Scituate School Committee Meeting 5-4-26

001All right. Um, the Situate School Committee is committed to providing an environment of respect during meetings. We ask all members to interact in a polite manner even when there is disagreement. We value the participation of our community and want all participants, including marginalized and minoritized communities, to feel welcomed and respected. We ask our committee members and all who participate to commit to these standards to support and respect our community. I will now call the May 4th, 2026 Situate Mass School Committee meeting to order at 6 pm and we will begin with public comment. Anyone here for public comment? Okay, seeing no one in person and looking at Zoom, seeing no hands raised on Zoom, we can move ahead to our student update. And so I will invite our students to give their update. Um, so

002a lot of this is upkeeping in updates with recent deadlines and dates. So, um, to start, the junior prom is May 15th at Grant Links, and it will start at 6 p.m. with a prominade for parents, families, and friends to, um, watch the kids walk down the aisle in fancy outfits. Along with this, senior's last day is rapidly approaching, um, and it will be May 20th. Um, with the dinner dance happening that same night at 6 o'clock as well. Um, with this, AP exams are officially underway. Um they started today this morning. Um and with this just a reminder to all students to take it easy and make sure you're studying. I know a lot of teachers have done an excellent job in classes preparing us and giving us weeks of review. So good luck

003with all that. >> Hi. >> So um along with this, we've had students return from school field trips following break with the Spanish exchange trip coming back as well as the DEA competition wrapping up last week. And today we'll welcome back the students who are on a chorus trip to Disney. Um and then also students um or seniors taking Miss Blake's film as literature class will have booked the real tomorrow and Wednesday evening for showing of their movies they've been working on the past few months. >> Uh no I just uh it's past May 1st. May 1st was the deadline to commit to colleges. Um, so all of our seniors are um all committed to colleges and there's an Instagram page where you can see where everyone's going. Um, yeah, but all the college stuff

004is all wrapped up now, which is pretty cool. >> Very exciting. >> Finally. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Congratulations. That's great. >> Any questions or >> um, so the movies are tomorrow? >> Yes, they're tomorrow and Wednesday. It's split between it's like not the two classes but just randomly students signed up. There was an email I can share like what groups >> because I recommend like if anybody's looking for something to do. >> Yeah, it's >> I did very great. >> Yeah, >> it's amazing. But I I'm always in awe. >> It's a lot of fun as well. >> The products of like kids. >> Yeah, Mr. Louise. >> I'm definitely not All right. Thank you so much. >> Uh, all right. Next, we are pleased to recognize the recipients of the American Legion Oratory Competition

005Scholarship, which will be presented to start by Miss S. Hi everyone. Um, thank you for having us again this year. I just wanted to start by introducing our veterans who are here with us today. Um, so we have agitant Bob Callahan, we have coast commander Dennis Bedor, and we have vice commander Kevin Walsh. Um, so they work all year to facilitate this competition. So I just like to invite Bob up to share a few words. I didn't know I was going to speak, but I've kissed the Barney Stone twice in my life, so I have to get the gab. Um, the oratory contest for the American Legion is uh sort of a high point, at least for me. Um I am every year when I participate in this I am so impressed with the caliber

006of students here at Situit High. Um you know high school today is a lot different than when I went. I didn't go to Situ High. Ke Kevin did. I went to Milton High. Um, but again, the caliber of the the people, I can't believe how poised and how smart these kids are. Um, so again, we we we we very much enjoy the oratory contest. We also for the students, we send a couple of boys and a couple of girls to Boy State and Girls State out at Stonehill College. And uh we we try to do as much as we can for the town. But um I I hope this program continues um because I want to be impressed every year. Um, and just to share a little bit more, this is the 17th year um,

007that we've done this and partnered. Um, and these gentlemen here along with many of the other American Legion members um, work all year raising funds if you've ever been to the transfer station and seen them working and sorting in the corner. Um, and that's to award $2,000 every year and scholarships to students. So, I just think it's a testament to your hard work um, and the fact that many surrounding towns uh, actually do not offer this program anymore. they've fallen off and I think our we're so lucky to have a bustling and thriving organization that still is able to offer this. So, thank you guys. >> Oh, you're very welcome. >> So, okay, now we're going to recognize the winners and then we're going to take a photo. >> I will take your photos. Uh,

008okay. So, this year we'll start with our third place winner was Macy Merl. So Macy's speech focused on how schools should take a much more active role in educating students about civics, which I took to heart. U and she specifically promoted in-person activities that help motivate students to recognize their individual responsibilities in our democracy. So Macy's is going to win $250 um given right now. So congratulations to Macy. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> We'll get a picture of everyone. Yes. Perfect. >> So, our second place winner was Michaela Whitaker. Michaela's speech focused on how important it is for younger Americans to actually know the rights that they have in the Constitution and that they should take a much more active role in advocating for their beliefs locally and nationally. Uh because of

009Michaela's hard work, she also advanced to the state finals and earned fourth place in the entire state. And today she's winning a $750 scholarship. So congratulations to Michaela. And our first place winner this year is junior Mave Lynch, fresh off the golf course. Uh, and so Mave's speech was an in-depth look at what constitutes hate speech on college campuses. She specifically looked at the balance that our government has in tackling or promoting student safety and rep um and seeing personal liberties on these college campuses. Mave's speech illustrated that tackling complex issues requires thorough research, a nuanced perspective, and a genuine understanding of all sides. She actually didn't leave us with a conclusion. She left it open for the the listener to sort of contemplate. So, Mave shows us that the easy answers are rarely the

010right one. She advanced to the state level competition. She earned fifth in the state. So, congratulations to Mave who today is earning a $1,000 scholarship. Very welcome. Good job. >> Thank you. >> Good job. >> I really do want to thank the American Legion. Without them, we would not be able to do this. So, thank you to you guys for all your hard work throughout the year. >> Our pleasure. >> We're just going to take a very brief photo. >> All right, ladies. >> Okay, then you'll just sit in the background right over here. Straight over here. >> All right. Go over here. >> All right. Ready, guys? One, two, three. to >> Are the text available at all for anyone to Not currently, but I we could share them. I'm sure the students would

011would love to share them. Um I'll ask them when I see them again. >> They're actually, as Bob says, you leave just feeling so positive about your future. So, I'm happy to share. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> All right. Uh we will move on to our action items. Um the first is our minutes from April 22. I will entertain a motion. Okay. Um I'll make a motion that the school committee approved the minutes uh from April 27th, 2026. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. And second, we have a declaration of surplus supplies. >> This is >> Yep. Okay. So, I currently have an office full of boxes of copier toner and a few other miscellaneous copier supplies. Uh, these are leftover from when we converted from the Comico Minulta copers to our

012brand new Toshibas. And of course, people had purchased toner, had it on hand in case it ran out, and for better or for worse, we changed out copiers before they got to use all of it. So, I would like to have what is currently in my office declared surplus. I do already have one offer from a company that buys toner and then resells it. It's not as high as I'd like, but realistically, it's probably about as good as I'm going to get. So, if I go with him, I'll get $750. Um, that's probably what I'll do. The nice thing is they'll come get it and away it goes. I will no longer have an office full of boxes. So that's the first item. And then the second item, excuse me, I had included a couple

013of pictures. We have some desks, chairs, and tables. And you know, with the building of the new school, that school is going to have all brandy new furniture. And we have also been getting new furniture grade by grade for the two remaining schools so that everybody, you know, gets nice new brand new furniture. But some of what's left over is usable. You know, it's in pretty decent shape. So, if you declare it surplus, I will first see if there's anyone interested in purchasing. If not, I will then offer it for free. And then, as a last case scenario, I will contact a scrap dealer and say, "Hey, that's some great stuff for questions." Um, I had a question about the surplus because the town will do those like online auctions for stuff they're getting rid

014of. >> Yeah, it's called gov it's called gov deals. >> So we do something like that. >> Yes. >> Start. >> Yeah. >> Make a motion. I'll make a motion that the school committee uh approves the declaration of SER plus supplies as presented. >> Second. All in favor? >> I. >> Okay, I'll now work on getting rid of it. >> Thank you. All right, we'll move on to our report of the superintendent, Dr. Rob. >> Thank you very much, Mrs. Spenwick. I only have one item this evening, the school choice vote. This is an annual vote. Um, you know that the school choice program was established by Ed Reform and it allows Massachusetts students to enroll in districts they don't live in unless the district votes to opt out. So, this is an opt out

015provision. Um and historically the reason that we have always used is we simply don't have the space to take in students from other areas. Um so at this time I don't see an advantage to situate allowing school choice and would recommend the committee continue to opt out of the program >> questions. If we were just one more question. So um if we were part of the school if we had room for students the the the town that we would get that money to help >> we get some but it doesn't really offset the total cost. >> Yes we would. >> I will take a motion. Uh I make a motion that the uh Citra public schools opt out of the school choice program as MGL C76 B second. All in favor >> I will move

016on to the report of teaching and learning. So Mr. will start that off for us. Introducing our various guests. >> Sure. Um, sure. >> I assume so. >> Yeah. >> But it's not. >> Sure. >> Um, this evening we will be presenting our high school school improvement plan and our middle school improve improvement plan. Uh, first up is Mr. Bey. As we talked about last week, there are several required components for every school improvement plan. Each of our schools has four uh goals around ELA improvement, math improvement, um SEAL goal, and so Mr. Be is here tonight to start with um our Gates uh school improvement plan. >> Sure. Would you like to click through these? >> No, it's your choice. >> I will. Great. I had logged in over there. Uh so thank you

017for having me tonight. Um I am representing the Gates School Council this evening uh in sharing our proposed school improvement plan uh for 2026 through 2028. Uh this group of uh individuals who make up our school council uh are really a great group. uh they bring a lot of experience, a lot of diverse perspectives um as we discuss what we can do to improve and increase achievement at our school. Um the what is challenging about presenting this uh is we are doing so many things at our school um and what goes into a school improvement plan is essentially the drivers for improvement and achievement. Uh so I don't want anyone to think that this is the only work we're going to be doing for two years. Uh but this is a lot of the really

018important work uh that we will be taking on as a school uh in the next two-year period. The first goal uh very similar to our elementary counterparts deals with uh ELA proficiency uh achievement in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Um, and ultimately our goal by 2028 is to have 80% of our students proficient or exceeding grade level expectations using the STAR assessment. Uh, this is the first year the middle school has used the STAR assessment. It's been in place at the elementary schools for many years. Uh, and we plan to benchmark students at the beginning of the year, the middle of the year, and the end of the year. Um, so that's kind of the assessment component. how we look when we look at instruction. We know that in order to get results, we can't

019just benchmark. We have to look at kind of the work that goes into helping students meet the standards or exceed them. We have a focus this year in the district around uh enhancing tier one instruction. Uh so members of the leadership team have all gone through the research for better teaching um analyzing student results for better teaching. And uh next year we plan to uh do kind of a collaborative piece with our instructional leadership team um that we did a couple years ago called instructional rounds um where we are going to create teams of uh educators kind of going into different classrooms to see the practice in action um and to kind of make sure that these four particular areas of formative assessment objectives criteria for success and feedback are all in place in every

020single learning um environment. In addition to um the instruction and the assessments, we plan on uh designing and implementing supports. This is the first year at Gates where we have uh offered a windblock for all students. Um it is based on student need uh specifically in areas of literacy and math. Um so we have some practice with that this year. Um we've collected some data. We've looked at kind of how the interventions we're putting in place for students, whether it be um remediation or acceleration um have had an impact on student achievement. Uh and every student gets this at Gates. So um we'll be going into year two next year. We have a good solid foundation and it's only getting better as we implement new tools and new programs um that target specific areas of

021need. uh and where we are right now uh in the beginning of this school year 63% of gate students were proficient or exceeding in uh the ELA star u assessment. We hope uh that by the end of this year 70% of our students will be there. Our goal by the end of next year is 75% um and then 80% there. This is the first time we've ever come forward and said we don't want 100% of kids. We do. We want 100% of kids. Um but the feedback of being realistic um and moving the needle. What's great about stars, it allows us to uh celebrate the growth of students as well. Um so we have some students starting in the red and they're moving to the yellow and that is success and that is wonderful. As

022a whole, we would like 80% of our students to be in that green uh or blue area. So that would be for ELA. For math, it's a similar goal. Um we would like 80% of our students by 2028 to be in the exceeding uh and meeting expectations. As of right now, 68.5% of our students are already in um the meeting or exceeding. So 73% by the end of this year, 77% by the end of next year, uh and 80% by the end of uh school year 2028. Um very similar to the ELA goal. uh we have to get there through looking at instruction, making sure that our teachers are using research-based methods to achieve everything they need to achieve in the classroom. Um in terms of looking specifically at curriculum in math, uh we adopted

023the new status math program uh two years ago. It takes a while for things to kind of get in motion and then move. Um so we really are at a point right now where we can start to say we've done this now for two years. What's working? what's not working in terms of not just methods but actual resources that we're using and instructional approaches similar to ELA uh would be administering a beginning, middle and end of year assessment uh and then also designing the supports um that are in place. Uh those supports would come through through either windblock or math lab uh which focuses both on remediation and acceleration. uh we plan to do that for two years and then finally our last goal is around social emotional learning. Uh we have a very strong

024multi-tered systems of support structure at beats uh where we work with teams of teachers and counselors and school staff uh to really look at the individual students holistically uh to see where what their strengths, what their challenges, what their opportunities may be. Um our goal is that by 2028 100% of students will have undergone or something a uh a whole child review which is a way for a team of adults to sit around a table to look at data about each student to have an interview with every student's family to have an interview with every student and match kind of supports and opportunities for each one of our students. Um and so as of right now every student is getting a data review. we look at their data, but students are much more than just

025a number or a color or um you know a little data point. Um so our goal is at this point for 100% of students over the next two years to have been the subject of a whole child review which is kind of how we use our MTSS structure. Um what comes out of a whole child review is uh supports our um leadership opportunities are us getting to know a child and their their passions and their interests. Um and us helping to kind of grow those specific areas. Um as well as kind of figuring out academically, social, emotionally, behaviorally, personally who these kids are and what they need. So um we aren't settling for 80 for that goal. We want 100% on that goal and we're making good progress uh towards that as of right now.

026So those are our three goals. Uh again, we're doing lots more uh with every curriculum area, with every um you know, opportunity we're providing for students uh and professional development for staff, but these are really the big ones that we think are going to drive uh improvement uh in all areas in our schools. question. So, um, thanks so much Brian for presenting. I appreciate that you have, you know, in the I'm looking at the math one. So, two of the the top action items for the first is the top first are around supporting teachers in the curriculum. I'm wondering did you and the school council think about ways to track the teachers progress because I see lots of outcomes for students but I'm just curious like how are we going to see the shifts and

027impacts all this PD and work that I know you're doing now is having on teachers so just wondering what you're thinking about there >> I think one of the things we discussed was just that of how you know we are collecting so much data on student performance um we are investing ing time and energy and resources into improving instruction, but how are we going to actually see it in action? And so that instructional rounds model um allows for us to at the end of each cycle of an instructional round, which is essentially where groups of teachers walk into a room, they're looking for something very specific. So like if we're looking for objectives or if we're looking for feedback, we are essentially saying we saw it in 25% of the classes we were in. Um,

028and so we are going to establish a baseline at the beginning of the year. And then where we're not seeing it, that's where we need to kind of have conversations and provide more training or get more, you know, feedback into why we didn't see it because maybe there's a story there. But I think the instructional rounds model is how we're going to hold ourselves accountable for kind of teacher performance these particular areas. >> Yeah, that feels important, right? Because if the teachers are getting evaluated, we want to give them as much lead time if something has sort of gone arry. So that that formative assessment of them, you know, with them really will be really helpful and supportive. So great. >> This is great. I think they, you know, if you reach the kids um

029meet their needs, then hopefully everything else falls into place. I personally have no no notes on this. I think it's great. I think just to underscore your point about the school improvement plan is is not meant to capture everything that anyone's doing in any building, but it is meant to just kind of um put a line in the sand around a couple of things that we know we're going to return to next year and the year after that, the year after that. And so, in some ways, it's it's it's quite good to not be too um comprehensive in here because before you know it, you could be everything in the kitchen sink in here and we really want to stay narrow. So, I think you did a nice job of staying at the appropriate level

030of detail for this plan. It's very aligned to our policy on this topic. So, >> thank you. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Mr. Now like to invite up principal to present uh the high school school improvement plan. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank thank you for having me. Is this on? >> Okay. So, I want to thank our school council, uh, Mrs. Fenwick and Mr. Marshman, who's my high school principal, was here with us tonight. And, uh, when he when he when I was looking for a chair, a school school committee member to be on, um, excuse me, a a community member to be on, Bruce Mashman reached out, I said, "Oh, boy, that's my high school principal." So, how cool is that to go around and big impact on my life. So,

031thank you very much for being here, Mr. Marshman. I appreciate it. I also want to thank uh Mr. Kirk and Mr. Leto who are here as well. They'll put the supports in place that we'll need to execute this uh school improvement plan. Uh and of course our school council who did a great job. Um we could not have really put together the plan without them. Our first slide is just to show who's on our school council. We do have a big school council with four parents, four teachers, uh four students and and a committee member and our committee member Okay. So, the the first slide is about our student toteer uh ratio. Right now, we're at 14.2, which is really low class sizes, which is which is good, but that's going to change. Uh we're

032graduating 163 seniors and 203 eighth graders are coming in next year. So, so our enrollment will increase next year. the following year. We we have currently 174 juniors uh and we're going to have 220 233 7th graders coming in. So, we see an upgrade in in some of our uh numbers that going to increase the next two years. This this slide we tried to highlight some of the things that we're doing at Situate High School um to focus on on academic achievement. Um some of the highlights are that Citrid High School's ELA and math goals again we're going to go through the slides in a few minutes but uh is to grow academically uh through 9th and tth grade as measured by the basic standard benchmarks common lit and star for math. Um we also

033offer 26 AP courses and and that that's that's high that's a that's a big list of AP courses. situ high school earned a distinguish of gold uh honor for the AP honor role which is we're really proud of that 84% of our students who took the exam scored a three or better which is an increase from I believe was 78 the prior year and in 202526 49 seniors or 29% enrolled in school to career internships which is that that that piece is important too for the well-rounded students um and again I want to thank innovative innov Innovation career pathways are really going in the right direction. They're the right now we have the business pathway, environmental stewardship and global citizenship. I want to thank Mrs. Kirk and Mr. W for all the work they're putting

034into that. Uh our business pathways and environmental stewardships are both DESIE approved. Uh and it's a focus on resume building and interest and students also receive a stamp on their on their transcript if they're going through those programs. Uh dual enrollment is recognized as courses with rigor. Uh this improves college readiness scores. Right now we're offering eight courses um which is really good. Uh and those students that that are taking those courses can enroll in college credit through Quinsey College. I think it's somewhere around $400 a credit or so $100 a course to to get the credit. Um and that can transfer into any school that they go into that accepts it. They do need a C or better as well to to be able to transfer that. Then our Project Lead the Way program

035is growing. And we're now looking to train other teachers in Project Lead the Way, which is a good good step forward as well. Our first goal is our English goal and our goal is by the end of school year 2026 2027. Uh common lit assessments will indicate a significant academic achievement in English. Uh we want 75% as Ryan had said earlier with gates to be a proficient level. Um we're going to next year we're going to test each ninth and tth grade students three times a year. Beginning of the school year, middle of the school year, end of the school year. This year we t we we did test two times. We're going to test a third time uh at the end of May. Uh and it was going to take some time because we

036just started. By the end of school year 2728, 80% of our students will meet or exceed grade level proficiency in English language arts. We're very similar to what Gates has. Um the we have strategies that we're going to look at to try to achieve these goals. Uh benchmarking the common lead assessment administered three times a year which I just had said and use that data to help informed teacher instruction. And then tier one teaching strong tier one teaching will help achieve our goals we believe. So we're going to really focus on that uh enhance our tier one strategies consistently in the classroom uh specifically through objectives and formative assessments uh training all English teachers and adolescence literacy uh for the hills of literacy courses will help also uh improve uh teaching strategies for our students.

037And then strategy three MTSS uh we are really this is our first year we put MTSS into place. Next year, we plan on using MTSS to focus more on tier one instruction, but it's really working well. We're identifying students at risk that we're concerned about uh through the MTSS program, through our case meetings, and able to put some supports in place to help those students. And then English curriculum would be the last goal that we would have. And and we have posted lesson objectives and formative assessments in all English classes is what we're looking at. Uh it's going really well. We see that very often as we go in and out of classrooms uh revising our courses um using new text and because we went from separating CP1 and honors levels now we're using some

038new test uh new text to uh help uh challenge our students. There's our bench. This is our benchmark assessments here. And 51% in the fall of 25 me or exceeded expectations. And in the winter that improved to 65%. So that's a nice nice arrow up which we're excited about. For 10th graders, 58% matter or exceeded expectations. And in the winter that improved to 69%. So they are trending the same way. But again, it's going to take some time because we just started this test. So to really get the data that we're going to need for the next few years, the common assessment correlates with MCCAST scores. So with only two assessment, it's still early, you know, still early to fully gain the full picture of it validity. Uh common lid has enabled us to more

039effectively track and monitor our students progress and we are excited to use this data in years to come to help teaching and learning at Sichu High School and benchmarks will also be used to determine student placement in courses. Our second goal is our math goal. Very similar, the same numbers we're looking at as as as we did in English that we're looking at 75% of all of our students will meet or exceed grade level expectations in math. And that's for school year 2627 by using the STAR assessment. And then in 2728, we're hoping we can get to 80% who meet or exceed expectations in math. Uh one of our strategies to do that is our benchmark. And again, we're going to look at administering that test three times. We only administered the test twice this

040year. We did at the beginning of the year and then we're going to do it again at the end of the year, but next year we're going to move to three times. Uh and then strategy two is tier one teaching. Uh creating supports, extra help in math lab and and student work uh to help students work on math skills is one of our goals and to enhance tier one strategies that are constantly used in classrooms. We're going to try to specifically the objectives and formative assessments. Um seeing written um objectives in the classroom and visualizing those those objectives are really important. The student that's in class can look up and and see what they're actually learning and if they lose track a little bit, they take a look at what the objective is for the

041class and for the lesson and helps refocus the student. So we're really excited about that. And then MTS again uh redefine wind groups to support work completion. use wind block and sealer block to add extra supports in math and then our new math curriculum. Uh Ryan had mentioned that as well with the new textbooks uh that it that's really improved our sequencing in in math at the high school from between algebra 1, algebra 2 and pre-calculus courses. Uh and again the posted lesson objectives and formative assessments and all math classes. Here's our data that that we had looked at. So we when we when we tested in fall we ended up with 78% of the students met or exceeded expectations uh both in 9 and 10th grade. So I took a deeper dive and I

042took a look at what MCTAS was in 8th grade in 2025 uh 61% of the students met exceeded expectations and in eighth grade it was 60 so right around that 60 61%. So I mean the star data has shown benchmark exceeding our our goal of 75. Uh but with 78% on star and 60 on MCCAST, we feel we may be somewhere in the middle. Uh so we're going to wait. It's kind of early to really tell how we're going to look at this, but uh we're going to wait to see what we what the scores are next year. So we need more data to to be able to really find out if that 78% is correct. Um sus track student progress. Uh and then what that when we get our results next year, we're going

043to start putting those supports back in place again by using our wind block. Um and and then and then we'll be able to take the benchmarks we find out in algebra and uh as a result we can determine course recommendations and placements with some of our students. Our third goal we're really excited about this is our social emotional goal. But what we're recognizing is through our peer data, we're recognizing that we're finding that sophomore students are struggling a little bit with uh more than other classes and and assertiveness and and and um learning interest. So, we're we're looking at this data and thinking how can we support our sophomore students? We have a freshman academy at the high school that really takes care of the freshman and then when they go off to their sophomore

044year, they seem to be uh in a little bit of a of a a little bit of a struggling situation in certain areas. So, so we took a look at that and the peer data uh for 10th graders um it's identifying that learning interest which is a challenge for them. So, what we're going to do is we're going to put a few things in place to help support our sophomore students. uh MTSS through case. We're going to take a look at all our fresh sophomore students and try to find out who's who who was struggling and have them meet guidance counsels and try to support them that way. Uh all 9th and 10th grade health class curriculum, we're going to have some sort of uh seal based in there that they can uh start to

045work with some of these sophomore students in the curriculum to find out if we can help support uh counselors. uh a counselor now will be for all four years. In the past, we had a freshman counselor. We're going to go away from that format and have the counselor with the student for all four years. And also the special ed teacher will be with the student for all four years to help build that connection to try to build that continuity. Uh and then we're also going to shift our lighthouse program. Mrs. Clansancy is going to be with 9th and 10th graders. Uh Mrs. Lopes is going to be with 11th and 12th graders. And then we'll loop around to help again support and keep constant contact with our sophomore students to help support our sophomore students.

046And that is our like Ryan also said, we have a lot of other things going on and that we're doing at Situ High School, but but our three goals we're really excited about and and I really feel we're more prepared this year to tackle and to take on these goals than we ever have been in the past. So I want to thank the school council members and everyone for helping with that. I have a couple of questions. Peter, do you want to go? >> I just I just have one quick one. Um, as it seems to be pretty consistent, I think in years past you, but I know MCCAST only um assesses up to 10th grade. I'm just I'm wondering I guess all the I like this the uh I like the goals, but it

047only goes ninth to 10th grade. Does that mean that we're not doing anything with 11th and 12th graders? Are we saying that learning just stops or that we don't want to measure it? I'm just I'm just curious because it seems pretty consistent in past that it's only 9th and 10th graders, but there's still two more years to go. >> I think Well, I'll let Mark answer, but I think 11th and 12th grade gets a lot more differentiated in terms of the kind of courses that students can take. The math gets certainly more advanced, more differentiated, and there's no common assessment that will allow us to look at that. So it's really becomes more focused on the individual classes, individual teachers when it gets to the higher levels. >> And we feel if we look at

048the data and strengthen tier one uh teaching around those supports that they might need that it's going to help them and they become juniors and seniors. So really take a look at the ninth and tth grade groups and and try to put them on a path for success. >> Thank you. >> To that point, I would imagine that the tier one strategies that are referenced in the plan are not just exclusively focused on the grades 9 and 10. I would imagine also in grades 11 and 12. So the same strategies that are being applied to help make in the lower grades will be applied in the upper grades as well. And those are the same strategies that are just good teaching solid practice that we want to be seeing more of and supporting teachers around.

049>> We see teaching and learning throughout all four grade. This would be good practice. >> I have to concur with Peter though. I feel like with all due respect, I hear what you're saying about common assessment. I would love to challenge central office in the high school to think harder about ways to show us progress with our 11th and 12th graders. Even if it's just to say they're taking a diversity of math courses with success and their APs are looking like this and they're doing these pathways because we know there's a ton of amazing things going on at the high school. So I think finding ways whe even if it's qualitative data, it doesn't have to be assessment data. Um just to you know that so we're not forgetting about our 11th and 12th graders

050which I know we're not but like in these sort of presentations. >> Yeah that I think I think you have the data. You could say we want 80% of our juniors and seniors to get a grade three or better in their AP. I think we already have that embedded somewhere but that might be a measurable goal and something to put into the plan. I I don't know what the percentage is just stating that might be one way. I know they're all different subjects, but >> yeah, right now we had 84% that that received a three or better, but that's when I look at the AP data and I get those results back up. >> But it's mostly junior. >> It's mostly juniors and seniors. >> Couple probably a handful of sophomores. >> I'd say it's

05190% or more juniors and seniors. >> Just you and SE. I know there's a lot of kids in human geo and I know now freshman can take AP. >> Yeah, >> it will. Yeah, we will see more underassmen in years to come. Definitely getting >> seminar and >> seminars and new >> two new AP classes for underassmen. >> I just think that um when we talked about the district goals, we did talk about this a retreat summer. We did talk about, you know, not wanting to add too many goals because the minute we start doing that, it just becomes a lot of things and we we were the ones that narrowed to this point. And so I just want to make sure we remember that and sort of like if we if we want to

052change that in the future, we can. But the conversation we had had about that was to not kind of overload and say we want to be doing this and this and this and this and this. Like yes, we're still doing all of those things. We're about to hear for example in the two presentations tonight for social studies and science we will hear data about EP and progress and things like that. So we're not not hearing that or ignoring that I would say I just think if we want to make a shift in these types of plans that's a shift at a higher level that these plans are then derived from. >> Yeah. I just think it's something to think about because like even if we articulate in a different way that's two grades in a

053school that we just want to make sure that's all. So, um, yeah. I can I ask? >> Yeah, please. >> I just I was curious about, um, I have a couple of questions. So, in the ELA, the table, um, strategy for English curriculum, it seems like most of the bullets are around text, revising using text, new texts were ordered, honored level text or higher level text, commonly provided short stories and articles. So, are we just are we banking on the hope that the text is what's driving the challenge there or I guess I'm just wondering it seems to me that we have a lot of really brilliant teachers in the classroom too who are using the text and so just wondering like what that interplay looks like. I don't even know if that's the right

054word. Does that make sense? Like it feels like it's not just a textbook. And so just wondering what the thought was there about that. It should you mean the te well the text I mentioned because it's they're new text that they're using um and they feel it's helping to drive the instruction in in a in a in a really good direction. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I mean I met with a lot of English teachers when we were writing the plan too and sat down with them and said how do you feel about the new the new text and what you're working with and they felt like it's really challenging our students with more rigor. So I I don't disagree with the text report and I guess my wondering is it feels like we're underelling the

055importance of the teacher that's in the room with the text. That's all. And so sort of the conversation I was having with Ryan about making sure the teachers are also included in that success metric whatever it is. That that's all. >> Okay. >> For that one. >> Um what's the other question? Oh, maybe this is my not understanding and Maria, I know you know standardized tests very well, so maybe you can help too. So, if our for the math goal, if our goal is 75% of all students meeting or exceeding and our star assessment is already at 78%. Can somebody just help me understand why we're sticking with that goal? >> Yeah, we talked about this. I brought this up as well and I think what we talked about in our meetings with the school

056council was just that that was one data point. >> Okay. >> One time >> we just think it's really early. >> So there's when you compare it to the same cohort MCAT scores there's such a discrepancy like if they had been closer I think we would have felt >> but because it's such a new assessment it's new to the students it's new to the teachers. It was our first time. It's one we've only been administrating one time. So, as soon as we have a little bit more some more administrations of it, I think that we can figure that out. And what we talked about was if I mean, great. We continue. >> We go through three rounds of it and and we're still I will increase our goal. Yeah. We'll >> move on. We have

057talked about that. We said we will gladly adjust that goal upwards if we but we just didn't want to prematurely adjust upwards and then realize like, oh shoot, we really got ourselves into such a large the end of next year we'll have a much better idea. >> I just wanted to make sure I was hearing what I thought grade level star and and are much closer. So that was like a real uh outlier. It was surprising. >> It was very surprising. >> So different. So it's not >> 61% 78%. >> I mean granted we are comparing their performance. Yes. >> So that is like we don't have a perfect comparison. So >> that's okay. I just wanted to make sure I understood. >> Yeah. No, we did talk about that at length. >> Okay. That's

058hence the asterisk there. >> I think the other math question is just similar to the question I raised on the ELA which is around the math curriculum noting posting lesson objectives um uh rearranging scope and sequence but it looks like the sequence was improved with the new textbook and so again it feels like the teacher is missing from that formula a little bit but just a just a wondering. Um, the last qu the last curiosity I I appreciate the focus on sophomores. Maria and I were talking before our meeting, you know, sort of it makes sense the sophomores are sort of not the freshman anymore. They're not the upper classman. So, I get that. I think what's sort of hopeful though, if we look at the data, what's interesting is the strength is action orientation

059but low on assertiveness. So I would just want to understand like how are we holding both of those things because those feel like they could potentially be in conflict there, right? And so wondering what's driving the action orientation and could we leverage that to bring up their motivation and assertiveness. So I just I think it's great that you're digging into the data. Um lots more to learn there. Maybe our director can be helpful in some of that. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Good point. >> Yeah. Anything else? I have a question. >> Yeah. Um on the third goal um in the strategy one you have the focus of learning interest according to the pair data. >> Yeah. >> But there's I mean is are you just focusing on just that? Is there other areas? >>

060Two major areas was the assertive assertiveness and the learning interest and and we don't know if it's motivation. We don't know if when they leave their freshman year and they start their sophomore year that they're not, you know, that's what we're trying to take a diver a deeper dive into to try to find out why that's happening. And it's three years in a row. It's three sophomore classes in a row that we're finding that data to be consistent around 22 21%. We'd like to see that drop to around 10% or under that. Um so we don't know. So, we're making some changes and to try to support the sophomores as they come into the school year to see if we can't get some motivation and to find out why that's happening because three years in

061a row is real. That's that's data, you know, that shows that that's >> I mean, perseverance is up to reading correctly like that's the same as learning interest >> as well. I think what we've maybe talked a little bit about with the pair in other um settings too when other principles have presented it as most assessments it sort of gives you that >> like little diagnostic window but it doesn't always explain the why you know and so >> then you know you got to get behind that and figure out okay what does it mean to score low on these things and how where is this coming from so I think >> similar to the elementary schools I would say the high school's probably in that exploration now. Um, this is, I think, a clearer picture

062of paired data that we've had in the past. So, I feel like we've made good progress in the way that we're using the assessment, >> but it still can't answer some of those questions yet. You know, >> I think some of it may be connections. We're looking into that. That's why we're keeping the guidance counsel with the students now all the way through. Yeah. >> You know, for those connections and and using our lighthouse program a little bit differently as well to try to connect with the students better. Ryan Bey, not to put you on the spot, but do you know if learning interest is low at the middle school? It is. It is. >> Yeah. So, it's such a curiosity, right? That's I mean, I know it's in school and out of school, so

063it's not just any study. >> Yeah. Consistently challenged. >> Any other questions on the high school? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you for reporting every week. We appreciate it. Yeah, you got some great stories. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Has another busy man. >> Y All right. So, I think next we will welcome um You want You want to do this, Ryan? >> Sure. Yeah, >> go for it. Um our next presentation under uh teaching and learning uh is Mr. Patrick Newton. He's going to uh give us a teaching and learning update on science, technology in engineering. Just going to share some slides. >> This is very exciting to come talk to science, tech, and engineering on Star Wars day. May the force be with you. with you. >> I was told

064I could not come do this dressed as Darth Vader. >> What's really weird is I didn't ask. People just told me that. >> Um, >> yeah. >> We'll schedule this again next year. >> Um, so yeah, we're going to talk about uh teaching and learning and all the cool stuff that goes on in um our STE programming across Gates and the high schools, so grades six through 12. Um we will um talk a little bit more about data because we've done that a lot. Um but also talk about how as a department um what we're seeing, what we're noticing, and kind of how we're reacting to those noticings. Um and ultimately I just like to show off cool stuff that our students get to do because our teachers help facilitate really cool experiences for them.

065Um so we'll take a look. This is now obviously way out of date because we sit here in May looking at a test that was taken last May. Um, but this was our Gates um, STEMcast. So, I will remind you as I always do that this is a unique test in that it covers three years worth of standards. So, this is a test taken in spring of 8th grade that covers sixth, seventh and eighth grade standards. Um so what I've given you is our normal breakdown by performance category and then in uh histograms that you can't really read which I apologize for. We can look at individualized sorry um sort of categorize of items. Um so the far left we look at um how our students did on constructed response which is maybe what we

066used to call open response questions uh versus selected response which is a kind of large category that includes multiple choice but in the more recent iterations of the test has included um some sort of fill in the blanks um drag and drops where you're completing a model by bringing the piece to the right part in the picture. a handful of other sort of the answers there, but you got to kind of figure out where it is and how it goes questions. And if you notice, we did very well, or our students, I should say, did very well um in those selected response items. While I'm not overly concerned about constructed response items, we do see that there's some work there that could be done. Uh we beat the state by less and earned a fewer

067percentage of the available points. I should point out that is the difference between the top graph and the bottom graph. Um the top graph showing us how much better than the state average our students did in each of these categories. The lower graph showing us the percentage of available points in each of those categories that our students earned. Um so very consistent when you look at that bottom graph across all of the four domains of earth, space science, life science, physical science, and tech engineering which is great. And I have sort of called out that last one which is science practices. Uh in part because that has been a big part of the focus of my work with the department. Um per DESIE uh at least 50% of the test items on MCCAST are dualcoded

068to a science practice meaning they are not just content knowledge but they are supposed to also be testing the students ability to the way I word it is do science. Um it's actually much higher than 50% uh for this middle school test. It was actually 81% of available points were dualcoded to a practice. So that's what we've been working on primarily is how do we teach uh and how do we assess student progress on those science practices um because the question will come up. It was 79% on the high school bio was dualcoded to practices also. So they're really hovering around 80% even though they word it as at least 50%. Um so um we've been consistent. I think I've already mentioned that we saw the strong performance on the selected response items. We do

069see some room for improvement on those constructed response items. Uh this test is in a state of transition. Um and my last bullet point there mentions we've been a bit ahead of this change. Maybe in retrospect we were a little too far ahead of this change at the beginning. Um what that means to be in a state of transition is they are they have rewritten the test. They have changed the format of the test. And so this group of students that we're looking at data from that are currently sitting in 9th grade as well as the students that are currently sitting in 8th grade are taking half and half tests. So when they sit half of the test they're taking is the old test and half is the new test. Desi's only reporting data from

070the old test items. So if we were a little too far ahead in getting ready for the new test and our kids were super pumped for the new test, now we're getting data based on the half that was the old test. That said, I think they still did well. So I'm not overly concerned there and hopefully we see even better when we when we sort of get to it. Uh if we jump to the high school um this causes a little more pause and reflection. We do see a noticeable decrease in our achievement uh for last year for the year 2025. Um the graphs that you're looking at are the exact same sort of structure and layout. Um so again we can see how we did um I added the all items to this graph

071but otherwise we can see here the opposite. we did considerably better when compared to the state uh on the constructed response items than on the selected response items. That's weird. Like we don't see that. I don't have an explanation for that. Um but it is a noticing and something that points out is that's not common. Um the molecules to organisms category of questions is clearly where we need to focus the most content. Um and again the science practices jumps out. Uh I did note it's the bottom bullet point under observations. Um there were seven items, seven questions where we scored below the state average or our kids score below the state average. Four of those involved the practice of modeling. So one of our big focuses in our departmental professional development this year was aligning

072our understandings and our expectations for that practice of scientific modeling. So we're hoping we see some progress being made there. If we jump to AP, um I'm really excited to say if you look at the graph on the right, which is our percentage of students passing our AP exams, the entire department is clearly trending in what I would say is the correct direction. We're looking at a very high overall pass rate. Um pass rate as it is for all the other content areas is defined as a three or better on the AP exam, which is out of five. Um the data on your left hand side is um just showing you how numbers of exams have changed over the years. Um since the introduction of environmental science, we see the overall number of exams is

073much higher. One inconsistent point here is physics C. Um for example, that that course is not running this year um due to lack of requests and that's why it doesn't appear in the right hand graph. it would just kind of be points but not a line. We do anticipate that that runs next year which is great and we're looking forward to that. Uh the difference between physics one and physics C being calculus. So physics one is an algebra based physics course. Physics C is a calculusbased physics course. Uh throwing in our project lead the way which I know Mr. Lorenza mentioned, which is great. Um, last year we had 20 out of the 27 students that took a what the LTW was calling last year an end of course exam starting this year. They're calling

074it the final exam, making it a lot more firm sounding. Uh, but it's the same thing. Um, so and of course they have different verbiage. So our 20 out of 27 scored either distinguished or accomplished. You can pretty much equate those to exceeding expectations and meeting expectations if they were MCCAST terminology. Um, and our numbers have grown 69 total students in Project Lead the Way courses. Right now, that's across four different offerings. Last year there were only two. Uh, we are we have added capstone to the program of studies. So, that's a sort of culminating it's meant to be the third year of project lead the way particularly engineering. Um, and we have, as Miss Lauren said, a handful of teachers for teacher schedule 10 training in PLTW this summer, so that we can continue

075to expand our capacity uh, in those areas. I should point out that that um, end of course exam is one of the two criteria for students to earn college credit through project lead. So, they need to earn a passing score on that exam and an 85 or better in the course as their grade. uh and the cool stuff uh that we work on. So um last year our big focus in PD was claim evidence reason writing again connected to practices uh specifically arguing from evidence and data analysis. Um we have this year been collecting data. We don't have it all pulled together for you nice and neat now. Next year when I come to talk to you I will. Um and we look forward to that too. uh but we've created a a departmentwide rubric

076that's easily applicable uh in basically any of our areas so that we are focusing on the skill and able to provide students with feedback and track progress in that domain. Uh we have been working on that heavily this year with modeling as I've already mentioned. So we have a draft rubric kind of out there right now. Um we plan to collect that data next year. We have definitely improved our understandings and applications of that practice in the classroom. So, that's a great thing. We've expanded our partnership with Holly Hill Farm. Um, they're up the road in Cohassid, so they've come in and run lessons in chemistry for us. Uh, we've expanded our overlap with them in environmental science. We've sent some classes there. They've come here for others. So, that's been a great productive partnership

077for us. uh still working on and looking to work on next year is continuing to grow our environmental stewardship pathway program. Um expecting six graduates right now. Um and just got in a whole bunch of cool stuff from a skills capital grant um that we're really looking forward to making sure we know how to use and even more importantly the kids know how to use and then actually like I already said do the science. uh we plan to apply for pathways designations from DESIE in the areas of health care and engineering next year also. That engineering application will be the joint venture with our math colleagues. We surveyed our current ninth graders across the board. We used our biology classes for that. Um and you can see those two had what are in my opinion

078really kind of reasonable levels of interest particularly the healthcare 37 more than one out of three kids says I'm interested in that. I think we have to respond to that in some way. Um, so we'll get those applications in in the fall. I believe that happens in October. Uh, and as you've been told before, we are preparing for our dual enrollment opportunities in honors chemistry and honors anatomy physiology. Um, and what our students actually do. If I showed you everything we do, we'd be here all night. So, here's some sixth graders out with the vernal pool, uh, collecting some specimens. They're working specifically on their standard that um talks about cells and all living things are made of cells and where cells come from and how they work. We may as well use living stuff

079that we've got right on campus. So here they are collecting samples. Um and everyone has to love that. Uh recent retiree Miss Chambers still comes back to help kids collect muck out of the bottom of that vernal pool. Um here's two of our allstars that are completing or not actually completing yet. One is one is old junior. um the environmental stewardship pathway. But here they are actually presenting their independent research findings at CSCR uh center for student coastal research which is again up the road in Cohasset. They put on a great activity or great event, the state of the harbor uh where high school students from kind of up and down the Southshore really get a chance to talk about cool research they've done in the um oceanography or environmental science realms. Um I mentioned

080our Holly Hill Farm. So on the left we see some of our high school environmental science students at Holly Hill Farm in one of these sort of greenhouse I think they're actually called hoop houses uh looking at some planting and on the right hand side we got a a cyst from our friends at DPW and sewage treatment um as our AP environmental science the AP environmental science uh standards actually like make a specific suggestion that students go to a sewage treatment plant. Um, so we did and off they went. Uh, here's some of our engineering students. Um, to the two sides are high school. The middle is gates. Um, I particularly enjoyed that middle. Uh, that's uh, Miss Conway, one of our Gates engineering teachers, using a leaf blower to test if the uh, building

081design the students had would survive a hurricane. Um, and you can see the kids celebrating that theirs did in fact survive the hurricane force winds from the leaf blower. a lot of fun that goes on down there in Gates. Um, I had the fun of going on this trip just last week with uh some of our ornithology students going down to Manavec Conservation Sciences who does all kinds of cool data collection and tracking of migratory bird species. Um, ornithology is the biological study of birds. So, there's really no better way to do that than get to the people that really do it. That's right down the road in Plymouth. um a handful of biology students, AP and ninth grade, uh involved in a handful of different inquiry based labs. This is one of my other

082big things of we don't necessarily tell kids how to solve problems. We say here's the question, here's some equipment, figure it out. Um again, getting to those practices, getting to how science is done. Um and that I believe is all I have for you this evening. >> Thank you. That's good stuff. Yeah. >> Um yeah, I think you answered them all. I said a couple I want to go back to that um constructed responses. I agree with you that it's odd that in the um was in the science um sorry on the um STEM MCAST. constructed responses were >> high school biology or constructed responses were >> were good >> considerably better using the state as the metric than our selected responses. >> So could you just confirm for me which grade each one of

083those biology is ninth grade? >> Biology is ninth grade and I should point out this is an inconsistency that causes us miscommunication sometimes. I mean that internally, externally and everywhere else. Desi reports 10th graders data. So I am ahead of what you would see if you went online to look at DESIE right now. So while this step down in achievement um will actually hit our the high school's accountability in the fall. Um so we are that little bit ahead. Um, but this is our current tenth graders that Desi has not necessarily reported out yet on uh that were in ninth grade when they took this test. >> I guess I guess my question is I'm trying to figure and I'm sure you guys have already tried to figure this out and I'm just trying to

084figure it out on the fly. Um, is the constructed response like an open-ended question? So, potentially the phrasing like the the the word structure is not correct or is just the real answer to the question is wrong or is it a combination? trying to find a correlation because maybe there's something we're doing in ninth grade ELA that led them to score better in the biology. Just something >> it is quite possible. Um I'll further complicate the observation by our percentage of points earned in those two categories is very similar 58 to 57. So it might be one of those things where the state did poorly >> and we didn't. Um so there's so many variables at play there. I hate to sound like the science person, but I am. There's too many variables at play

085for me to isolate what one it is. >> No, it would have been easier if if the the sores were similar because I would have like we know that some of these I'm thinking constructive responsive sentence structure and so on and so forth. And we've identified at the elementary school that we need to improve that writing. So my might >> they're not supposed to be scoring science constructed responses based on things like spelling and grammar. Um um and then the last question I had was um on the AP. So AP so Apes just started three years ago or two years ago. 2023. >> Yeah. 2023 was school year 2022 23 was the first year we offered it inhouse. >> No, it's I know it's it's been a great experience. Um my question is I mean

086the first year we had it we've scored or 50% of our students scored above which is a great baseline. So, I'm just wondering, it'll be interesting to know why that's been so successful. I mean, I know that it's the instruction, but it cost me that it fits well with our curriculum, right, for the with the biology, chemistry, and then the age or whatever. I just thought it was an interesting perspective to get over 50% or 50% in the first year is pretty good. >> I totally agree and and I agree with you. I'll give credit to the teachers and students that were in those classrooms that performed that well. Um, and notice that it's improved since then, right? As teachers have gotten more familiar with the test, with the curriculum, they're even better able to

087prepare students for that assessment. >> And the bio AP bio is is what, junior year or sophomore year? >> It's a combination of juniors and seniors, but it's majority juniors. >> So, they take regular biology freshman year, >> correct? >> And then they can decide to take AP bio junior, sophomore, junior year. So our our dictated sequence, if you will, is biology in the ninth grade and chemistry in the 10th grade. And then in the 11th and 12th grades, the umbrella opens. Um, and each of these are options um really in each of those grade levels with physics C being the one that's almost exclusively seniors because they have to have calculus. Um, as well as honors anatomy, which we've mentioned exists, um, other levels of environmental science, a handful of The scores in the

088bio are good as well. I think that those are probably our >> pretty um high achieving students who decide to take bio for a second. >> Agreed. >> Right. Did you guys take it? >> I didn't take >> Oh, come on. Sorry. >> I think it's too something you're interested. You got to do better. >> Yeah. No, I agree. And I think correlates to that high number of kids that we said are potentially interested in healthcare careers in the future and that help feed into a pathway there. Yeah, >> great. Thank you. >> It looks like chemistry in 2024 and 2025 is smaller, but is it because they're taking the other courses? Like purple shows up there and >> it's hard to tell by the shape if it's >> our number of test takers? >>

089Yes, >> we saw a slight decrease um when we added the lab blocks. >> Okay. >> Um presumably because it it adds a constraint on a kid schedule. >> Got it. Okay. >> Thanks. the other questions. >> Um, yeah, I was wondering if you mentioned adding a pathway in the science or like biology realm because I remember my freshman year there was like talk of like a biomed pathway that students could achieve. Um, and I know that influenced courses I took, but I don't think it fell through. I was wondering if that was something still in the works. >> That's ultimately where this healthcare pathway that we're mentioning comes from. Um, it's very funny because at the time we surveyed students and it was not particularly popular or an interesting area. Um, and since we

090said, "Well, I guess we, you know, aren't investing our time there. All we've done is here." But we should have. Um, so better late than never, maybe. >> Anything else? >> Thank you, Patrick. Yeah. Um, next we'd like to introduce Miss Lesniak, who's going to give us an update on the history and social studies department. >> Hi everyone. I don't have any uh Star Wars jokes, but I looked I looked up historical events up today. They're all depressing, so >> sorry. >> May the force be with you. >> Thank >> great. So, um, thank you for having me today. I wanted to start I think I've shown this to you guys every year, but when I came into this role three years ago, my first task was really to sort of say, what is our

091purpose here? What are we doing? And this is what our department sort of collaboratively came up with. I think I've said to anyone who will listen many times that history education has or should have changed at this point that it's no longer about being a content monster. Google exists, AI exists. And so it's all about skills in my world. Um so can students communicate their thoughts? Can they evaluate sources? Can they be curious about complex issues? These are the things that yes, the content is important and it gets us to these skills, but these are the things that we hope kids walk away understanding. I wanted to start just with an overview. We made a massive transition last year and purchased new curriculum resources for every single one of our courses. I wanted to give

092a little bit of feedback. So, I surveyed teachers and students to get a little bit of sense of how it's going in addition to all the conversations that we have. 100% of teachers u so all the teachers did the survey. 100% of them reported that it aligns well with their grade level standards, which I was so happy to hear since that was one of our criteria and they picked them. So, that's good. Um, 95% of teachers reported that the curriculum resources have had a positive impact on student learning. I gave you some quotes from some of the teachers. I think the things that stand out to me is certainly the more relevant and recent information being available for students, but also just the varied levels of text that are now available as we get them

093in digital formats. Um, students can change the reading level on some of the texts. They can have it actually read to them. There are different speeds. They can highlight. There's lots of different ways that they can interact with the text digitally that kids are appreciating. It also can translate. And so for a certain population, that's also really important. Um, I think the other thing that really stood out to me is the building literacy skills and reading stamina. I think having kids sit with a text um alone for 20 minutes is increasingly becoming really challenging for students and the idea that you have to sit with the text and really synthesize what it's telling you is hard but important work for students to be doing and these texts allow us to do that. Some teachers really

094did indicate the need for further professional development. We all got trained in the various textbooks at the end of last year. Teachers had summer professional development time. We also at the start of this year had people sort of on demand that could answer our questions as issues came up. But I think that after a year of utilizing these resources and talking to teachers, there's tweaks they want to make. You almost have to go through it once before you realize some of the changes. So teachers are really looking over this summer and at the start of next year for some of that time to do that refinement now that they've had a year with the new texts. I also surveyed students. So we had 70% of students who responded. 63% of students reported using the text

095most days or every day. I want to be clear that it's not our goal that student use the text every single day, but we do want it being um one of the primary resources that kids are using in the class. Um so I would like to see that number get a little bit higher. I think that will naturally happen as teachers gain comfort with it. 73% of students reported that the resources are easy or very easy to understand. I was really happy with that number. We spend a lot of time looking at the Lexile levels when we're deciding on texts. And so that tells me that we pick texts that are an appropriate challenge for students. And then 577.5% of students reported that it makes them either a lot or a little more interested in

096what they're learning. Um, and I didn't know what to expect with that question honestly when I asked it. Uh, but I think what it comes down to is and we see it in classrooms actually if kids I it's very nostalgic for me, but kids flip through a text, they finish their little assigned portion and then you see kids like looking at the map or they're like looking at some of the things later. And I I do think it's sparking a little bit of interest in a way that a digital book you scroll and you close. And so I think there's a benefit to having the paper copies. I do want to give a shout out to um we ended up purchasing in the end 2700 books. that is no small feat to move 2,700 physical

097books. And so this is a picture of students who gave up some of their time and volunteered to number and distribute those. So as you guys know this is our or last year was our first required civics empath. We had been piloting this for a number of years before this but this was the first year where we got full data points back. We were pretty pleased with these numbers. still areas of growth for sure. Um I think what stood out is the 59% of students meeting um or exceeding expectations that put us within a percentage point of most of our neighboring towns. So sort of right in there in terms of of performance. 1% of students not meeting expectations in the first year. Certainly want to help whoever those one or two kids are. Um

098but that was a good number that we were happy with. I think what was interesting as we dug into the data is that there really is pretty consistent content knowledge if you look at that. um correct by category, it was the exact same number. So across different standards, kids are performing about the same. I think what stood out to us though in terms and this relates to our next steps and it's funny you guys talk about constructed um or selected responses um is that our constructive responses were lower than our selected responses. And I think what that led us to say is we do so much work with writing but clearly some places we have improvements to make. And so this year we've really tried to increase the frequency of writing assignments and also the

099frequency of writing assignments that use primary source documents. So the civics empaths oftentimes ask students to look at two or three documents. They have to synthesize the documents, answer some questions about them, but then put them together in a response. And so that's the skill that we're working on both in class and also in some of the woodwalks. So onto the high school. I just wanted to point this out um especially as you guys talk about other metrics for success. I just think it's really remarkable and a testament to our amazing teachers that our elective enrollment continues to grow so steadily. So this is these are courses that students are choosing to take in one of their very very small choice blocks. So last year or this current year 62% of students at Sidu High

100School chose to take an elective in addition to the required coursework that they already have. I think you guys may know that we have a three-year requirement, not a four-year requirement, but the number of students who choose to take our electives far out exceeds if we were to require it for a fourth year. So, kids are taking our courses in really high numbers. Next year, we're projected actually to 475. Um, so we're up into the high 60s percentage of kids who are choosing to take a course. And I think it's also worth noting that last year and then, um, sorry, this current year and next year, we're actually not even able to meet student demand. So we have students signing up for courses that we are not able to place and so that I think

101is a wonderful problem to have but it is something that we're facing especially with the increasing numbers that are coming in. So these are some of our electives. Um AP US history doesn't count as an elective because that's meeting a core requirement but all the other ones are electives. Um and what you see I think is really remarkable performance by students. So in every course we have students consistently outpacing the global average in some cases by up to I think one course we're actually 1.4 above the global average. So I think students are doing really well. If you look at enrollment there are a couple ups and downs but overall we're pretty steady. And then also worth noting that last year was the first year we offered comparative government which offers a much more global

102approach which really came from student demand and last year was also the first year we offered AB seminar and that course is one of our two that's open to freshmen and we do actually have a predominant number of freshmen in that course. So again first year to be meeting expectations mid 80s we were we're pretty happy with that number. So, what's currently underway? The first bullet is really just what I was talking about in terms of curriculum resources. Continuing to refine, continuing to look at our instruction, continuing to look at our assessments. And along with that, it goes hand in hand. You can't really refine assessments without refining your writing instruction. So, both of those things are ongoing and and in progress. I also wanted to shout out, I really do feel like a lot

103of our social studies teachers are taking on leadership roles in the field. They're presenting at state and national conferences ranging from women's history to geographic tools to civics. And I really do think this shows that not only do they um excel in their course of in their their field, but also really wanting to share that expertise and also learn from others. So they're still even though they're doing really well, wanting to go out and learn more in addition to teach others. Uh what's also underway, we added AP research. So last year it was AP Seminar. This year we added AP research. Together, those two courses make up the capstone diploma program. If students score three or higher in both of those courses in addition to four additional AP courses, they get a diploma designation. And

104so, we do have a number of students who have actually gone through both courses. And so, we'll be eligible in the upcoming year for that. What's also underway, and you saw it tonight a little bit, is we really continue to work to build strong local partnerships. So, we work with the American Legion. We work with the BFW to run a different speech competition. We worked with you guys and the historical society on some of the naming pieces that you've done and we also repartnered. It had been gone on for a long time and sort of dipped and came back this year um with meco to send students to advocacy day which really is a perfect opportunity to bridge both of our worlds together. Just to give a little civic action update. I do think it's

105important we really are expanding the civic action project. Last year was the first year we had a major kickoff event. actually the second year I should say a major kickoff event and last year we had over 50 community members join us. Um many of you joined which I appreciate and I think what was most helpful as students is that we've had a wide range of people. So really trying to branch. We have community and town officials. We have nonprofit leaders. We have different avenues. We're really trying to help kids figure out what their interest is so they can do a they can create a project and go after something that they feel passionate about. So that's been going well. We continue to look to expand that. We're also having students do well at the statewide

106level. So, four groups last year presented at the state civic showcase. One group received a statewide research and investigation accommodation which was amazing for them. It really is about their advanced preparation before they started their project. We also this year, last year we had one student, this year we had five students who were selected as statewide civic action leaders. What that means is they went to a civic action showcase as part of a project and elected to apply to continue their work. So now they're giving feedback to the state about the project and they also act as student ambassadors on the day of the statewide showcase. So it's a really great leadership opportunity for them but also shows that we do have students interested in continuing beyond the required work and we continue to have

107visits from other districts. I think all districts are trying to figure out how to make this civic project work. We all understand the value and so happy to help as people come in and see us. What's on deck? uh moving forward. So, Investigating History has had curriculum for several years now. We are not interested in adopting wholesale their curriculum, but we are interested in supplementing our units with some of their work. And so, actually, the state has opened up professional development. It used to be they wouldn't they wouldn't fund your professional development unless you wholesale adopted their materials. Now, they're being a little more flexible and understanding that different districts have different needs. So, what our sixth and seventh grade teachers are looking to do um over the summer and then into next year is

108really take our new curriculum resources which will be the primary text but supplementing with some of the investigating history either primary sources, activities or lessons. And really the if you don't know anything about investigating history, it's a statewide curriculum that focuses on inquiry based learning and it's all about students asking questions and being curious and teachers doing the same. And so we're very interested in that. We're happy the state has become a little more flexible and so we're looking to merge those things together starting next year. I we're also looking to explore a pathway. I think you've heard a ton about pathways with lots of other departments. There's not a Desiend endorsed history civics pathway, but we certainly are interested in creating one for ourselves. We do have a number of students who love history,

109who demonstrate it, who participate outside of school in a number of activities, and we want an opportunity to recognize them and help them build their expertise. So that's something we're looking to do next year. We also continue to refine the civics project. I think one reflection we had this year is we love the community engagement that we've created. Um but we're seeing a lot of students running up against time at the end of the year and they're just not able to implement fully their projects. So we do want to reconfigure the timeline a little bit and push as much backwards so more students are able to actually see their project come to fruition. We've also applied for the civics teaching and learning grant. So fingers crossed. think um having a coordinator might help with that.

110So, lots in the works there. We continue to want to just tweak that to make it better. And then, as you've heard from every department, the consistent tier one teaching practices across the the board, 6 to 12, continues to be our focus. And I couldn't not show you um some of our amazing extracurriculars. We know Model UN comes before you all the time for their amazing trips. This year, they started a JV Model UN. And this is them in Washington DC right before they're about to head to committee. And our history bowl this year qualified for the national competition. And so they actually went to DC as well just recently over April break. And so these are students. I promise they don't just sightsee. They go to after these photos. Um but these are just

111um some highlights for kids really doing what they love and showing their passion. >> Thank you. Any questions? Um I have a question about the um AP seminar. Just curious is how what what the kids learn in the AP seminar. How do they prepare for a test for that? Because it seems self-directed kind of. So what like what are they tested on? >> It's a great question and AP seminar and AP research are very different than any other course that we offer. So AP seminar the skills there are really about researching um reading comprehensively presenting and then writing a comprehensive paper. So in terms of what they're like graded on by the college board it's a mixture of a individual presentation verbal presentation that they have to give that's recorded uh individual written paper that

112synthesizes some of the research they've done and then they sort of repeat that process but in a group. So a group verbal presentation and a group paper. And so those skills not only of the researching, the writing and the the presenting, but also now the collaboration. And so those are things that are explicitly taught in the first part of the year. What's different about that course as well as the AP research course is that the instructors are actually um partially graders. So they listen to the presentations and actually have to score them. And so there's limits on how much they can help in the second half of the course. Um, so that's something that we're actually actively trying to work through a little bit and figure out how we we're teachers. We want to help.

113We want to give as much feedback as possible and so how to make sure we follow the College Board guidelines but give as much support as possible. So that's something we're working on especially to be frank um opening the course to freshmen who are freshmen are amazing but they're the least independent of our learners, right? So having them in that course it's it's challenging. They're doing very well, but it's something we want to continue to refine a little bit. >> It's interesting. >> Any other questions for >> Thank you so much. >> Sure. Thank you. All right. So, um I just globally I thought those presentations were so good. Thank you. Thank you guys. Those are great all around presentations. Really nice. Thank you. I feel so proud of I feel like anyone listening, you

114know, hearing all the stuff that's going on really really impressed. I was impressed by the picture of the books. Like we know that we approve of purchasing books, but I was like a lot of muscle. >> Exactly. Thank you. >> Um all right. So um the next item on our agenda is a report of the school committee. And so for that we are going to um invite a guest. So I'm going to ask her to unmute and she can turn her camera on and while she's doing that I will introduce her. So um at our last meeting we mentioned that we will be joined tonight by Patti Cynical of first speaking group. So Patty has over 30 years of experience in talent acquisition and executive search. She holds a BA from UMass Amherst and an

115MBA from Babson College. She founded first speaking group LLC in 2001 and has worked with several school districts on a variety of senior level searches in addition to other HR projects from workplace investigations to compensation matters. And so as a reminder, we've engaged first speaking group to guide the school committee in a needs assessment to assist us in determining next steps in our process of hiring a permanent superintendent for Situate public schools. The work has involved listening to a range of stakeholders um via focus groups and online surveys to inform a candidate profile outlining desired skills and behavioral traits that are desirable for Situit. an updated superintendent job description and a critique of our current superintendent contract offering advice on ways to update it and bring it to closer alignment with our needs. So, tonight

116we have um Miss Nicole on Zoom um and >> hi Maria. >> Hello. >> I'm getting a message that says I cannot start my video because it is disabled by the host. >> Okay, we will work on that. Um Brianna maybe can help me with that. So Brianna >> I got it. >> Amazing. Thank you. >> Okay. And while you guys are working on that, I will keep going with my one little ending here, which is just that tonight we have uh Miss Synicole here to present a summary of her findings from those various focus groups, which have included district and school level administrators, teachers, department chairs, parents, and leadership roles through PTO's and school councils, um high school students, town administrators, and members of the select board who interface with our superintendent, um as

117well as families and caregivers who weighed in via an online survey that was open during the second half of April. And on behalf of the school committee, we thank everyone who gave their time to share their thoughts and perspectives throughout the process. Um, so >> let's see. Okay, there I am. >> There you are. All right. So, I'm going to go ahead and give you the floor and go on. >> Okay. >> So, Maria just kicked us off. Um and in lay person's terms, I really view this type of project is first step is gathering data from a lot of stakeholders from students to parents to caregivers to um department chairs. Many of you have probably talked to me or met with me. Um, and the whole idea is to link that feedback back to

118the job description and the candidate profile because we want to make sure that you hire the best candidate for this role. Um, so what I'm going to do is talk a little bit about the feedback that we received and again from multiple different sources um different ways. Some were uh individual meetings, some were group meetings, uh focus group meetings, and and some via survey. So, um I'm going to give you a very high level and then certainly if there are questions, please stop me. Um if I don't have the answer, I'll jot it down and make sure I get back to you because I do have um there's a lot of data um that we poured through. Um so let me first um start with what what we heard pretty consistently about some of the

119skills, some of the attributes, some of the competencies that that um you know all of these interested parties are are looking for from your next superintendent. This is not going to be a surprise. My first comment is about communication. every time we've done a project like this, communication comes up. So, um, and I'm going to give you I'm going to I always feel like the the folks um that give us the feedback um their words are better than my words in some respects. So, I I might add a few very specific direct quotes. Um so around communication we heard comments around you know a good listener listening and then then making the best decision. A common theme is keeping students or kids in mind. Um whether it be communication or um even budgeting which I'll

120get to in a minute. Um transparent two-way communication. um a superintendent who is decisive but also explains why a decision's been made. Um collaboration is sort of the next bucket that I would put some of our feedback in working with other others visible accessible um classroom visibility. there was this realization that um we're asking this person to be in a classroom, have office hours, uh work with parents, be at athletic events, and that honestly that's a lot to balance. So, there is this acknowledgment that um it it's going to be a hard to have a foot in all of those places. Um there was a comment about doesn't act too quickly. Um the suggestion of maybe having office hours. Um I I put the next couple of comments under the bucket of trust and conflict.

121I think there's I heard very consistently emotions around redistricting um that that you know is going to be a concern for many. Um one person said and I'm going to use their quote staying steady and focused is important. Um under educational expert expertise or technical expertise you know there was sort of a a split finding here. Some wanted classroom experience, some didn't think that classroom experience was necessary. Um, tech and AI was a a theme that that kept surfacing. Um, AI sort of keeping keeping a breast of trends and the direction and how that will affect students moving forward even as they go into our work forces. Um but also on the other side of that are the over reliance on screens and you know kids whether it be um obviously phones or you know

122notebooks or um uh desktops. Um so that was that was a a pretty pretty common thing. Um there was also you know a few comments around this person has to have been a principal in the past. Um this person has to have a commitment to equity um special education and even beyond um compliance. um very few if any um expect expressed any preferences for you know an academic qualification you know whether it be a PhD or a JD. So um that that didn't seem to be you know high on the list of requirements. Um budgeting and financial expertise came up pretty regularly. um someone that knows finance especially for the next few years um when and I'm going to give you a quote when making hard decisions keeping kids in mind first being fiscally responsible

123um the next uh sort of bucket that I I put the you know I have a few comments under confident and strategic leader um something that communicates a shared vision um not afraid to speak up. Um there is this certain um one person who used the word weary um there is this weariness of making making a hire that is really focused on their next chapter or their personal brand. They, you know, most of the folks that we talked to want to make sure that kids in your schools and your town are at the forefront of um their career interests. Um again, spending time in the classroom, being visible. Um, one one theme that came up that I think is worth um, pointing out is I think all of us have seen in many towns um,

124postcoid uh, housing prices jump. And so there was a few sort of anecdotal stories about, you know, I used to live in a neighborhood where everyone around me, you know, lived in $500,000 houses and now those those home values have have doubled and and what has that done to sort of our our demographic and parent expectations and just sort of being mindful of that. Um, uh, EQ and self-awareness came up several times. Um, avoiding initiative overload. Um, having consistent standards, being decisive and diplomatic. Um several several stakeholders talked about the importance of operational experience in this person's background. Um they you know things like facilities and athletics and legal challenges and maintenance and transportation. Um like you know this is you know an executive level role. So it's a very broad broad role. Um curriculum

125was another another topic um that came up repeatedly. Um an evidence-based curriculum, someone that supports all groups and learners, even middle stu middle students, but also students that, you know, might not be an athlete and might play in the band. Um uh goal setting is important to a lot of a lot of the stakeholders. Um we also asked in five years um if this were person were to be successful what would you be looking for? Um unification and morale were consistent themes. Um successfully redistricting um closing achievement and opportunity gaps, continued fiscal responsibility. several I would say teachers department chairs in particular talked about needing stability that there's been a certain churn in superintendence and so there is this need for stability within that leadership role. Um succession planning was mentioned by quite a few

126individuals. Um, one of the, and I thought this was a really astute observation, a couple of your teachers told me that, you know, teachers really don't remain in roles like they had in the past. So, it's not always a, you know, a teacher that begins in second grade and then 30 years later is still, you know, a second grade teacher. Um so sort of that whole talent acquisition and succession planning. Um there was a there was also a consistent theme of meeting or exceeding the the 80% benchmarks um that that was important to to folks um with within the next five years. Um, next question we asked was the greatest challenge of a new superintendent gaining trust between communities, families, sta staff. One person, you know, put it as galvanizing our community. And the sense

127I got from that was not just sort of the you know community of Situit but really sort of the the um you know the the more global community including students and teachers and and you know even central office folks and and you know everyone within um you know the the ecosystem if you will. um curriculum decisions, retaining important programs, morale came up quite a few times, honest and open communicator even if the news might not be positive. Um holding others accountable, uh more specific goal setting, getting beyond resistant to resistance to change. Um there was some some thought behind um thought shared sometimes small towns particularly repeat what has been always done in the past and is that the best path for moving forward. budgeting and redistricting came up several times, focusing on the whole

128child's test scores, but also things like social media and DEI and AI and overall are o are are our kids okay? Um concerns with respect to hiring a new new superintendent? Um They want to make sure that this person can talk to all levels, that class sizes are maintained. Um, there was a little bit of skepticism. Is is this a real search because we're starting so late in the process or are we going to appoint the interim and is this sort of lip service to a search? Um there were some concerns raised about some turnover in special education. Um one person said we are in an acute state in this difficult times and difficult conversations are expected. Um again the new school and the the challenges around a new school. Um there were some concerns

129about if you went to the outside having someone on board and relearn um from almost the very beginning. Um that would be that would be significant. Um there were there was a little bit of a debate even when I met with small groups about the pros and cons about going with an interim versus casting a wider net. And I think we all can you know have have probably seen both sides of that. Um you know played around with it in our own heads. At least I have for sure. Um there was some concerns about a leader who would bring in their own team or their own quote unquote buddies. Um there were there were also concerns about just being this being a very thoughtful process. Um it would benefit the town and the kids and

130the staff. Um but it would also benefit the candidate. um compliments about Ryan and Tom making a great team. So that was positive to hear. Um, and then these are at the end I typically ask the question, you know, is there anything that, and some of you who met with me probably heard me ask this question, but is there anything that you want to add that maybe I didn't ask the right question or um that we should have covered that we didn't cover? Um, some comments about aligning with the values of our school. Um, I have a distaste for the notion of improving test scores just to improve rankings. Um, a and we we did get a lot of positive feedback just about even asking opinions. Um, you know, and I will give the school

131committee and and actually the entire entire town credit. Not a lot of school districts do this. And um, you know, I have been involved in a number of projects with different school districts both inside of Massachusetts and outside of Massachusetts. So, I do give kudos to all of you to sort of investing the time and energy to make sure you get this right. Um but I think a lot of people really felt that um just being asked for their feedback was you know unusual in an unusual and a very positive way. Um and and I Maria, I don't know if you Nicole and I talked about it, but I think one of the um other outcomes of this is once an individual is hired in this role, the fact that we have a lot of

132data that we can share with that this individual is going to put them light years ahead of where they they would have been. So, you know, that's that's a nice outcome of this as well. >> Yes, definitely. >> And I'm happy to answer any questions. I I'm trying to be that balance of level of detail, but also I mean, I could talk about this for two hours. I s I think none of you want to be seeing me at 10 o'clock tonight. So, um, te tell me, you know, ask me any questions. Maybe I I skimmed over things or maybe I didn't do a deep dive into one area that you think I should have. >> Can we can I ask? >> Yeah, please. >> Um, so thank you so much for going through this.

133I appreciate it. As as a data lover myself, I am very happy to hear all that you found. I was wondering I made some notes as you were talking and one thing you know we've individually talked about is sort of this profile of a superintendent and I was just wondering like I heard you say communication visibility collaborative trust and conflict and then a slew of technical skills strategic and confident you talked then again about like dispositional EQ self-awareness I'm wondering did you land on any words that would help us think about a superintendent profile. I know that's a tough question, but I'm just wondering as a researcher person who did all this, what what you think about that idea. >> Yeah. So, one of the next step is for me to take all of this

134data and then develop it into a job description profile sort of. I know that you have a document that has been used in the past. I want to make sure that document that you'll be hiring against incorporates this data. But if I were to to sort of um jump up 50 feet, um communication is important, visibility is important, decisiveness is important, a um kidentric leader is important. Um, when we talked about budgeting, when we talked about curriculum, when we talked about leadership style, it all came back to, and if this person can't make the best decisions with kids in mind, and I'm going to sound a little bit more sarcastic than I mean to, but then they shouldn't be considered for this role. Like, if they don't get that, like, you know, that's like, you

135know, a full stop. Thanks. >> Sure. Did that answer your question? Okay. >> Yeah, it did. >> Okay. >> Other questions? >> Comment just uh thank you for all your work. Um and I know we all did some stuff too. Uh, no, I think this is uh all great information to process and to help us make our decision. So, thank you. Yeah, I can make a comment, too. When I hear the list, obviously, it's quite a list. It's a big list, but then I think to myself, good. I'm glad that our community has such high expectations for our next leader because I think that's right. All of these are right. You know, I think of course we want all of these things and I'm really pleased to hear such a well-rounded vision that came out

136of it. That makes me feel confident in the work that was done because I do think every kind of facet of this role has been touched and it is a big role. You know, there are a lot of headings and there are a lot of bullets on that job description, a lot of hats and we were looking at the old version of the job description. you know, it is it is a bit outdated and there's definitely room to add um and underscore some of these areas that came up here and just um that I think are also just more consistent with other districts and what they put in these job descriptions. So, I'm really excited for that piece um because I think it will serve us quite well. And to the point Patty made at

137the end, this is a great road map um for us and whoever comes in to have some thoughts from the broader community about what the priorities are and I don't think they're far from things that we're already working on. So, >> Yeah, I would say there was very consistent themes. it it you know I if I talked to a department chair versus a teacher versus um you know a school committee member or union member I mean there were there were very consistent themes um and one of the things that I really enjoyed is it didn't take a lot for me to pull information out of people so you know people were pretty okay with sharing um and very candid sharing which is what we want right we want people to be to feel comfortable voicing

138their you know voicing their perspective sharing their opinions and experiences so I think people were very comfortable and candid about the feedback but there's there's definitely some consistent threads um you know across all all stakeholders for sure >> yeah I would say I mean Maria and I had the the privilege of talking to a lot of caregivers and I would agree I was so impressed with the great conversations and the it was very supportive and a lot of popcorning off of each other's ideas which I really love to see. I think I know you mentioned it Patty and I know others on the committee have. I just want to circle back to these concerns around is this a real search? Is it a thoughtful process? I guess I just really want the community to hear

139that I hope that the question we're focusing on is what's a situate need in a superintendent because we haven't even started a search yet, right? Like that I feel like we're jumping the gun by saying is this a proper search? I think what I hope the community recognizes is we're doing our due diligence to figure out this is why they call it a needs assessment, right? What does what do we need as a district? What does the community care about? and then sort of thinking about who we have, what we might need. And so just just being really mindful that I feel like this is a super thoughtful process and I'm so glad that we had have had a chance to talk to the community in the ways that we have. So I hope I

140hope people are hearing that part of this um that this was this was a lot of work. I think absent this what we would have done is move forward with an outdated job description and just gone out there and said, "Hey, who wants to be the next superintendent of Sichuan public schools?" And that wouldn't that would not have been the right move. We needed to pause and we needed to do those updates. And in order to do those updates, the best I think we could have done is to ask a lot of people to contribute. Yeah. >> So I agree with you and I hope that people also are hearing that and can see that perspective. >> Yeah, >> I can speak to um the whole search process having been on a number of search

141committees. This would have been very helpful >> in the past. Super helpful. >> Yeah. >> Well, I also wonder and I know Patty you still you're just still doing some work to coate the data and all that to get back to us, but I wonder and I'm asking the committee genuinely, you know, is there an opportunity for us as a committee to use this data to think about our evaluation of our current interim superintendent? because we do I mean I feel like one of our most important jobs if not the most important is hiring and monitoring the work of the superintendent and and even though we have an interim superintendent he understands that at the end of the year we're going to do an evaluation and typically we use the the DESIE form but I

142wonder if there's an opportunity for us to create something from this and do what we've done in previous years. >> I don't think we can. I think well we could as a start I know it has to go in the desi >> I wish we could >> this would be perfect >> may have to do both things because I think there has to be a step well first of all I do think from desi's perspective we have to use their template and their form and so we have to do that in town it's like a separate thing but I do think we have to now now that we have this data and we have you know we will be getting the candidate profile and everything like that we do have to then take the step

143of assessing yeah whether or not Dr. Rob is the person who we think matches or if we do feel like we need to go out and do a broad search. So that is the next step in fact. >> Yeah. >> Um so I do think that makes sense. >> Okay. >> Um to figure out >> a tool for that um and we need to do that and I think using the same process that we use for the annual evaluation >> um could be a good way to do that. So >> your Yeah. Yeah. I mean that because we when we do for folks who don't know when we do the evaluation typically because of open meeting laws and all that sort of stuff usually one person takes a lead in sort of getting the form

144together two people work to coate the data once everybody has individually done a form or page and then sends it. So like we're not collaborating we're not sharing a document and collaborating with each other we each do it. And so I just wonder, you know, if we could take similarly take some of these themes and create a table of some sort where we each spend some time reflecting on these, you know, this profile, if you will, compared to how Dr. Raph has done or what he, you know, how he presents as superintendent as a way to think about Yeah. >> you know, a search or not. >> Yeah. That's our next decision is do we need to do a search? And in order to make that decision, we need to have that conversation. Yeah. And

145so I think >> that makes sense. >> Yeah. >> No, it does. I think it's just a I think it's a matter of timing. Yes. >> Two of like if we were to do a search, one does that search and does that just mean we created an interim for another year? And I think if there's a solution either way, but just something to think about as we decide what to do. >> Yeah. Um I think a lot of search firms that we talked to um about this in the fall when we first realized we needed to we were going to be in this position. It was like October. So that was not the right time to do a search regardless. But >> May is also not the right time or June is not the right

146time either. And so I think it would probably mean yes we would extend >> if we were to do a search extend Dr. Rob's term as interim at least into >> next year part of next year or something. I don't know. You'd have to get some input from them on when is the right time. I feel like it's January. >> Yeah. >> Is the right time when a lot of districts are opening up searches. There's kind of a season, if you will. >> But we would also have I don't know what Dr. Ab's current contract is. Is it one year? So it's up July 1st or June 30th. So >> yes, we'd have to >> to make some sort of decision by then. >> Yeah. Well, I think that's tie in anyway. >> I I

147think Yeah. I feel like we want to move on this. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So I guess the question is if we were to create some sort of document for each of us individually to think about Dr. Arav against this this new standard if you will informal standard >> is there more work >> for Patty before we do that? I'm just cur I don't I don't know what's next what you and Nicole talked about. >> So Patty how how far are you from a written version of the candidate profile >> um this week? I mean You'll get it this week. >> Okay. >> All right. Because I think once we have that, that would be essential. Okay. >> As a >> starting point against which this tool would be built and then we'd

148have to do our pieces of >> writing and then there would be the coate. Okay. That that's great. >> Okay. >> Any other questions for Patty? >> Great. All right. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate >> Absolutely. >> All right. Byebye. Byebye. >> All righty. So, moving. We have a report of the policy subcommittee with several bullets under this agenda item. So, we'll start with the B policy second reading. Janice and Mr. Lynch to take the lead on this tonight. Um so I think we decided that um I mean the that voting on all of them and all of them would have the you know approved by school committee on this date. >> Oh yeah Marie was going to reflect on >> we talked about that. >> Yeah we reflected

149we discussed >> okay felt like a simplified format would be best. Okay, there's really no need to necessarily know exactly all that other stuff has and we felt like a simplified version. You just put the approved on >> if they all approved to see thing it'll be May 4th. >> We'll probably go back and do that to the >> Yeah, that would be great. >> Make sure they're all >> makes sense. >> I mean, and the backup is the our version and the mask version and the changes we suggested. Um, no, we just went through the process. It was u lots of reading and making sure that uh trying to simplify and update our our policies and um in our line of work policy is extremely important. It's the first question when anybody asks can

150we do this or how should we approach that. So, um, we really just wanted to make sure that, um, the policies align with our current practices and, um, you know, protect our students and our staff and like lead us forward in a positive way. So, that was our work and there weren't a significant number of changes, but um, I think it brings our B policies into a a current state that's aligns with how our district is working. Yeah, it was mostly just cleaning them up. >> Yeah, last time we mentioned that we added this is adding the AAA evaluation of school committee operational procedures which we were missing and it's deleting the policy uh the exhibition policy on um public comment which we thought was redundant with the actual policy. >> So those were kind

151of the two are bigger >> and there were a couple that like Massachusetts didn't have right that you got rid of. >> Yeah. Yeah. And there was um uh oh this also includes school councils. So this will allow us to have those um meet more frequently and have members stay on for more than one year terms. We have found to be problematic just in terms of continuity. >> Yeah. >> I will entertain a motion. Yeah. Go ahead. Um, I make a motion that the school committee vote to approve the B policies as presented. Second. All in favor? >> Excellent. >> Nice work. Nice work. >> Satis. It is satisfying. >> Like, get rid of that. >> You don't need that. >> It'll be more satisfying when it's official. >> Um, all right. So, next up

152we have the bullying prevention intervention plan update. You believe that is >> it is. >> Thank you. Thank you. So, uh I'm here tonight to provide the committee and the community with an update on the bullying prevention and intervention plan. So, um, every 3 years we're required to update our bullying prevention intervention plan. That's a requirement. But I would share tonight that, um, we had a full district task force engaged um, in this work over the course of uh, this this year starting in December. Um, so we pulled together a bullying prevention intervention task force and our goal was uh to redevelop and update our plan and I just listed out some of the steps that we took including collecting stakeholder input, assessing our needs resources and making sure that we're supporting uh student staff

153and families and really critically looking at um where we need to get better and where we're doing things well. So, honestly, this was probably some of the most valuable work that I was involved in this year as um in terms of the groups that I belong with and it couldn't have happened without um all the support from parents um from teachers, from school committee members, principles. So, I think we're sharing something tonight that um lays the foundation for some um improvements in our in our work ahead. So, this is a list of uh the people who comprise the task force. So, I'm just going to take a minute to read through that just the people who were involved. The print is small. Um so, in alphabetical order, Principal Ryan Bey, Dr. Warosski, Chris Darilla, Sue

154Egan, Jenny Gazo, Julie Hickeyi, Samantha Hire, Katie Labadia, Amy Mahoney, Principal Mary Oldac, Officer Riley Presler, um Tom Rab, Officer Nick Sherry, Tracy Shepard, and Andrea Spanelli. So that represents a very good cross-section um of our district from various roles from SRO's to principles, school counselors, people in central office um and and parents as well. We met starting on uh December 10th and had three meetings after that. So imagine, you know, four school committee meetings all focused on this really important area of work. So we could have spent more time, but I feel like this was an honest and and sincere effort. I'll talk just a little bit about um I would break this down into three stages. And the first stage was uh a data review. So, as you saw in the presentations tonight,

155we have some uh pretty good sources of data. They're not perfect, but let me describe each of them. So, every year we're required to report um to the state how many allegations of bullying does the school receive and of those allegations um how many of those are substantiated. So, we took a look at that data. Can show you that in a minute. Um we also looked at our vocal data which is an assessment of um student experiences in schools and it's given in grades four, five, eight and 10. So that was another data source. We looked at our HSA data and we also uh sent a survey out to our entire community including families and staff and we had 524 responses from families and 216 from staff and in terms of um getting a good

156slice of data I think that's excellent and we heard the the survey was designed by Dr. Dr. Dr. Englander from um the mass aggression reduction center at Bridgewwater. This is just public share out of that data that we um we collect every year. This is the total number of allegations of bullying um that we had in 2425 as well as 2324. And then on the right hand side of the table, it shows how many of those are confirmed. Um so that's a breakdown by each of our schools. This is collected um every year. This is the vocal data. This is just one slice, but I just want to show you that in grades four, five, eight, and 10, our response rate um was 92%. Um so this was a place for students to share sort

157of their experiences. How safe do they feel in school? Do they witness acts of bullying, harassment, and intimidation? Um I know that students answer these questions after the MCCAST. Um so it's you know it's not it's a challenging state of mind but I also think that when we can hear from um 92% of the students that are taking that I think that's that is important. Our group also looked at um the HSA data as well and tried to match um the HSA data with results from from vocal. And so we see areas where there are challenges with peer relationships um in the in the light blue there at the bottom. We see in some areas where that's a strength. So, um, Tammy Randle and Gregor Ner helped to at one of our meetings present this

158data um, to make sure our group thought about this as well. I would compare so when I showed the number of allegations. Um, I would also compare that to these are data extractions from what our families responded with. Um, so our group, I think, really approached it critically and said, "Well, we had allegations of bullying in the single digits at at elementary." Um, but here we have families reporting that 14% would say, "My child has been repeatedly targeted by another child or group of children." Um, or there was a one-time incident. So, you can see, you know, 54 and a half%. This is an issue that really, you know, 45% of our community recognizes that this is a really important issue for um their students and their families. So, I share these because um we

159know that this important issue isn't entirely captured by our state report. Um and by following this process, we really tried to tune into what students, staff, um and families are sharing with us. So this was the elementary data slice. Um this is the gates you know data slice about the same where 40 to 50% um are saying that this is an issue and um close to similar to high school but a little larger portion of the pie is no my child has not experienced this issue. I would acknowledge that um I would I would validate uh famil family's um experiences that they are reporting accurately. We also recognize in our group that um we need to do a better job of um communicating back with families the steps that are being taken. You'll see this

160later on, but I think if you look through this data and you say, well, why are there so few formal allegations and then there's so many on the survey data? We recognize that there's definitely a communication gap and you'll see some of our recommendations for improvement there. I also just took away how important this is to our community and I'm really glad that our group reached out and collected this information in a in a timely and fresh format. So, these are just some bullet points that um I know synthesizes what I just said that this is a significant number. Um and if we're what could be more important than the safety of our um students and staff. So, we acknowledge that as a district. Um even if incidents of confirmed bullying are low, we know

161and acknowledge that the impacts um are serious and lasting and we need to try to make that number um do everything we can to make it zero. We also take away that we have we do have a researchbased anti-bullying curriculum through character strong. That's a requirement state. Um, but we can also continue to make the lessons more effective and and more integrated. So, that was the takeaway. Um, and we have some pretty good data sources to monitor how we're doing, but we need to monitor at more regular intervals to ensure students are getting the support they need and so that staff feel confident in the curriculum and protocols that we're using. So we feel good about sort of the monitoring pieces that are in place, but we know we have to more regularly do it.

162I think one of the things that came up on the committee was also like couldn't we go through this process almost every year to take a look at it and that's you'll see some of those recommendations coming forward as just being do thing doing things in a more regular fashion. This was an important part of our process too was going through character strong where we had uh Mr. Randrel, Mr. Reneer talking about our SEAL curriculum as well as our social emotional um learning representatives where our um curriculum was meeting our needs and where it needed to be improved. So the take takeaways from the curriculum review were um we just have to continue to provide um staff with more support. So, one example was this year, um, one of our principles reached out and said,

163"I really could use more support with the tier 2 and tier three resources with Character Strong," which we moved quickly to um, you know, secure for all of our our schools. But I think that speaks to the more work that we need to do to continue to make sure that our staff feel like they have resources. um you know to to support uh students and families. Key takeaway was also um improving how we share data back with staff and families so they can support students. We there was an important point where one of our teachers said um you know I I have this data that I get about students but I'm not sure if families get it. And um we had people say,"I feel really comfortable talking to families about MCCAST data. I don't feel

164as comfortable talking to families about HSA data." So I think that was a really important if we think about what's the purpose of school but to help students participate in a you know in a safe supportive community outside of their house. um we need to make sure we're having conversations about how students are feeling, how they're interacting with each other, making sure that they feel safe and supported. So, um we definitely have a commitment to improve how we share data back with families about how students are doing since we're collecting it. Um and and the last bull is just communication. Um how are we what are our strategies to uh prevent and respond to bullying? And um another key takeaway that we we have is that we really want to lean into the um preventative

165aspects and not just the reporting aspects. So a lot of time is often spent like make sure there's a place on the website where somebody can click. Make sure there's an anonymous place where students could drop a note. That's all very important, but so is being proactive and having students learn strategies um you know for for effective um you know responses to you know perceived bullying um or helping students be really strong um allies and not just um you know not just going you know empower empowering staff and students. So those were a lot of the conversations that we had as as a group. Um so that leads us to the improvement of the plan. So inside of your packet tonight, you'll see our 16page um 2026 draft bullying prevention and intervention plan. Um in

166a different color is is the improved language. Um in there there's more emphasis on digital safety. um preventing and reporting cyber bullying, making a commitment to share anti-bullying and reporting resources uh more than one time per year, turning up the amount of time we spend doing data reviews, not waiting until the state requirement kicks in at year three. Um and improving our professional development to to be more proactive rather than just um reactive. If I were to speak to our for our group, I'd also say that we had some we definitely recognized the places where uh the plan stops and then our work continues. So, we came up with several bullet points for things that we want to do outside of the bullying prevention and intervention plan. Um, again, improved commitments to data sharing with

167families, making sure the tech use aligns with the bullying prevention and intervention plan. Um, improving staff training, uh, communicating openly about the ways in which, uh, we're working on bullying prevention and intervention. Um, and perhaps running parent information nights where we talk specifically about those efforts. um that are under underway both for how to work with students who've been impacted and how to work with students who um are engaging in behaviors that are are contributing to um harassment, intimidation, or bullying. So, we want to continue to strengthen our processes for monitoring, flagging, investigating. Um, according to our with our tech policy, we know that um we're constantly monitoring um staff um technology, student technology, and we want to make sure our process is um safe and effective for that. Making sure that our investigation reports

168um meet our obligations to students, families, and staff. it surfaced that um there's there's inconsistency with um like we're following the law, but there's there's inconsistency with how we're sharing information back with families and we can get better at um letting families know the steps that have been taken um as part of the process. and that showed up in the surveys and from the anecdotal contributions of people on the task force. This is just a clear standout of what I just said that um really supporting people who are involved um both people who have been impacted previously as targets or people who've been um aggressors before and and really making sure that people get the customized support in in an ongoing way that um they deserve. and making sure that across buildings we do a

169good job with um you know these situations can have significant impact. So we want to make sure when students transition buildings that there's a tight plan in place. It's proactive. These situations are obviously anxietyinducing and by having clear uh plans in place and a commitment to that that'll help to make sure that um that transition goes smoothly. So the next steps following the um bully prevention intervention task force would be for us to provide a comment period. So, um I would like to share out um this these slides and the draft bullying prevention intervention plan for to collect more feedback um from families. We got some great survey results, but we need to provide a comment period. So, between now and June 15th, um I'll collect it'll be a simple opportunity for people to complete

170a survey. Um ask additional questions or provide more feedback before the comment period closes for the committee. Um and those questions would be addressed and then if there's additional pieces of feedback those could be incorporated into that the plan and then um on June 15th u the school committee uh if so chooses could vote on the updated bullying prevention and intervention plan. So we will have accomplished our objective for the year. So that's a 10-minute review of the work that we provided. Um I would invite uh Dr. Bukoski as a representative of the school committee um any additional um comments that you would have or I see Christ is here as well. Thank you for representing our um our group. If there are more questions um those attendees would be um help round it out.

171>> I mean I just I echo what Ryan said about appreciating the opportunity to work with the group. It was great to meet some new people and also just I felt like Kristen I'd be curious your opinion. I felt like it took um a real humility for folks to be in that space because teachers and adjustment counselors were admitting that they didn't know about a process. I know Peter we've talked about like not knowing what the process was or that we would really like to see this. So I really loved I mean there was some vulnerability and honesty in our conversation. So I really appreciated that courage that that took. Um I for me I thought the good news was I do think for the most part we have a strong policy. I think what

172we all recognized is that the fidelity piece is what's missing. Like we have a lot of great guidance in that policy. Like when I when I was reading through and saw the explanation of what what we should be providing to families like we don't really do that in a district way. And I think that's something you mentioned, Ryan, because when I've talked to families who've experienced this, they care deeply about repair, right? That they know that if your child's in sixth grade, they're going to be with these kids for six or seven more years, and they want to think about that. So, I think it's interesting that we just had a conversation about wanting a superintendent that is kids first and values focused. And so I think there's opportunities for us to think about as

173caregivers, how do we sort of come the same way to this space, like if we're putting our kids first, then how do we as families approach the work of bullying rather than sort of circling the wagons, but like really having an open mind about this? Um, I think the other thing that really became when Greg and um, Tammy came and then we had a conversation with some of the counselors, what became really evident is it'd be great to have some visible language around the schools. Like we know that I mean unfortunately when 911 happened the see something say something became really big and like I know character strong is a thing but we also heard from teachers that well they do it when they can. they can't always fit it in. And so what what

174could we take from that curriculum and have it like splattered on the wall so that the first graders see the language they could be using the 11th graders see it and it becomes part of our ethos that I have a responsibility and if I see this oh I remember seeing that at the library if I see this I should do this right just so I thought that was something so simple could be quite powerful so I just love that there are we're not talking about huge huge interventions. We're talking about small things where we have resources that could give us ideas. So, I just I just love the conversations that we got to have with different people. It was great. So, >> um I would just say I know that the goal of this committee

175wasn't to give us statistics per se. So, I first want to commend the I think this is great information and I really proud that the policy and everything finger and I agree with everything. Um, but we do have a bullying problem in situ, >> right? Uh, I just going over the numbers here and probably it's most likely that if you had a child that was bullied that you probably responded to this survey. It's probably more likely. >> I still think we have a problem though. I think here >> Oh, yeah. We definitely have. >> Yeah. So, I'm just looking at the middle school six of 140 responses. We have over 50%. That's 75 students out of 600 who have been bullied at the middle school per this data. That's a problem. So again, this has

176nothing to do with the committee. The committee that's why you guys are in place to to help solve this, but we do have a bullying problem. Um, and I know that that's just that's just something I wanted to mention. And the other one other very minor item that I wanted to mention is I know the response at the high school are very limited but when we reference staff we also have coaches who aren't part of our staff and they may be may be missing if they're not teachers they may be missing any staff training on bullying. So I think that might be a piece that needs to be looked at. It's probably very small, but it I think it's a piece. >> Yeah. And bus drivers. >> Bus drivers. Yeah. Anyone that's not getting any

177staff that's re that's referenced in here that's not part of inbuilding staff. Those other folks I think need to be I guess trained is the word or at least >> open to this. But again, this is nothing to do with the the committee. You guys have done amazing. This is just something that I'm thinking as I'm reading through this. >> Yeah, I think those are those are I think Um that's why we included the um the family survey and the and what we provide to the state and I would say you know and our our te our principles our teachers work extremely hard to investigate to support students um and try they try to do everything they can to resolve these. So those are some of the statistics but and you also see um how

178families and students feel. So we part of it is and I know you use the phrase like if there's a bullying problem um it any when you get 2,700 students together there's going there are sometimes going to be challenges though we want that number to be zero. >> Right. Um, and at the same time for the that discrepancy between what's reported and then what families are are are are you know, for the ones who responded to the survey, we need to commit ourselves to communicating better so that families feel like if something um doesn't go well for their student that they feel like it's being addressed. we saw an opportunity in there where families in that survey were reporting that um they want to hear more about the steps that are taken proactively and reactively.

179So um I would I would just say there's in that gap between the desi reported data and this the family data that's our space to operate and and do better. So I think everyone there is >> committed to that. Um because sometimes what came up too is if someone you know even if you look at the percentages of like the what's substantiated versus what's reported in each of those discrepancies is a communication challenge like we need to communicate more quickly. Students need to feel safe in in reporting information. So um we we I think everybody took it with the same seriousness that you did that we want to close that gap. So people feel like there are fewer cases that the school is responsive. Um so I you know I appreciate you sharing how what

180the data says and I think that was the reaction that everybody had that um there was a real commitment to doing the best we can for for every kid and every family. I mean, I also think going back to the language, right? If we think about think about when my eighth grader was kindergarten, first and second grade, I'd meet with this a teacher about his ELA or math scores and we'd be like, oh, he's either meeting or not meeting. Well, fast forward three or four years later, now we have multiple data points where it's like, oh, he's here, but here's what's actually going on. He's not doing the writing. He's doing well here. So imagine with bullying if we had the language to talk more about you put 2700 kids together there's going to be

181tension. So then a teacher and a family can discern this is tension this is conflict. It looks like bullying but actually here's what going right like you start to educate us and teachers on what this is and isn't just like we have with other data with math and ELA. And I think that's the approach that I'm thinking about is like how do we empower everybody to have more language to talk about tension versus conflict versus harassment and bullying so that we can get clear and discern what it is and what isn't because because we don't have the language as soon as we see tension that's a bully. >> Might not be might be a kid that's struggling with something and he took it out on the closest person to him. Doesn't mean he shouldn't do

182it to the kid but it might be a different approach. So, we really need to get language and get clear about what it is that's going on. So, I feel like we've done this with ELA and math and now we need to do it in this area. >> I like that a lot. >> Um, I was I two questions. One, I was curious when does the character strong instruction happen in school >> like advisory I assume or how does that how who delivers that and during what time those levels? >> Yeah. when when it was presented um Mr. O'Neer talked about the extent to which infus it's infused for in wellness um places like that and we know you know from the middle school and high school schedules that that's not always the most um

183consistently experienced. So I think that is something that we're going to we'll take a look at. When Greg and Tammy presented too there were some um they had some next steps on areas of work. Um, one of them was also working um with Melissa Casa, the director of support engagement and advocacy. Um, because for the school adjustment counselors too at the elementary level um they just talked about an opportunity to be more coordinated both across our elementaryaries but also vertically and there was just a lot of >> people sort of stepping in to try to fill a need as best they could. But um we believe that with the the resource meaning the creation of that position and the person um who's been hired for that position that we have a real opportunity to have

184expertise to to do that work. So um we see an opportunity there to for those roles to get more support so that um the students are getting exposure to the to the curriculum >> and some of the middle and high school teachers didn't know that they could share that data with families >> right >> like it's become part of the culture at the elementary school that they bring that data but I don't think it's >> there's something lost in translation some we're doing it somewhere >> at the elementary level is character strong delivered primarily by the classroom teacher or does the adjusted counselor push in do lessons? I know they have assemblies right focus on the themes monthly themes and things like that. So it does seem there are some school level overarching >> um

185things happening but it's mostly delivered by the classroom teacher >> classroom teacher and there's like PBIS effort efforts you know at at the different schools too and um like I said just this year where um people are asking for more resources for like the tier two and tier three which um you know school school adjustment counselors uh could use. So that's a need that's been identified and met, but we have more work to do >> um to implement those. So um >> that's that's where that stands now. >> This all is excellent. I think it all when I read it made a lot of sense and feels like the right entry points um for us. One other just thing that reminded me about was that in the fall at the mask um conference I had

186attended a session um presented by some districts in Western Mass using a peer mediator model at the high school. I'll have to go back and find the name, but they were all very interested in it because it was achieving some of what you're talking about, Carrie, which is that it was giving kids more nuanced language and it was embedding the kids who had the ability to kind of use that language right in the classroom because they they had this they talked about how when something happens in a classroom, um the teacher is either there to intervene and say, "Hey, wait a second. We're going to talk about this right now." Maybe the teacher has that skill and the kids who experience that benefit from the teacher being able to intervene say, "Hold on. We're going

187to stop. We're going to talk about this." But then they leave the classroom and they go to lunch. They're talking in the hall. They're all saying, "Oh, so and so said this in the classroom." And all the kids who heard about that don't benefit from what the teacher then said. And so it has this kind of like ripple effect in the culture of a of a building when when things like this happen, you know, incidents happen and but when you have kids that are able to kind of also intervene, not in the same way a teacher would, but they're just embedded in the peer group. Um they were talking a lot about how that has really succeeded in shifting the conversation. >> The teacher teacher who runs don't we have peer? the teacher who was

188overseas the peer mediation at the high school was on the bullying task force she was very I feel like that could be an area >> she's very interested in >> I think some of the stuff is like just we got to get do some of this but that's feels like a next >> she to aspire to or look into perhaps >> she talks a lot about wanting to be involved >> yeah there's you know restorative justice all these other you know established researchbased programs that we could also consider looking into when we get to that but just to your point I think was very well made about just >> yours too Peter like it's there's a culture of change will take time >> so with with the um approval of the committee what I'll I'll

189do is send this out in the next 48 hours to families so that people have a chance to look at the slides and the this would be the comment period um and then I'll collect that feedback and then um share back with you on June 15. Um, some of the feedback that we've received during the comment period, >> right? I think you said it, but is this our three-year review cycle or is this preemptively? This is a three. >> Yes, this is the three-year review cycle, but we would like to do our hope is that we would look at our data holistically every year um to stay on top of how things are progressing and where we might need to adjust. Um, so that's our that's our plan. >> I like that piece, the yearly

190review. I don't know why Jesse has it like, oh, just do it every three years. Like that doesn't seem adequate across the state. >> All right, you good to move on? >> Yes. Okay. Um All right. Lastly in this section we have a just a closing of the loop um on the policies in N I JDB student responsible use of technology and JICFB bullying prevention which we had brought up at our last meeting as policies that the subcommittee was going to take a look at um to see if we wanted to make any updates. So I'll ask Ryan and Janice to share what we talked about and this is also >> well we took a look at it because Oh >> yeah, understand. >> Thank you guys. Take care. Good night. >> Good night. because

191of incidents that have happened in other districts um with technology and harassment and bullying. And we wanted to make sure that our policies um were adequate to deal with the issues have been having. and we decided that we do have very strong policies for um for both. So we looked at guidance from DESIE um which references the 2024 Massachusetts law and act to prevent abuse exploitation which should well cover what happened to these other districts in addition to their policies. We also looked at two other districts that have included specific callouts on AI generated images and Welssley. Um but as Janice mentioned ultimately we felt as though our policies are strong as written. Um we did talk about potentially um updating handbooks. handbooks might be a place to um add something like this in. And

192so um our director of educational technology attended our meeting as well and she and Ryan will take on that next piece of discussing at the school levels um if and how um to include that and those will come for our review. >> Ryan, did you want to add anything else? Uh we thank you. Where we know that this was sort of an intersection of current events with guidance from uh the governor. Um we know that tech continues to evolve. Um we want families in schools to know that anything that contributes to a hostile environment for a student in school, even if something were made out of school, is something that the school will investigate. and absolutely um you know follow through to make sure that that student is um has a safe environment and that

193other students would face consequences for that. So we wanted to review that as a group and also we we want to be clear with students and add information in handbook. So, it's um we we list out what our expectations are and just educate students in clear language about what's acceptable and what isn't. So, that's what we want to do with the the handbook component. So, um we feel like our policies cover some of the ways that um AI could be used um you know against other students and we want to make that clear in our handbook. So, that's all I would add. >> Great. Thank you. All right. Next on our agenda is warrants. Okay. Subcommittee reports. Okay. Um I this is not a subcommittee report, but I did have one thing that I wanted

194to share that I forgot to share earlier, so I'm gonna share it now. In honor of teacher appreciation week, I have pulled together just three little slides that I wanted to share >> because I couldn't resist the opportunity to just give our teachers a shout out and also I think it's really I don't know interesting also. I'm a huge nerd for this topic and I did study this in grad school so I can't help myself. Um but I just >> wanted to share um the data about teachers um because I think it's a nice way to honor them during this meeting particularly um so the data is very clear about um the degree to which teachers make a difference. So over there on the right side is a bunch of different um studies and statistical

195analyses of um ways that that teachers really um have positive effects um on student achievement. it is they are the most um influential school-based variable linked to increasing student achievement two or three times most other factors um and they have positive effects beyond academic um student attendance certain social emotional skills um on track grade progression so I wanted to share that then this is my how do teachers work their magic so I think we talk a lot about this and this is like something that every teacher learns about when they're becoming a teacher the instructional core um the relationship between the teacher, the student, and the content. Um, this is really, you know, kind of this is a very oversimplified way of saying this, but I think this is kind of how learning happens. Um,

196and teachers really have to have a strong relationship to both their content and their students. And so sometimes we hear like, oh, SEAL versus um, academics, and it's it's not it's both of those things. Um, and so a lot of people will talk about the art and the science of teaching. And I think this does a nice job of really simplifying that and showing that teachers need to make a million in one decisions every single day throughout every single lesson and all the time when they're talking to a student, when they're make, you know, designing an assessment or correcting an assessment or working on their lesson, whatever they're doing. Um they're constantly kind of negotiating this relationship that they have to both the student and the content. And that's what allows the student to develop

197their relationship with content. Um the way that this sort of applies to us, there's some research from TNTP. It's a little bit old now, 2012, but greenhouse schools, I thought it was a really interesting piece. Um they studied where um do teachers really thrive. So where what are the types of environments that teachers go? They stay, they feel really happy and well supported. And so I think this kind of speaks to some of the stuff that we do. Um and these are places that really prioritize teacher hiring and development. So, they really focus on um on professional development and making sure that teachers have what they need to continue to grow professionally. Um they often share a common vision of what excellent instruction looks like. They're really um proactive about providing feedback to their teachers.

198Um, and a lot of teachers in these schools have high efficacy, though they really believe that they have high standards for their students and that their students are able to achieve those standards and that they feel really efficacious in helping their students do that. So, I think that's kind of an interesting piece of research here. And lastly, um, instructional true instructional leadership, um, leadership practices that really focus on teaching and learning, high quality PD, um, and that includes adequate teacher collaboration time, which is something that we've talked a lot about with um, teacher planning blocks and, um, the way that we think about our PD schedule throughout the day. And we've also heard a lot of teachers and department chairs mention the value of this collaboration time. We've really put more time towards this in

199recent years. Um, so I wanted to call that out specifically. And lastly, um, slides, >> sorry, I said three. I said three. I forgot that I made an assignment at the end. >> U, I thought this was lovely. This is from, uh, teacher to teacher. The the little graphic is actually meant for teachers. Um, and it's a way to sort of, you know, remind them how important they are. But I think this week it's a nice idea to ask someone to tell you about their favorite teacher. um or tell someone about yours um and as a teacher to remind them that they get to be a person for a lot of our people. So that's a good little feelood way to end our our meeting. Um I think that is everything. >> Yeah. >> Okay.

200>> Motion to A 50. >> All right. Second. All in favor? I I