001no he's right now there he is all right brilliant I will call the meeting to order good evening everyone we can stand if you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance Allegiance of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right thank you all I was uh obviously Rich isn't here today so this is what power feels like I guess but I received we all received some really terrible news uh almost a week ago uh regarding Danny Duggan so I would like to take a moment of silence please if I may be so bold as to say a few words about Danny uh she was a tremendous individual and I am glad that I had the pleasure to have her as my teacher while
002I was here um from my four years um she really made the School feel or at least her Department feel like it was home and it was a safe space and I think above all she excelled greatly not only teaching her students to act and to pretend to be someone else but to be true to who they really are and to be true to others and I think that'll be the thing that I miss the most about her so I invite anyone else if they have anything else to say they may all right moving on to uh public comment if there's anything not on the agenda today all right see you done uh moving on to the discussion items I will hand it off to uh Miss Carolyn sure um I think we'll start we
003probably will start with the reports for school committee members oh yes sorry anything to report seeing none um I is Nathan's not here today so I don't believe so all right and now now sorry thank you um so I'll turn into my report for this evening and we're going to start with a presentation of our MCAS data I will ask Dr Terry marcolitis to please come up um and go over our results not just how our students performed but also what we see as opportunities and areas for growth so Dr markelitis welcome I never would have found that thank you good evening I'm going to um present you with a lot of information if you have any questions please stop me at any time I did submit two different reports for you to look at
004one is the one I'm presenting tonight which is a shorter version the longer version was also in the Dropbox in the interest of time because there's a lot of information that's going to be presented tonight I'm going to give you the shorter version okay so I'm going to start with the deci press release that they sent out a short time ago I'm going to start with a three years kind of overview of the data we'll be looking at Ela Trends and data math Trends and data science Trends and data so I'm going to actually read this I don't often read from slides but I am quoting Desi and I want to make sure and do them Justice so the results from this past spring 20 to 2022 the test the results were mixed Math and
005Science scores have improved since 2021 overall in the state English language arts scores have declined across the state overall results when compared to pre-pandemic levels show continued need for improvement this is not Middleborough this is the state of Massachusetts so what you will see that follows with our data is in line with this the results show that it may take a few years for students to recover academically from the covid-19 pandemic I want to repeat that it may take a few years so um I think if we're expecting for things to rebound right away that is very unrealistic students need more time learning whether it's in the form of tutoring acceleration academies early literacy after school programs or summer learning foreign the Department of Education continues to work with teachers and districts to improve early
006literacy instruction and through deeper learning initiatives make Massachusetts schools more relevant engaging and creative places to be a student or teacher we have availed ourselves of some of this money and we will continue to do so so this is the slide that gives us three years at a glance there was no test in 2020 so what you see up there is 2019 2021 and 2022. you can't really compare 21 and 22 because 21 was an Abridged shortened version of the MCAS so when you are looking at the comparison you really want to look at 19 and 22. our goal as a district is to shrink the orange and red stacks and grow the green and blue we will do this through adjusted scope and sequences for all of our curriculum research-based instructional practices and curriculum
007that meets the needs of all of our students we do have students that follow a different pathway these are the MCAS alt portfolios this is a portfolio style assessment which includes work samples instructional data videos Etc foreign students participate in the MCAS alt in the same years that their peers do so grades 3 through 10 in the content areas of ela math and science 15 alts were submitted for the 21-22 school year and we will have the same number for this year all students passed Ela and math only for students passed science due to a clerical error that is currently being corrected so this will be updated when the Department of Education has made those Corrections students who participate in MCAS all portfolio work they achieve a certificate of attendance or achievement not a high
008school diploma I want to touch on our subgroups so we do consider we break it down to females and males we do go into that depth as we look at MCAS females perform slightly higher than males in ela with males performing slightly higher than females in math it was about the same in science white students performed slightly better than non-white students non-identified low-income students performed higher than low-income students with 26 low-income students meeting or exceeding expectations compared to 46 non-identified low-income students meeting or exceeding expectations foreign ERS scored slightly lower than non-english learners and students with disabilities and those in the high needs category scored slightly lower growth than non-disabled or non-high needs students based on this data as well as several other data points we have already put several things in place to improve
009our student learning outcomes the first is we hired a third English language learner teacher this year we are in the process of hiring literacy and a math interventionist at Nichols Middle School we are hiring interventionists at the complex we have a new position of an interventionist at the Mac we have an adjusted scope and sequence for foundational literacy and we will continue our work in that area we are currently creating a scope and sequence for writing in grades K through 12 based on the mass Frameworks and using evidence-based practices we are also in the process of a math curriculum review and we will be piloting programs in January we have ongoing professional development in math and literacy content as well as the other content areas this year saw the addition of screeners at the mech
010in early bird dyslexia screener and Nichols star 360 for math and reading we are developing standards-based units in ela grades six through eight during professional development sessions and professional learning communities we are improving vertical and horizontal articulation throughout the district in every area grades 3 through 10 Ela I'm going to start with Trends and this is really the bulk of the presentation for each of the content areas I do have some data slides and I will go over them briefly but this is really what where I want to focus our energy so in grade three we found some strength in vocabulary acquisition an opportunity for growth is conventions and writing grade four strength not much stood out grade four is one of those grades across the state that is showing some significant gaps in learning
011and if you think about the last two and a half years it would make sense opportunities for growth again conventions and writing and knowledge of language grade five strength nothing stands out opportunities for growth conventions and writing grade 6 strength craft and structure opportunity for growth conventions and writing grade 7 strength nothing stands out opportunity for growth conventions and writing grade 8 strength vocabulary acquisition opportunities for growth conventions and writing so I'm sure you notice a commonality we have some work to do in the area of writing and conventions we are going to address that through our foundational literacy scope and sequence and instruction and also as I mentioned earlier we are going to be creating um a writing plan for K-12 and we hope to have it implemented in the next two years High
012School of strength reading overall opportunity for growth conventions writing this is grade 3 Ela and what you see here is the district State comparison constructed response just for um to make sure that we all understand what that is that's basically writing a paragraph often comparing two pieces of text the selected response is multiple choice and E assay is a very standard essay in third grade I think they expect three paragraphs and as they go up through the years increased evidence and length of the essays grade four Ela District State comparison anything in the red we are below the state grade five Ela grade six [Music] grade seven grade eight and grade 10. moving on to math 3 through 10 Trends in math grade 3 strong constructed responses geometry and fractions opportunities for growth properties of
013multiplication and division grade 4 strength numbers and operations opportunity for growth geometry grade 5 strength writing writing and math is a thing opportunity for growth fractions grade 6 strength writing and geometry opportunity for growth numbers and equations grade 7 strengths statistics probability opportunity for growth numbers and equations grade eight amazing overall High School strength polynomials opportunity for growth functions and equations and then the slides that follow again it's the state and District comparison anything in the red is below the state this is grade three grade four grade five grade six grade seven grade eight and grade 10. grade 10 hasn't an awful lot of standards moving on to science Trends in science grade five science engineering strength Earth space science life science opportunity for growth matter and its interactions which is chemistry grade 8 science
014and engineering strength was amazing overall so our grade 8 really knocked it out of the park congratulations to the teachers and the students who are currently in grade nine opportunity for growth engineering design high school biology strength ecology and evolution opportunity for growth heredity molecules to organisms and constructed responses and here's a stack graph of the district and state comparison we did really well in science and technology in grades five and eight and ten any questions um first uh could you could you just tell me what a non-identified low-income um category means so it just means we don't know if people are low income or not we only know if they are receiving free and reduced it's the only way that we can categorize them so that's how the state reports out on them got
015it and then um Mr uh chair if it's okay I had just a couple other questions please um I I'm so interested by that Dynamic of the ELA grade three doing from what I can tell um at or decently above the state yeah um on Ela but the same Trend doesn't exist with that seem great for math and I wondered if you had any ideas about what is it about that kind of magic grade three which by my quick math they were in first grade when the pandemic hit what is it about them that allowed them to do better than some of the higher grades in ela um so I think that's a really good question um it really looked different um between the two schools this is the average of the two schools so
016if you break it down there were some commonalities I would say between math and English but put it together and it kind of came out with a different outcome and then Mr chair just one more um I think just um it's pretty jarring when you're when you're scrolling through these and you look at um the difference between um I'm just looking at grade four hbb Math versus grade four mkg math and I just wondered if you had an idea of of what was going on there to one has a lot of red and one doesn't yeah so I think you know we've I've talked with the principals about this we have some work to do in math across the district uh you know we have strengths in different places I would say it has a
017lot to do with um just really needing to make sure that we're all on the same page and that has to do with the vertical and horizontal articulation I was speaking to earlier we know we have work to do there we are addressing it sure okay thank you thank you um just regarding the funding for some of these positions are we using Esther grant funding are we are we did we pre-budget for all this because it's quite a few uh positions that it looks like you're looking at a great get which is great but just to make sure that we're yeah so I can speak to that but I think Sarah's probably a better person to speak to that so several of those positions were RS are funded um which does call into question that
018works for now now what we did with positions was we funded them or tried to fund them for multiple years so it wouldn't be a quick hit um you have this support for one year only so some of those many of those positions are Esser funded and we will be coming to you know budget subcommittee to talk about that as these funds dry up we also had the Chapter 70 reallocation so that money is also something that we've used some of the new interventionist positions as well because we just feel one that's in line you know the other part of the story here is our growing enrollment which is a wonderful thing to have but more students in our district means you know everybody's expertise is spread Beyond a larger group so both of those
019areas were identified and not operating budget would you concur with that I would well and in addition to that for example the additional ell teacher that is a need that we have known about uh the the growing uh English language learning population in Middleboro we've known about that and that is actually a position that was funded from the budget for this upcoming year so um so I would concur with what superintendent Lyons said there are a number of Esser positions uh Dr markulitis and I built some of the interventionist positions into the title one Grant so the title one Grant I think if you recall my riveting presentation about grants a couple weeks ago chapter title one Grant is an entitlement Grant which means we will get that year after year after year and so
020I we took a good look at what was the best use of this money and putting it towards the working with the students that need and support was a good idea so not just Esser but Title One did we use Title II also we did we also used title IV title four thank you so um we really took a look at what the needs were and we reached everywhere we could reach great thank you any more questions yes sorry I thought I thought that was a good question and I just wanted to ask a follow-up actually really to our team um up here uh or actually anyone can answer um but uh given the the idea that there is a kind of a multi-year slump after kovid maybe the answer is that the positions as
021we just talked about are you know can be easily justified by the growing enrollment but how you know next year and the year Beyond how do we look to kind of evaluate the impact of those new positions given that the slump is also coming back up at the same time um because I think this will be a prequel for a future budget um off in 2023 and Beyond agreed it's an excellent question it was actually one of the first things that our leadership team talked about when Esser money came out there was an immediate kind of question of do we flood the district with new hires or do we allocate that money to some other expenditure or do we do a mix of the of both and the team knew at the time that if
022you if you use or allocate all of that money to salaries ultimately you you are you know breaking your budget whether you realize it or not so the metric of okay was this effective is going to involve looking at multiple data points so no disrespect to MCAS but this is not the data point that I will be using to determine whether or not these positions were effective as Dr Margaret is correctly points out this is going to take a couple of years to address the state completely recognizes that so I'm going to be looking through my data entry process which we've entry plan process you're looking you're going to look at other forms of data that star 360 that star 360 data early bird that dyslexia screener the number of students who are referred for
023special education you're going to look at overall student progress not an isolated data point like MCAS to say is this effective this is where the work and the magic of the leadership team really comes to life because these are conversations we're having in our meetings every two weeks and there is a very much a constant assessment of is this working isn't this working one of the reasons the interventionists at the elementary level are onboarding new now and not you know over the summer was because of conversations I had with um principal Thompson and principal white where we were trying to provide additional support in grade levels that this not only are identified by us three four and five but also the state as completely vulnerable populations because of the impact of the of the pandemic
024and the developmental Place those children were at the time does that answer your question it absolutely does thank you so much yeah yeah go ahead sir I just I want to add to that if you really analyze where the money is going it's focusing on improving instruction so professional development for teachers supporting T the people that we've put in place is about are about supporting the teachers and the work that they do and those teachers are still going to be with us five six ten years from now so it's not um you know I Know A District where they just flat out hired 30 extra teachers they'll be gone two years from now I don't know what happens after that because that wouldn't be effective here just one point chair what I wanted to say
025and I don't want this to be interpreted as an apology in any capacity um or you know a downplaying of these results these results are very much a data point but I think I would be remiss to not address the children that took this test at this point in time with everything that they went through and I say that to this community not only as your superintendent but as a mom of a fifth grader who took it and I know how he felt about it so if you're a student and you're listening to tonight or you're hearing it after the fact I think it's very important that everybody understand that we are proud of our children and we applaud them for persevering and sitting for a high State Stakes test during this time and while
026this is one data point it is not the exclusive data point it does not represent any one child or this District that said I think it's clear that we have work to do I think we're more than equipped and happy to address it but I wanted to make sure I made that point tonight because I often think about the perspective of our students and how it feels when adults talk about them and their assessment and their performance so if anybody you know wants to talk with me about that more privately you can always reach out to me I'm happy to give you my perspective on that I would just like to add one other piece to that so I have done this data dance throughout the district now and the one thing I want to
027add to what superintendent lines has said is that the principals and the teachers in this District have worked incredibly hard and this one data point does not demonstrate the work and the effort that they put forth every single day and so we know that we should not have tested our kids at this time but we did we followed what the state regulated and the results that we got show that we have work to do we do but that's not saying that we haven't been doing some really great work in this District we have thank you is there are there any more questions okay thank you thank you so with that um I will move into our school Improvement plan presentations I will begin with High School Principal Paul Branigan who will report out on the
028Middleboro High School school Improvement plan for the 22-23 school year by way of review the principles came to school committee to present out in the spring to discuss not just performance on last year's plan but to give a rough sketch of what would be addressed in this plan so what you have in the Dropbox are the complete plans for all five buildings and each principal will take their turn but going through this plan with a little more depth this evening hi everyone good evening we're really excited I think as I speak for all five principles we're really excited about sharing these plans with you tonight we know that back in June we had shared with you a little bit of a preview of to some degree where we're hoping to go but also just some
029of the accomplishments of our school Improvement plans a year ago and now tonight you're gonna be able to see what has been finally agreed upon within our school councils and I'm really excited to share with you the ones for the high school just a recognition to the members of the um school council here at the high school from our members of our faculty to our parent team that are just dynamite and to also the student rep as well which for the high school level is so important to have that voice at the table you're going to notice the eight goals for us here um at our building teaching and learning practices and this is really our probably most influential kind of goal that we have where it really is taking as you know as you
030just heard Dr marcolitis's presentation of all of our data it's really an opportunity for us to kind of come together as a school and try to begin to unpack that and so part of this goal is really looking at our teaching and learning practices but it's also taken a dive into our data it's looking at our launch and engagement of our our goal of beginning our work with project-based learning which really one of the tenants of this new high school was really built on the premise of a project-based learning school um really looking at our instruction but then also the beginnings of our professional learning communities as well and really bringing back um one of the protocols we always would have in our school you know with our faculty which was our faculty expositions um
031so I'll share with you a little bit about those items from our strategic planning as you noticed that from this year through the year 2025 the next three years are very important for this high school as our accreditation will happen in 2025 and these strategic plans are really three-year plans that all of our content areas have been Drafting and now they're completed and now we'll be working with those and I'll share a little bit about that in just a moment from transition to health and wellness to really my favorite goal is our Innovation and Future Ready goal um where really it's it's really taking our students to where we hope to be a new level of really looking at Innovative Pathways in this building and being able to look at really making connections for students
032that no matter what they're taking here at the high school it has connections to really their neck next step and then also some of our big ticket items from our neesque accreditation to our new high school schedule and of course our very important ongoing work with our commitment to belonging um and really just an overview really briefly um what I'm really excited by is a creation of a formal data team at the high school um I will tell you the reason why you may say well that's shouldn't you already have one but we've always had them within the content areas of high-stakes MCAS The English Department the math department and the science department and many years ago the fact that we ended up re-shifting that and really creating a full School approach to that data
033and I think we're here again based upon really the data points that you see that you saw this evening and it's really about making sure how do we put all the ores in the water at the same time so this data team is really made up of the major content areas in the building so even though you're going to have English and math and science still really really unpacking those those standards and in that data but it's also an opportunity for Content areas like history to be able to say well where can we have an entry point if it's only looking at our commitment to writing which is one of the areas that you saw this evening but it's even more than that how could they be plotting population charts and mapping and things of
034that nature to be able to know that we can transfer skills from One content to another our project-based learning goal um which is really something we're quite excited by we have a few teachers in the building last year who were trained to be able to begin the process of the tenants of project-based learning and the idea is to really hopefully begin in the expansion of that this year our redesign of the Freshman Academy which is something I can say we're officially we've done it and now it's just really looking at how this redesign will look in the year to come and it's really helping students really especially our ninth graders of course to be able to find consistency in really what we're doing and we know the fact that you heard a little bit about
035that when we shared such things about neesque one of the things we're doing mostly in history and in English as a pilot which then will transfer itself to math and science is really looking at pre-ap skills we know the fact that if we can begin in the ninth grade of really working with our students in really some of the major skills of advanced placement student it will allow for their entry point going into that year when they want to begin an AP course whether in math or English or science or history or wherever and to be able to know they've got some real foundational skills going in and so a lot of what we're doing this year especially as a as the launch within history and English is to begin looking at some what we
036call pre-ap skill deals that would happen in grades nine and grade 10. so when they go into apus history when they go into AP Lang and composition or AP Literature they really have a little bit of a skill set behind them that's going underneath them that will help them start those courses with success these strategic plans and it's really all about growth so we really gave all of our content areas a charge to say where do you want to be in three years what do we look like as a school what do we look like as a department as a Content area and ultimately what do our classrooms look like in three years and so the target is is alive by the spring of 25 that we'll be able to meet these plans it's based
037on a traffic light model where all of our content areas are in the red as a number one as they begin charting these goals it will turn to a yellow which means they're progressing and ultimately they'll turn green once they've met those goals as well and then really just enhancing the process of transitioning to the high school working with Mrs letender at the middle school with the counseling team in both buildings with the administrative teams in both buildings it's really making sure that we can keep growing and enhancing what we're doing with the transition from grade eight to nine and one of the goals that we have which we're really desperately working at this year is really they've um continuing of our mentorship program which we had started at start strong and now we're just
038trying to get it organized to be able to make sure those ninth graders are making those Formal Connections with our seniors and lastly you just see some of our health and wellness we're really excited by the redesign of our child study team really a commitment to the expertise of Kevin avatarly and in our school psychologist here Kylie Bowen a PBIS training the positive behavior interventions of really looking at what our students need and how can we create consistent classrooms it's really quite exciting work trauma-informed classrooms which we've done here in terms of a full District but now we're working at that as well to make sure that how are we engaged all of our students who walk in the door and then ultimately our redesign of the advisory program and just lastly our future ready
039program which we're really excited by is really helping our students not only for the college readiness piece but more importantly a career Readiness piece I think we as a high school have done a really nice job of helping students prepare for those students who are going on to college but we really need to be enhancing those students who plan not to go into college um what does it look like with creating Partnerships with so many of our Community Partners to make sure the fact that are we really saying that our students are ready to go off into the next stage of life and we're really making sure they're future ready and so a lot of that is based upon what this facility now is now making sure we're maximizing the potential of the new building
040the completion of the vision of the graduate which is one of the requirements of niask but what we're hoping to do eventually is bring it to all of you as a district to be able to say that the vision just doesn't start in the ninth grade it actually Begins the first day they walk into the public school system designing the new high school schedule which is something that we are working at we have a meeting next week with Aspen to look at really the the infrastructure of that design our self-reflection as we know all of our community members received their surveys from our students to our teachers to our families and then we'll be eventually receiving all of that data and then we begin writing our self-reflection which is due by the end of June
041this is really a major document for us as we'll have our site visit next November and then lastly just really the continuation of our commitment to belonging it's really making sure that every student who walks into our school has a sense of a home and they feel like they belong it's taken our world of difference program which was really a program of training mentors in our students to really make sure they could do leadership training with our with their peers but now it's really making sure they're part of a club and that it's really transitioned from a program to an organization as well and we're pretty excited by that um and that's really what I have for the high school so we're excited and we appreciate your consideration for approval okay any questions thank you
042very much thank you everyone I'd like to introduce Mrs Heidi La tender thank you that's principal attender makes her way to the podium I'll call your attention to her school Improvement plan for the 22-23 school year good evening school committee members superintendent Lyons and our community members thank you for this opportunity to share our school Improvement plan for the 22-23 school year I know in June we did share quite a bit about our plan and I'd like to share with some share with you some of our highlights and we are continuing as Dr michaelitis referenced our approach to literacy at Nichols Middle School and really working with our department to really rethink our literacy instruction what that model looks like and we are going to be working closely with the teachers to build those units
043of instruction and we did some training last year to support and better serve our students in and our teachers in understanding what the different levels of reading looks like our department teachers are trained differently than our elementary teachers but we felt that it was important for teachers to understand that students read at different rates and ability levels and that will help them differentiate their content when delivering instruction to their students each day and we will continue um and we did accomplish using Lexia last year but we are not using Lexia for this year and we are moving on to the star 360 data points along with other common assessments that are being built in homegrown with our within our departments um we did create agenda support plan so a lot of these items up here
044listed were on our action steps from the previous year and these are the things we have accomplished and we continue our work on understanding cultural biases and working with our departments and we are excited to have our clubs off see our students in a typical Middle School setting when you think about our eighth graders this year this is their first year at the middle school having a typical Middle School experience which has been wonderful to see so we have four proposed goals for you and the first one is the most prominent goal with about 13 action steps in regards to our instructional practices to better support student learning and engagement and obviously to increase our student achievement levels we also are looking to promote and Implement our social motion learning strategies into our student school-wide
045expectations throughout the school year and we also want to re-establish our school culture built on maintaining class team grade and school-wide agreements and really it's looking at continuous building of our positive School culture and relationships within the school community and we also want to mean safe and up-to-date facilities some of our highlights there are 13 action steps but I will not go through all 13 with you tonight but here are some of the highlights we really are looking at tier one and tier 2 intervention and what does that look like tier one is for everybody you know 80 or 85 of our students are getting everyone's getting the same instruction but about 80 85 percent of those students should be learning from that type of instruction and then you have about tier two could be
04610 to 15 percent of our students might need something a little different and what does that look like and so we're using a lot of our Common Assessment data our stock 360 Benchmark data that will be administered administered in the fall winter and spring and within each department in Cross departments we will be looking at those data points and seeing where our students are being successful and where our areas of needing Improvement and we are continuing our training in English language arts department but really in all of the Departments this year we're really looking at that vertical articulation that Dr michaelitis referenced and then we're we are working and already started working on increasing our writing across all disciplines as you can see that is an area that continues to need Improvement we are also
047for our goal too we are working on some character education and social media explanations and conversations with our students we are hosting grade level meetings just about every month with the guidance department and the administrating administrative team and myself to talk to our students it's great to have them all in one area to have those conversations um this year and look at the needs of our students and what is happening and what are some concerns and then we address those and talk to them together and then we are continuing with our character strong and enhancing our social emotional skills Mr Brannigan spoke of the multiple multi-tiered systems and support which is mtss which also helps to build our PBIS I know a lot of acronyms which is positive behavior intervention and supports um we are
048building and enhancing our model we have a jump off model at Nichols Middle School but it really needs some more work and ref and realignment in our committee will be working together with a team throughout the year to rebuild that model and then we are also working on meeting monthly with our guidance department and really looking at the Panorama data along with um the administrative team to really look at where are our students at in their learning and in their well-being and really together coming up with some action steps and plans to support students and identify the areas of need and go through one of the goals is have coffee with the principal meetings which I had one this week already and the goal is really to build that bridge between home and school communication
049and I'm really looking to hear what families want to learn more about whether it's about Nichols Middle School or other topics related to middle school or adolescence I want to be able to be a bridge and share ideas and resources and work with families and we continue in our work on cultural awareness throughout the district and our school particularly we'll we will be having some trainings coming up in January and in February on recognizing bias and we also worked at the end of last year with the world of difference the students from the Middle High School came down and trained our staff and it was amazing um professional development that we had and they did a fantastic job our high school models were awesome so we want to continue with that work and then of
050course we want to maintain our up-to-date facilities in our school we have a beautiful school we do receive many compliments when people come to the Nichols Middle School and they're surprised that it's like 22 years old because it's well maintained and we want to keep up with that and currently Mr Siciliano is working on updating and changing out our white boards in each classroom so that's going to be an ongoing process throughout the next few years and obviously we need to keep up with the maintaining the one-to-one devices at Nichols Middle School so that is my report for this evening and if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them any questions all right thank you very much thank you okay and so with that we will turn into our elementary schools and
051we'll begin with the Henry B burkland Elementary School and principal Derek Thompson as he puts forward his school Improvement plan for the 22-23 school year good evening I'd just like to start by thanking my school council members that I had last year we had a great group and a lot of Rich dialogue last year I really appreciated my time with them last year they put a lot of time and effort into our plan which really you did here when I was here in the spring so I think a lot of this will be quick I did just want to say a bit about MCAS because you know as I sit there and I look at it it is a little bit frustrating and I think as a principal my job is to impact things in
052a positive way in a classroom the teachers go in the room they close their door and ultimately they're in there by themselves making 10 000 decisions every day and it's my job to positively impact those decisions so it has a good outcome on student growth and frankly it was really hard to do that over the last couple years and we were so distracted dealing with things from quarantining kids to um you know dealing with masks and then when the masks came off it was interesting I'll leave it at that last year this year has a completely different feel to it I really am more optimistic than I've been in a really long time we have supports that we haven't had in this District in a long time which I feel like has been freeing me
053up to do a lot of things I haven't been able to do in a long time the atmosphere the environment it feels normal it feels good kids are learning we're digging in again we haven't been able to do some of the work we've been doing we had a math PD today with grade three we haven't really done any of that work in a long time so the really the data is frustrating and it's not surprising it's you know we just haven't been doing the things that we know we've needed to do so we are back at it which is good so a lot of what is in my plan are things we've been doing we know Works um with I think another layer of support that hadn't um necessarily existed before so my first goal
054is to improve student performance and literacy in grades one to five and specifically what we're looking to improve to accomplish this goal this year is to work with the teachers in the areas of writing word work reading foundational skills and handwriting handwriting is a new one for us this year we have Handwriting Without Tears so we're focusing on that in grades one and two we're also another little piece that we haven't been able to do much um is just increasing engagement in students as readers and writers and doing all the little extra things like visiting the library and Publishing kids writings and things that you know take a little bit extra time we've been able to get back at this year which is great and then just uh ensuring all our our students are on
055a path of growth so really the structures that we have in place at hbb are what allow us to do that so we assess all of our kids we ensure that we are meeting in PLC which is our professional learning communities looking at that data targeting any kids that are struggling and providing interventions at all three tiers to any kids that need those interventions and keep moving them forward kids that continue to struggle we bring them to child study team and we and we go from there so we also have a lot there's been a lot of work curriculum work done that is very helpful laying out that scope and sequence and Clarity around what we should be teaching to make sure that we're getting to everything we need to get to has been helpful
056in also getting back to our differentiated professional development and coaching cycles that come out of that one of the things that we had done with our training through when we were partnered with Leslie University was short ongoing PDS that we provided coverage for so teachers came out for two hours and then they had coaching in between we really haven't been able to do much of that the last couple years it's really impactful it's a big part of what brought our school from where it was to where it um is today where it was in 2019 which is last time I'd sit here and tell you I feel good about the data um so we're getting back at a lot of that stuff and I think it's been great our next goal is to improve student
057performance and math same structures apply to math specifically what we're looking to improve in math is guided math and getting back to the workshop model you know again a little bit difficult when you have to have kids spaced out all over the room now that we have a little bit more flexibility to do some flexible grouping and moving kids around the room and really continuing to expand their skill set and differentiation and just getting at the conceptual understanding of mathematics we have a bunch of fun things planned for the kids this year we have a math week planned kind of like about our stem week which those kinds of things are really important for kids to see themselves as mathematicians and again ensuring that all kids are on a path of growth so we do
058that same way by monitoring progress we give the assessments we take a look at all of our kids that are struggling we develop plans for kids that are not where we want them to be and then we reassess them and make sure those plans are working and then our last goal is an SEL goal that is to Foster an inclusive inclusive environment for students and families so that all students feel like they belong and are equipped with a social emotional learning skills required to meet with success we are focused on trying to improve competencies for both teachers and students in the areas of executive functioning emotional regulation self-awareness relationships kids ability to stay focused for longer periods of time which is becoming increasingly challenging goal setting and goal goal attainment so those are the things
059that we're focusing focusing on so we do that we talked a little bit about this last year we do that through the use of the purposeful people curriculum that we Implement during morning meeting and commerce choice just teaching kids to be present aware of their surroundings the kids around them and you know we have a lot of things at hbb that we do but those are specific initiatives that we're focused on this year we also are focused on improving our home to school partnership so we've been talking about two big things that we're working on right now is developing some clarity around our end of grade expectations specific with the learner behaviors and the social emotional skills we're trying to develop in kids and then being clear about how we actually teach those so like
060one example we talk a lot about is the use of agendas and being consistent with that and if if that's what we ultimately choose to do as a pathway to start to teach kids to organize themselves to be planful to map out assignments that they might have that might not be due for a couple days what does that look like in fourth grade what does that look like in fifth grade and then working with families too in terms of you know why did we send homework at the elementary level you know we're not under any illusion that sending home a math worksheet is going to improve kids in math it's really teaching personal responsibility it's teaching kids to bring something home to do something at home seek support bring it back so that's a big
061part of what we're trying to focus on just a little bit more clarity and consist consistency around the building as we do that we're going to do some parent nights bring families in to try to work with families because I think that's the intersection where home and school meets is in that area so we also with SEL um have these conversations in our professional learning communities for a long time we have administered a SEL screener so some of the changes for us this year through Kevin Mr avatables office is just taking a lot of the structures we've already had in place and aligning them with what's going on in the rest of the district so using Panorama using a different screener to track that information and just you know put in plans for kids that
062are struggling basically so the same process that we go through for Math and Ela we also do for kids that are struggling making friends or getting along with others or sitting still in class or staying focused uh we we put plans in place for those kids as well um so that is my plan any questions thank you very much all right thank you thank you with that we will move to the Mary Kay good Elementary School principal Lisa white is making her way to the table world where she will present her school Improvement plan for the 22-23 school year good evening everybody this is probably my favorite presentation that we get to do I love talking about Mary Kay good I'm sure you know that by now so thank you uh to our school council
063they put a lot of hard work in this last year um you know creating a plan that I think really encompasses where we need to where we've been and where we need to go so thank you and thank you we have a new members this year on our team and we're excited to work with them as well Linda Lincoln a parent as a new member and Emily Temple also is a new member this year so we're very excited to begin working with them so our first goal is a literacy goal and obviously you know it's to improve instruction that's what we want to do with literacy so we're focusing on our workshop model um this allows us to differentiate it also allows us to meet the needs of students and what their needs are in
064the classroom our professional development which is unique in a lot of senses that we have our coaches to do job embedded professional development which then is aligned to our coaching which then aligns to our plcs our professional learning communities and that's a through line of discussion for our teachers which is our coaches are also you know part of our PLC so we're hearing all of the conversations because it's important for our staff to hear from others in each other about what what the other grade levels are are need support in because we're working as a team and that's helps us with our vertical alignment job embedded PD you know it's nice to have professional development and then go back to your classroom as as Mr Thompson said you kind of they can shut their door
065but no we're going to come in we're going to look we're going to analyze data with the teachers with the students in some cases you know it's important to sit and look at a student's writing with the student with the coach with the teacher and really provide that support right there in the moment um developing refining Curriculum maps and trajectories this started this summer with uh Grant and I know Dr markelitis spearheaded this over the summer with with some grant money that we had and this is important because we want to make sure that what our students are learning is high quality and it's also Progressive we want to make sure grade one Builds on grade two grade two Builds on grade three but especially in those transition years where you're changing buildings where you're
066changing K1 where you're changing five six that's important for us because we have to make sure that we're not we don't have any gaps there so that's very very important to have that alignment and not only that but the consistency among grade levels consistency in not only mkg grade one grade two but next door our friends at hbb making sure that we're all aligned to provide the high quality education that all of our students should have our assessment Ben we do the Benchmark assessment system our star 360 our early bird screener that will be for grade one something that is uh and really a focus for us this year is and I know my colleagues have mentioned the the multi-tiered system of support the mtss um through uh Mr avatable we're attending the mtss academy
067now this is a structure it's a structure of tiered support tier one is universal everyone gets it tier two is targeted tier three is intensive this is the structure in which things like RTI live in child study lives in this is the overall big kind of you know world and this is for all academic behavioral everything fits in this in this system and I'm excited about how this looks and how we're going to move forward with mtss and be we have a a great committee and every grade level is represented that's attending the academy special education is represented and I'm very excited about the work that they're going to be bringing back to our entire team on how does that system work in our inner within our system in our child study team it's really
068wrap around in looking at our kids and I'm very excited for this work our implementation of Handwriting Without Tears and something that I'm I we did in the past and we're revisiting is the respond to reading benchmarks uh we did these my first few years here um and we're going back to that because um with Dr markalitis too working with the coaches creating these uh benchmarks that we're doing and they're common which is nice because we'll be able to calibrate the writing between grade levels teachers can look at different student writing I one of my favorite things to do is to have fifth grade student a fifth grade teachers look at first grade student work that's a real eye-opener sometimes for our fifth grade teachers to see really what our first graders or their capabilities
069are so I'm really excited to start sitting down and looking at the work that our kids are doing and being able to monitor their progress analyze their work and really to calibrate so we're all on the same page of what we're seeing with our students um in goal two we're looking at kind of the same thing with mathematics looking at refining and our Curriculum maps to ensure the same thing we're looking at with with Ela we want to make sure for consistency and Alignment as Mr Thompson said grade three had training today so great so far grade one has had training grade two has had training grade three was today four and five is coming up in the guided in the workshop model guided math to be able to again consistency and Alignment this also
070will be including a math pilot as Dr michaelitis did mention that will be starting in January and we want to make sure like when we're looking at these this pilot that it meets our needs here in Middleboro that's key for us that's key for me to make sure that we're picking something that our kids need what our teachers are going to be able to use to enhance and grow our students again our job embedded professional development one thing about our coaches we are coaches in the past have been very literacy focused coaches and a shift that's been made is that they're instructional coaches which is great that now we're looking at everything we're not they're not just literacy coaches they're looking we're able to do the same thing with math that we're doing for ELA
071and that's a huge shift that I'm definitely looking forward to having those conversations in math we're using star 360 as on our assessment right now we're also looking through working with one of our coaches looking at building common assessments through starting with grade five we're going to start there looking at how we're going to build common assessments for our grade 5 students again the mtss shows up here as well because again with math we're going to be doing the same thing ST Math if anybody gets to come by Mary Kay good I invite you to come by and see GGG Gigi's the mascot and we're filling Gigi with dots every 10 of completions the students get a DOT and um it's caused a little bit of a buzz in our school so if you hear
072about Gigi and their dots please come visit treaty it's very interesting to see we're looking to increase our engagement in the interest in math and science with our after school clubs and rotary Rays we do have several stem act clubs that are after school a little bit of an increase every year we have one extra one more steam Club because the kids are very interested in our steam clubs and I love that the Hands-On you know things that we can do after school the kids love it it's messy and it's fun and there's lots of cool things that are going on so our third goal is fostering the inclusive environment for students and families so that all students feel like they belong and equipped with the social emotional learning skills required to meet with success
073professional development around this area we started the year off um with the entire Middleboro District receiving um training and Trauma education so that was already a step in that direction so our we're looking to our school psychologist our school adjustment counselor our special education teachers who kind of are the go-to's in this area to provide some professional development to our the rest of our staff throughout the course of this year common choice in grades one to five to support being in the moment being present self-regulation that all all assists with that we're still working with character strong and purposeful people and our words of the month again as I said mtss fits here too because we're still working with the behavioral piece or the learner behaviors through mtss and what that looks like in a
074tiered tiered structure as well uh parent Knights and see these are some of the things that we had talked about was Internet safety uh dyslexia anxiety as possible um topics that we'd like to look at for this year for for parents um something I'm extremely excited about our first meeting is actually November 1st and it's the uh establishing of a diversity equity and inclusion parent committee and I'm very excited uh like I said November 1st is our first meeting and this is something that um I'm looking forward to we have some parent represent Representatives that I'm looking forward to working with redesign of our child study team this again works with our mtss within that mtss framework to look at students to looking at our Specialists looking at our school adjustment counselors our OTS our
075pts our speech to build plans for kids and strategies for kids that may need a little bit more support in those tier two and tier three interventions and we're continuing with our town meetings we are restructuring them a little bit this year with one month we'll be doing the purposeful people in our town meeting and then on the opposite month our Specialists will have kind of an enrichment with the kiddos so they'll be able to have an extra extra gym or an extra art to do something a little bit more that they don't get to have you know during the school day so we're looking forward to that so here Mary Kay good where we're making kids great so we're really excited about that so if you have any questions I would be happy to
076answer them any questions no all right thank you thank you thank you principal why and last but certainly not least we will turn to the memorial Early Childhood Center and principal Jeremy gopiel can talk to us about the land of pre-K in kindergarten good evening thanks for having me tonight and thank you to Dr markulitis and my fellow principals for being so thorough in their presentations and really all I have to say is ditto but with our but with our youngest learners [Laughter] um I do want to share a quick story it's it the you've been in the mech it's a magical place it um I'm reminded of of the movie Finding Nemo and Dory I I'm standing in the hallway having a conversation with a teacher and a kid comes out of the bat
077out of their classroom to go across the hall to go to the bathroom and they're like I'm Mr gobiel hi Mr Global hi Mr goviel they walk in they go to the bathroom they come out a few minutes later I miss you I miss you it's like all day long it's if you ever have need a shot to Your Ego please come to my school and I'll introduce you and you'll be the the highlight of of their day so um I have worked very closely with um Mrs White and Mr Thompson um at the elementary level our goals are all very similar we have um a literacy goal a math goal and a social emotional learning goal um I'm just going to go through and kind of highlight some some of our action steps we
078have um we will be initiating the early bird dyslexia screener which is is coming it's it's going to be mandatory and we will be getting that started up and running as soon as possible um another big piece of of what we're doing in literacy and math is our instructional coach as Mrs White had mentioned there's been a high focus on on literacy um especially at the elementary complex at the elementary level um but it also includes math um and our work with Mrs Santos and her professional development and role as a coach and coaching Cycles is going to be really instrumental toward toward our growth in that regard um also with that is we have a new position which is our interventionist our literacy interventionists reading interventionists and our assessments are really going to drive
079our interventions and targeted and specific interventions um I'm really excited about working with Dr markelitis about in regard to our assessments and and reviewing our assessments and which ones are the most effective and and what that means in regard to our our um student learning in regards to math we we have not at met had a sort of standardized um math assessment and we are introducing the star 360 assessment for our math this year we'll be doing that pretty shortly um that will really be a big um part of again using our assessment to to drive our instruction and our targeted interventions we will also be continuing our practice of sending math resources home um not as homework but as as resources for families with someone in instruction around what what the purpose of it
080is and just the practice of sending things home to to families it's not expected to be brought back to school or graded or anything and then we're also looking at um the Panorama and using um for our our arcade in particular starting the Panorama process for our district at the at our youngest level and so that that is a sort of a framework so that that information will be carried up through throughout the course of the student's career within Middleboro Public Schools yeah in regard to our third goal and social emotional learning one of the big issues that we've already been dealing with with our not influx but our spike in English Learners is making sure that our all information that goes home is appropriately translated into a language the language that the families um
081would like and that can receive and so being having a focus on that is going to be really important for us as well um Mech is also going to be involved in the mtss academy I'm really excited about that the last few years for me as a principal at MEC we've been trying to figure out our our PBIS process and system and what that looks like in the culture and I've been starting to try to sort of inventory what we what we have what we use what's effective on what we should should adjust and change and I'm excited about using the MTA SS Academy to help us with that process this year um Mrs White also mentioned about the transitions those transitional years so I'm looking at our Pre-K to K transitions our K to
082one Transitions and also having looking at sort of backwards is our one to K process and having visits from our Pre-K teachers visiting our case students and our case students visiting our grade one students in our grade one teachers coming down to visit our our kindergarten students just to see what those those transitions look like and what the expectations are grade level wise and really trying to meet the needs and be more effective in that regard and then also our Pre-K has been doing a great job they've had a goal the last few years of community outreach and being a resource for some of our private daycare daycares in in town and continuing that work and um making that a more effective process knowing that these students these families are coming to Middleboro schools and
083and their first step generally is a lot of times is with is with our K program is with Mech and making sure that that's a smooth transition and making sure that they are feeling welcomed and and that the huge sense of belonging for them I can answer any questions that you have all right thank you very much you're welcome thank you Mr Gold Mr globiel and thank you to all the principals this evening um I wanted to extend my thanks to not just your school councils but um all of the teachers paraprofessionals your related service providers um everybody else that works in your schools every single day uh your those are the people who bring these plans to life so with that that completes my report for this evening thank you very much sure uh
084item five on the agenda is the msba Middleborough High School building project do you have any updates for us on that sure we had a meeting last week uh it was a very brief meeting to be honest with you um the project is nearing 95 completion every meeting we go over any additional punch list items that are being addressed right now we're in the land of punch list items that don't immediately come off the list um so that that work really is ongoing the art tables did not come up last week I was listening for you um on that item but I didn't I didn't hear that but I anticipate having another update at the beginning at next month's meeting actually in November okay thank you very much sure any questions uh number six the
085MS Mac sorry m-a-s-c Mass annual conference uh which is November 2nd through the 5th um I I think they're still I think you have to um register for that so I'll just if you guys are intending on going just make sure you register um any questions on that all right uh Vice chair will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda uh that would I I believe that you have something to say about but well actually first before we move on to that so move to hear a second second discussion with that I'll turn to item number one which is a donation in honor of Dr Leo mcgurk um Dr mcgurk was a long time educational research professor at BSU he also happened to be an accomplished musician who played clarinet piano and 12 string
086classical guitar so uh this donation was established in his honor to the Middleboro Public Schools music program the donations are continuing to come in at this moment as of today we are just over a thousand dollars which is very exciting that would come in very handy to a program that we are all hoping to see grow in the years to come thank you sure any questions all right uh so now now now you have to this is my first time so um so this is the point where we go go to books what exactly do I say you already said it I already said it okay to vote all right so those in favor say aye aye those in those opposed uh it's unanimous no I don't blame the gamble now there's so much power
087right here okay um number eight adjourn um Vice chair will entertain a motion to adjourn thank you wait wait again yes [Applause] thank you all thank you all I didn't see any viewers so oh no I know that I know that they were viewers