Lawrence School Committee - March 28, 2018

001we'll call this meeting to order if I would rise please for pledge allegiance to the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and if we can just take a moment of silence for our troops who are serving overseas thank you so I'll call a meeting of March 28th 2018 to order as had been requested at our last meeting we have moved public participation to the start of the meeting so we're going to start with our public participants and the first participant is mr. Molly and just to remind folks it's two minutes you'll get a 30-second warning and you're supposed to direct it to the committee and not to anybody specifically

002and stick away from personal attacks thanks [Music] my name's Henry chibok Greenville Street Lawrence mass good evening large school committee today I want to talk to you about some issues first of all I might say a new face to speak and that may be part of my point tonight first I have a grandson that goes to the Sultan Lawrence east school I'm here to speak on some issues I have come across with the safety and security at their building about a month ago my son my the school called my son to pick up his son because he was sick my son asked me if I could pick him up I said yes I could but I never been there where do I go my son told me drive around the back of the building up

003the ramp ring the buzzer security will let you in I did I rang the buzzer and in three seconds I was inside that building with them not knowing who I was or what I was there for okay now once I got in the building I noticed the auditorium on the left side of the door as I go in what a couple of classrooms full of children in there I continued down to the corridor which I see a security desk I go to the desk tell him what I was there for and he said okay sign in here please then I asked where the nurse's office was he instructed me to the left three doors down on the right I get my grandson sign out walk out he walked by the auditorium with the kids with

004the kids still there go out the door get near the ramp at the bottom of the parking lot my grandson turns around and says papa the door didn't shut Papa turns around with his grandson walked up the ramp and shut the door ten seconds down the ramp thirty-seven seconds up the ramp twenty seconds that door was open how many people can go through an open door in 20 seconds do you know I don't but I know it only takes one bad person to get Roy last Wednesday my grandson had a detention my son and I picked him up at about 4 o'clock I rang the buzzer no answer I rang the buzzer again still no answer mrs. Shiva I'm sorry we it's a two minute maximum and you're at two minutes there's one I am

005sorry about that what you doing last sentence if you like thank you name and address for the record please my name is Lorena Salazar 188 Prospect Street hello everyone school committee and hello all the attendees I'm so happy to see so many people here tonight the one thing I would like to to bring I think like part of my role as a community organizer is usually around thinking in the spaces where we have like meetings for community members to make it more welcoming and more productive and more effective for community to be able to engage in in the meetings in the conversations in different ways and since this is such an important space for the members of the community for parents of the school's I was wondering if it was possible to think another way

006to lay out the the setup of the room to make it like more inclusive I don't know if like the chairs can be facing the screen so we can see like all the presentation in a different way or if we could even be closer together like kind of in a bigger like round circle table do something because I know for some community members that may want to come and participate may be a little intimidating so the space like if it was warmer or welcoming even if you guys could you know be by the doors and be saying hi to people as they come in so they see your face and it's not this microphone is super scary every seconds sorry so yeah that's the thing like if if if we could work in more creative

007ways to make the space more warm and welcoming for public participation because it's very scary sometimes thank you 18 yo Street in Lawrence so excited thanks for everyone who came tonight and then came last month to let's get round of applause for ourselves we're awesome for showing up I know it feels like a scary space but we I think we're allowed to make noise so it's okay we all a lot of us know each other we're community so it doesn't change just because we're in this room and this is a big deal because I know last year there were some issues that were raised about the school library and there's interest about people come in the school coming and I came for the first time and there was no one here there I think three

008people here and so this room has been given life by us showing up like this and we're just gonna keep doing it just and so it was awesome that for this school committee meeting I don't know who was exactly from central office but they put it out on Facebook as an event and I think that's a really important step because I think all of us have an interest in having as many people part of the conversation at the table as many voices as possible part of it so I think simple things like that and what Lorraine is talking about to really make it accessible I do think that a lot of people who aren't able to come here are still want to be part of the conversation somehow because we know that as we transition

009out of receivership over the next couple years that it's really important to have as many voices as possible so even if not in this room figuring out ways that we can go meet people where they're at so there are some community members who've been talking about the idea of listening sessions of community listening sessions so y'all don't have a chance to also go out in the community certain schools churches just to talk to people specifically about we're in a transition moment new superintendent leaving receivership what you know what does that look like was that transition plan look like timeline benchmarks and I think if we could go in the community and actually hear from them and I've remarks from a high schooler who asked me to read hers maybe one of the movements to youth

010could read it because I don't have time but I really appreciate all y'all especially I just want shadows James for sitting up there two minutes thank you thank you I believe there's a group of students from movement city that wanted to speak if those of you who watch speak and will at least give you a name before you speak okay good evening everybody my name is Ana elder gonna welcome over to this space my address is 92 Swan Street so I'm actually a resident Methuen I work here in Lawrence at movement city and I have some of our young people in the crowd and standing behind me so I'm just gonna introduce some topics that we talked about last night and things that I've seen relevant to my experience working with young people in Lawrence

011the magical thing about movement city is that it's all about student voice and expression we actually don't even call our youth populations students we call them members because we see them as an invested part of our community and what they say and what they do has a lot of weight and how we make decisions so as a previous teacher I used to teach first and second grade and tried to have that kind of democratic practice in my classroom I see that in actual practice every day in my job in an out-of-school program so it's one point also advocating for creative arts and also just to echo Lorena's point and Sebastian's point as well about making this space warm and welcoming and this is my first school committee meeting as well so it feels wonderful to

012be here shout out to James again for representing I think it's it's important that you're up there and that you're able to carry the student voice but it's also important that students are here to share their own experiences so thank you very much thanks my name is Elena Nunez I live on 36 Orchard Street just one of the things that I wanted to bring up was um having resources available to students as in like school psychologists time to give them a break like let them be aware of different options that there are in the community like I know there's different ways to be like financially aware and like learning about things like that I feel like it's also important to teach people to be mindful insensitive of the fact that like no one's life path

013is the same and success is different to everyone to teach about mental health sexual education LGBTQ awareness and everything important in life in that matter correctly and thoroughly and to let children have a voice and practice that right at a young age and just I don't know resources and stuff and yeah thank you good evening good evening everyone how are you doing my name is Ariana Ruiz I live on 75 Bailey Street so here in Lawrence Massachusetts so what I want to talk about is I actually wanted to speak up on having more LGBT groups at school I feel like with our community everyone is very very what's the word very hostile everyone's to themselves and they don't really pay attention to one another and I feel like if we had more groups such as

014so that everyone could have a chance to be more unified you know what I mean it's very rare to kind of have everyone in like one little room kind of like sharing their own opinions on like what's going on with the environment and like the community among itself you know what I mean it's really hard to be yourself in a place such as so being a transgender student myself I have to do with things such as so and I feel like with people kind of like joining together and kind of putting their differences like not really putting their differences aside but kind of like contributing like where they stand with one another I feel like it'll just be more beneficial for everyone and you know it'll kind of be like a good opportunity for everyone

015to know one another and kind of to like you know just be able to like speak their mind and you know kind of just hi my name is Felicia Antigua I live on 124 foreign ham Street and I'd like to discuss how schools don't really have a safe place for students I know when I have off days I'm not able to just make a miss a week of school because that's not easy to make up and I feel like school should have like even though we have our counselors our counselors are not as helpful as they should be and I feel like the school should create probably like more more resources the students who feel like they can't be in class or even want to show up to school so that they're more comfortable thank

016you anyone there's anyone left on the list I don't know I think it's time yeah it's time we got to keep one with the meeting sorry guys something we could submit yeah you could submit have a give it to us we'll make sure they get it thank you okay thank you Jameel my Tina's [Applause] hi Jamil Martinez 10 sex on 8th Avenue and Lawrence I'm here as a parent the last School Committee was awesome but the conversation after the school committee was that it was very intimidating for parents to be here because you guys are so far it looked more like we were in a courtroom instead of you know somewhere we can freely come and speak about things that are happening concerns that we have maybe we can suggest that something be changed like

017everybody else was mentioning making it more welcoming so that students and families can't speak up and we can all you know come together as one because you guys we voted you and you are our voices and I'm talking to you as a parent not as a community member not as somebody who works with the community strictly as a parent that is the way I am feeling that is the way the voices of other parents in the group that we were in are also feeling I also wanted to know if the school lunches have been addressed we brought it up in the last school committee meeting nothing has been put out there nobody's talked about it and the school year is almost at an ending we were told that we needed to find out before you

018guys we know whoever we buy the lunches from the contract the school lunches have to be changed so how can we address it how can we as parents help and be supportive towards that because they need to change our children are going hungry all day that is causing behavior issues now that they really have behaviors but they're starving even um when I'm hungry I'm angry thirty seconds another thing is I'll leave it at that thank you thank you Carlos Cruz good evening my name is Carlos Cruz I'm a resident of Lawrence I am a naturalized naturalized citizen originally from Colombia I came to the US Open completing high school in Colombia very successfully I came with a student visa to improve my English seeking to study Electrical Engineering I attended San as College for three

019years and I didn't transfer to Notre Dame University in South Bend Indiana for financial reasons I had to transfer to northeastern University's co-op work story program and there I graduated with a BS in electrical engineering I taught on all calculus and AP calculus at Lawrence High School in 1996 when the head of the math department was out only to have back surgery I sought to teach algebra in Spanish to ninth grade students after teaching on our calculus and AP calculus as I have explained to you in writing but the position was unfairly given to someone else the average salary of a teacher in Lawrence appears to be between 52 km 57k 50k is less than a year's salary and I respectfully urge you to seek closure to this matter I believe in the American Dream

020in the American experiment the noble experiment that the u.s. represents in the history of mankind I have worked hard smartly and fairly to achieve the American dream but it has so far being denied to me over the years by foul play by sob please do what is right do what is consistent with the American dream the researchers at the American experiment within the context of a meritocratic society thank you I seek to be a new an exemplary math teacher for you you I and all should facilitate that those who aspire and work for it get it I have thank you ELISA Salas hello everyone thank you all for being here I want to welcome James to the School Committee James Mora is the James Mora is the president of Lawrence high school and he's also

021involved in elevated thought and a lot of great things and thank you for all the youth that are here today from movement city elevated thought I'm very proud of you all for leading the conversation of student voice I also wanted to inform the public that there has been a board created the Lawrence Alliance the Lawrence education Alliance and they have been seeking for a new superintendent and that process has already started their next meeting is April 6 and I believe it's in this space as well so April 4th sorry correction April 4th in the same space so that has been started I just wanted to inform you all about that so if you can find any representatives there if you have any commentaries about the qualities that you are looking for in a superintendent that

022is available for you thank you [Applause] Raquel Bowden thank you thank you for that getting back to my little rant and rave last Wednesday my grandson had a detention and I picked him up I rang the buzzer no answer I rang it again no answer as I go to ring at the 3rd time a student a little boy probably fifth grade fourth grade comes running out opens the door says my teacher told me to open the door for you we go into the security at the desk there was no security at the desk we go into the office I see several ladies and one gentleman so I asked them how come I was just let into a building by a student with no security at the desk he said to me security goes home at

0233:30 I'm so sorry he said I told them that was a problem and he said I'm sorry he said I told them I said I don't want you to be sorry I want you to fix the problem going out the door the building the door didn't shut again the same door I talked about earlier now last Friday my son had a meeting with the principal or honest a different matter so I went with them again to the meeting the meeting was at 12 p.m. in the middle of the afternoon we rang the buzzer we get buzzed in we sign it we asked the girl at the desk why would we let in not knowing who we were 30 seconds she was speechless another security officer at the desk asked if there was a problem I

024told him what the problem was and he says well that's the way we do things here so my son had the meeting and then I mentioned this all to the principal I was told by her yes these are problems no one seems to have solutions it's a citywide problem we have I never even thought about all the other schools having the same problem I hope you all listen to my rant and rave tonight that you as educators of our children brainstorm some ideas and solve the safety and security issues I thank you very much for both of my time in a jávea good evening assistant superintendent Bergeron members of the School Committee and mayor Rivera my name is ana Javier I recited 14 Farish Street my four children grew up in the school department and

025children going in but I'm here I'm gonna shorten things down because I know it was shown to the two minutes I stand before you tonight because I keep track of reading the newspapers watching the news and most importantly I keep a very good relationship with a lot of our parents and a lot of our children and youth and in the city therefore I have been listening to many concerns coming from the parents and the students history itself tells us that violent acts of hate has been sweeping our nation and it's very concerning one thing I've noticed is that it's becoming a normal behavior for our own children to be the ones performing these crimes and we know of the surrounding cities that have had different well violent threats but last night I was informed of

026something that happened at the bottom school where a 14 year old students was arrested in the morning I believe at 10:00 in the morning according to the newspaper and last night around 10 20 or so I receive a call from my brother asking me if I knew what was happening in the partum school because they had just received a voice message that went out to other parents at 10:16 last night so the parents were not informed throughout the daytime they were not informed any earlier and at this time I created a concern with with my brother and the wife and obviously the children and as we know we are what we're doing our nation our kids are afraid to go into school and parents are afraid to send them and I am just looking to

027find out what the school department actually has put in place for safety we have not had any conversations as parents as community I speak to the youth to the kids and they tell me I don't know what to do if there was a shooting in my school so I strongly suggest that this committee makes decision and we don't save this to make a decision next year next school year right now things are happening and they're happening each and every day and city of Lawrence is not exempt at all thank you Lisa Brad Schick okay Tom Meyers khau Myers and I live at 5:50 Haverhill Street and Dan if I give you a compliment can we exclude that from the time that okay no thank you okay well quickly I just wanted to because I haven't

028had a chance yet to publicly thank you for your measured and and sophisticated and caring response on the opioid crisis in response to you know the anti-immigrant rant that President Trump made just a couple quick comments and first of all I think that you know Laura and I and and Jamil both made some excellent recommendations about creating a more user-friendly space you know it's it's admirable to see so many students here and I think to create for all of us the most comfortable environment possible really works in everyone's best interest and then obviously there are several important issues that are being brought to your attention and the difficulty as you well know is under the continued receivership now called this alliance board the School Committee still is not empowered under what should be their power

029to govern properly the school system and so I'm asking Dan as as the mayor and also remember that board to push the board for a specific criteria as to win the School Committee and I will say the teachers union gaining their rights under 150 E will occur what's the criteria what's the timeline and I think to press them for that you know they have continual or continued state control is not in our interest we have a very competent and talented board as I think we all can agree in front of us right now they're elected by us and I think that's the critical thing you know democracy begins when we elect officials and the officials are allowed to govern and the people that are coming in from outside are not elected officials thanks so much

030for your time guys take care thank you Tom and Celia new-grown I'm silly in a grown honey's industry I just had to say that I think I'm like if you guys look at me I'm a kid quote unquote kid I'm like yous I'm younger but I think that because you guys view me as this way and view so many of the people that I'm with and like so many other youth around me as younger you guys kind of underestimate our power and I think that when there's meetings like this people like in youth should be aware of that they should be able to feel free to come in and put their opinions out I think that they should be aware of that because their voices matter and they're not kids they have an opinion and

031it's a strong opinion if you get the right person they can advocate for themselves perfectly and efficiently I think that we're being excluded excluded way too much as far as like meetings like this and like education because we go through that system I go to Abbot and obviously I have an opinion on school system the kids that I'm around they do - not all of them are just complaining some of them they actually have a genuine up any opinion that's not bias or anything like that they go to classes and they feel like the teachers they're teaching one way that isn't effective for everybody else in the class that's not that's an effective opinion it's gonna like change things if they voice that but they're not able to because they're not aware of things like

032this so I think that we should just be more aware and get it out more to the youth so that they convince their opinion and that concludes public participation names we write into the record committee member Salas I would like to motion if we can move questions and discussions after public participation so that we're able to discuss and kind of clarify anything that we would like to speak on my second I'm not sure I understand the option so with my understanding of last meeting I was observing the structure of the meeting and I feel that when the public goes up and speaks and then we have a presentation there's a disconnect between the conversation of like what we're able to address and things get lost between that gap so I was wondering if we can

033kind of shift the way that the meeting is structured so that there is it people going home with just like unclarity yeah so the the agenda is posted and we got to go through the agenda we can move stuff around the agenda the the reality is that we do the two-minute part and public participation and we don't do back-and-forth of people on public participation because we wanna lose just the rules of public registers just to listen I think that the the again there's a motion in a second so just to recognize discussion does anybody else have anything to say about this I don't want to do this orderly okay yeah no I mean I think what she's kind of referring to is the fact that you know what public party participation you know there are

034members of the community that are bringing up valid concerns so you know if there needs to be additional questioning whether we need to schedule a meeting to talk about reviewing safety policies because the public doesn't want to feel like they're ignored I think that's that's where the police is kind of heading with that yeah anyone else yeah um so again there were there were those recurring themes around safety for students and you know as a school committee member I feel that it's incumbent upon us to not just hear those but to actually respond and give folks answers so they can walk away feeling safe and parents can feel like their children are safe I know at one point the idea was brought up to have listening sessions I think that's a really good idea maybe

035this isn't the forum to do this but maybe if we have a listening session obviously we abide by the public meeting laws but allow folks to just ask questions and not just complain like Celia said I not just complain about what's happening but come up with community-based solutions and though I think one of the ways to do that is to actually outreach to the community so that we're hearing what the issues are and then collectively we're coming up with strategic solution based answers so that we can then bring those back to the school committee and put them on the agenda yeah so I would I would suggest you that there's nominal talk on the matter just so that you know it's our meeting and week if there's a majority people that want to move it

036that we can do that I think that there's work to be done that's on the agenda we got to get through all that and the reason you know we have had both participation at the beginning for a very long time in this community with this the way the staff is set up in the back so that we can get through the work and then have a discussion afterwards if there's some other conversation sometimes this isn't the best way to get to the bottom of the answer to the bottom of the question people have about security about food and so it's easy to take caught up in the idea of like because the cameras are on and things are happening we can get to a discussion that may not be as productive as it could be

037I'm gonna vote against moving it I think that we got to get through the work that we have in front of us we have an update on on some building projects and some grainy stuff I would like to I'm shocked that the teachers contract isn't on the agenda I'm hoping that we now that we know that these of concern you make motion to put on the agenda so we can all get some information and bring it back for the next meeting I think I'm gonna have an uneducated conversation unless we know hey next meeting we'll talk about security whenever mr. Hernandez come down here and give us an update on every building and go top to bottom and then have questions and actually we can say hey we're gonna have my CERN end is up

038here next week everybody send us any questions you have I have a question about cell phones he's in the back or I have a question about the Hennessy in the front there's a broken window that type of stuff it's more thoughtful it's it takes a little bit of self-control to sit here and just listen and not feel like you want to just jump in but what we have experienced in the past is that what we don't do that if we're reactive - I have seen in the past that the conversation doesn't go as as constructive as people want it to but you know I'm just one voice can we make a friendly amendment to that motion can we move that items that are brought forward and public participation that need to be addressed be placed

039on the farm the next meetings agender so that they can be adjust discussed thoroughly with the appropriate background information would you accept that yeah I accept it yeah I just wanted to add that obviously we don't want to be disruptive to the meeting into the structure that exists I do think though it's important that parents there's some timeliness to the issues around security as a parent I feel the urgency that other parents might feel around their students being safe in school so I again to the point about for sure let's add it to the next agenda but let's also make sure that the format is such that folks can really contribute and ask questions and bring up solutions and again this may be the forum for that or maybe it's not the forum but I

040just want to put it out there that um I want folks to know that we are responsive so it's less kind of not wanting to be impulsive an answer right away but more about just wanting to make sure that our students are safe yeah and I just you know I feel like sometimes this stuff will get missed I don't know what's being recorded minutes and so I know we have the videotape we can go back to the videotape and go through what the issues were specifically and get maybe a rundown if something's the back door the cell phone see screw is clearly an issue make sure that gets closed and closes that ability closed so hopefully we can get maybe an email response to some of those issues that come up with in the past

041the school the school system has been responsive and when it hasn't like we haven't been with the issue about the food there's no real information about the food even though it's brought up last time parents are really quick to call us up and we just got to get back on the ball and so the other thing that I think we can all do is if folks want to make sure folks have our emails and that you feel like you didn't get hurt here because somebody was I'm up talking you can always reach out to us individually and make sure that we get that information back to you trust what I'm saying to you is that I have been in this meeting about our schools when people have gotten into fistfights okay that's not what we

042are we're I know we're a different board different place but I think if we get out of the if we don't have a sense of like we're gonna do two minutes everybody we're gonna do this process and at the end we gonna have questions if we don't have this process I think that it lends itself to some chaos and so there was a friendly amendment it was accepted anybody else want to talk in the matter I just want to say that I think another forum is neighborhood association meetings I've had people come over to me at this and voice their concerns and again the same reoccurring themes with security and I think it's up to us to you know address those matters to the proper channels and get answers I don't know that it's we

043can't do it here back and forth there's no way to squash people's energy and vibe on this I think this is great folks should keep coming and doing that and you'll see next next week if we haven't talked about the things that are important to us you hold our feet accountable to it so I any other see none the motion on the floor is to ensure that the madam the matters that are brought up at public participation of note and interest to the folks in the community get addressed on the agenda the next meeting we can we could actually call it an item call like you know a public participation follow-up so that make sure it's a specific line item public what they should follow up and they get put on the next agenda yeah

044yeah also at the top yeah and also if if the public would like to submit their concerns before the meeting happens so that we can request them on the agenda so that you know you're not coming here and then waiting for the next meeting for it to be addressed so you can email us in advance about you know security or lunches and so that we can make sure that that is on the agenda so feel free to grab any of our contacts because I want to make sure that you guys feel like this is an engaging process and that you things are getting checked off [Applause] anyone else see none all those in favor aye all those opposed the eyes have it thank you so just as a update dr. Rivera had asked for safety

045being put on the agenda however the agenda had already been published and posted so when it came through I've already committed to her that that's on the agenda for April because she had asked for it to be on the agenda for the April meeting so as parents or parents and community know our agenda has to be posted and published at City Hall the Friday before the meetings so I can't get a request the day before and put it on an agenda that's already public put out for the public record yes that's you need to go out they need to be in like a week prior to any meeting that we would be having so that we can make sure that we adjust seemed the meeting agenda accordingly to ensure that that can be covered but

046I will put both I will put for school lunch also on to pay April so we just have a few updates I do welcome James I had the opportunity to meet with James before we had a walkout day Loren's hi so we're very happy to have him here today we wanted to show you a couple of shot videos I'm gonna have James introduce the one about the walkout so he can give you a little background on that but the first one we're going to show today is the production of Aida that was done at Lawrence high school [Music] [Applause] [Music] so for those who like a little theater acts the Wizard of Oz Wizard belies with I believe flying monkeys is going to be playing at the PAC Center in early May so watch for

047that it'll be in the newspaper it would post on the Lawrence Public Schools website there a nice evening out and not too expensive it's a great great event our second video is just as we send our Irish Heritage Month in the City recap of our participation in Lawrence st. Patrick's Day parade [Music] of course it was nice that you took the video on the coldest spot on the Dave just advised me that Wizard of Oz's next starting next week so next Thursday so you wish to attend I'm gonna turn over to James because James helped to organize the Lawrence High School walkout day and worked collaboratively with the administration to make this all happen but it was truly led by the students so if you want to just do a little intro to it James

048so given the recent event of school shootings in the United States me and my friends decided that it was important to show our solidarity with all victims of school shootings across the nation and we decided to organize a school walkout we approached administration about it and immediately we got great give us a proposal we went back with a proposal we got it approved and we had no idea how much work it was going to be to transport 2,000 students anywhere but the truth is it was worth it it got a conversation started on campus and it got people motivated and involved and active for example I know of a couple of student leaders who were able to go to the March for our lives in Boston this past Saturday and I really both I really

049believe that this was a shining moment of student leadership in our district and I really hope that student voice can be a guiding factor for the future of our district and from the administration we want to thank James because the midst of all this walkout talk we had our snowfall and he was very he and his team were very cooperative about rearranging to make sure it was a safe event for everyone so we appreciate James's and then the team's cooperation with that so we wanted to show you a little bit about what happened on that particular day and now for some mouse now if is enough enough is enough it's time we need tension this country but I love our people being killed we need change and that was enough the 17 lives that were

050lost do not just represent 17 lives there are 17 people that will never be able to smile again there are 17 people that will never be able to see their homes again never be able to hug their parents never be able to stress about school or college or anything that life was gonna throw at them these are 17 lives that will never get to age that will never get to live their lives these are 17 lives that gave us a reason to come out here today in protest gun violence yall already know the stereotype people got about lines and Lawrence I and everyone from Lawrence with that we don't care that we were only worried about ourselves today y'all showed America just how much y'all care now we're gonna go back to class because they're

051not gonna take our school away from us they're not gonna take our language back as a family thank you in that event was very orderly the message was out students had returned to class we think about to two thousand or so students actually participated in voluntarily if they chose not to they were allowed to stay in a classroom in the building so we're very proud of the the message and the work the students did on that in the last thing we want to show tonight is the Department of Education had a competition as they want to celebrate they're leading the nation status and we were encouraged to submit a video about why we believe were leading the nation and our video is one of four that was selected across the state to be shown at

052the Statehouse during this day a week when they're demonstrating what's half in Massachusetts education traditional learning is important but some students need a added incentive to come to school every day while some districts are cutting back the Lawrence Public Schools has expanded arts and enrichment programs our biggest programs are whether 500 students take advantage of our music programs students can join chorus and take instrumental lessons ballet jazz tap and our step teams keep students on their toes teams compete and fall winter and spring over 3,000 students participate hundreds of future Broadway stars participate in our theater program featuring lavish productions and amazing performances does it work attendance rates are higher and teachers think it's a great way to motivate students to come to school every day what's the best thing of having an instrument at

053the large public schools to hear me sing to hear us [Applause] [Music] so I'm sure most districts went after the achievement and I think we said you know ya Chiefs is important but the opportunity for our students is even greater to allow them to engage and be incentivized to be at school all the time so we're proud of LPS media for their submission and being selected as one of the four so those are the big updates to date tonight though we are presenting to you move towards a standards-based grading and reporting structure doctor to me has been working for the last two years on this project working with administrators and teachers and we're now at the point where we're ready to we're piloting in the third term so that we can now get parent feedback

054and discussion about what does this look like and students will begin to see it and and be able to tell us how well they think it reflects what they're actually doing so I'm leaving to talk to to me to be able to do a presentation there are copies of the presentation in English and Spanish that Joan will have available and I believe the second screen is going to be in Spanish for those who need that so we're going to do it in both languages Mary's not going to do it in both languages but it will be on the screen in the second language okay good evening and thank you very much dr. Bergeron it is a pleasure to be here and present to the school committee as well as to our parents that are here

055and the community members so thank you for this opportunity this has been an investment of two years as dr. Bergeron said we did a very comprehensive look with bringing a work group together to study the research around why standards-based grading and reporting and what does this mean for our students and our families and our teachers our educators and how can this support Arce moving in the right direction in the last several years we have been very focused as a school department on working with common core standards and now the Massachusetts new state framework standards that are very aligned to common core and our teachers are very expert now at planning their instruction from the standards and aligned to the standards and that work is going on and we feel really confident that it's happened we

056also learned doing this work over the last couple of years with many a couple dozen educators and administrators coming together on their own time to participate in the work group we learned that we might be a little behind for Massachusetts and for the nation in terms of making a move to standards-based grading and a new report card however we took advantage of that because we learned many lessons from those that came before us we had the opportunity to look at representative samples of what things happen for other districts and I think that what the result is and I hope that you will agree is that we're what we're about to pass out and what we're about to use moving forward for all of our K to 8 schools is something that we can all be

057very very proud of and I hope that you will agree when you see that so just to start really quickly we know that standards describe what students should know and be able to do with each grade level it's a very articulated and very defined set of skills at every single grade four domains that are within the four major content areas so that would be English Language Arts mathematics science and history social science and as a matter of fact Massachusetts is just voting on the latest version to the revision of the history social science framework and we in our attempt to create this new reporting system have even included the 2018 revision so this just gives you a little information about where Massachusetts was the last frameworks were established in 1996 there was a modification in

0582011 and that's when we saw the significant change that's when the Common Core State Standards came in in math English and literacy history social science and the technical subjects and that's when things started to shift and it was a couple of years after that that I think we started to pay attention to adopting curriculum resources and practices that were much more aligned with what the the new Common Core was asking us and then in 2016 Massachusetts adopt a new framework for science technology and engineering aligned very closely to the next generation science standards and in 2018 the EM cast it's going to be just a few weeks away we will see our first examples of a more performance aligned system and it will be connected and aligned closely to the new 2016 frameworks in 2019

059the MKS will be completely aligned to the new framework so right now our teachers are we've given them a crosswalk document in grades 5 & 8 we expect the test in 2018 to have some of the 2011 standards as well as some of the 2016 ones and then last year in 2017 Massachusetts adopted the next generation frameworks for ela and math and again aligned very closely to common core and it that is also reflected in the first round of next generation MCAS tests that our students took last year in 2017 and will take again now in 2018 so all of this background to really say that there's been a shift we know that there's been a shift in the nation certainly there's been a shift in Massachusetts and it's time for us to think about

060better ways to communicate to students and to parents in terms of what that is so just a little more about what Common Core is I'm not going to read that to you and again these this information is provided to you so that you can look at it again if you need to it is aligned with expectations for college and career success they are clear so educators and parents know what they need to do to help students and you know it's not an arbitrary or guessing game in terms of what it is what other skills by grade and there's also a vertical articulation that's really nice so that it builds on one another so that we know from grade one to grade two to grade three and on up that we're building on a structure for

061our students so that you know there is a through line that's moving vertically across it's also consistent across States and schools so students are not taught to a lower standard because of where they live or because of the school that they go to it gives us that consistency it's also based on two things content and application of knowledge through high order skills so that we know that our students could not only learn the content but it's shift from years ago when we were basing a lot of schooling on memorization of facts and now we really have shifted to a much higher level of inquiry so that our students can apply what they know and what they've learned to other in new situations the skills of critical thought really important they're also very realistic for use

062in the classroom and in the real world so we see that a lot in the Common Core that there's a real-life application so students are given real examples of if you were at the store and you know there was several things to purchase how would you choose you know where you were getting the better value and using a unit measure and teaching about a unit measure and how that would happen so very realistic and it's informed by other top performing countries so that all students are prepared to succeed in a global economy and society and so that's really important too as we move through Massachusetts standards as we know have set students ahead we hear this all the time about Massachusetts being leader in the nation and that is true the nape assessment ranked Massachusetts

063first of all the states for fourth grade and eighth grade in both reading and math but I just put a little bit on this slide so that you can see that there is still more work to do as a state and as a district so you can see there as a result of the PARCC assessment which was what we took in 2016 last year was our first round with the next generation and so they're still leveling out where that goes but you can see that in Massachusetts there is still a portion of students that are not meeting expectations in ela and even a larger percentage of students that are not meeting it in math and while we have grown in Lawrence Public Schools over the last few years this is a place where there's still

064more work for us to do and particularly around third grade it's a place where we've seen not the same level of growth in grade three over the last half a dozen years and we feel really strongly that we have not paid enough attention to foundational supports for students in grades kindergarten first and second grade and so one of the curriculum adoptions that we made this year was to support that so what is the purpose of report cards why are we reporting information to parents anyway I mean we do it it's we ask our teachers to do this work certainly the meetings that we do with parents in terms of conferencing and providing information is very very important but the actual report card should be designed to be accurate information it should be feedback that tells

065families and students about their progress toward meeting those grade-level standards and we think that that's critical the rationale for a standards-based grading and reporting system comes from the fact that students do learn at different rates and in different ways and we have to allow for that if they do ensure consistency from classroom to classroom and from school to school and they provide a more accurate representation of student progress they should inform teachers students and parents of the specific strengths and also what are the specific areas where we're going to work on so that there's more growth and we can lead to increased success so we're looking for that specific level of detail that we can provide to parents a traditional report card generally will provide only one and and maybe two indicates or indicators of

066performance or grades for each subject usually there's only one grade for mathematics and it's usually a letter grade that's somewhat arbitrary we know that it has a numerical value somewhere in that but the parent usually doesn't know all that went into determining what that grade is and we know from working with Common Core over the last half a dozen years or more that mathematics for example is broken into domains that are very specific and we need to talk about them in terms of different skills that go along with each of each one how is the student performing in geometry or in measurement and data or in operations and algebraic thinking down to very low grade levels so these distinctions are very important content should be defined by specific academic skills and knowledge we should allow

067our parents to have detailed information about the skills that their child has acquired and where they may need more support so this is just a slide that gives you an example of what the difference looks like so that rather than just seeing literacy or just seeing English or just seeing reading now the parent is going to have the opportunity to see all the domains that come under English language arts so we know that that includes reading literature we know that it includes foundational skills for some grades speaking and listening language and vocabulary writing all of those things are important and this is just a sample I'm gonna explain to you a little bit about how we came up with something very unique for our laurens reporting system and this one in this sample is not

068inclusive of all the selected standards that will be on the Lawrence report card and the academic performance indicators will mirror what the MCAS performance indicators do so that we will be talking about whether students are meeting which is the expected area of growth and we'll use an M for that or whether they're actually exceeding expectations and we'll use an e for that and we'll talk about how we get to that in a minute so again looking at a mind shift of traditional versus standards-based grading this is why we took two years to do this work because at the end of last school year we began training teachers and providing professional development and instruction to think about what are the differences when they're going to be shifting now to a standards-based grading option and the status

069based grading really promotes the idea that to get really good at something if you're going to master something a particular skill playing the piano for example we don't want to you know come right out of the gate at the beginning of someone's learning and have them go play a symphony we're going to help them to practice get better at the skill and wait for them to be ready so the idea of an average is is moved away in a standards-based grading toward the idea of taking a look a snapshot of the learning at the end of the time that the instruction was provided so if we're going to look at a particular standard or group of standards and the teacher is going to determine with their school what the length of time is that that

070particular unit is going to be in play it might be a six week unit the teacher is going to want to look at where the child has performed to at the end of that unit in this particular example the average here if we average all of those numbers across we would get a seventy-three number and you know in a traditional grading system that might be a c-minus but in a standards-based grading report we're going to give credit for the student on the on the 8th 9th or 10th try when the student is showing mastery of that skill after practicing for a set amount of time that's the important shift not easy for all of our educators to make so we're going to be patient but it's important that we understand that standards-based grading is assuming

071that instruction and practice is going on and for kids who need more time that's also very important to understand this is another graphic that shows it in the exact same way only I'm just using a line but a line graph instead you can see where that 73 would fall in the middle if we were taking an average of all of the attempts and instead we would want to score that child as M for meeting expectations for all of the independent work that the child is doing toward the end of the term traditional report cards often include factors that probably shouldn't be included when we're thinking about you know doing an average things like behavior attendance homework completion effort extra credit for bringing in a box of tissues we've heard a lot of reasons why things

072happen in terms of how we can get credit toward an average score that goes on a report card some of these things are very important and we don't want to lose sight of them and so I will show you how we've incorporated that into the standards-based report card but certainly when we're talking about content area skills and common core standards we want the grades and the performance indicators to reflect just how the student is making progress in that area we don't want to include the variability in grading that happens from not only one school to another but even within a school you will find from one teacher to another that there's a variability in how that teacher is grading even within sometimes the same grade because that subjectivity that comes into it causes that to

073happen and we want to eliminate that for our parents and for our students it makes it difficult for everyone to really identify the specific strategies that will support student success down the road and mastery of grade appropriate standards and so that's really the goal here of where we're trying trying to get to but as I said those skills are very important and we looked at a lot of different iterations of what this can look like and we fell upon some that Lexington public schools are using and we married them with a few of our own and this idea of calling them pro-social skills that we want to promote positive social interactions and we broke them into two sections those that are personal development skills for the classroom in the community and those that are approaches

074to learning and these are only a sampling because they don't all fit on the slide and we are going to use a different index so not the letters that are assigned to the content areas of the standards instead we're going to use a numbering system from four to one that tell how consistently is the student demonstrating that particular skill and this is an important area so we've started talking about that with teachers as well it was very important to the work group that we came up with a graphic that was going to be something that was great for teachers for educators for students for parents for everyone to really sort of wrap their head around this new idea of what does it mean if we're going to remove letter grades and we're going to move

075to and performance indicator and so riding a bike is another one of those metaphors that's a great and if you start near the bottom when you can see that when we're we're just starting to ride a bike the training wheels are on we're using them we're starting to learn and we're not yet meeting the goal of being able to write that two-wheeler on our own and then we move up the scale into partially meeting and there were pedaling but we still have someone kind of guiding us in case it gets a little wobbly right so you still need more support to get there and I want to point out that the goal for all of this is meeting meeting is the goal meetings the goal on em Cass that's when we're being very successful we

076have mastered the standard we're meeting the expectation of what's expected and we're going on our merry journey on our two-wheel bike on our own but then there's also exceeds and this is a great example of how you're not only riding a bike but you're popping wheelies and you're doing jumps and all of these things which I would never be able to do but there certainly are those boys and girls who will be able to exceed our expectations they do it every single day so I like this slide I hope it's something that you know you find is helpful to really understand I think our students as we roll this out to them will be able to understand it so just some reminders student performance levels represent the students performance at the time that the teacher

077is grading the report card and so there there's an expectation that it's not unusual for a child in a based reporting system to earn a range of indicators that's really the point we want to see where the strengths are with the ease and ms and we also want to see where the peas and ends are where were we going next and what's happening I also want to point out that it's never intended to have every standard graded every time the Common Core Standards and the Massachusetts frameworks are a set of skills that are meant to be acquired over an entire year not in one trimester and I want to say a little bit more about that after this slide for students with accommodations the content of the standard remains the same but the instructional strategies

078and methods for demonstrating mastery those may be adjusted and we've included an opportunity for the teacher to point that out on the report card just by simply checking a box that says instruction with modifications not calling out a student who may have an IEP or a student who is a second language learner but making it just aware that there are times when a student does need instruction with modifications all students and this was very important to the committee's who worked on this the last two years that all students including those with special learning needs and English language learners should have the opportunity for frequent review and multiple opportunities for practice that's why this is a fair system so it's really really important that that happen this is my last slide and then again I'm going

079to explain to you what we've done in Lorance that I think we should all be very proud of but our outcome is to increase student achievement and we want students and teachers to have clear and explicit learning targets going from you know the little boy questioning on the Left who's saying I think I'm doing fairly well in math and I get confused sometimes but not really sure and the grading isn't really giving specific skills to the slide the graphic on the right that is saying I understand how to add and subtract multi digit numbers but I need to work on automaticity of my math facts very specific very targeted strengths and also where do I go from here and what do I need so we were faced with a little dilemma in Lawrence when we

080started to look at this and as a result of school-based autonomy that we have in our district schools are not all required to follow the same scope and sequence of curriculum or even the same publisher of curriculum that's an independent decision that most of our schools make although there is some agreement around some of the the larger adoptions and like I told you about Kate at you using core knowledge language arts this year in 165 k22 classrooms I'm very proud that we're making that investment in our younger students because I think that's going to lead to where we're getting with third grade and moving them on but we wanted to really give schools some flexibility and autonomy and we still wanted to make sure that we were addressing all of the standards that Massachusetts are

081saying is important so many districts will cherry-pick standards and they will say these are the ones you're going to use first term these are the ones you'll use second term and then these are the ones you'll use in the third term it was also very important to the work group and committee that we didn't say you know ourselves as a work group well we think that number one and number ten are the most important standards for English language arts so we're gonna leave the others off the report card the teachers will get to it but we just won't be able to have a way to share that with parents so instead we took the idea that there must be a way to do this and through some very smart folks that I won't take the

082credit off we have some great educators out there that our curriculum leaders in our schools and they came up with the idea that if we cluster standards together and we come up with standards statements clusters standards statements that will print on the report card but give teachers access in their grade book to all of the standards that come underneath that they will be able to very effectively create assignments and then grade book tag the standards that they think go with them and then through the work that we have with power teacher Pro which is part of our our power school platform it automatically rolls up that into the performance indicator that will print on the report card and the teacher always reserves the right to override that in case they they don't agree with the

083way that's happened but it's it's giving us I think a report cried number one will probably be the first District in Massachusetts to be fully aligned to the newest state frameworks and I think that will have a very unique report card around making sure that all of the standards are at least available to teachers with the option of if there's something that's blank we have given that key that says not assessed this term or not assessed at this time with the understanding we would never do all of them at the same time we are we have a sample for you so that you can get a better idea of what this might look like we're doing a pilot as dr. Bergeron said thanks to the staff at Weatherby school and for third term and the

084wonderful parents there have been notified and informed that we are going to try the new report card with K to 8 at Weatherby and we're going to seek some parent input about how that feels and maybe even open the parent portal up to some of the parents there so that they can see the grades standards-based grades lifetime as soon as the teacher enters the grade for the assignment we're very excited about what that could mean in terms of increasing communication for them the one piece that I didn't mention to you that wasn't part of this is that we also created something unique in terms of something we're calling integrated studies so that's another piece of autonomy where we don't have the same set of electives from school to school and in some cases our schools

085have very unique electives that they are very proud of that they've developed and they don't want to leave so we took a survey and we created sort of a menu of offerings of what we're calling integrated studies and schools may choose six or seven of those that will fit nicely on the report card and we have standard statements that aligned to each one of the electives so our elective teachers will have the opportunity also to provide performance indicators for those electives that they instruct and so that's being received very well our educators that teach elective courses as well I think that brings me to the end thank you very much so we haven't forgotten the high school you know where they said this is Keita eight high school Lestat has started some of their work

086around the lining this standards but putting a report card together for there is a little bit different because of all the unique courses so they're working over the next year or so to do similar type of structure so they'll be in alignment of standards it would be in the mathematics if you're taking an algebra class if you're taking a calculus class if you're taking a science a tech class ultimately it will be there and I think for high school students this will help you to kind of know where you need to go and to help plan kind of what's my next step where am I really strong on and where do I want to be going based on the information I'm getting I think you'll find a lot more user-friendly for you than just getting

087an A or C or D and figuring out well what did that really mean where did I where did I need to grow it's going to be a mind shift in terms of parents getting used to not seeing a letter grade that they're used to seeing so we are going to be doing parent forums the first one is the 11th of April at the President's Council and we'll be rolling out more communication because it is very different and I know at the high school level people were nervous about well well colleges accept this it's very similar you can make a correlation between meeting being in the a or exceeding being in the a range meeting being in the B range so colleges are getting used to the idea that this is how grading will be

088coming down that down the pike so I don't think it's going to be drastically different by the time we roll it out at the high school level and you'll still do GPAs and all that will still be there but it is going to be a change so we are starting slow we know when the new superintendent comes a Boyd Hill he or she he or she will make a decision about the speed at which things will roll out as they get their feet wet and and take on the day-to-day work here but we open it for any questions you might have it's a lot of info Yes Doctor to me I wanted first of all this is very exciting and I'd like to commend you and your team for putting this together does this lead

089into something that I've been very very interested in with the performance-based assessments so as you know we've been talking about performance-based assessments for a very long time and exhibitions of learning as ways for students to demonstrate mastery and portfolios being very important so we know for sure in science that the new next generation M casts is going to be very much performance-based so that the items will really kind of provide a scenario and students will need to think through that scenario maybe even a materials list and have to make some assumptions and then you know create their solutions so we think that very much so the performance assessment is in our future okay thank you and I think we'll be ready as a result so it's very exciting will there be opportunities as a follow

090up will there be opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning using this report oh absolutely I think it'll make it much clearer to students you know and to families in terms of how they are meeting the goals and how they're meeting that and I believe that it will allow our teachers to get more creative with the assignments that they're making you know Mary Lou mentioned that it's what the transition is going to take some time one of the concerns that we heard from Weatherby teachers who are starting the pilot was that what about high school decisions based on our new third term report card will be the only middle school in Lawrence that's going to have a different report card for this third term so what we did for them was to create a numerical

091value for seventh and eighth grade for every content there is a way in the algorithm for the reporting system to do that I think eventually that crutch will go away folks won't need that anymore but for the time being it made folks feel better to provide a numerical average it's not as simple as you know just having one letter equate there is a there is a sort of numerical way that that's done and that's handled on the back end but PowerSchool does that for the teacher thank you you're welcome so will this also change in PowerSchool the online where you where your students can check their if you have the online portal now then it will be the same except that it will convert over to the new standards-based grading so right now at the

092Wetherby they are not using the portal for parents but we have asked them to you know invite some parents who might be interested so that we can receive the feedback about how that experience is we have some schools that are using the portal now but not all we're hoping to encourage all of our schools to open the parent portal if in fact we do get to roll this out next fall for all of our schools because I think that that communication is amazing when parents get that right on their phone so what do you say with this update of the report card that kids will and parents can see in all areas how a student is performing not just academically but in all areas of my communication engagement correct that pro-social skills page and Joanie's

093going to give you a sample third grade for you to look at it's four pages single sided which is the same length as our current report card which we print double-sided still you know two pieces of paper but four sides so we weren't able to really include a lot of information without lengthening the amount we also brought the Spanish up so it's not English on one side and Spanish on the other it was very important to the work group that we had everything right there for the parents so they were reading it simultaneously and that was another important thing we had to get creative with how we did that but I was satisfied with the way that it turned out so you know you'll see that and there's a whole section of that pro-social skills

094and you'll be able to see how specific it is much more specific the other piece I didn't mention is that teachers have been frustrated with the limited amount of space that they have to to comment so we quadrupled the amount of space for English language arts and we tripled it for the other content areas because they really want to be able to write a narrative to parents about it's not just about the grades or the performance indicators it's also about how your child is doing and keeping up and what their strengths are we want to tell you about he or she is a learner and teachers are really interested in writing that information is there any way or has Common Core ever spoken about ways that students can evaluate their school or their teacher and

095I create a report card where the students can you know grade their teachers or grade the school in general is there any way or any conversations around how some schools are using those tools they're available there online and there are schools that are using those tools to get feedback we have several schools using a 21st century grant that we have for our expanded learning time and many schools are using those kinds of tools to sort of help them know where they are doing well and to get feedback from students so this at least for that particular grant in those four schools that we're working with they encourage them to seek that kind of feedback so that's that's a very important piece I don't think we've rolled that out full scale at this point across all

096schools but I know a couple of classes at the high school do it but that's unique to the teacher wanting the feedback but it's not universal so on page four on the top slide it talks about standard standards-based grading do students actually get to test to mastery or do they get to do assignments to mastery or is it kind of progressive so when you say progressive say a little more about that so are you being on a particular unit are you being tested throughout the unit or if you don't do well in a certain section are you able to test again so the assumption is that you have the opportunity to redo retake okay and so that's the sort of reteaching that we're doing with our educators is that giving the opportunities to do it

097over to try again I'm gonna have a great little video I'm going to show at the President's Council on April 11th that's a it actually is about riding a bike but it shows about how you have to practice and get better and so that's what needs to happen we need teachers to adopt that in their classrooms as well if you think about it instead of what you currently do is and the students will tell you this you study a section you take a test that's done you move on to the next section you take another test that pots done this is just accumulative you keep rolling and scaffolding back up and down so that you ultimately master all of those skills but it may not be that you didn't master it in that first test

098but by the time the end of the term came yes you couldn't master that test true so that it's not just looking at single points of time for grades it's really looking over the term what have you been progressing and where have you come to in terms of knowing what you need to know and that expanded thank you in some school districts they actually call them retakes the kids start to learn the language of I've made a request to my teacher for retake so once students get really invested - even at a young age in their own learning and in their own mastery that's when I think that we will know that we achieve the outcomes we really want to as we expand I think our inclusive practices we're trying to stretch the idea that

099students take in information different ways students represent it back in different ways and that it's okay for this student to do a video presentation because maybe they can't get up and from that class and do a oral presentation or to actually build a structure to illustrate whatever it is that they needed to do so we're really pushing that agenda I'm seeing it more at the middle lower middle grades but I know ultimately it's getting to the high school because the kids coming up I got to push that agenda that this is what they used to having and they're gonna expect it when they get to the high school so unfortunately for those who are already there it's gonna take a while to get there but I see the kids who are coming up now that

100have an inclusive classroom saying hey I'm not going back to a resource room you need to figure it out I'm here now and this is how I'm used to learning so in high school has really started to pick that up and I'm seeing much more of that happening in the ninth and tenth grade and I'm hoping the eleventh and twelfth is gonna edge it up okay so they'll be ongoing discussions about this I'm sure mr. good dollars so I have a question about the portal so you said it's gonna be very easy accessible for the parents ought to look at the grades and look at comments is it gonna be the same for the parents are they able to maybe reply to the teachers of any comments yes they'll be able to have their option

101I believe to send an email you know immediately if they have something they want to comment back or they want to question you know a particular quiz or assessment or a classwork grade because that's the other thing all of the assignments will be categorized is this a piece of classwork was this homework was this you know a unit test or was it just a quiz they will be able to you know put them in a category so parents will have that information as well and they can communicate right back with the teacher and I think in this age of technology being what it is and people's schedules and being busy parents will appreciate not having to leave work to maybe you know have a check-in with the teacher and to be able to do it

102in that quick kind of format and then if a meeting is needed they can schedule that too but I think increasing the communication is the goal that we're looking for here thank you welcome that is secured just so you know that parents have a password that they have access and students have their own password to check things also remember more so I know you guys mentioned that GPAs would still remain something at the high school level so I'm just wondering how does it factor in with this standards-based grading if you need to calculate for a GPA would that mean that the standard based letter grades would just be equivalent to the traditional ABCD it's not equivalent it's a more complicated algorithm than that and that the team has been discussing it we brought on a

103consultant to work with us the last two years who does this work all over the country and was one of the folks that actually developed a lot of the backend of power school so where we feel good about the fact that he knows it and understands it and is helping us to learn about it so GPA came up because that's important to folks at the high school moving on to college and what that is so that probably won't go away even if the high school decides to join us in this mission and move to standards-based grading and I think that's why it was important to the folks at the middle schools that we provide some kind of a percent or percentile to kids in seventh and eighth grade that will be moving on to high

104school for their high school decisions the high schools are not because our report cards have been what they are arbitrary letter grades the high schools don't in terms of Admissions our high school and others they they haven't put as much weight on give me your report card and let me see if that's a reason for admission because they know about the arbitrary nature I think that our high schools are going to very much appreciate having a standards-based report card to look at at the end of a term because they're going to have all kinds of information about how a student is doing strength-wise and where their needs are and they could very quickly plan for what that student needs to have in terms of any tutoring or any accelerated courses that they may need to

105have also much more information I don't know if Joni has passed out the sample to you yet but once you you get the sample of the report card and you see it then you'll know the other thing that she has for you is a copy of our frequently asked questions that's currently running as a you can click here on the banner of the in the website that's announcing our meeting on April 11th at President's Council and there's an opportunity for parents to click to get the frequently asked questions in English and Spanish so that's there for you too and all if you have any other questions you can always email me or give me a call at the office and I'm happy to get back to you if that's okay actor James this question that's

106why the high school is taking its time as to evolve because you have a different situation where you have waited courses because of the AP or the college prep or you just general track or general course and certain courses do count towards some don't so they really making sure that that's all laid out well so that doesn't impact anyone in terms of GPA and graduation anyone else i steped I just the sample was really great to see so I may sound like a silly question but who's gonna get it who's gonna have this specific report card so for third term which is what we started on March 12th we're in our third trimester the Wetherby school is piloting the new report card in all grades K through 8 all of the teachers have participated in

107a day of training and they are currently working in their gradebook around the new standards so for this third term just the weather just the weather be school and then starting next year we are waiting when the new superintendent arrives we'll kind of figure out how we're going to roll out across the district just one more question doctor to me how would the parents you may have alluded to them in your presentation how would the weather be parents informed about this and how has it been any we provided a backpack home letter in English in Spanish to all of the families to explain what was happening before the term started and let them know how really integral the team the curriculum team at Weatherby was in helping to support the workgroup and get things going

108whether it be we feel has been at the standards work maybe even a little bit longer than some of our other schools so there was a real readiness there for that to happen and the families have been very supportive after the President's Council meeting on the 11th I will also be scheduling a morning and an evening meeting for any interested whether be parents to come and we'll be doing a similar presentation over at Weatherby but up close and personal for those parents that whether it be thank you anyone else Thanks thank you very welcome thank you we have one more item on the agenda which is a quick update from Amory Stronach on where we're at with our MSP projects and which are moving forward and which may be about completed good evening members of

109the School Committee and thank you for taking the time to hear about the projects in the MSBA that we have currently I want to just start out by giving you just a quick little I know some of you are new to this and I just kind of want to give you a quick little rundown there are two actual projects that are funded by the MS ba one is the accelerated repair projects the other is a core project we have projects in both of those I'm gonna start out with the accelerated repair projects they are basically roofs boilers windows we currently have this building that just got a new boiler we just finished it we just closed out the project last week that project was anticipated to cost 1.5 million dollars in actuality because of the

110work done by the City Council in the mayor and the aggressive schedule we put forward because when we go to City Council we fund the project's fully right away so that we can put out our air of peace before other projects are coming on board because of that our actual bids came in at 1.3 which we were pretty excited about and the MSBA covered 80 percent of that so the MSBA paid a little over a million dollars in the school's contribution was two hundred and eighty six thousand dollars with uh coming in on the budget by about close to thirty thousand dollars twenty nine seven or something like that so that project is done while we have a new heating system the heating system we still doesn't address the HVAC so there's still some control

111issues in terms of some rooms getting more heat than other rooms but that is an HVAC system different than the boiler so I point that out because sometimes when you put in a new boiler people like think all the heating problems are going to go away it also doesn't address the ear condition that's a cooling system as a part of the HVAC so that project just finished we went out for bid for that project in 2016 so that kind of gives you an idea of how long that these takes from the time we put in the application till the time of completion with the accelerator burpees keeping in the theme of accelerator for Pia's last April 2017 we submitted three projects for consideration by the MSBA we were fortunate enough to get picked for all

112three of those projects so we are putting a new roof on this building and that is not going to be done until to some summer 2019 we're going to be putting in a new roof and a new boiler at the Arlington complex obviously with these repair projects even though that heating systems aren't completely finished in terms of solving every ill in the building the efficiencies that are put into these are going to have long lasting savings on the facilities that these are happening in so we're really excited about that in the project at the Arlington school that's going to be done this summer and we're doing both of those projects at the same time so the roof repair and the boiler will be done this summer therefore there will be no activities at all in

113that building this summer typically we have many programs running in there we're going to be moving those off sites and as we get well thought-out in our summer programs you'll be getting more information about those but just so you know the Arlington School will be completely offline this summer we've already worked with the partners in the neighborhood to do the latchkey and things like that because I know that people depend on that building in the summertime so we've already started those outreach conversations so I want to assure you with that that projects both of those projects combined are four million dollars 1.5 for the boiler 2.5 for the roof we're in the process the accelerator repairs those big projects the MSBA has a list of providers so we don't necessarily go out to bid we

114do our own contracts within the city but that helps speed up the process the North common roof is a four million dollar project and again I can't thank the mayor in the City Council I'm not for all the support because this is a tremendous amount of resources that they are investing into the schools again we're very fortunate in this district to get eighty percent reimbursement that's the maximum amount that you can get if you go to our surroundings acute communities they're getting fifty fifty seven fifty eight so we are right now at 80 percent that could change depending on because they revisit that every year but that is the reimbursement rate currently then we have two core projects a core project could be a renovation or a rebuild we put in the Oliver school in

115April 2016 and we're fortunate enough to get approved for the eligibility phase that eligibility phased finalized this January and we were just go back to the MSBA after we submit all that work to get into the what they call the feasibility space in the feasibility phase we will be getting a project manager on board as well as a architect once the architect comes on board then we will go into the schematic design and then once all that stuff comes into play we'll be going out into the community to find out what the community is looking for in terms of educational components in that building site locations and those kind of things so you'll be hearing a lot about that we just got accepted into the feasibility on February 14th so that's just kicking off and

116that feasibility schematic design usually takes about two years and then constructions another year so that school could open up in 2021 2022 or in that timeframe if we keep on the accelerated track that we're on I do want to mention that with the all of our school projects we're very excited there's a lot of intensive work that goes into the eligibility phase one of those things is the enrollment capacity it has to do with the development that's going on in the community projects that are coming online housing and all those things currently the oliver's partnership school is about 500 students this new school they gave us an enrollment capacity of a thousand students so that's very exciting news for us because while we'll still have the other buildings open it's gonna open up 500 well-needed

117seats in that area of the city which is where we're having the most trouble keeping up with the influx of students into our schools and then last year in April of 2017 we went back to the MSBA and asked for another core project and that was the Lahey school we just got voted into that eligibility phase in December I will tell you they were a little concerned about us going having two school projects built at the same time we feel that the capacity is there to do that and the need is very great so we were very fortunate I just want you to know that every year the number of schools vary in terms of how many applications MSBA got but they do a very small percentage so to have this kind of support from

118the MSBA has a lot to do with the support from the community the support from City Council in the former school committee as well and yourselves in the upcoming phases will be important so that project has the feasibility eligibility phase does not start until May it's a 270 day and we will be giving them our final in December of next school year so that hopefully will be completed and then we'll be invited into the feasibility stage for the Lahey School and that's pretty much it in a nutshell great there's so much of the MSBA stuff going on I'm sure I've seen your whiteboard there's a lot of stuff on that can you just do it just so that we all have for personal reference just send us an email with like the rules being down

119what windows maybe the white page that I gave you the last time I updated with the new projects on it and give you the new numbers for NORTHCOM and that's done awesome the two things that I want to point out because I was new to this process we hadn't applied in of the longest time for no real reason and so they were actually excited about getting us into the MSB a program where a lot of other communities with lot less need than us have been getting benefited from the program is that you know we went after a real crucial stuff and clearly we spend a lot of time in the wintertime here so we had all these boilers done we did try to get AC at the HVAC over at the ala tenant they do

120not do a cease wage back at all you know they don't see it as a part of the learning program they see the heat is but it's but the other thing is that so they just don't do it I think that somebody just need to make the case of them but to do that because we are in school a lot longer into the winter time I'm into the summer time and we actually start still sometimes being in the summertime the second thing I want to say is we do have building committees in the building community there's a bunch of people on the building committees that are wrote by state law and there has to be somebody who has different qualifications as purchasing for the for the Commonwealth and you know a teacher somebody from the

121building like all these things are in there if there is a member of the school board that's assigned to it for the group for the Oliver school it's a de león's allas is that the that's correct the representative replaced Joe Robles exactly what we're planning to do because you know she basically taught in that building and ran in the building for most of the time she was in school systems to do Pat Mariano at the Lahey when that comes do that that's also mean we just started doing meetings but this could be such a long time for community input and if there's other positions on the panel too for the folks really really want to be on the anymore just give me a holler and we'll try to figure something out I would also say

122when we go to do these outreach meetings when we have the community partner your voice is going to be very important as well as the people who have been attending these meetings but the community portion is going to be really really big as to what you want to see in your new school it is a criteria that MSBA takes very very seriously and we're looking forward to having those conversations and even though we didn't get funding for ACS last year we did spend say last year we did spend a lot of time and money on ACS in your house work differently than a season building like this they have like some antifreeze in it it's called glycol it's green and nasty and as well most all of the almost all of the AC issues you

123see all the ACS across the district were needing new glycol in their systems or didn't have any at all and that helped out a bunch of stuff that's how we got the high school back up and places like that so we are even though we don't get so funding when was crucial stuff like that the city side is definitely stepping in on and doing that anybody else have any questions or comments thank you have a great now you think and then the last piece was you had asked about scheduling a budget workshop I've put through a couple of dates there if people have availability on those days I just need to know which one works better I know it's a tight primering we waited until after we had all our budget meetings so we have

124a good sense of where we're at and we also have to have a budget prepped and ready for about the 11th of April so that we can hold up a book earring at the end of April so the timeline is a little tight so I'm leaving it up to your discretion about which day works do people feel like they make a decision on that day tonight or do you want to go back I'm ready for tonight - anybody want to wait all right April 2nd these are coming quick than Monday and Tuesday so next week yes we're April already jumpin Jehosaphat the third works for me but I am NOT in need of the workshop everybody wants to the second one second it is Monday ok Monday the second and we'll meet remember more can

125you make that it will me that the school department offices yeah ons extreme mm-hmm 55 30 you need to go into 55 until our elevators down so go into 55 and we'll ship you up to our offices great thank you before you questions I just want to make sure we hadn't put up the website where it has all our names and email addresses I think it might be good because this is gonna go on TV you can't really see that I thought you can but you see it better well maybe we can just go down the aisle and everybody give whatever contact information they want to be reached out again it's videotaped so it goes on loop on the School Department channel so if you want if you have an email or a phone number

126you want to give out to parents and folks listening please say it slow and repeat it once so that everybody knows do it but you wanna start with you Tamura my name is James Maura you can reach me at James x vm at gmail.com that's James XV m @ gmail.com also at seven eight six four nine one six eight five five that's seven eight six four nine one six eight five five my name is Adderley gonzalez and you could reach me at a de AR ly 0 9 at msn.com and if you could text me at nine seven eight nine oh two four nine to six or call me Marianela Rivera and you can contact me at Rivera nella at gmail.com that's Rivera dot and ela at gmail.com or you could call me or text

127me at nine seventy five six six thirteen seventy again the numbers nine seven eight five six six thirteen seventy my name is Alyssa Salas and you can email me at Alyssa dot Sal Alyssa Salas at gmail.com double e in the beginning so ee is s.a.s al-aas I'm Dan Rivera and I'm at Mayer Rivera at city of Lawrence calm and that's ma y OU r RI ve RA at city of Lawrence calm my cell phone is nine seven eight nine eight five five one four three my name is Pat Mariano I can my email is Patricia Mariano at Verizon dotnet my cell phone is nine seven eight two six five five two zero eight Donna brutally no you can email me at D Bardolino mm at yahoo.com Stacy C word you can email me at s

128SE w AR D 0 0 at gmail.com or text or call me at nine seven eight four nine four zero seven zero six great and then any questions we have before we wrap up um can we just add two I know that we're gonna add a bunch of stuff to the next month's agenda come we also have just uh an overview of the teacher's contract a lot of work went into getting us a teacher's contract and since we have one and it's been ratified by the Union and I know they were working on the document so it's just about ready number silence also just a reminder that there will be a meeting April 4th here with the board that is selecting a superintendent I just want to remind folks that that process is also happening

129we know what time that's at six o'clock gifts there's a clock here great anything else that's all you ma'am superintendent thank you then we will adjourn this meeting have a good evening