Are they feeling safe? Um lots of different questions about the student body and the
educators. So we're able to kind of look back many years, all of the years that we've really been part of at partnering with MCIA and compare different data to kind of see the trends that are happening. Why is this school, you know,
everyone's feeling amazing, everything's great, we have everything we we need in place, but at these other schools, we're not. And we have lots of discussion amongst the principal group. Um in addition to also meeting with MCIA as
the SQM workshop which um happens I believe five times in the year and we meet with other districts and talk about data. I had the opportunity of meeting with one of the MCIA coaches that would help coach me along what do you what are
you noticing? what trend um is really speaking to you from this data and they would either come and meet me in person and meet with a team. It's myself and a few teachers. Um Miss Conrad's not part of that, so it's a little different. So there's some different pieces of it.
>> Some of the um the different feelings about MCIA could be from past years, which is my concern as a principal in the district that I feel like we need to think about the here and now and where our district is right now. Like I said dur throughout the whole all the slides,
we've had growing pains with MCIA. Each school has approached it differently. Each leadership team has approached it differently. I have a very hands-on approach. I meet with them. I've been lucky to really carve out time. Everyone has approached it differently. So for
us, it's really working. It might not be working for everyone, but I just want to make sure that we're thinking about the here and now and where we are present day. I hope that explained. >> Yeah, that's helpful. >> Thank you. >> Did anyone else?
>> It's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Mayor, >> he's going to be sitting there in a few years right there. [laughter] >> He's going to be sitting here. >> He might be in a few years.
Sorry. [laughter] I [clears throat] I said I'll gladly step aside when people like that already. >> Okay, >> Miss uh Dr. Kelly. >> Okay. Uh the next item on the superintendent's report is a presentation from our humanities team.
Um and they're they're going to come up and talk to us about leveraging coach collaboration to support MTSS and how that's happening in the humanities department. So, I want to welcome our two directors, uh, Dr. Porter at, uh,
who's K through all of our humanities, and of course, uh, Briana Sup, who is in charge of our elementary and early childhood assistant director. All right. Thank you, Dr. Kelly, Mayor Keefe, Dr. Galuchcci, and members of the school committee for having us tonight. We're excited to talk to you about some coach
collaboration we have going on to support our MTSS work. Next slide, please. All right. Um, so the photo that you see there is Briana and myself along with Chelsea Binks who's the assistant director of uh the ML department and all
of our literacy coaches and ML coaches. So as a full team, we are collaborating on supporting the MTSS multi-tered systems of support implementation across the district. And we wanted to take an opportunity to explain what that
collaboration looks like between our two departments tonight. Okay. So, you know, as you know, in our district strategic improvement plan, um the number one focus area is um teaching, learning, and leading. And the
number one initiative underneath that is advancing the district's multi-tered system of support. Um in this slide, you'll see that we have defined um what those tiered supports look like. Um and tonight, we're going to be focusing on
tier one. The key focus within tier one is ensuring the that English language learners receive the intentional standards aligned instruction regardless of the model whether that be um a standalone model or co-op model.
Next slide please. So this is the organization of our work. Um so obviously Briana and I are here representing the humanities department. We are collaborating with Chelsea Binks who's representing the ML department and all her coaches are represented underneath. She has an elementary, a
middle, and a high school coach. We have six elementary coaches, three middle school coaches, and a high school coach. So, Briana and I already meet with those coaches every Friday. Um, with this organization, we're meeting once a month as a full team and focusing on
collaborating. So, uh, to achieve that goal that Briana mentioned, that universal strong tier one instruction, the coaches need support to support our teachers in having our ML students reach some of those goals. So, one of our
first steps in that work, which Brianna is going to go over in the next slide, um, are some of the priorities that we've come up with, and then we're going to give you an example of what that work has looked like recently. So, one of the ongoing priorities that the coaches have have wanted to pay close attention to is how to support
those educators um in support in supporting our EL learners. Um and our first collaborative meeting with the ML department, we really mapped out what those priorities would look like and over the course of the year, over the course of time. So, we have our
short-term uh priorities, our medium-term priorities, and then our long-term priorities. And tonight we're going to hone in on those short-term priorities that we've begun this year. You go to the next slide. So again, that's a lot of words there. We wanted
to zoom in. So as Brianna mentioned, um, one of our short-term by the end of the year goals in this collaboration is to develop tools to support MLED classroom routines around speaking, vocabulary, and reading. So Dr. Dr. Kelly, if you go
to the next slide, this is a snippet of daily literacy routines. Our high school coach, Samantha Wilkins, created this. So, these are routines that we would want our middle and high school teachers to use in their classrooms around the different areas of literacy. This piece
here is just highlighting reading. So, for example, one of them would be like excerted reading, and that would be when students are focusing on analyzing shorter passages in a text more deeply. Um, so for all of these routines, we worked with the ML coaches to think
about some adaptations that we might need to make using these routines [clears throat] with our ML students. And we want to note that we constantly say to our coaches and we understand ML students are not a monolithic group. There's differences among those groups in the levels that they're in. So
teachers are always referring back to their data. So we're not trying to say that all of these things work and should be used all the time. Um, but we wanted to acknowledge that there has to be some additional support or scaffolding depending on students. You can go to the next slide, Dr. Kelly, please. This is
the same list of all those routines. And then on the right hand side are some of the modifications that teachers might need to make if they were working with ML students. So, in that excerted reading where kids are doing a deeper dive into shorter portions of text, you might need to support kids with, for
example, annotation guides. um presorting vocabulary and defining that for them in advance to help them access this. What our coaches are doing with these uh the teachers are already familiar with this document. They're then supporting teachers during PGT time
and in individual meetings in modifying some of these routines to support our ML students. Next slide, please. Um this this slide just focuses in on our tier one curriculum. A lot of this work is like we said is focusing on tier one. So,
we're taking our our um high quality instructional materials that we already have and we're looking for ways to increase um that support for our EL learners. And that can look like and and will hopefully look like promoting studentto student discourse because we
know that um speaking and listening will help um language development for our EL learners. So, for instance, in our tier one program here in CCC, um you know, the second one down for partner reading and turn and talk routines, a lot of those routines where the students turn
and talk to one another are part of the curriculum already. But now we're going to help coaches then work with teachers to um kind of pre-teach some vocabulary to empower language for those students. um assign turn and talk roles perhaps um
just to to really encourage more speaking and listening um among the students. Next slide, please. Sure. That's okay. All right. And these are our immediate next steps that align with some of our shorter term goals. During the November
4th PD day, um we had taken videos in several classrooms of our teachers uh focused on the new educator growth rubric. We're using the feedback we got is people really love seeing their colleagues do highly effective instruction. So our coaches as well as
uh the the math coaches are working on capturing video from classrooms of teachers that we already know have highly effective practice around supporting ML learners at different levels. The plan is to use those videos in PGT and teachers will be able to review them. What that look for? Again,
we had such high uh feedback from November 4th PD of people enjoying watching their colleagues use strong practices and we will continue to support our teachers and adapting their classroom materials uh to meet the needs of our ML students. That's it.
>> Yes. I just have a quick question. Is there is there a difference between ML and EL? >> No. So EL is the the older term that we use. The more updated term is ML. So sometimes when we're speaking we go back and forth. We try to use ML. Um EL is
English learner and now it's a multilingual learner which is some uh much more um I don't know good adjective equitable updated term that we use but same we have the same meaning. That's just the older term we would use would be e >> but they're English but they're learning English. >> Correct.
>> Okay. Thank you. >> You're you're welcome. And and that's probably my fault because I tend to go to the old eel. It's just there's tons of acronyms that >> Yeah. >> Yeah. There's a lot in there. >> Yeah.
>> I just I want to highlight uh one one thing here that Christina and Briana have done such a great job working with our e with our ML department on. I just almost did it right there. um which is really making sure that we are not um
using lower level inappropriate text with our students who are learning to speak English. The whole idea of all of this is that they get the exact same curriculum, the exact same reading, the exact same articles that any student gets and what we do is scaffolded to
make it more accessible to them. And that way we're not watering down their learning because they have a language uh barrier. >> Okay. >> So, >> right. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Um the next item on the superintendent's report is just a quick um fill in on what is going on with the the governor's task force for uh graduation requirements. And um I'm going to share
just a one-page slide. I don't know why this is not I don't know why this is so small. Let's try this. There we go. Um, that came out of the interim report from the governor's graduation council last week.
And, um, I was fortunate to be in a meeting with the executive board of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent and the education commissioner and his two deputy commissioners on Thursday where we talked a little bit about this. And um the seven areas that you see identified
here on this slide, we we're fairly certain are going to be what the recommendations are going to be. The final recommendation is due to the board of education and the legislature in June. So this is their preliminary. They are going to seek feedback over the next six months and then come out with their
final recommendations in June. And as I mentioned, there are seven items that they're looking at including as graduation requirements. Um, and those fall into the three different categories that you see here. The first is the foundations of learning and coursework.
And that is all students will complete a rigorous program of study that aligns with the administration's requirements for higher education. In other words, what they're leaning toward here is that they're going to require all students complete the Mass Core program of studies before they graduate. We already
require that in the Riviera public schools. So we are in good shape in terms of that requirement. >> Under demonstration of mastery, they have two items identified. The first is students will participate in end of course assessments that are connected to
selected courses and that are designed, administered, and scored by the state. We don't have information yet on exactly what that is going to be, but we anticipate if we look at an echo effect from MCCAST that it would be algebra, geometry, English 9, English 10,
biology, and there's been a lot of talk about adding a civics um um component as well. Um, one of the things that the that MCIEA has been doing over the last six months is really working with the graduation council and
the governor's office to hopefully expand minds away from the traditional pen and paper test um for those end of course assessments and move on to more of um the kinds of performance tasks that our friends were from the Wayland School were talking to us about uh
today. And we've we've made some traction in that area and that's evident in other parts of the requirements here. Namely, the second demonstration of mastery is that all students will complete a capstone or a portfolio um that's defined by the state, but it would be scored and administered local
locally. um if if you know if that happens our work with MCA IEA would have been instrumental in helping us prepare kids so that when they get to the high school level they already know uh exactly what that kind of entails
>> and then the third category is college career and civic readiness. Um the first one is that students will develop and maintain an individual career and academic plan or my cap plan. our students already do that uh and we introduce that this year at the sixth
grade level. So by the time these new graduation rec requirements come into effect are we'll be all set with that item as well. Um students will complete the FAFSA or MASSA that's the financial aid form that's required in order to go
to college. Um as you know we do a number of uh events for families um to help them fill out the FAFSA. uh guidance department is unbelievable in all of that community partnership work. Um there is going to be an we understand I shouldn't say there is going to be we
understand there's going to be an opt out if families don't want to do that piece that's not going to prevent a student from getting their high school diploma. Um it looks like there's going to be a requirement for a financial literacy component. Again, we already have a
financial literacy um class at the high school that all of our sophom sophomores are I think it's freshman uh take the financial literacy for one quarter. Um in addition, we have the program that Mr. Kingston offers at the Garfield School. Um so we've been we've been
working around financial literacy for a number of years now. I don't look at that as a huge hurdle for us to overcome. um and especially if we introduce the AP um business course that I talked about at the previous meeting, that would be yet another avenue for
students to engage in financial literacy learning. Um and then the last element under here is they want to expand the designation on sales of distinction. As you know, right now we uh offer the sale of biliteracy here at Rivier High School
and fortunately we have hundreds [clears throat] of kids every year who earn that distinction. The state is talking about expanding that distinction to other areas so that a student for example could earn a seal of distinction in science or a seal of distinction in
mathematics. Um those are all of the details that still need to be worked out. And what the commissioner and his team told us is that we should not be worried that this is going to happen in September. They said this is going to take a number of years to implement.
Once the plan is finalized by the governor's office and by the legislature, then um then they'll be working on what does the timeline look like and what are we going to implement first, second, third, fourth, etc. and um they've said that they're committed to taking feedback from the community,
from from families, from school committee members, from superintendent and educators on um what this should look like. So that's the work they're doing in the next six months, but I feel like we're in decent decent change. [clears throat] >> Thank you, Dr. Kelly.
>> Um so, Mr. Mayor. Um, that is the end of the superintendent report, but I would ask for a point of personal privilege if I could just to share with the committee a little bit more about what we've been alluding to around the MCIA work today. >> Sure. >> Um, all in favor?
>> I was going to say, do you want to take that executive session? >> No, she was talking about the um >> there's some questions I want to ask, but I'll take it. >> Yeah. Okay. Um, So, can I Yeah.
>> Okay. Um, so I want to start by reviewing um a lot of the information that we've already talked about tonight. um and the efforts that the district has been making to really engage students in rigorous learning and making sure that their instruction is rigorous and that
the way we assess them uh really echoes what they know and are able to do in ways as Luciano described that are engaging and exciting and make him happy about being in school. And we really want to get away from the more traditional um ways of assessing and
instructing students. So, I hope that the presentations that we give here help you see the efforts that we're making in that direction. Um, we talked about our AP participation rates and the steps that we're taking to try to increase
that and make sure that more students are exposed to rigorous academic experiences like AP classes. And you've seen uh in the piece that I just went over the requirements that the the governor is going to be mandating that all students complete before they
graduate high school. Um I was very disappointed to hear late last week that our teachers union has elected to um stop our work with the MCIEA, the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Educational Assessment. Um that was a
joint labor management venture that we've been engaged in for over 10 years. Um it ensured that teachers did have a voice at the table of how communities judge their work through school accountability measures and student assessments and it ensured that our kids
were engaged in authentic um assessments and that our schools are weighted on what communities feel is important to them. I don't know how many of you know this, but when we first started our work with MCIEA, they came out and actually did focus groups in
multiple languages with our parents, with our students, with our staff. And the survey that we take every year that we talk about, the MCIEA survey was derived from what the citizens of Rivier, the students of Rivier, and the teachers of Rivier said was important to
them. And I shouldn't say just review, the other seven communities that were founding members participated in that as well. But our our citizens and our students and our teachers really did have a strong say in what it is we're measuring when we look at the school
climate survey data every year. Um that was one major focus of the work that we did with MCIA. Um, the second major focus of the work that MCIA does is about deeper learning and replacing the standardized tests with authentic curriculum embedded
performance tests of the kind that you saw displayed today and moving away from a scenario where we shut a school down for a week at a time in order to give these standardized tests that don't really capture what a lot of kids work uh at work and uh what they're able to
do. there are so many kids who shut down the minute they know that test is coming that they can't possibly try to show you what they know um and how smart they are. And um so the focus of MCA MCIA the mission and vision was always to move away from that to something that was
truer to students and truer to to staff. Um the piece of the work that has been growing in the last two years is exact exactly what principal Shanley shared with us tonight. It was moving from uh forward from these individual isolated
performance tasks that kids would engage in from here and there in their different classes to actually developing portfolios of their work so that they would have a long-term record, their families would have a long-term record of what they were able to do. And part of the political side of that work was
the MCIA board of which I've been a member until recently um was working with the legislature to make sure that these ideas are incorporated in any um changes at the state level like the governor's graduation requirements. Um
in a statement the president of the RTA um said that um participation in MCIA has added initiatives, paperwork and meetings to the plates of teachers already struggling to meet their
professional goals. I want to be very clear that any time any teacher working for the Riviera public schools did anything outside of worktime related to MCIEA, they were compensated at their contractual hourly rate. Um, and that
includes the teachers that um, uh, Rachel mentioned just a minute ago are working on the school quality measures advisory board. Um, they have their they have a another meeting, I know, coming up shortly. They've had three meetings so far. the teachers who are working on
that are getting stipended for that work uh for their time outside of school. Um so what this means is the school committee is going to have to decide if they still want to gather feedback from students, parents, and teachers. I think
it's very valuable. It's driven our school improvement and district improvement plans for years now. But if we still want to do that, we're going to have to contract with somebody who will administer those surveys for us. Um, I know that before we joined MCIA, I looked into just doing a student survey
and that was going to be $50,000 for the district and that was 10 years ago. So, I I would guess that that's going to cost us upwards of six figures um to implement a new kind of survey. Um, you asked uh the Whan team what it
means to them uh that we're giving up this partnership and and Rachel talked a little bit about that, but I'll add that the coach who's been coming to meet with them and do that work with them will no longer be able to come to Revier and do that work because we're no longer part of that partnership. Um, and most
importantly, I think, um, you know, one of the things that I heard that that the union stepped away from this is because there weren't as many stipens as this year as there have been in the past, and that's certainly true. Um, like every place that's struggling financially,
MCIEA saw their um, funding cut this current school year that we're in right now. Still, we had $250,000 that came from the legislature. This is important work. it's valuable to our elected officials at the state level. Um, but when when there's less money, there's
there's less that you're able to do with it. So, um, one of the things that we did engage with MCIA on was a joint venture to submit a grant through the Spencer Foundation. We had submitted for this grant last year and we didn't get it, but the Spencer Foundation came back
and said, "You had a really strong application. We need to see some tweaks in these areas. We want you to change these things. apply next year and we can't promise you anything but it looks very good that you would get the grant. So that would be the Riviera public schools working with MCIEA and UMass
Amherst to expand the way we engage parents in the community in our school improvement planning process. And over the next five years, that would have been over $890,000 to the Riviera public schools. That
would have included over $120,000 in stipens for teachers to do that work because it would require some nighttime meetings and some after school work and and and time that the teachers aren't currently compensated for. Um,
I don't know that the union knew that we were applying for that grant with MCIA prior to this, but I'll say that nobody from the Riviera Teachers Association came to talk to me about this relationship before they sent an email to the executive director of the MCIA to
say that they that the Riviera public schools was withdrawing. And so, you know, when we talk about trying to make sure there are voices at the table and that we're collaborating and that we're working together, um I don't see that in this instance. Um it's it's pretty
disappointing. Um we were on a path to see our students arrive at Rivier High School well positioned to achieve all of the graduation requirements that are going to be visited on them whether or not the union likes it uh in the very near future. Um, and we still need to
prepare the kids for that. So, we're going to keep doing this work. We are still going to work on performance tasks. We're going to still work on portfolios and we're going to keep moving in the direction that centers student learning and student needs before everything and everyone else. Um,
we're not going to shy away from this work. We just won't have the funding, the resources, and the partnerships that we've been able to enjoy through MCIA to date. Um, it's critically important work. question.
>> Um, Dr. Kelly, when did the governor's recommendation come out in comparison to when this vote was taken as far as what the new requirements went were going to look like? >> Um, I don't know exactly when the union voted, so I can't quite answer that. I know they sent that um Prince the
president Jane Chapen sent the notice to the MCIEA last Wednesday and I believe the governor's interim report came out two or three weeks ago. Is that right Richie? Do you remember? >> So knowing that that portfolios and
capstones and the work that we're doing through this organization is going to be a requirement most likely um for a graduation requirement in years to come. we've elected to forego those services and those resources.
I believe that's the case. It's very disappointing. >> Mr. Sella, >> Mr. Chairman, through to the superintendent, I'm I'm I'm a little mixed up here. If they're working during school time
and if it's extra time and they're being compensated for it, what's their complaint? I mean, I'm I'm I'm missing something here. You usually withdraw if it's not something you're looking for, but they're getting it
>> and a vote was taken. most contracts or most unions have to publish if there's an election or they have to notify someone or something or whatever. It I would think it's in violation of the contract if they've already agreed
to do what's being done. Those are issues that would have to be taken up at the next contract negotiation, not dumping in midstream. And again, I don't know what the membership is. 300, 400, 500. What was
the vote? I think we're entitled to know if 15 people voted and 14 want didn't want to go. I think the rest of the um organization should be aware of this. And when it hurts the pocket book, um
maybe then the light will go on and saying, "Well, I had a supplement of x amount of dollars." I'm not showing that the leadership, their leadership has to be responsible for it. >> And from what I'm hearing, the MTA seems
to be become much more militant >> in their in their I mean statements that they're going to back candidates for school committee. Well, what happens for the children? I mean, now it's getting to be selferving that it's work
conditions for us, not the children. the the programs we heard tonight, they're accomplishing what has to be done. You heard from a student, I've never seen such enthusiasm where he wants to go to school. He's he cited
15 points of the revolution that most adults probably couldn't couldn't say. And it it it's just it it it's detracting because leadership swings both ways. It can't
always be negative and and it puts a burden on the school committee. It puts a burden on the administration. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. And and was mentioned the state is coming up with X
Y and Z which we're already doing. M >> so through you m madam superintendent >> can they withdraw from it if the the teachers are teaching as as groups >> they're going to stop teaching I mean what are they going to revert back to
I'm I'm I don't know >> yeah so a couple of things um we're not going to stop doing the work we are absolutely going to continue to do the work and um all of the curriculum directors and all of the principles will be ensuring that we're doing this to
your point, Mr. Snell, what they do during the school day in their PGT time is determined by their by us and by their administrators and their evaluators. Uh, and that work will continue to speak to the district's goals, vision, and philosophy. So, they
can't walk away from that work. Um, my understanding is that this was a vote of the executive committee only of the Rivier Teachers Association. It was not a vote of the membership. Um, so I I think there's maybe 15 or 20 people who
are on that executive committee. Um, and so they're they're the only ones who voted. Um, Jane Chap and the president did tell me that she went out and spoke to members of the uh of the teachers association, but I'm not clear on exactly who that was um or exactly what
they had to say or if they understood uh what the circumstances were here. So I I I don't I can't answer that piece of it. I will say that the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the MTA, their their parent group along with the AFT,
both have seats on the MCIEA board. They are non- voting members, but the MTA is very supportive of this work uh and this work that we've been doing at the state level. So, honestly, I'm flumxed. I don't know. I can't I can't speak for
others. >> Mr. Jim, if I if I may, um um are there is there legal precedent? Can we reach out to the membership to uh I I think we have to be careful. It is
the union's prerogative to run themselves as they see fit. And this venture with MCIA, one of the agreements that we make to be a member of that group is that it will be a joint labor and management. So, it has to be that
the union's on board and the district is on board. >> But you're talking 15 leadership people making a decision for 300 other people that there has to be a way of illuminating what's being done. If if if Okay,
>> Mr. Mr. Sella, thank you. If I can just point out a couple things and I guess this is a question too, but one is they do have an executive body that does represent them. So you have to give credit there. I'm not taking sides here. Certainly I I hearing today's stories of
what this means to students and educators that seem to enjoy and appreciate the program. It sounds like it's it's really great. And you know, Miss Shanley mentioned that doesn't mean for 10 years it was always perfect and doesn't mean every school um it's reflective of what we saw from from the
Whan, but I'm sure there's a lot more goods and bads. And maybe bringing this to the surface in the spirit of collaboration, there can be some consensus or some some back and forth to to explain to to maybe flush out what this actually did. This may this is
going to take away from the district funding. It's going to take away from the district opportunities to learn more. it's going to take away from the district. Uh but it may give the opportunity for the body to voice their concerns with what they may want to see in the future. >> This could be a good opportunity to come together like you said uh actually have
good good dialogue and maybe the the decision could be reversed, maybe not. But I I would say that would be the hopes that I would have is uh you know cooler heads prevail, we flush out or everyone flushes out what they are not getting out of the program and what they'd like to get out of the program. I
mean it's very clear and I you know I work with a lot of union bodies on the other side of things and if there's a stipen involved this is extra extra benefit involved usually that's people want to work they like you know no I don't think anyone doesn't want to work here I think everyone in the school all of our educators our custodians you know
DPW you name it they all want to work and if you can give them a few extra dollars to make uh uh to do a little bit more they're usually more than happy to uh and it's also potentially bringing them up a notch too. So hopefully this will bring that up. >> Mr. Chairman, >> thank you for the clarity. >> Mr. Galuchcci,
>> actually before you go to have Miss Montterroso has her hand up. >> Miss Montroso. >> Thank you, Mayor. Two points for me. Just to clarify, Dr. did I hear that presenters mentioned they went even though this vote was made by the
leadership, the executive team? >> You heard? Yes, you heard a a teacher make that statement. Yep. >> Okay. So I've also heard from other teachers that reached out to me personally that they also were not aware of this. So um it would it would be
interesting to know who who the leadership team can talk to but their own thing. My question is are there any ways that we can choose to continue in some with some of the services like the student surveys, the dashboard that data has just been so robust and like you
said it informs so much and both our teachers, our students, all of us constantly talk about stakeholder engagement. So the school committee and the superintendent are making decisions on their own in silos and to know that a lot of the data we use did come from this partnership. Are there any way that
the district itself can continue? Does it have to be for the birthday? >> Uh, well, it's so it's one of the things that I'm going to pursue with MCIA and that kind of speaks back to the point that the mayor just made. Um, I have already spoken to um the executive
director who understands uh my position here. Um, and she I I know that they would all be more than happy to work with us if we can find a middle of the road to get back involved. Um, it would need we would need to have that union's
commitment though. Uh, if the union doesn't want to commit to doing the work, then we can't be on the team. We can't do the surveys. We can't do any of that. If to the mayor's point, we can find some kind of uh accommodation that MCIA can work out for us. Uh, but the
that the union is willing to commit to again, I know they would welcome us back with open arms. >> Mr. Okay, that sounds like maybe a next step for us is to explore if we want to come to the table of leadership for the
community to what that middle ground looks like. >> Okay, this could I just want some clarification the curriculum is set by us. >> Correct. >> So if if this if they say they don't want
to do it, isn't that refusal of work? That's my concern is because if it's if it's this thing, how about the next topic and the next topic? That's my concern. >> Yeah, it's a it's a real concern, >> right? So, it can it can start there. I suppose they said we don't, you know, we
don't really want to teach this particular course or anything. That's my concern about the whole thing is is this could be could come to a bigger situation and uh >> yeah it it could set an ugly person >> and then if someone refuses to do the
work >> they would be evaluated as such >> or it's a refusal work. I mean, being a member myself, >> we could never we could we could grieve a situation we never, you know, we didn't agree to. But one thing I've always told my members, you never refuse.
>> You never refuse work. You can grieve it >> after the fact if you don't, you know, if you don't agree, >> but to say I'm not going to do the work. >> Yeah, >> that's a violation. >> Well, and I think this is a little bit different uh just because they haven't said I'm not going to do the work.
They've said we're not going to participate in this partnership. Right. So, we'll have to see how it kind of plays out as we >> if if for instance, Rachel were to go back to work tomorrow. I'm sorry to use you as an example. Let me use somebody else. [laughter]
>> She's uh Yeah. If a if a if a principal in a school in one of the other districts that's a member of MCIA went and said, uh, we're going to all implement this performance task in our fourth grade English classes. And a teacher who teaches fourth grade English
said, well, I'm not doing it. That would be a disciplinary >> action. There would be reason for discipline there. And that, you know, hopefully would never happen in the Riviera public schools. But if it did, that that's how we would pursue it. >> Yes. But we've been in this program for
10 years. >> Mhm. >> Around 10 years. >> Yeah. >> So to me, it's it's past practice. It's part of your job. >> Yep. >> So >> part of your contract, >> you know, that's what I that's what I'm just having a hard time putting my hand And so that's why I'm saying like we
will still do this work. We will still continue to do the work. We'll still expect teachers to use performance tasks in their classroom on a regular basis. We're still going to work on uh building out student portfolios because we need to get kids ready for graduation. We're still going to do all of the things that
we were doing before. It's just a shame that we can't do it in collaboration with our colleagues from across the state and get some money >> to do the work while we do it. I'm just concerned, >> you know, if it another situation comes up and then they refuse to do it and
they refuse. That's my main concern. >> I hear you. >> Quick quick question, Mr. Mayor. Um >> I guess I don't get the >> What was the I guess I'm just trying to understand what was the the I the um what was the idea behind having the
joint collab the joint membership as opposed to it just being >> a decision by So, it's the idea was that we wanted teachers to be at the table and have a voice in designing what performance tasks would look like and um really take
an active role in doing that because they're the ones who are going to implement them. uh and the idea of having the multiple districts. What we wanted to see is if we um create these performance tasks and then uh we give them in Rivier and we give them in
Milford and we give them in um Lynn and all of these different l was another partner district, Somerville, Boston and would teachers score them the same way? Would it look would the scoring look alike so that we could prove that you could give kids these performance tasks?
um and teachers could score them so we could have this assessment system that didn't require that you shut down school and do MCCAST for a couple weeks every year and do that kind of stuff. So, but the idea was to give the teachers the opportunity to engage with each other and um create the performance tasks and
implement them, refine them as as need be. I think you guys will maybe remember that the Paul Riviera presented on when they did theirs and then the how the teams got back together and refined how they would do it next time. Mhm. >> Uh when they presented that last year, it's like doing all of that kind of
work. Um which is which is a lot, but we were giving them time during school to do it because we we value it. Um, and I think that maybe um, what the union is frustrated by is that MCIA didn't have
the money to run those um, those meetings this year with all of the districts coming together and having the um, performance task group meetings. They did some over the summer and we had some teachers who went over the summer, but they didn't have the same level of
money that they they've had in the past. I don't know. I I I really I really am just trying to rationalize without having a solid solid amount of information. Um, one of the things that uh, Jane mentioned was, you know, I
mentioned to you earlier that we started this partnership uh, two presidents ago >> and I know so when we started initially it was Eric Fairing was the president and we did the joint labor management agreement together and then Gina Garrow
came on and my understanding is that she said to Eric, can you keep doing that one thing I don't need to have on my plate? So Eric did and um I don't know um I know that there is at least when I looked at it this afternoon um they had
they have MCIA listed as a partner on the union website. It talks there's a blurb there about the work that the RTA is doing with the MCIA. Um but somehow um they they felt like they didn't know it was a joint labor and management
partnership. I don't know, >> Dr. Beluchi. >> I'll be quick, I promise. Um, as the assistant superintendent who has overseen this partnership, um, really alongside Eric Fairing, in fact, we've presented consecutive years at the state
house as a leader in this work. Um, I think the unfortunate part is the loss of the task bank. So if you can imagine the everyone in this consortium contributes to the task bank and I am proud to say uh and as someone who sent
the stipens to Lou Albani to be sure that teachers got paid. Many of our teachers were task validators, which means teachers not only from River but all across the state would submit a task to be put into the task bank. But before
that happens to make sure that it was highquality materials, they would have to be vetted by deeper learning experts and there would be a back and forth between River educators and educators within River and other cities to say this needs
to be edited. you need an extension activity to challenge the students that are high performing to make sure that they're challenged. Um, and only then would that be added to the task bank. And then once those over the past 5 years at least, we were building that
task bank so that a grade three teacher that had to teach a certain standard could go in and see what was there for a deeper learning experience. What was the existing lesson that was in there? um and our uh teachers did a really nice job of serving as an expert. The other
piece that I'll talk to you about that I've worked deeply with um Peter Piaza, he was the point person for MCIA and he did all of the survey work. I will tell you that we did all of the surveys in school with the kids. The principles did
a great job of being sure that they were in front of technology and could take the survey. So our response rate was high 90s which if you've ever given surveys that's huge and also what we did is reserve some time during the last principal's meetings to allow the staff
to take that survey. So that return rate was also high 90s. So as a former principal that data was so valid and so valuable to me uh across the board of every facet of our building. the learning that was going on in the
building, how staff thought of me as a principal in terms of trust, leadership, evaluation. Um, and then recently within the past two years, River was a pilot for the family survey, which may not have had the high response rate because
it's not on site, um, but really had a nice return and gave us an idea of what parents were thinking about the district. So those two things really jump off the page as really unfortunate that could go by the wayside.
>> Thank you. [clears throat] >> Thank you. Well, more to come. I s I assume >> hopefully >> hopefully maybe this flushes out some conversation. Good conversation. All right,
Dr. Kelly, your superintendent's report. Okay. Report of subcommittee. We don't have any. Any motions? No. >> Yes, Mr. Mayor. >> Miss Montterroso. >> Yes. We just had to formally accept the superintendence evaluation rules because
they weren't technically part of the consent calendar. So, just motion to approve superintendent goals. >> Do we have a second? >> Second. >> We have a second. Motion to approve to superintendent goals. >> Approve. Accept my goals.
>> We have a second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. >> Mrs. Bronson Rizzo. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kajiano. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kingston? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Milbury? >> Yes. >> Miss Montoroso?
>> Yes. >> Mr. Sella? >> Yes. >> Mayor Keefe? >> Yes. >> Thank you, Miss Montrosa. Any other motions? >> Okay. >> We don't have any hearings. unfinished business. Uh new business and uh there's
a request to enter into executive session. >> Um do we we have a >> we're going to take a vote to go into executive session. If the vote's affirmative, we will go into executive session. However, we will not return
after the um session. We will the uh mo the meeting will be adjourned. So before we adjourn and before we go into executive session, I would personally and I know the entire committee would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy Hanukkah and a happy holidays and a great new year and we'll see you in January.
>> See you next year. >> So >> mayor motion to go into executive session in accordance with one which is for personnel. >> Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Roll call.
>> Mrs. Bronsono. >> Yes. Mr. Kajiano, >> yes. >> Mr. Kingston, >> yes. >> Mrs. Milellis, Miss Monttoso, >> yes. >> Mr. Sella, >> yes. Mayor Keith, >> yes.