001All right. Good evening, Hollist, and welcome to the May 1st, 2025 meeting of the Holl School Committee. Hard to believe it's already May. Apologies for the late uh start. Um but uh we'll get right into it. Um, I'd first like to uh request a motion to approve the consent agenda with the uh with the amendment to add um executive session minutes for approval but not release from October 10th, 2024. uh November 14th, 2024, November 26th, 2024, uh December 12th, 2024, December 19th, 2024, January 9th, 2025, and February 27th, 2025. Moved by Don. Second as amended. As amended. All in favor? I cares. Six to nothing. Um Lisa just uh as you're doing this 1010 24 114 24 1126 24 1212 24 1219 24 1 924 25 and 22725 approval but not released. And as part
002of that we also um accepted uh a a lovely amount of grants uh from the HMAPA. We'll get to to uh a statement from them in a minute under public comment. But first, if we could get to a report from our student representatives. AP exams start next Monday. NHS induction is May 13th. Prom is May 16th. Theater 370 opening night of their play Clue is tonight. And there are also shows tomorrow and Saturday. And then decision day for seniors was today. Class of 2025 graduation night cruise tickets are on sale. HHS class of 2026 scavenger hunt for the food pantry is on Sunday, June 1st. Seniors last day of classes are on May 23rd and the kids from the DECA ICDC trip came back yesterday. Thank you. Individual school committee coming. Um want to thank
003all the students that ran the car show this last Saturday. I know the weather was not the best. Uh I was able to stop by. My son loved it. Got some cookies from the bake sale. So really good senior project. Um if only the weather was a little better, but they made it work. That's all for me. Nothing for me. Nothing for me. Um I just wanted to say again, congratulations to all the seniors. I know that today was decision day, so I've got lots of kids in pictures of the great schools everyone's going to. So it's very exciting and I wish you luck. Um and then also teacher appreciation week is next week. So humongous thank you to all of our amazing educators. Um just you guys everyone does such an fantastic job here
004at Palestine. So thank you for all of your efforts. Very briefly just echoing that um gratitude and appreciation for all of our educators and also a thank you to the PTO for um what they're running next week um for educators. There's a is it a taco lunch and a breakfast on on Yeah. coffee on Wednesday, I believe. Barbara's here, so but she'll probably as well. Yeah. Um some treats and everything. So the PTA always does a great job with that. So thank you. Um yes. So I will echo that. Uh thank you to all of our educators. We have a a brief uh uh email. I think we're going to approve later for uh for that, but uh it's always uh nice to be able to acknowledge those that work so hard for all of
005our kids. So, really appreciate that. Um moving on, just briefly, uh wanted to remind the community that on May 7th is town meeting. And just to be clear, this is a Wednesday. Town meeting always starts on Monday, except this year when it starts on Wednesday. So, it's Wednesday, May 7th. Um, please go to my home. Sure. Um, um, please show up. The uh the schools have a significant number of items on the uh on the warrant. Uh, there's a significant amount of other items on the warrant that uh might be of interest to people, but uh please show up, support the schools, support our budget, support our our capital requests. Um, it's obviously critical to uh our continued uh success in operations. All right. And at this point, we have public comment from the community.
006We have two people signed up. Um, and Barbara, if you'd like to to go first. Hi, Barbara Ryan, Fortune Place. Good evening. Um, thank you for acknowledging the PTO. Um, we do have the teacher and staff appreciation. I I back in the day we wrapped our arms around everyone, but there's taco, coffee, snack um bags that are going to be distributed all next week. We're you can visit PTO website. There's volunteer slots always open um if you're feeling like you want to contribute that way. But we appreciate the generosity again of our community for giving um donations. And I will say Carla Alfred and um Katie Eritt are hospitality chairs. And so once again, they have organized um an amazing week. So I want to give a shout out to them. Um second uh is
007May 7th is also bike walk and roll to school starting at 7:05. There's three start times. It's been advertised and thank you to their to our principles and um to our PTA website. But we're excited um this year Chenade um Ohad and her mom Dr. Michelle Potter really took this on. Chenade is a sophomore and a Leo and she's really done the major coordination and just had her have that opportunity to um grow and learn in uh in a leadership position. So very proud of her and a bunch of Leos will also be helping that morning. Um May this Saturday another PTO just a shout out is a digfest in front of Miller. We're on our fourth um school and the outdoor learning alliance which is a subcommittee is actually um going to help beautify
008the outside and all of these projects have done been done in concert with the administration the principles of the buildings as well as really enthusiastic teachers who have said um we want to make these spaces more beautiful and part of learning. So thank you for that. My last um two comments are I'm really excited to see a call for a math subcommittee. I know there's this has been a couple years in the process led by uh Dr. Kusa and Dr. Manard, but um there's been so much passion around that and I really appreciated that there's a little bit of the slowing the role and really hearing our math community um and our community in general to see what is the best moving forward. And maybe leveling, deleing aren't the best words, but there's something to
009meet everyone where they are um and particularly with math. So, I'm excited about that as a parent. Um, and my last comment is I've been doing a lot of reading about AI and I know Bill Gates yesterday said AI and robots will be taking over in about 10 years and everybody said, "Well, what about haircuts?" And I don't ever want my hair cut by a robot. But anyway, um I I I know this is on the your minds and um and hopefully as we look to the future, AI, ethical AI, innovation, respecting privacy, how do we integrate? we've done. I think Holliston has always been a leader in technology in the classroom. What's next with AI? I think it's something that has to be paid attention to and I know you are and I thank
010you. And that's it. Thank you very much. And apparently since I don't get my haircut, um I won't have to worry about that. Um and I don't want any robot teachers either. All right. Uh Ingred, our HMAPa rep. Uh the the the list of uh of uh gifts is is quite impressive. So I I'm glad you were able to make it to to demonstrate. Another great arm of our uh you know, volunteer parents. And uh my name is Ingred Dalinderty. I'm at 15 Andrew Lane. I have two children at the high school. Um and they're both in um band and jazz band. Um I'm also a parent leazison for band for the HMAPA and on the grants committee and scholarship committee. Um so thank you for granting the HMAPA a spot on tonight's agenda. We
011are pleased to announce that we are giving $7,466 back to our teachers and grants this coming season. Grant requests are submitted and then reviewed by our grants committee. All three strands of the arts are represented and include requests for a portable PA system for elementary music, iPads for the art department, tools and storage for theater, stage crew, um a new electric piano for the music department, and guitars for the um the middle school and um for Rams and Miller. All donations go towards grants and scholarships which are underway. I would also like to note that we omitted the requirement to pay to be a member this past fall, which was previously required for all four years to apply for scholarships out of equity concerns. All of our supporters are members, and we have still been
012receiving many don generous donations throughout the year to support our teachers and students. We encourage the community to still donate this year if they have not already. And finally, as an email to you earlier this week stated, we thank you for your support for the performing of the performing arts ensembles as you've created the new upcoming high school schedule. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate all that. I'm sure they will all be put to uh to good use. All right. Okay. So, you want would like to do the teaching and learning update first? Do that one. Okay. Thank you guys. All right. So, we have a number of people here. So, while uh uh Miss Be's uh presentations were listed first, we will we will let uh this group go first and get home well before
013us. Um so, if if whoever is going to be doing the presentation with uh with Dr. Bernard uh can come up teaching and learning Jenny, I keep forgetting you're part of mini cruise. And I will note that while we started late, we are 12 minutes ahead of schedule, right? Yeah, I'm trying to do this. We take the positive. We get it. a technical advisor. back. Okay, I'm very excited tonight to have the district curriculum team. They've done an amazing job this year on what they've accomplished and please remember that they are all on the teachers contract, but they've done an incredible job and we just wanted to share with you a little bit about the work that has been completed this year. Should we start with an introduction? Yes. As you remember, you're going to
014I'm sorry. You're going to introduce yourselves as you talk, right? So, yes. Sorry. Uh I'm Christa Marino. I'm the STEM curriculum specialist at Placentino. I'm Jenny Man. I'm the humanities curriculum specialist and interventionist in Placentino. Um so, we are going to we get to kick things off. Um we are going to speak a little bit about what our intervention has looked like this year, some of the data that we've gathered from that intervention, um students we've supported. Um and some of this will sound familiar from our conversation with you at the start of the school year, but just to sort of give you an update on on where things stand. So for both literacy and math, we have a variety of assessments that we use. Some of these are benchmark assessments, some of them are
015screening tools. Um, and all give us really valuable information thinking about where students have made growth, where they have continued areas of need. Um, we also take teacher input um, very seriously. Of course, the teachers spend all day with their students, so they know them best. Um and so in thinking about which students enter an exit intervention that teacher input is you know a significant piece of that. Um next slide please. So we run small groups um from about 9:15 to about 12:25 daily. Um both Kristen and myself have direct direct service with students. We also have a number of tutors, both literacy and math, that we work with that support students. Um, we have a what we call a wind block standing for what I need. And so that's a defined time for every
016classroom schedule where there's no new instruction happening in the classroom. So, for example, if a student were coming to math support, that would be during their wind block, which would mean they're not missing, you know, a phonics lesson or recess or a lecture, anything like that. Um, you know, we felt that it was really important that that was a protected time that, you know, really was differentiated for students so that they could get what they need, whether that was, you know, an out of the classroom support like going to math support or literacy support or perhaps working on something independently in the classroom or with a teacher in the classroom. Um, we, you know, have become scheduling wizards sometimes in terms of thinking about students who our MLS who might be getting their MLL services
017during that win time or students on um, IEPs, for example, perhaps a student who might um, only have speech goals but might also need some reading support. You know, just really getting I think we pride ourselves on being really flexible and creative and just finding ways to fit kiddos in because that's our job to meet kiddos where they are and support support them with what they need. Um, and then we do progress monitoring either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly depending on the student level of need. Um, and you'll hear more about that in our dyslexia presentation, so I won't bore you with that right now, but that's something we've done a lot of this year. Um, thinking about, you know, students that we've reached. Um, it fluctuates the number of students at any given time because
018we're constantly, you know, flexing students into different groups. And so to give you a range of you know the number of students throughout the school year that we've serviced um for both literacy and for math. So between 68 to 75 and you know just oh that's okay. Um you know around 80 for math. So pretty pretty amazing. Um the next few slides will show you kind of an overview of some of our data from this year. So um for literacy I'm going to speak about some of our Dibbles data. So Dibbles is um a benchmark assessment that we use three times a year. Every student in the building is tested uh beginning, middle, and end of the year for students um in reading intervention as well as several other subgroups. We also progress monitor them
019every other week. Um Dibbles defines predominant measures um depending on the grade and the time of year. And so um that's what I've chosen to show you for each grade level here. So phone segmentation fluency is just a fancy way to say like a student's ability to break apart sounds and it's all oral. So if I say to them, okay, the word is cat. I want you to tell me the sounds. I want what we want them to be able to do is say cat. And so um what you just to sort of orient you here, the blue dot at the bottom is the beginning of your data point and then the pinkish purplish square is the middle of year. Um, so I like this visual because I think it shows the growth really nicely.
020And then that thick gray bar is the endofear benchmark. Um, so you can see, you know, obviously all students are different. Some students had really significant growth from beginning to middle. Some were already meeting that end of year benchmark by the middle of the year. You know, many students still have a little bit of of growth to, you know, make there. But, um, you know, this is an exciting and and really informative, um, graph to look at. Um, next slide please. For grade one, we're looking at nonsense word fluency. So, this is really looking at a student's alphabetic knowledge. So, if they're looking at two and threeletter nonsense words, like the word bim, bim, right? We want to see if they can say the sounds and read the word. Some of them can just read
021the word bim. Some of them need to say bim and then read it. Right? So, looking at sort of where they are in that developmental trajectory of of blending sounds. Um and a similar piece here showing the beginning of year data point growth to the middle of year and this is a sorry sorry what is the x-axis um it's student names oh yes so I should good question um not trying to be sneaky just trying to protect student privacy so um I should mention as well that uh the graphs that you're seeing are representing students in intervention okay so we have this data point for every student in the building, but just to give you a snapshot of students receiving intervention. Yes, it's just cut cuto off needs. Um, and this you we've also tried
022to really look at how each of these subtests should match our intervention focus, right? So for first graders that phonics focus is so huge, right? Are they able to apply their, you know, phonics knowledge and and start decoding words? Um that's you know so this this is a subtest that really tells us information about that. Next slide please. Um for grade two we're looking primarily at oral reading fluency and so this is you know one of the most complex subtests within dibbles. Students are reading a passage a grade level passage and they can be very challenging. Um as a second grade teacher a former second teacher Kristen knows they're they're very challenging. And so, you know, these are our students um in intervention who, you know, many of them started the year with, so we're
023looking at um when it says words correct, that's how many words they have correct in a minute. So, you know, many of these students starting the year with, you know, around between 20 and 30 words correct per minute and and making some nice growth. Um this is, you know, asking them, this subtest is asking them to bring all of those skills together. And so looking at this data mid year, you know, obviously many of these students were not yet at that benchmark. And so we did some sort of reflection reflecting and um had conversations with the staff about how to support that both word level and sentence level fluency and like really focusing on fluency as a target area. Um and so that's been a a large focus for us um this spring and late
024winter. Um and this slide is our number sense data. based on the I Ready assessment that all the kids at Pleasantino take. Um at Placentino this year, as I mentioned in the fall, that we have really been focusing on building that really solid basic number sense skills um and a kid's ability to quickly recognize quantities because that has been research shown to really affect their math for the rest of their life. Um so this um is from I Ready. So in separated by grade we have K1 and two but then if you notice the top it says most recent that's our January um as um data point just so you know um and then BOI stands for beginning of the year which most kids took it end of September beginning of October um but as
025you can see um we made a lot of growth um so greens are obviously we like we want all the kids in the green um but if you look at the yellow particularly those are the kids who were below grade level. So at the beginning of the year in kindergarten we had 78% of kids below grade level in their number sense skills. Um and in January we are down to only 45% below grade level. Um in the first graders um we started the year with 66% one grade level below expectations and now we are only at 48% below grade level. And again, this was January. Um, so I expect it to go much higher when we take the end of the year. So I'm very excited to see it. Um, and then in grade two,
026we had 59% one grade level below and now we are only at 43% grade level below. So not only is the yellow moving, but you can also see the red on all those grades went down. In kindergarten, they don't have a red score. Two grade levels below. That would be three years old. So that's why, not that I'm discounting it, I just wanted to explain that. Um, and then as you can see, the darker green means that they're above grade level and the lighter green means that they're on grade level. So everything is making positive change, which is awesome to see. Just had one question on that one. Grade level is based on end of year, right? So we would expect most to be below grade level and then obviously January. So the light green
027one, it actually changes. I already has it split up. They have a score for beginning of the year, middle of the year, and end of the year. It's a wide range. And then that light green is the one that changes as the year goes on. Got it. Okay. Like the benchmark keeps Yeah. It's kind of like dibbles. The benchmark gets higher throughout the year. It's not like we expect them to be at the end of the year. The colors just don't change for the teacher side of things. [Music] So, we'll move on to Miller. Um, I'm Elsa O'Brien, the humanities curriculum specialist, and I'm Ashley Buchard, the uh, STEM specialist at Miller. And we'll go pretty quickly through these first couple of slides because you saw these earlier this year, and they're very similar to
028what Placentino shared just a few minutes ago in terms of um, what we're using to identify students that need to be um, need to have some extra support and um, get some intervention. Next slide. uh just kind of highlights uh in a similar fashion how we're structuring our interventions at Miller. Um and similarly um you know we have a wind block. Uh most of our kids are in uh who are in intervention are getting them two to three times a week for 30 minutes. Um and uh we're progress monitoring monthly with some of our and we'll get to this in a minute, but with some of our um most at risk kids or or kids who have the most need, we're increasing our progress monitoring um which we'll talk about shortly. So we have about
02990 students that we've um been servicing this year and like um Jenny mentioned that fluctuates. We are continually looking at our data to decide if students can exit or their program needs to be adjusted. Um and similarly for math and there's about 100 students for math. So that's from the beginning of the year. Students who've exited, who have entered, we're pushing into classrooms. So we're able to help a lot more students um get them where they need to be. So Oh, go ahead. As well, this is for the entire year. So do kids do kids possibly start mid year? Yes. So for math, it's constant fluidity, right? So if they're meeting where they need to be, I want them to fly. So go back into the classroom and then we monitor them and if they're
030struggling, we'll pick them back up and give them support that they need. So the goal is to be in the classroom and be successful and feel good about math. Thank you. And same with literacy. We we're looking at data not just for kids who are in intervention, but other kids too, to see if we need to add them to our program. I think if I'm not mistaken, when you talk about kids that weren't struggling at the beginning and then they start to decrease, you'd pick them up. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, I also brought a snapshot of some data for you to take a look at. Uh this is the Dibbles oral reader reading fluency. And like Jenny mentioned before, uh the gray bar is the end of the year benchmark. The bottom points are the
031beginning of the year and the upper points are the middle of the year. These are just the benchmarks. It doesn't show you our progress monitoring. We are also taking a close look at the progress monitoring scores which I'll show you an example of in a moment. Um and this is just one measure. We have actually five subtests um in for example grade three that we use to um assess students for benchmark. But um the oral reading fluency benchmark is actually a metric that's sensitive enough to show growth that's meaningful and reliable over short periods of time. And so researchers have actually studied this and the of study the ORF data and um know what a valid rate of improvement is. So there's a chart that you can look at to decide like how many words
032per week or how many words per month should a student be adding and increasing um to show growth. So next slide. Um oh this is a continuation of grade three. So again this is just our reading intervention students to give you a snapshot and then the following slide is grade four. Is this a data dashboard? This is um this is dibbles amplify but this information is also on the data. Yes. Um so when students aren't making um expected progress so when we look at a student who we see is not making as much progress as we would like um we're looking more closely at other data points too. So this is just a snapshot but for example if I see that a student isn't making the same progress that we would expect we would want
033to look at adjusting something. So, we might want to look at adjusting the frequency that we're meeting with the students or we might decide that we're going to change the size of the group that they're in because they might need a smaller group. Um, or maybe changing the instructional program. So, if we're doing a fluency focus and we see a child is really struggling, we might take a look at some other data and decide, okay, maybe there is a phonics piece that they really need some additional support in. let's um use that to try and target that phonics piece and see if that supports them. So um if you go um one more slide is grade five as an example and then the slide be um after that these are just this is one student
034and it gives you an example of their phonics subtest the nonsense word fluency and you can see our progress monitoring um each month throughout the the entire year and that big target at the end on the right hand side that looks like um you know the target uh logo. Uh that is where we expect them to be at the end of the year. Um and the aim line is the dotted line that connects where they were at the beginning of the year and where we expect them to be at the end of the year. So we're looking to see are they, you know, sort of like the height and um weight chart that you get at the pediatricians, like are they on target for their trajectory? That's really what we want to be able to
035see. And if they're not, um, and this is something we also learned at the dyslexia institute, if we take a look at the last three or four data points and many of them are below that aim line, we want to adjust our programming or our grouping or our focus. Um, but if they're above and below, if they're on that that target like this student is, then we would want to continue with that um that programming. the benchmark goal per college students or is it per student based on where you think the students going to like a re like a realistic goal for that specific Yeah. So the goal is for everybody to reach grade level by the end of the year but we do have students that we know won't reach that point because of
036their you know maybe it's an MLL student who's just learning English for the first time or a student who has multiple needs. Um so and we'll talk a bit little bit of more about this later but we can set growth for them that is you know um ambitious growth versus um less ambitious growth depending on their grade level their needs but tailored to that student a reasonable expectation of what you think. Yes. All right. On to math. So I'm really excited to share this with you. Um so this is from Ireetti. It's the cohort of students that are in intervention only looking at them. So the first graph at the top where it says 70%. So annual typical growth. So by this was benchmark two. So by the middle of the year you would expect
037students on grade level to get 50% growth. That's what you shoot for. So this is saying that the median percentage is 70%. So half of our intervention kids scored below 70% and half scored above 70% of their annual typical growth. So what's awesome to look at is the graph below. I wanted to break it down to show you the actual numbers of where students fell. Again, that 50% is where you want to see a typical student make that growth and progress throughout the year. So if you notice, we have from 0 to 49% 25 of our students scored within there. And then from 50 to 99% annual typical growth, we had 20 students of our intervention students make that growth. So 100% growth is where you want to see them at the end of the
038year. So we had 20 get between 50 and 100. And then if you look at 100 to 199% growth, 17 of our intervention students achieve that much growth, which is over a year's worth of growth in a half a year's worth of time. So kudos to my interventionist who I've been working really closely with. Her and I collaborate really well and she's fabulous. Um she pushes into the classroom as well. I'm pushing into the classroom. She has small groups. I have small groups the whole kitten kaboodleoodle and we're rocking it. And then one student scored 200% growth which is over two years worth of growth from where they started at the beginning of the year. So leaps and bounds. um not only are they growing, but they're also coming out confident and they don't want
039to leave intervention. We have to kick them out, shut the doors and say, "No, you could come show us your test grades. That's fine, but this is um our interventionist has to work with other students." So if you go to the next slide, the top distribution shows that first cohort of students and on the bottom where it says 2% 6% 71% 13% 6% 2%. So those are the shifts of where it went. So the red with the slash marks um we were at 8% of our students started there and now 6% are there. So, some shifted to the next lane. And then if you look at two grade levels or below, from the beginning of the year, 38% of our students started there. And now there's only 13% there because they shifted to the next
040lane. And if you look at one grade level below, we started at 52% which has now increased to 71% because those students who were two or more grade levels below have caught up. And then we had none on grade level. It bumped up to 6%. So four of our students and then mid or above grade level we went from 0% to one student and that's probably that 200enter could be. Um so that was our first batch of data from my ready from the beginning of the year to January and I just wanted to show in that second graph what our starting stats are for our second round. So coming in, you could tell the percentages are getting better. But we picked up some more reds and students who may be struggling who are cuspy and
041pushed those who are able to be pushed and be successful still on watch list. But we're hoping that some of those yellows and reds do that same shift and we'll see that in the next round. So I'm very proud. Sorry. So, I'm Casey Conahan and I'm the humanities coordinator and interventionist at RAMS. And I'm Carla Krauss. I am the STEM curriculum coordinator and interventionist at Rams. Um, and so we are just using um the following to gather information about students to qualify for intervention. Um, we look at their LL scores and we do benchmarks at the beginning of the year, middle of the year and end of the year. and we can go in and see um student progress. Um it's especially accurate if students are consistently stepping into the arena and using EXL in
042their classroom to update their plans. Um but we have also looked at MCCAST data, but we as the year goes on, we look more into term grades um and what's in power school as well as teacher input about how students are performing. So as you know at Briams we are putting this into place this literacy and math model for the first time. So we have made some adjustments from the beginning of the year. Um for tier one we've moved into more of a team consultation model. So for tier one students, those are students who aren't performing well academically. Um but their testing doesn't identify that there's specifically a literacy or math reason behind that. Maybe it's executive functioning. Maybe we're not sure. Um what we're doing is moving to a team consultation model with so
043Casey and I along with appropriate specialists for the situation. So it might be the OT, it might be the school psychologist, it might be the guidance counselor. Um we're coming together as a team looking at team input, what the what the um what their teachers are saying. We're looking at observations. So going in and and observing in the classroom and taking notes on what we're seeing, then coming together as a group to work with the appropriate the appropriate experts to come up with trial steps for the team to try and then checking back in with the team after 3 weeks, figuring out what worked, what didn't, and then modifying as needed. So um that's been a little bit of a change. before we had just been relying on um on kind of pushing in and
044taking a look, but we really felt like we needed all of the stakeholders around the table to um make the best recommendations possible. Tier 2 uh is continuing to be Rams block. We have small groups with humanities or STEM. Casey does the humanities, I do the STEM. Um, humanities continues to be 30 minute RAM block one rams block once a week. Math I changed to 30 minutes twice a week because it really felt like we needed a little bit more continuity with that 25 minute period having one day to talk about a topic and then another day to practice without a whole week's time in between. So it it means that fewer students are getting that intervention at a time, but they're getting a higher quality and more consistent intervention. Um the other thing that
045we added was the executive functioning which isn't up there. Um, we have a 30 minute slot at Ramsblock on Friday to work with a group of kids, a group of students who've been identified by their teams whose grades are consistently low and it appears to be more of an executive function issue. So, we work on organization, we work on prioritizing, we work on having those conversations with kids and being their check-in point every Friday to see how the week went. we make um we make deals, you know, what are we going to work on for makeup over the weekend? And then we follow back up with them the following week. So, it kind of gives them that that consistent adult to check in with on on a personal level. Um and then, oops, tier three
046I I don't need I can speak on this. Um, tier three is where we have students who are uh, three grades or more below grade level and we work on that. We work with them onetoone during an arts period to work on either literacy or math um, depending on which need is identified to be um, the priority at the time. [Music] So, our numbers are a lot different given the schedule at Rams. Um, and so we are um I also want to point out you have no T you have no tutors right now. We have no tutors. That's right. I just wanted to point that out younger grades we had built some tutors over the years and we're trying to build some more at the middle school as well. Yes. Right. So, it's just Carla
047and I. Right. Um, so these are the numbers of the students we've been able to support so far this year. Um, that's not necessarily all at one given time. Similar to Pleasantino and Miller, we've had some students come in later in the year. Other students um meet grade level benchmark on their grades have improved and conversations with teachers and parents have felt that they're ready to um try it on their own. And then we'll move into that consultation mode and check in with teachers about how they're continuing to progress. Um, and that EF stands for executive functioning. That's that Friday group that Carla just mentioned. Um, so we use to give us our data points. And this is really the the way we're able to look at it. So the x axis would be the
048students um each student receiving um a blue and red line. Um and so the blue is their beginning of the year score. The red is the middle of the year. Um and so we're using this information to um give us a sense of if students are progressing. You'll see some students are making great progress um hitting benchmark. And granted, that's not organized by grade. Um, but as you'll see, some students are above that six and reaching that eighth grade level, which means they're hitting those grade level um benchmarks with those red lines. The individualized reports that we get, which um then share a breakdown of those scores. And so say in literacy we get an overall score for overall English. We get a total reading score and then that's broken down into reading strategies, vocabulary,
049language um and then there's a writing section. And so that gives us information of different areas to target um which were use which I use to help me kind of decide groupings of students as well as what skills to work on. Sometimes I feel like that's not enough. Um, so I've been researching different middle school level types of inventories to use. Um, and one of them that I've been enjoying or liking is the QRI7, which allows me to sit with students one- on-one. Um, determine a grade level passage for them to read out loud where I can check their um, fluency. I can then um, listen to their kind of recall and they'll tell back the story. And then we will work on um they'll answer questions and the questions are coded by both literal
050and inferential to kind of tease out more of where some of that breakdown is for their comprehension. Um since that's such a huge part of what we do at the middle school. Um I find that a lot of our students if they're still really working on the decoding piece that Elsa and Jenny talked about, those are usually students who are in programs by the middle by middle school. And so we're focusing on that comprehension level. Um so this just kind of gives you a sense of our overall growth um with the total students we've had that um we've had a few students not show any increase. That might be because they came in. They might be some of my students that I got later in the year. Um and so I I only have that
051one benchmark for them. Um but 12 students have made at least one grade level of growth, two up to two grade levels, two students up to three grade levels. Um and so we're averaging um about a 77% grade level growth at the midyear. Um and 84% of students are showing improvement. So we're really excited that even in a small dosage, we're still making some gains. Um and we're just hoping to continue to problem solve the scheduling conundrum that just exists around um intervention at RAMs. So math is very similar to what Casey said. Um I am using you can see we've the the blue line is beginning of the year. The x-axis again is names for privacy. Um and so you can see the growth from beginning of the year to present. Again, some of
052our students aren't showing a lot, but I've also cycled in and out several students. So, some of those students are just taking a spot in intervention. Um, in math, I'm focusing on a couple of things. Fluency has been a big issue for our kids. It's not often that they don't know the steps or know what to do, but their lack of fluency gets in the way of being able to in their working memory hold everything, be counting on fingers, not having that fluency to be able to smoothly move work through what they know how to do. So I've brought math fact lab in which is researchbased and it um also gives benchmarks on where they are at in fluency for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Students can see their growth. They can see which facts
053they're fluent in already, which need work and it adjusts as the kids practice. So that's been a big help. And it also has the concrete representational and abstract built in. So it's got concrete examples, it's got number lines, it's got dice, it's got all sorts of other things that help students make build their number sense. So it's not just about um fluency. It's also just about um it's also about building that number sense. And along with it, I've been using similarly to Casey, which is it really helps us identify where gaps are. What don't they know? But we're not just relying on EXL. So the EXL will be telling me what don't they know? But I'm working with kids in small groups so that I can see why don't they know it? And then we
054can tackle those for different kids. It's different reasons and sort of carry those threads through. If it's if it's how they're organizing their work, if it's an executive functioning issue in math, I can focus on that with those kids. If it's fluency, I can focus on that. if it's just gaps because of absenteeism or something else. Yeah, we can we can fill those gaps. And I'm also doing some research on some other intervention programs. There's um a Meadows Center intervention which is highly regarded and researchbased and um looping some of that in because we are still in the experimental phase of what what's going to work best with our middle schoolers. math lab next year should allow us to take many more kids into math um intervention as right now it's just myself I just
055interject and that's why Karen and you and some teachers have put together asking for the one math tutor right now we can see the model works having our interventions oversee and helping them using the data and you've been able to get tremendous growth even though it's not all teachers doing the interventions you're overseeing the intervent ventions with that model in place. It's working really effectively. And follow up to that like the numbers are very different in Placentino about 70 kids for literacy and about 80 for math and Miller about 90 for literacy and 100 and those are kids moving in and out right. Are you seeing kids moving in and out the same? So they they are moving in and out which is why my numbers a little higher in math for kids that I've
056seen because because I had some that I was able to release really quickly. they just needed a little refresher and they were able to head on out. And what I'm doing is it's middle school, so it's more of a communication between myself and the student if they're like, "No, I really feel like I'm at the right place. I'll put aside time in one intervention where they can do their their step into the arena benchmark." And I'm like, "That's fine. Let's like let's give it a go. let's see if you are cuz if you are and then I give them a little graduation party and seal them off and um someone else can step into that open spot. But in terms of what we're doing at Placentino and Miller um we have the we have tutors
057that are supporting that work. Um no and no math tutors right now. Okay. And again, we've advocated for that with this year's budget. But what do we have for math tutors in terms of Miller and Placentino just to understand how it got us to those much higher numbers? One math tutor. So it's myself and one one math tutor, but our schedule lends itself to a 30 minute wind block that alternates. So there's a group of teachers assigned to that 30 minutes. Okay. So whereas they have everybody, we have everyone has Rams block in the entire building. So we're able to meet the needs of more students because they all are dispersed based on where their block is. And what's the And it's the same model at Plantino. So we have a wind block that's that's
058scheduled to have only like maybe three or four classrooms in that chunk of time. Um and me and Jenny pair up and kind of see if oh if they need both, we kind of flip-flop so that they can get both during that time. and I have three um pair of professionals um that work under for the math and they're all fantastic this year. Okay, thank you. That really helps. And again, we're advocating for that math tutor in this year's budget. So, your capacity is limited, I guess, more so than than that the So, are there kids in there not meeting their needs? I I believe so, which is why we advocated for a math tutor so that we can reach more students. Is it just on the math side that you're It's on both sides.
059Um so we absolutely, you know, I think we're more ready to target the math. Carla and I have had a lot of conversations about the similarities and differences of what we're experiencing in our subject areas. And you know, with math, she's able to really target specific content and um either fill that gap or practice a continued skill with repetition there. Whereas comprehension is a lot more broad and there's a lot of pieces to it. Um and they all come work together, you know. So in a single not a single session I mean for a lesson I I'll I'll pull and a a passage and in that I might be working on syllabocation. We might be working on vocabulary and tying in morphology that has a lot of um benefits for building comprehension and recognizing additional
060words. Then we'll work on reading and identifying supporting details um all to understand like this this one text right um I find a lot of kids struggle with text structure so along with reading and comprehending the text we'll do often like card sorts where we play around with the organization of what how what are subcategories of this text how might we label paragraphs with a a main idea How might we um reorganize details to see that they can be grouped in other ways? Why is the author organizing it the way that they did? Um all to build comprehension around what does this text focus on? How is it organized in presenting ideas? And then students will take um a little comprehension check-in at the end to um do that. And I'm not even getting into
061writing that could really be tied to it. Right? So there's just so much um and so where I'm kind of having to take multiple weeks because I see kids once a week to get through and see what's working, what's not, it's just been a longer, slower process. Um, and I've met with folks on a a job alike where I meet with other interventionists throughout the state and and in talking it's a similar experience across the board that um it's just different beasts that we deal with. Um, so I think math right now is at a place where they're they see how they can facilitate that. I'm still working it out. [Music] And um so similar to Casey's slide, this is our math intervention student growth. So we had three kids with no increase, one uh
062nine students up to one grade level, seven students up to two grade levels, four students up to three grade levels, and four students move up more than three grade levels. The average growth has been 1.68 68 grade levels and 88% of the students have made growth and again some of these students represented just to get the whole numbers are kids that have recently been picked up in February. So I'm not going to ask about anx 1.68 that's amazing. Is that like dibbles where it's following along? So like the way to think about it you know we're midyear they grew 1.6. Wow. Yes. That's awesome. I know, right? They're all doing an amazing job. You need math tutors. I mean, you're doing great. Listen, for 26 kids, I think what we're seeing over time, like we
063we have this model more in place at the younger levels, but we've actually tried to really make it consistent K to 12. We still have work to do in the 9 to 12 range because the model we have challenges with the schedule. We know that, but we're seeing that the trend is really working and I think we've got the right model in place and now we need to add the additional supports over time such as tutors to help support the work that they're doing. And does this work move or what you're learning about the kids that have been in the program? Is this moving from building to building? So, yes, absolutely. We're sharing data. We talk non-stop. They're doing an amazing job of talking to each other all the time and being on the same
064page. Yeah, I think that's been one of the most exciting things about this team this year is that those all the conversation opportunities for vertical conversations both as a large group and then by subject area as well. Um so yes, it's a a very different feeling like sending a kiddo to Miller knowing that you know and I will talk constantly about them. Um, and I think that's that's echoed across all the transitions. And I think we've done a really great job over the past few years of passing the data from Miller on to the middle school so that it's following them and as soon as they step in in sixth grade, we know what they got. So nobody slips through the cracks. exhausting. I just want to say one other benefit to this new model
065and I well in intervention um in our previous model still followed kids that struggled but this is content specific but we're not you know we're able to see those kids again next year if we need to and there's just that person that's kind of staying with certain kids potentially through their three years if they need it. Um but also being that voice to kind of represent them as they move to the next grade level in seventh and eighth grade. You know um teachers they're they're getting their new batch of anywhere from 50 to 95 kids and we have such a smaller group that we're working with. So we can be those voices for the small group of kids that are not quite at benchmark but need that extra attention. And so, um, I think that's
066a nice model and part of the intervention program. Okay. Unfortunately, um, Joel and Leah cannot be with us tonight. Joel has a medical emergency and, um, Leah was not able to join us, but they have made a videotape. So, let's see if we can get this to work. And I need to go here and let's see. and intervention at the high school level looks different than the other two schools because of two main reasons. First, the current schedule does not provide adequate time for outside of class interventions. And second, at the high school level, intervention is best placed with the teacher who is also delivering the content. This year, Lita and I have focused our work in the following areas. One, creating a multi-ter system of support featuring robust tier one instructional practices. Two, designing
067and delivering professional development in the areas of disciplinary literacy and formative assessment. Three, creating an executive functioning support for stu students during DSB. And finally, providing in-class supports for teachers, including coaching cycles with teachers, differentiated small group instruction, and lesson support. So, all teachers constantly strive to help their students achieve their full potential. Student engagement in lessons plays a large impact on the likelihood of student success. Coaching is having a thought partner on how to reach engagement within a lesson. During conversations, we work with teachers to create goals that are powerful, emotionally compelling for teachers, measurable, and student focused. Which is why when we work with one teacher on a coaching cycle, we impact all of their students. This is why our members look very different than the other [Music] schools. The next few slides
068focus and illustrate on what teachers say about their perspective of the coaching experience. It impacts shows the impact of their practice and their student experience. Please take a minute to read their [Music] perspective. So these are the quotes that they're referencing. [Music] Okay. So you can see that there are common themes from all the schools and what data we use to determine who receives interventions. So every single school it's based on multiple data points. At the elementary we're using I Ready. At the secondary schools we're using we're using MCCAST at all levels where appropriate obviously teacher input from all schools. Dibbles at Placentino and Miller and RA math recovery at Placentino and Miller. going to totally switch gears now from intervention and we'll have Elsa and Jenny tell us about what's been going on in
069the ELA curriculum review for the elementary schools um so I can get us started. So we um began this curriculum review uh middle of last year and so um our team includes representation from every grade level and um across programs um so traditional French monasuri um we have admin on the team um it's a a really nice group of a lot of diverse perspectives and voices and experiences um so we began our process you know really thinking about uh where we are currently, what we have in place, what we're using, um sort of challenging our beliefs about literacy. Um Yep. doing some visioning work and and I I just want to say how much I appreciate the opportunity to do this thoughtfully and carefully because we care so deeply about this work and we know
070that to do it well, we need to uh be very thoughtful and strategic about it. So um this this school year we've really dived into um you know doing a gap analysis. So thinking about everything from you know scheduling materials you know among many other things um doing some group learning as I'm sure all of you know there's been you know a huge uh shift in u thoughts about literacy instruction. Um the research isn't new. There's just a little bit of new new focus on it. And so doing some group learning about that um using uh things like the curate reports um or curate and ed reports, excuse me, um as evaluation tools when looking at different curricular materials and sort of training our team on how to use those um evaluation tools. We also
071um put out a teacher survey because you know of course our teachers have are the ones who are teaching this content and and with these strategies and these materials and we wanted to hear from them what their thoughts were, what they identified as areas of need. Um, and then, uh, Elsa and I had several conversations with surrounding districts that have, uh, recently either are also re in this process like we are or have recently completed a curriculum review. Um, and some chose to adopt new materials, some didn't. But those conversations were hugely helpful in understanding their process um understanding the decisions that they made and why um and sort of just getting you know some some feedback and some advice and so we're continuing um those conversations and we've been participating in the implement network
072with DESIE to help us to guide us through this process and they have many resources so we've been attending um quarterly um not quite monthly kind of between monthly and quarterly um Zoom sessions with Desi and other surrounding districts collaborating with them to talk about what um roadblocks or challenges or successes they've had and to provide resources for each step of this process and that's been enormously helpful. Um, one of our next action steps next week actually, we will be um applying for a DESIE grant. Um, no matter what direction we go in, it can help support um our next steps in terms of new uh materials, professional development, um just, you know, an opportunity that we really can't pass up. So, that's um something coming soon. and then looking into, you know, summer and
073fall, continuing to meet as a group, reviewing some sample materials, um, thinking about what further steps beyond that will be in terms of a potential pilot or, um, sort of samp like a cross sampling of different materials. Um, and again, I just want to echo that, you know, the opportunity to do this in a thoughtful, methodical way is has felt really important to us. And so we're we're very grateful for that. So besides this, we've been doing some other incredible work and Jenny's going to speak to our standardsbased report card committee which we just came from earlier tonight. So I'm sorry you have to hear me talk so much. Um so this graphic at the top shows um a a timeline for this committee. And so uh we at least at the elementary level we
074call the report card the Ross report on student progress. and this is my fifth year in the district and as long as I've been here there's been a real uh want and and need to sort of revamp and you know overhaul many if not all parts of this of this report. So we're really excited to be doing this work. Um task members include so we have Aaron Snyder French immersion teacher Natasha Merin who's a grade two teacher placentantino and myself Dr. Laney, Plantino principal, Carrie Perpal, fifth grade teacher at Miller, Michael Glenn, Spanish teacher at Miller, uh Dave Kim, Miller, principal, Dr. Menard, and um Brenda Marorrow, assistant principal at Miller. So, a nice sort of wide range of different perspectives and voices as well. Um our fall process was uh really interesting. We looked
075at almost 20 different districts um sample report cards and we looked at them through using a rubric um through all different lenses. So thinking about you know visual design and language for performance indicators um standards, right? So the the real like overarching goal of all this is to truly have a standardsbased report card. Um and so after you know sort of picking apart all these different um exemplar uh report cards we identified pieces that we liked of of each of those different um samples that we looked at and then the phase that we're at right now. So this many members of this curriculum team have drafted um you know by grade level sort of standards uh for each subject area um as well as SEAL standards. That was one of the areas that um teachers
076expressed the greatest um struggle with in terms of a lot of redundancy in language, a huge huge number of um strands within that um area and and feeling like you know if we have if we want to this is obviously such a crucial area to report on for you know in this report card especially at the elementary level and so we want to make sure that we're doing that accurately. So we use the castle competencies to come up with um our draft of uh proposed standards. So in the past few weeks um Kristen and myself and Ashley have met with grade level teams to get feedback on the standards language that we're proposing again for each subject and also for we're also getting feedback on the performance indicators. So currently we're using terms that you
077know teachers have a really hard time with like developing understanding limited understanding just problematic for many reasons and so most of our meeting today was spent you know really like word smithing you know well what's the difference between usually and sometimes or progressing and partially meeting and like really having very thorough conversations about that. So, um, the last thing I'll say is that we, um, have already met with, uh, Dan Mloud and some other, um, tech staff to get some input about, you know, feasibly from their end, what's possible in terms of, um, design, you know, what this would look like on the teacher end, inputting wise, because we we want to think about all the stakeholders involved in this, right? The teachers who are completing it, the families who are reading it. Um, and
078so they will be heavily involved in our next step. Once we have sort of final uh drafts of all of our standards and what the actual content will be, they'll be creating, you know, a mockup for us and then leading into the late summer and fall, we'll be, you know, our hope is to have a full implementation of this for next school year. So, um, some, you know, training and implementation, uh, to be delivered in the early fall. We're looking to have parent forums to give all the parents information about the changes and then also um other school districts I won't mention who but had an incredible landing page on the website which we plan on doing having videos describing everything and just kind of really laying it out for parents. So it's a huge
079job but something really important which goes right into our next slide because this is directly impacting curriculum maps because by doing the standardsbased report cards the teachers are using transfer task to determine how they're going to fill out the the standardsbased report cards. So we just met uh was it this week or last week? I'm sorry with the district team about PD last week. Last week was it last week? I'm sorry. It's all running together and last week was vacation. So okay. Yeah. Okay. So it was Monday and we all decided that next year um in the fall we are going to have um additional training for all staff on UBD. So you can see our timeline for the finished curriculum stage two docs. Um, elementary math will have it done by 2025 and 26
080and all of elementary math stage one is completed and posted. Really exciting. Uh, RAMS you can see the rest of the deadlines. Um, please remember that these are not published to the website. These are for teacher use only. And what they have in there is the transfer task, the formative assessments and summitative assessments. So, a lot of restructuring based on elementary school um re report standardsbased report cards and then also with the changes that are happening within math at the middle school and also at the high school there's going to be a lot of changes going on. Um Dr. Papus. Hi, I'm Ida Papus. I'm the curriculum coordinator for unified arts which is world language, wellness, visual arts, performing arts and library. Um, I'm not going to be able to give you lots of data,
081but maybe you're done. May maybe you had enough. Um, but this is sort of a a summary of what we've been working on in unified arts this year. Um, last year in world language, we finished our curriculum review. Um, and we published that and um, we received some new resources in August. So, thanks to the capital expenses. A capital expense. Yes. Thank you too. Um, but in imagine walking in in August and seeing a new curriculum on your desk that you haven't really had a chance to to look at and need to start teaching it. So, we've had some um, you know, a lot of shifting in the curriculum since the beginning of this school year. Um, and we've been creating new maps for across the board um, for all world language. Um, in wellness,
082uh, they received new standards, uh, last year. Um, so all the maps that we did create needed to be adjusted to reflect our new standards. Um, and this year, I'm going to go into a little more detail about the PD, but um, they receive PD uh, into this new approach and these new standards um, in order to address the um, uh, the new uh, way of teaching basically skills-based approach. Um the teachers identified the new ne units that needed to be added and had some great conversations across schools which rarely happens where you will have like the middle school um health teachers will be talking to the Rams health teachers um in order to identify what is redundant um and what new units needed to be added um and so again they're adjusting their maps
083also um in visual and performing arts um and again I'll go into the PD that they were given and it was basically on assessment. Um but they've been working on stage two which is um creating rubrics and assessing in the arts. Um so this is our professional development day which was uh the first time we had done it. Um and it was it was an eye openener for me. Um, I reached out to every possible professional organization I could and all the local schools around us and then um, people that I just knew um, to see who was interested in teaming up with us for PD in order to save some money. All of these schools have sort of small departments in each of these disciplines and none of them can really provide discipline specific
084PD that's qu high quality because it's just so expensive. So, I spent um the summer and in the fall just trying to garner a lot of support for um different people who would who would agree to send their teachers to us on the day that we had PD um which we're discovering that that's a real sweet spot is um election day because a lot of schools have that off because there um schools are being used for um for voting. Um, so we've been trying to sort of uh push our way into making that a standard um choice. Um, and so this is what we were able to provide in um, November. Um, Leslie Gronn who is pretty well known across the country um, as a presenter at state um, conferences um, and she's a coordinator
085in u, Maryland for um, a huge uh, district. Anyway, she um came in and she offered two workshops. As soon as I said it was Leslie Grond, all kinds of people were interested. They were like, "Oh, you got her right." Um which was a little nerve-wracking because she was very expensive. Um and I was like hoping that we'd get enough people to make it really um pay off for us and it did. uh workshop one was addressing the needs of our diverse uh world language learners which you know hearing about intervention uh I'm I'm cognizant of what we need to do in these other areas of the curriculum um and the workshop too was implementing um these the tasks basically trying to get that transfer task um just right um and that was my request
086of her to uh come in with that workshop uh 16 different districts uh wanted to participate 125 five teachers uh took us up on it. So when when I'm able to sort of get that together, um I think it came down to like um like $7 a person, you know. So we took her her fee and we divided it by the the teachers and which was a little crazy because they would say, "Well, how much do we owe?" And I'm like, "Well, just wait until we find out how many people." And they were like, "No, we can't work like that, right? We can't work with like I don't know how much it will cost." Um but it paid off for everyone to be patient. And so it was like $7 a person. So it worked
087out great. Um in wellness we knew so last summer I went to um several DESIE um presentations around the new standards um and I saw some fantastic presenters there and I immediately um tapped them to see if they would be available on um election day um and uh and uh do a couple things. One um the new uh standards are a little different. um they have sort of um shifted everything from a a checklist of skills that students needed to do like um standing on one foot and being able to throw with the left hand or whatever. Um they started um shifting it to um sort of more mental processes like um able to advocate, you know, able to process um and and collaborate. So, it's moved to a a standardsbased sort of format, which
088was a huge change for our teachers, but it also has different strands for puberty um and um uh and our uh sexual health units. So, there were some changes in there and I could see um concern in their eyes like I hope I hit this just right. So, what we did was we brought in the two um presenters, Margarabel, who is leader of partners in sexual education and Dr. Susan Milstein who's a professor of wellness education um and they came in and did six hours um and their presentation was focused on changes in the new standards and skills-based approach and they had a ton of hands-on application which is one of the things that wellness usually complains is that they never get anything they can use tomorrow. So they were able to get that. Um
089eight school districts participated with 39 participants. And if you think of how small uh wellness departments are, that's actually a pretty nice size group. So um visual and performing arts. So this was my um my dream um since coming here. Uh Dr. Scott Scherer um I saw a presentation of him um years ago on um assessment in the arts and I knew he needed to come and talk to us. Um very approachable, great examples, did a huge research um uh project in Connecticut and um had tons of visuals and made it really um engaging for everybody. His presentation was just how to assess in the arts and manage all the data and you know how do we imp use that to improve student learning when we have sometimes 600 students a week um and um
090three different school districts came which were 32 participants um and I don't want to forget our library uh PD um we were able to go right to um our national uh library association and pick just the right PD for our uh librarian uh Linda Canal, which was basically analyzing her collection um for DEI uh titles, etc. that are appropriate for her school. Um so we always have world language visits, always um and this year was no different. Uh Westwood was uh in contact with us um probably in November about coming. They're doing a deep dive on uh Spanish flesh, which if um you've never heard of it, it's basically foreign language in the elementary school. Um and uh they are looking into um how that looks going forward from elementary school into middle school and
091high school. Um so they came and they observed and talked to teachers. They were interested in our pedigogy, but also what resources that we used. And I was thrilled to say that the district gave us these fabulous resources. So, um, they were very impressed. Uh, then we got a phone call. I was kind of surprised. I won't I won't kid you. Uh, the Denver Language School called us. Well, called me and was like, "Hey, we'd like to come and uh do a site visit from Denver." I was like, "Really? You're a language school? We're not a language school." Um, and they were like, "No, we you're where we need to come." Um, they are um a an immersion school. like the whole school is immersion but in two languages. They have a Mandarin program and
092a Spanish program and they want to add a French immersion program. Um and they're like we get immersion like we're good at that but um we're really interested in seeing the sort of connective strands between elementary and middle school because they were a K8 um school. So anyway, they came and they were absolutely blown away by our French immersion uh program. Um, and our teachers just knocking it out of the park that day. I was just like blown away. Um, anyway, uh, so they they sent us lots of kudos on uh, LinkedIn too, by the way. Um, the sealed by literacy. So, out of our um, uh, curriculum review. Um lots of things became apparent to us and one of them was the sealed by literacy which is sort of a push from DESIE um
093towards awarding students who have proficiency in two language two or more languages um and um their real interest in us offering these tests to to students who don't who aren't just studying the language in school but have a language from their home community. So that was really our push this year was to improve the number of students who are not just taking the sealed by literacy exam in French and Spanish but in their home language. So I wanted to tell you we had 83 test takers. That is like more than double than what we usually have. Um this year uh 30 juniors and seniors earned the seal of literacy. Um, but I just found out that students who were on the French exchange hadn't had a chance to take um maybe one section that they
094wanted to redo to see if they could make it. So, it may actually get higher. Um, there are 20 French and Spanish students, but there were 10 other languages that students got proficiency, and that was Mandarin, Portuguese, Arabic, and Russian. Um, and those tests were long. They were very long tests. So um oh and part of um the curriculum review uh the community was surveyed. They gave us such insightful information about our program. Um but one of the things that um we came away with is that we needed a landing page for world language. And actually, we need a landing page for just about all of our um academic disciplines because when you try to find something, you have to go to the school and you have to know the teacher and you have and
095it's just like a needle in a hay stack. And so I did um some uh research and to other schools. Oops. Sorry. That's right. I think it's the box the square the square on the top. [Music] Oh, maybe escape it. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. I thought it would be easy, but clearly not. It's not linked. Link to it. It's a link in the Try the big box. I think it was the little one, but we looked at it together just a couple hours ago. So, should be there. You know where? Oh, sorry. Okay. So, this is under construction, but we wanted to give you a sense. So before we go clicking into it, um I just wanted to sort of describe what we were seeing in other other um uh dis districts was that um they
096would often have a place where all of the academic information would land and then you could look for things that way or you could go through school or you could go through teacher. But there was one landing page that everything sort of sent you back to and it was just so eyeopening because it makes things much easier for a parent uh who has kids in multiple grades to see some continuity. So if you click on academic uh departments, this is how we were imagining it. So we have all of our disciplines right here and if you go to world language, that's the only one that we have developed to show you right now. So if they have any questions they can't get an answer to, I'm the first contact so they don't go bothering teachers
097who are too busy to re respond to their emails. So um and then we h we we thought about this through curriculum review. What do people need to know? And so yes the all the instructors are there at their contacts. Yes, the um DESI frameworks are there if you want to look at them in detail. Yes, our vision statement. But we also, if you could click teaching philosophies in curriculum review, we described in detail the teaching philosophy of French immersion as opposed to our traditional French and Spanish. And we wanted to make sure we put that out there for everyone because it is unique. And I'm learning that even in immersion schools um our philosophy philosophy is not exactly the same as other immersion schools which um sometimes is more like a dual language school
098and but they call themselves immersion. So we wanted to be very upfront about who we are because people come here specifically for French immersion. Um and then if you could click there's tons of things about uh proficiency levels. What does that even mean? But this was the other one that I wanted because this is the thing I think parents mostly are looking for and they haven't been able to find is how do I progress in each of these language strands from kindergarten all the way to high school. And and then I also added after our curriculum review, we identified exactly what proficiency level every single class um language class is um all the way K to 12 and we published it with the language proficiency and the grade level and what it leads to into
099the next school etc. And then you can see at the bottom um if you keep scrolling down there's a French and then there's um Spanish sort of your choices once you get to electives in the high school. I have a few questions about the seal of biiteracy. Sure. Um, is it correct that you can achieve that both by the biiteracy exam or by um getting a four or five on the AP French or AP Spanish? You have to take one of the um statemandated tests. There's a couple of them. Apple, we use Stamp this year. We used or no, we used to use Stamp and now we're using Apple. Um some home languages that are kind of obscure. um you know, not tons and tons of students taking it. They have a couple other um
100tests, but you have to take one of those and your MCCAST. Okay. And the kids have an opportunity to do a retake. Is that correct? Yes. So, we have um after curriculum review, we decided that it was a it was essential that we um start promoting it early early. We can have students take it in um 10th grade, but um we right now for equity reasons are paying for those tests and um we so we limited it I mean 83 took the test so we haven't limited it that much um but we limited it to juniors and seniors um just because um you know just because of the numbers it's a huge test um and it takes all day um so um the uh the juniors take it and they can pass it in junior
101year, but then they have another year if they didn't pass it to take it again in senior year. But you can also take just one portion of the test. Say that you did fantastic except for writing, which is usually either the the speaking or the writing piece. Um you're allowed to take one part of um the test over again within 30 days. And if you pass it, then you actually have earned the seal. And now they also have a seal of biiteracy with distinction. So, and that's very difficult to get. It's like really numbers particularly in French seem to have gone down significantly for this year and last year. Will there be a retake for this year? Are we within the 30-day period? They they're taking them already. As a matter of fact, the the
102students who were in the French exchange are taking their retake right now. Matter of fact, this week, I think. Okay. And I think that might explain what you were asking about in the last It is, but it doesn't explain last year. So I'm just have did we look into why last year it dropped from like 16 to five students? You know I I will have to get the data for you. I don't have it right rate right with me. I know that um I know that co the co year they didn't even have any tests you know and so then the next year we had all the students in junior senior year and sophomore like everybody was taking the test because they hadn't taken it the year before. Um and then we had a change
103in who who was administering it. So uh uh Mr. Trottton was um uh administering that and then it it turned to um Miss Portoara. So um you know there's maybe I I don't know if what the what the data is between the two. I haven't collected both sides. I've only talked to Karine Porto about it. So I can get that for you. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So thank you very much. We covered a lot, but there's been a lot of amazing work this team has done, and I'm so impressed with all of you. Um, and you could see the really strong data and results that we've gotten this year. So, thank you. Thank you very much. And everybody, I'm sorry, except Elsa and Jenny. They go, I'm sorry. Okay, looks great. And I need to
104go to stop share. Hold on. Okay. Well, okay. Sorry. Yeah, I have it up already. It's here, but I just need to go to a different Yeah. Okay. Is it Is it this? Oh, which one are you doing? You're No, you're doing this one, right? Okay. Yes. Yes. And I need to do full screen. Okay. I'm just gonna move it. Can it do can it go the other way? We can increase it just okay as a PDF. Jess, this is a is as of right now it's a PDF. Yeah. Which does do you want me to just give you Do you want a presentation or do you want me to just roll scroll through it because No. Yeah. No PDF. Sorry everyone. That's okay. Stop sharing. Yep. Yep. Can you share both of them if
105you want? Yeah. Okay. So, I need to get my email me. So, let me get into my email. See here. Okay. Why is this not okay? It's just taking a while to get to me. Okay, here we go. All right, so now I need to do share for a second. Okay, I don't have it yet. Come on. There we go. Okay, now I'm going back to this. Now I need to go to this, right? Yeah, cuz I need to share the screen. Yeah, but let's move the Let's go ahead and move this out of the [Music] way. Share. There we go. You are set. Yay. Can you click for me? Yes. Okay, perfect. Um, so thank you everybody and thank you to the curriculum specialists. That data was amazing and it actually really is reflective
106in the next two presentations you're going to hear. Um, so I just want to kickstart us and then the team is going to take it over. But, um, you heard me talk about in the fall that we applied to Desi's Dyslexia Institute. Thankfully, we were accepted. It was us and about 15 other districts. Um, and we were tasked with doing a lot of learning. And I just want to thank this crew sitting right here because they did a lot of extra work outside of school hours to help improve literacy in the district. And the amount of homework and input that went into developing an action plan for the district is really commendable to them. Um, so I just wanted to thank them for that. Um, we went to Wakefield several times from November to March.
107Um, and then worked collaboratively as a team um, both from from homes and in the building to get this done. So, there are going to be things that we somewhat fly through that you will probably have in your packet that you're wondering why we're not going over and because much of it already has and so we're trying to be mindful of your time as well. So, with that, Dr. Saney. Hi everyone. How are you? Um, thanks for having us here. This is something that we all feel very passionate about. Um, we have a tech strand called uh Dyslexia Geeks and another I know there's a whole bunch if you want in on it. We share all sorts of data. It's very riveting at midnight when we share things. She's not joking. No, I'm not joshing.
108Um, I just want to introduce our team. You've met Jenny Man. She's our humanities um curriculum specialist at Placentina Tino. Um, Elsa O'Brien at Miller. Nicole Marshant. She's our amazing school psychologist at Placentino. And then Lisa Robinson, she is the Placentino student service administrator. Um just to frame our work, we um spent a lot of time with um in the institute learning about dyslexia. The state of Massachusetts, the department of ed came um and they were partnering with crafting minds, which is the organization that helped put this on. We learned a lot and then this is our kind of culminating project that we came out of it. They wanted us to we had to go through and examine all of our practices and determine which highlevel practices do we want to focus on in the
109next year. By no means this is all we need to focus on, but you have to take small bites to get to where you want to go. So, you're going to hear a little bit about some of our action steps and goals. Um, out of it, we created a vision statement, and I'm not going to read it to you, but just the big picture is that we believe that effective literacy instruction must be explicit, systematic, and datadriven. And that students need equitable access to highle texts, and meaningful learning. And that strong literacy instruction helps all students become confident communicators, critical thinkers, and equipped to succeed academically and to and continue um meaningfully to contribute to the world around them. [Music] All right. Um, so like Dr. Slaney said, this is um an overview of sort
110of two of the focus areas that we presented on um in the final day of the institute. And so uh one of those focus areas was on uh progress monitoring. Um there was a wealth of information uh that we learned from the institute about what progress monitoring could look like. Um adjustments that could be made. um you know the purpose for it we were already fortunately we were already in a pretty good place in what we were doing and so we've you know been able to make some really exciting but small tweaks in in what we're already doing. So, for example, we were already progress monitoring at a monthly level um on a monthly level and then uh depending on the students level of need, we've shifted that to be either bi-weekly or weekly in
111some cases. And like you heard Elsa say um in our other presentation um a lot of uh some of these specific dibbles measures and dibbles is primarily what we're using to progress monitor um are research shown to be sensitive enough so that you know even within a week or two weeks time you can really see um growth or or lack thereof and and therefore speaking to speaking to a need uh for you know adjusting that intensity or frequency of intervention or programming again like Elsa said. So, um, we felt as though, you know, this was a really nice place to target because it was some, you know, an area we already had some, uh, good traction and momentum in. And, um, if you could go to the next slide. Um, this is just a snapshot
112on the left of, um, a spreadsheet that we're using at Placentino. And so, I'm so proud that this progress monitoring has really become uh, a buildingwide effort. So we have you know taken the time to um separate students sort of into groupings. So thinking about you know students with perhaps the most significant needs students on academic IEPs you know those are those students are being progress monitored by their special educators bi-weekly or weekly. Um, and then thinking about reading intervention students, receiving that, you know, pull out reading intervention, getting that um, progress monitoring by myself or the tutors who I work with either bi-weekly or monthly. Um, some of those things were already in place, but I think a really exciting piece is that that we we've always had a watch list of students. So,
113students who weren't necessarily getting intervention at that time, but typically, you know, a student who a teacher would bring up as, you know, having some concerns about, wanting to keep a close eye on. And and often times what we what we'll notice is that because of the progress monitoring that those are students that we end up bringing into intervention groups. And so um classroom teachers are now completing this progress monitoring with us. And it's been you know it was definitely a heavy lift, but it's been so exciting for to see uh their understanding of the data now that they're doing this assessment with us and being able to sort of look at those those trends over time. um and you know looking at having two data points a month for most kids it's just it's
114been incredible. So really want to give you know kudos to our staff for that. So for that priority element we have two goals. The first one is to increase the frequency of progress monitoring for those most students who are most at risk to every two weeks. Um, and then I won't read all of this, but just to highlight that we're going to look at setting specific um, growth goals for students depending on their needs and um, their instructional programs. And then we are also in both buildings, we've shared some of our learning from the institute with our sped teachers and our sped teams. And we're talking about how progress monitoring can support all of our work. The next goal is to um establish data team meetings for progress monitoring. So we have been using data
115meetings for our benchmark data uh but we want to be able to have data meetings for our progress monitoring as well so that we can fine-tune some of the um interventions that we're we're providing. Um I already talked about those aim lines and that growth in our previous presentation. So I won't um detail that here. But those are our two goals for progress monitoring. [Music] Um and then these are just some of the challenges that we are thinking about and trying to anticipate what we need to be thinking about as we implement uh these these new goals and um you know it's just basically time and adjusting to new practices. Um the other priority element that we chose to focus on was uh core curriculum and instruction. Obviously an area that impacts all students. Um
116you heard us speak a little bit about our curriculum review and so um this felt like an sort of natural tie to that. So definitely have you know noticed some inconsistencies within tier one instruction. That's a conversation we're having districtwide as we're planning for PD. Something that continues to come up. um thinking about different differences within small group instruction um you know which components of an ELA what what an an effective ELA block includes and what's missing and then of course you know scheduling constraints um another piece that we're considering and so again you've heard me speak about this already but we're in you know we're in the middle of this curriculum review and um like Elsa spoke about we're participating in uh DESI's implement program and so this is something that we're really committed
117to and it was very um validating on our last day of the institute when we presented this to some of the other districts because this was a a common theme that we heard um across many other presentations as well. So that just you know makes us think about the opportunities for collaboration and um that work moving forward. So then our second goal is to improve teacher capacity to um provide some datadriven small groupoup instruction um that's targeted and uh differentiated and um you know this is all connected to our data protocols and our data meetings and um the work that we want to do next [Music] year. and then some of our anticipated challenges for this goal. Um, I think the key thing here is the cyclical opportunities that we don't want our professional development
118or our work to just be a one and done opportunity, but that we're continuing to cycle through and reflect back on what's working, what's not working, and fine-tuning things. Um, and then the scheduling and structures that need to happen for those things. Um, some of our major takeaways from the institute was that we really learned a lot about dyslexia and like really kind of debunking the myths of dyslexia and what people might think dyslexia is. Um, and that how it's really important to use screening and these tools to really identify it early just so that we can really catch the students when they're, you know, the most able to like take in all information and learn new strategies. Um, so really just helped I think our understanding and being able to bring that to our
119staff um, who might not fully understand maybe what dyslexia is. Um, another one was really looking at all the essential elements of structured literacy. Um this is something that our teachers it's not new to our teachers but we just want to make sure that we are making sure all these elements are in place. So across the board all the students are getting um this structured um these structured literacy routines um and then integrating um all our knowledge that we learned through this institute into our staff um just so that it's more widespread. Um other things we do want to continue professional development um and sharing the knowledge that we got from this institute with others um and really increasing the collaboration among like our special education teachers, classroom teachers and intervention specialists just so they
120don't feel like they're not working in silos that we're all just kind of working together um and sharing our knowledge. And then this is our five-year vision. Um so to establish a thriving community of educator learners who are knowledgeable and well-versed in database decision-m and implementing scientifically researched practices for all learners across tiers 1, two, and three. Um and just also to add kind of like a from a special education standpoint, I feel like as a school psychologist, I learned so much through this institute. um especially since in grad school we don't talk as much about identifying a specific learning disability or dyslexia in younger students. So really taking this course and like helping me as I evaluate students and really taking a closer look to identify early I think it was just invaluable. So
121I yeah yeah one of the things that we actually learned there was they did a research of what college preparatory programs and we're so far ahead of them. So you know it's also going to be about when we have new hires and when we bring people in you would think they're just graduating this is what they should be learning they're not. So how do we help our student teachers who come into our schools? Placentantino um has a great relationship with Framingham University and how do we help them so that we're building their capacity in that piece and when we're hiring people how do we think about our professional development that we've been doing over years that we can make sure that new teachers have that information um so that we're continually building it. And just
122to add, I think that it's all of the learning that's happened has contributed to more comprehensive special education evaluations. We have a great resource. It's a graphic organizer that looks at the different aspects of foundational reading skills that you need to have in place to be a reader. And we're able to take the information we have from either special education evaluations or from students receiving intervention and look at what we have and we're able now to also go back in time and look at historically we've done this but here's what we were missing. So we found that we were missing information about students fluency and rapid naming and that could be relating to retrieval and labored reading. So we're really digging much deeper into the students profiles which is um assisting us in providing them
123with what they need. Sometimes that's special education and sometimes that it's accommodations and additional instruction um with intervention. So it has been amazing. Any questions? This work and the work that you spoke about previously is really impressive and I appreciate the level of detail that you provided and um demonstrating the systems that you've built to monitor student progress and then respond accord to that data accordingly. Um one question I've had is for both of the presentations you're thinking about what's the next step with the data. So, how are you using this? How are you communicating the assessment results to families? Yeah, so uh this is our second year now of sending home three times a year um benchmark assessment information. So, at Plastentino and Miller that looks like Dibbles and I Ready um and that's
124you speaking about Dibbles in particular, Dibbles is something we've been doing for years and years, but we haven't necessarily been sharing those exact results with families. And so as a result of the new dyslexia legislation that came out in July 2023, um we are we are sending those results home. And then the progress monitoring piece has been really exciting because like you saw some of those snippets of the the aimline like Elsa was describing with the different data points. Um those go home as well so that families can see not only on those, you know, beginning, middle, and end assessments how they're doing, but you know, more importantly, I would argue, you know, the progress in between, right? because we know that it's not going to be a perfect you know upward certainly not downward
125but perfectly you know straight up trajectory it's going to be it's going to e and flow because they're they're students and they're they're real learners so I think um having that you know data at our fingertips through Amplify and and the data dashboard has been hugely helpful um in conversations with families whether it's in a more formal setting like you know an IP meeting or a SAT team meeting or just a conference with families And I think teachers have really grown in their comfortability and capacity to speak about those results and those reports. And so that we've done a lot of work on that as well. And for students that are flagged with your dyslexia screen or the dibbles, um is there additional conversation? Is there additional um something that supplements the dibbles parent report
126that goes home to those students that are flagged for a reading difficulty? Yes. So depending on the student and the grade level and the time of year, there are many additional assessments we might do depending on, you know, what we're noticing their specific area of need is. So you know, if it's a phmic awareness uh concern, we might do a Heerty assessment. If we're noticing a a rapid naming concern, we might do the RAN RAZ. Um we have we're fortunate to have a variety of assessments at our fingertips that we can use to sort of drill a little bit deeper. And um we've sort of been working on over the past few years building almost like a flowchart of you know if a student sort of flags here like here are some different options. Um
127and we love assessments so we will keep working on that. We love data. We love data. We don't love that's true. Nobody loves assessments but we love what we love what they tell us. I wanted to thank you all too. I I'm really impressed by this, especially I like the datadriven approach to support what you're working on and also um the goal of really identifying things early. I think I I I just see that benefiting kids all the way through their their academic career. So I excellent. Thank you. Yeah, it's as we continue on with this, it would be in a few years great to look back and sort of see how as we change things, how the outcomes change as obviously data is great, but it it takes, you know, 18 well not quite
12818 years, but 13 years for it to fully sort of play out. And we hope to send more people to the institute next year. You can send, you know, secondary teams each year. And like we said, we have these are two goals. Um, and these were the ones that we felt like tied to current things that we were already doing. So, they were um more of a a viable lift. You never want to just do something that's really kind of hanging out without any connections to anything because the work gets dropped. Um, but there's other pieces that we can really dig into. So, we're going to continue the work and I think that's where this data dashboard helping us with that longitudinal data as well is going to be great. This is a real transition
129year for us. Well, we put, you know, we we started with the different curriculum models in the last few years and then took feedback and then try to get the equity in each building with the humanities and the and the STEM and all the work that all of you are doing. It seems to really be coming to fruition and it's great to see that it's it's moving in the right direction. So, thank you all. Thank you. Jess, unfortunately, we're 5 minutes or less. And happy principal day. I need a buzzer real quick. I need that. It's principal appreciation day. Happy principal day to principal day. Yes. Okay. When did school committee appreciation day every day? Election day. All right. Sure. All right. Are we ready? Wow. Okay. I believe this is I'm asking. Do we
130need a break or are we good? Use a break. Keep going. I know. I know. I'm sorry. Um, so I'm gonna just kind of You don't need to see all the fancy slides. Um, so reported out to you beginning of the year, midyear, and now for our end of the year data. So, I always kind of utilize this side and move it as we move through the year to just show um where our numbers are at with things. And then um I can kind of explain in the next slide, but just wanted you to see this picture of total number of students here in Hollist. Then those that are on IEPs, just a reminder that those IEP students also include in our numbers those that are out of district and those that are privately placed
131by parents that we still are required to service their IEPs. So that encompasses that number just so you're aware. Um our 504 numbers are creeping up but I will give you an explanation on that. And our out of district numbers are you know I I feel stable but going on the downward trajection but but just the 41 was sorry the 43 was 41. Okay. Midyear. Midyear. Yes. Okay. Midyear. Midyear. Yes. But obviously a lot happens towards the end of the year. Correct. where there is some movement with students. Yes. No, no, it's good. I'm just saying. Yes. Yes. Yes. Um so just some of the takeaways there, right? It's always important for us to sort of stay within that 20% or below of students in special ed and we are doing that where we can.
132Um our 504 numbers are increasing um and simply due to a shift somewhat in regulation. Just so you all are aware, um students that are on more of a permanent health care plan, we have been advised by our legal council, they actually should be on 504 plans. And so we're making those shifts as we um throughout each building. Um which is why you're seeing those increase. Um that include all the buildings. Does that include all the buildings or Yes. Yep. That's our total number um of Yes. Um, and then looking at that data, what are some next steps that I would want us to be looking at as a department really looking harder, which everybody has spoken to tonight about those tier one level of supports for all students. This is an area where I
133feel strongly as a district. We need to show more growth um and provide more um purposeful PD and just training for teachers um so they know know how to support all learners in a meaningful way. um working with Dan Mloud, we do this a lot with his tech integration team, is really looking at how do we provide better access through technology. There are so many um applications and devices that we could be using to help students easil more easily access um the curriculum and then maintaining the structure and staffing for our continuums. Um, I feel like we have seen a solid growth in those continuums, which is allowing us to maintain students that would otherwise, um, in previous years most likely end up out of district. The next part that I just want to go
134through is just updating you on initiatives that we have been working on throughout the school year. And I'm not going to continue to go into the literacy and dyslexia. I think you get the point of all of the wonderful growth we're making in this area. I couldn't be more proud of all of our staff who have really taken hold of um the literacy and language initiatives that we're pushing forward and really um you've heard me talk a bit about bringing in Landmark and giving that PD in January and March to all educators in the entire district. How do we help struggling readers in our classroom whether they are on an IEP or just a struggling reader? Our general educators have not been trained in reading much like many of our special educators. some of our,
135you know, younger ones have because that is, you know, being um brought into more of the college courses, but as Dr. Slaney had said, we're kind of ahead of the curve. Um so looking at that, so here is, you know, just a summary of their action plan. I'm not going to go through that um with you because I think you got the gist. Um but our continuum progress, I just wanted to give um a shout out to our continuum staff. They have done an amazing job sticking with me all year. Um we meet every six weeks as a continuum. So we will pull our bridge and what was called our basis network um staff together. Then we will pull our pathways staff together and our transition um team of teachers also um bounces in and
136out of um the basis network trainings as well. And we use that time to really talk about how are things working within each continuum? How are we aligning that through the district? Um what other services do these students require to really help maintain them here in district and what support do our staff need to do that? Um we are rebranding and we um brought in student voice to this. So um as you know la at the start of this year we combined our basis network continuum and it's kind of a hard name to just keep calling it basis network. It didn't feel great to us. So we um gave some suggestions and we allowed the students to vote at the middle and the high school. Um and we landed on Soore, which is supporting opportunities
137for real world success. Um and that really does it lends itself to that continuum of students where those continuum of students are really working on functional academic skills to help them um as they move through our world um but also really supporting them in real world applications. So as they grow older, students in the Soore program are really working on those vocational skills, the employment opportunities, the travel training, all of those things. So it's really a nice fit. Um, we also rebranded our transition program, um, which is our 18 to22 program. And the last time I was in front of you, I talked about how we were growing that program. I'm super proud of Ann King and her staff in that program. We rebrand rebrand rebranded that to um Lyft which is learning independence for
138tomorrow. Um and she has done a fantastic job really taking hold. Um you'll see pictures at the end where we have created a small internal business with those kiddos who are creating really great decorative themed monthly themed um decorations that they are selling to staff. and we're hoping to kind of build that out further to the larger community when we have more time and more staff possibly. Um but we're also having um which is great partnerships of people wanting to see what our 18 to22 program is and other districts that are saying hey can we partner with you and either tuition students in there or what can we do to sort of bring us together? Um and we've had multiple opportunities um of other districts that have come out here to observe um both programs,
139our sore program at the high school and then our transition program here in district, which is great. Um and then just working on criteria and transparency. We have done much more of um broadcasting to families the true descriptions of these continuums. What does it mean? Who do we service? sharing our entrance and exit criteria, making sure we're looking at that as often as possible for students to make sure they're placed appropriately. And then the last big piece of initiative that has been a strong focus for me and and I've worked closely with Dr. Manard on this is our professional development and trainings. Um, and just wanted to highlight some big areas that I've seen a really nice improvement um, and an empowerment of our staff who were helping me as well. seeking this out. Our
140nurses have done an amazing job of really tailoring PD for them that is meaningful in helping promote their own professional practice. Um they've done a lot with Boston Children's Community Education and done a lot around trauma um and first aid care. Um we just worked with the Holliston Fire Department to help do all of our research for all of our nurses which was needed. Um and then they've been part of the trauma symposium um courses which has been great. Um the middle tier really is areas in which um I have worked to bring about to all staff in the district. Um so obviously looking at our language and literacy tier one supports our new IEP roll out has been awesome but but challenging but awesome. Um and then Jarielle and I really working to bring
141people in to help staff better help support students who are really struggling with um school refusal, anxiety and mental health which we know is a big concern. And then we can't forget our paras who I feel like this was probably our most successful year with two full day PDs for them and really getting their input on what is it that you need in the classroom. They are our frontline um staff. And so they were able to share with us at the end of last year, this is what would be really meaningful for us. Can we do these things? And so we work to either um bring in people to help promote and and provide that or um utilize staffing that have knowledge in those areas to provide them really meaningful PD. I don't know why
142I'm pointing it at that. It's over here. Um just a couple updates on policies and procedures that I feel like is important for you to know we're staying on top of. Um so there's been a shift um in the Title 9 regulation. So, we have re gone back with the new um presidential administration. We're back to the 2020 regulations. So, we just did an um entire all admin um training. That's fine. Um training with our administration team, all um SSAs, APS, and principles, as well as central office staff. Our attorney Katie Minel came in and spent a good hour and a half with us just refreshing our memories on what was the 2020 and how do we um revert back to that. Um, I also had attorney Minel come in and provide um a training
143in January for all counselors who are the leads on our 504 plans, which is why I talked a little bit earlier on some of those changes. Um, and then the new IEP, um, just some assurances that we are 100% ruled out with that new IEP. Um, at the end of this year, I'll be looking with our SSAs at um, just pulling a couple different IEPs to make sure we're really doing it in a similar fashion. So, are we bulleting? are we writing in paragraphs just so that parents um can see some consistency and feel good about that journey. Um and then lastly just um you know I'm always proactive versus reactive. That's the way I like to lead. And so here is just a slide of areas where I feel like going into next year
144this is where I would like to see the student services department go. This is feedback from our staff that um you know we've worked a lot with um really looking at our tier one interventions. Um paying close attention to our decap um our district accommodation plan. I feel strongly and Dr. Manard and I have talked about putting a team together to make sure that that document is um updated. It makes sense. It's accessible to staff and staff know why they're using it. That should be used for all learners. um looking at professional development in how do we do some tier one planning for them, looking at um continuing to better um increase our co-eing and really looking at what true differentiation means and what that looks like in their classroom. So, I do feel like
145we throw that word out a lot. Um let's differentiate. We need to differentiate, but I I do feel strongly we need some training around what that looks like and how do we help educators, all educators differentiate no matter what they're teaching. Um, IEP alignment will be done within the special education department. Um, connecting with our SSAs who will help me lead more of goal alignment. So, really looking at student profiles um, and writing similar goals or a similar style in writing those goals, making sure they're measurable and a way in which we can collect data to show progress or lack thereof. Um, and also really aligning how we um, document our service delivery. Um, so I have noticed over time we we kind of we're not aligned in that as much as I would like
146and so really making sure that we're doing that um to stay aligned as a district. Um, we are going to extend our contract through um a grant that we have um so that Landmark will continue to consult with us and maintain that growth in the languagebased program. So I've shared with you over time um we have really solidified our languagebased program in grades four, five, six. Um we're growing it in the upcoming years, seventh, eighth, and want to see that continue as much as needed in the high school. Um and then last just looking at really um how can we create more inclusion programming here. So you have seen that we have expanded our unified activities. So we do a really solid job of unified sports and activities up here. Um we had a wonderful
147um high school student that had created and piloted the unified theater here which is amazing. Um, and their name is slipping me right now. I feel terrible. Uh, Levi. Yes. Levi. Levi. Levi. Shout out to Levi. Um, so, um, we're working, Levi is going to actually work with a middle school staff to bring that unified theater down there, which is awesome. Um, and Allison Ditto and Marie Reio at the middle school um, launched our first unified athlete, um, basketball team there this year, which was a huge success. We ended um with the um unified versus um Holliston police and fire um two weeks ago which was an awesome event. Um and then the community bridge, we will continue to broaden that. So bringing um community organizations and businesses into our school community um to help
148include kids that need voke and employment opportunities is huge. Um and then last is the classroom creations um which is right up there in the corner. So those are all their products that they have created themselves um with the help of our carpentry class here um who those students cut the wood for us and kind of sand it down, bring it to um the lift program to which they paint and they um create the product, package it up, deliver it to all the buildings. It's really a wonderful thing. Um and just a shout out to all of our, you know, kids. This is this is why we do what we do. Um, and I couldn't be more proud of um, the student services department and and and the district itself and the work you heard
149tonight of all that we're doing. So, with that, that was pretty pretty fast, right? Any questions for me? Thanks. Still love the community. I was great. Thank Yes. Thank you for coming. It was great. It was great. It was fun. Um, and I'm super proud. I mean, that was all staff um you know, brought forward by staff and it's just that's that's where I love to see you know, initiating and bringing forward ideas that staff really want and know is best for kids is awesome. So, great idea and it it it just really meaningful programs attract people to stay here to stay. Yeah. Great. Great. I love all the work that the high school students are doing. Oh, they're so great. I I keep buying every product. I feel like I, you know, they sold
150like two last month, two different ones, and I'm like, I have to buy them both. I just I love them. So, uh, they're awesome. So, okay. All right. Thank you, everyone. [Music] All right. So, we will actually pull um the program of studies uh update now that Mr. List is here. So we can Mloud is also on the screen to do something on the power school after that. So Yep. That's that's that's fine. Um I think you're going to give us an update, but you're not looking for any action from us tonight. Correct. Correct. I just wanted to um Well, first off, I just came from Clue, which is going on right now, and I think there's only tickets left for the Saturday matinea, and the kids were awesome. So you should that's if you
151want to go, Saturday matinea is the only option. Um um they're also doing a fundraiser um for um the program. They're going to play like a liveaction. They painted the stage to be like a clue board. So you can do like a liveaction clue game um when it was here uh 4 to 6 uh on Saturday. So it was anyway awesome. Um so um with the committee receiving the letter um about the change in schedule um I wanted to update all of you on some of the sort of the the timeline and action that's going to be going on um uh because what it will involve some changes to things like the the program of studies um with the um changes in the in possibly the course progressions um we'll be u bringing up things
152like um AP exams and taking those and how that fits in because obviously the change from, you know, right now a student takes like a an AP lane class and that finishes in January, but the test isn't until May. Um, so it's really hard to say to a kid, well, you got to go take this test. Um, but once we have things like a year-long class, we're able to say it sort of fits in with the flow of the class itself. Um, looking at the graduation requirements, the credits, the course sequencing, and all of that. So, the next step for us is um at our staff meeting on Monday, I'm going to be asking for representatives from each department um to form a committee to really go over we have a list of about 25
153different items that we have to look at as um as as a school community to determine what our steps are moving forward. Um midterms, uh grade waiting, uh how you know quarters, semesters, how we're doing all of that. So, those are all important questions that we need to bring forward to school committee. Um, and I wanted just to update all of you on sort of what that process would look like. So, we're going to be starting that now. Um, and then as we go through all of that into the start of next year, we'll start bringing those forward to school committee um because those will obviously need to be um approved. Um, we've been having some really amazing conversations with departments um making sure that students have the ability to um take the classes they
154want to take, that this schedule change doesn't interrupt the flow of getting to where they want to get to. Just as an example, the the math department um is looking to shift um next year. So, normally a student comes in and they take if uh a student who's on an advanced track would go take algebra 1 part two and then take geometry. Next year, they would take algebra 1 part two and then algebra 2 um instead of geometry there and then the 10th grader would take geometry. So, we're not changing the curriculum, just the order there. But that will allow for that progression for students to be able to take the AP calculus and AP stats when they want to. Um, and so the the each of the departments have been amazing in sort of
155looking at how we can ensure that our current students and our incoming ninth graders aren't impacted negatively um by the schedule change. Um, that's kind of that's sort of like a quick overview of what we're doing and I'd be happy to answer any questions um about any specifics uh about anything sort of in that starting process anybody had. So, so one question I've had just as we go through this is what we do with uh you know APs and any sort of requirements uh to take an AP or some number. Have you had a chance to think about that? Do you have sort of a a recommendation or thought that you are looking to do for next year with that? Yeah. So I mean so next year we you know as we've done this year
156really pushing students to you know they take an AP class and part of taking that AP class is it comes with the AP exam. Um, and as I said, one of the issues that we face in our schedule are those long gaps of time between taking those exams. We've really encouraged the students to take it. Um, and what we'd like to do is really continue to push that moving forward and then for that 2627 school year when we make that official shift um, and the students are in class up until and through the exam really then say that students need to take their exam. Um but that would hopefully fall in, you know, my recommendation would be that. But again, I'd really like to have those conversations with the staff and and talk about how
157we ensure that um all students can access that, make sure that we have the scholarship money necessary to ensure that students aren't limited in what they can take. Um you know, there there is a a fee waiver, but then that so it's a smaller amount, but we want to make sure that all students can take the exams um if they would, you know, uh across the board. So basically we want to continue looking at it, researching it. Yeah, we're going to keep looking at it and then we hopefully for 2627 school year can implement some plan. I've been on a roll of questions today. That's awesome. Might you um for some students during AP class in the fall if it's three semesters with the change in 26 27 how would that work? meaning like I
158have take three seme yeah it's three semesters down to a year long but next year will still be block scheduling next year will be the same as we have now so that some will be two semester some will be sorry two terms and some will be three terms so the three terms one when we start the 26 27 school year how does that work because they still have to take a term the last term from the previous schedule so does that just carry through or do we have to rethink that it's four ter it's four quarters of the class Okay. So just so most school like most schools because most don't run the block settle like we have most schools what they do is they you start you have you have some summer work for
159APS that happen the reason that happens across the board in Massachusetts is because we start three three weeks to to six weeks later than schools in like the southeast for example. So our kids already come in at a disadvantage. So kids normally are doing summer work for APs. Then they go through the curriculum. They take the exam anywhere from May 5th, 6th to May 15, 16,1 17 whenever it falls. Um and then after that they do continue on with some parts of the curriculum. The teachers all go to what's called AP camp. Um it is like camp for adults. A lot of adults who like that content area. um and you go to AP camp and you learn a lot about what they ask in the test, what content areas to focus on throughout. Um
160and so that's really helpful. Like we have a couple of teachers who are going this year to become to be graders on AP exams because that then again helps our students in the long run. Um because it helps those teachers get trained for what AP is looking for on those exams. Um and so through that process they sort of know where to focus within the curriculum to make sure that by the time the exam comes that they're ready for the exam and that the for seniors what turns out to be a couple weeks and for um underassman it turns out to be about a month of that time they continue on with curriculum in that content area uh beyond um and we kind of do that now actually we have these classes called like chem
161apps which is basically the kids who take AP chem into the chem apps for that fourth term and continue continue the work. So, we do have classes that already kind of exist like that. Got it. But I think we talked about this a little bit before that the three-term classes are actually like a year and a half of content. So they'll go to the full year which will be less content but some of them will have a lab as well because some the science generally have have like an extra class period where they have labs to get those accomplished. [Music] Well, I said the math piece. Yeah. I mean so the math piece. Oh yeah, you can put it up there. This is just as I was saying before something to make sure that the
162students have what they need so that they don't aren't uh so they can access the classes they want. Um so um the the math as I said we usually have the geometry it's it's algebra 1 part two and then geometry but now it's going to be um algebra 2 um and then sorry if you look at if so there's the the nth grade in 2425 they're on that regular track that they would have been that's the same and the second if you go down Susan to there students can take the algebra 1 and then algebra 2 honors. They can take geometry honors. Students, a lot of times students will choose to double up. um if you look where it says available courses and titles of courses may change. um the math teachers are going um
163are researching uh various math programs that will allow them to sort to do to possibly do some integrated type classes which will allow from for some more acceleration for some students as well. So sometimes you can integrate the model and so you're doing classes. So like for example during the algebra 2 you get some of what is in pre-calc and so during that geometry honors they're looking at integrated models that would infuse some of the pre-calc in there so that a student could possibly go into the uh AP calculus class um right away. But again those are parts of the research we have to do um to make that determination. But by changing the structure and having algebra 2 next, it will allow students um to take, as it says there, the AP Calc in
16411th grade, which is what is currently offered to students, but they don't have to rush through and they still can get to AP Calc, which is why we made that change. Know it's a little bit confusing. I apologize, but it this basically allows it so that every student can get to AP Calculus if they'd like to. Every student. Is it just flip-flopping what we do now? Yes. is to take algebra 1, geometry for those honors kids in ninth grade and we do algebra 2, but now we're just flipping geometry and algebra. Yeah. So, it's not changing the curriculum right now. It's just a flip right now because obviously if we change the whole curriculum, we have to come here first. But so they're going to be researching that 10th grade year because there's a possibility
165of putting in an integrated model for that cohort. So to accelerate that process through so that they could get AP calculus in 11th grade. is the thinking because of of the the change to the seven drop two in 26 that those kids would be taking so those are now our 10th graders in 26 27 is the thinking that they would simultaneously take um honors geometry with pre-cal so you can't so what we have two options available to us one is that they take them simultaneously you can't take algebra 2 and prec at the same time which is why the switch So, one of the options is you leave it like that and a kid takes two math classes, which is not unheard of, like that. A lot of kids choose to double up in an
166area they're interested in. Um, the other thing that the math department is looking at is looking at an integrated accelerated model for those students, which a lot of districts do. Um, where those students who wish to accelerate can take a class that covers the standards of geometry and that and and the pre-calc um standards. And where that would exist is in that we have to go back. If take our seventh graders, if that's So if a seventh grader is taking algebra 1 in eighth grade, they would come in and take algebra 2. In ninth grade, they could then take an ex in that algebra 2 class, you get some of pre-calc. In 10th grade, you take an integrated geometry with the rest of pre-calc to then take the and this is that's a select group
167of students. That's not, you know, that's not every student. But what the chart does show is it gives every student access to calculus because they could take the classes to get there. The that bottom row right there, that's that's like the accelerated that's the accelerated group. But for next year, there's no change in curriculum, just a change in um order. Okay. And I I understand for the the honors track, but what about the the CP kids? Would they also have that same benefit, which would be algebra? So, incoming freshman next year, CP algebra 2. Um and then in the 26 27 7 drop 2 schedule, they would be able to have um CP geometry as well as CP pre-cal, right? Absolutely. They're going to have that same same option. So this the reason to do
168it that way is it sort of it creates a level of equity for all students to be able to access okay calculus if they would like to. Got it. [Music] And in a seven drop two do you still see a scenario where kids could double up in math junior or senior year if they wanted to and do AP calc and AP stats? They can. I mean that so in most districts so if we if we don't do an integrated model you end up with what most districts have which is a lot of kids will take AP stats and AP calc. those who really want, you know, that math. A lot of them will take it at the same year, will take, you know, a senior year. They're that's their they like math, they enjoy it,
169they want to take those um many student most schools, that's how it operates. The reason that we're looking at an integrated possibly there, we don't know the integrated is that it would just spread spread those APs out more. But either way, students would have access to both AP advanced AP math classes. Thank you. So it's really great to hear that you know I mean obviously this was a challenging time but that you know now that the we've reached an agreement we have a schedule that uh you know it's exciting to hear about all the the work and stuff that's being done uh towards towards implementing it. Yeah. No it's been great the meetings with with departments has been awesome. Um there's some you're going to be hearing about some really creative ideas out of out
170of science out of math social studies. Um met with ELA today. So, it's been it's been really um awesome meetings and and um they're really looking at the best ways to support students and to make sure that they have access to all of the classes. Um and that um I I think the other piece that's come up a lot when you looked at like a chart like that is talk about how um our current schedule tracks kids really attracts kids, but they're finding ways to ensure that students can access the classes that they want at whatever level that that they would like to. So, Awesome. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. And everybody go see Clue. It was awesome. Great. Um I think we're you part is done, right? You still have to
171No, no, no. Yeah, but Mr. List part is done. So, um thank you for letting me know that Dan was on. So, why don't we why don't we go to him and let him then proceed with his evening. Dian, can you um unmute? Yep, I'm here. Hi, everybody. Can you fix the screen so we can see him? Oh, there he is. Okay. And Dan, Lisa allotted you five minutes. So, Dian, do you want to do you want me to give you sharing rights so you can share or do you want me to throw it up? Uh, I can share. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay. Yep. I think you have I think you have sharing rights already. All right. and try to be as quick as possible. All right. Still having trouble sharing. Okay,
172let me just put it up then. This is the What's that? You can hand message that. You click allowance. Susan, if you want to throw it, if I could. Yep, I've got it. There you go. There you are. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, I just wanted to provide um an update on the data breach. We've talked about it um in the past couple meetings. So, it's getting to be uh sort of decision time. So, I wanted to give you some information to make uh the best decision that you think uh we should make for Hollist. So, uh Susan, go ahead to the next [Music] slide. All right. So, this the brief agenda, just a few slides. Um I'm going to kind of give you a timeline of what our privacy alliance has done. uh
173talk about the litigation that they're proposing and then next steps for you as the school committee and then any questions you might have. Next slide. So as members of the tech cooperative, we are lucky to be part of the privacy alliance. So that's the organization that's been advocating on our behalf during the breach. So here's a quick timeline. January 8th is when Power School notified all districts of the breach. The breach happened on December 20th. Uh January 15th, the SDPA, the privacy alliance sent the first letter of to power school telling them they broke our privacy agreement. Uh they sent another one in February as well. Um March 5th, the privacy alliance reached out to school districts to let them know the situation and especially regarding litigation. And then finally on March 11th, we had
174a webinar with the lawyers who were facilitating the u the lawsuits. So next slide. So here are the violations. Kind of no surprise here. Um the big one was student uh PII was breached and so as part of our agreement with powers school they were responsible to protect that. They also had to protect uh staff data. So that was part of the breach as well. And then uh they had to take appropriate security measures which they did not do in this case. And finally, they did not notify us in a timely manner. Our privacy agreements require 72-hour notification. So, the event happened on December 20th and they notified us on January 8th. So, that was a breach of contract. Next slide. All right. So, there's a little bit of confusion here. This is a mass
175action suit. So that's would be better for this school district if we choose to move forward because it's a lawsuit where all the districts have similar basically concerns about this breach, but each district files its own lawsuit and that's where you would come in. You would be asked to uh sign on with a law firm to represent Hollston public schools, which I'll talk about in a few minutes. So, it's different from a class action where it's one lawsuit and then there's, you know, thousands of people that kind of divide the settlement. This is a mass action where it's multiple lawsuits all with the same issues basically. And Hollist public schools would be one of those lawsuits and it's better as far as damages. So, that's the that's the good news. Should we get to that
176point? Yes. the other things. All right. Here are the uh requests that the plaintists are going to make which would be Holl public schools if we choose to move forward. So basically uh financial compensation for undelivered services. So that would be they were supposed to protect our student data. They were supposed to be a secure environment and then any breach related cost. So that this is a little bit unclear, but basically all the staff time we've spent notifying families and former educators, all of that will be part of the consultation. Uh there's not a number really we can put on that yet. They said it would take us about, if we choose to move forward, it would take one staff member from Hollist, probably me, about 5 to eight hours of work to prepare for
177this lawsuit. Uh the other thing we could possibly do is a platform transition plan. That means if we decide to move away from power school, which not what we're recommending, but if the uh organization did want to do that, we could put that as a cost that P school would pay for. And then any protection from future lawsuits. Should a family or student decide to sue Hollist, we would be exempt as part of this or they would be Power School would be responsible for that lawsuit. We don't think that's going to happen anyway, but it would be part of the uh part of this lawsuit. The final one is basically uh we would not be charged for a courtappointed monitor to make sure P school is adhered to security standards. So basically we would not
178be on the hook for that hiring that person. All right, next [Music] slide. All right, so this is the last part here. Uh the law firm that we would sign on to would be called France Law known as F3. So this is a hyperlink to the FAQ where much of this presentation was summarized or sum this presentation summarized much of the FAQ but that's a more detailed description hyperlink there. Sorry that's my dog acting up. Um so there is an option if you want if you want to hear more information from the actual lawyers who are litigating this they will present to the school committee. So, that is an option. Just let me know. We can have them on a call at a future meeting and you can answer, you can ask, you know, any
179detailed questions about the lawsuit. Uh, I will say there's no, it's been made crystal clear, there's no financial commitment for Hollist public schools. This is going to cost us nothing. F3 would make their money on the settlement. I think it's 30 or 40% of whatever power school would pay Hollist public schools. Uh and then finally, you would be asked to um and I'm recommending that you put on an agenda if you decide to move forward voting to partner with F3, which is the legal team to represent [Music] Hollist or you could delegate for example um or vote to delegate uh Dr. Kusca to sign with that organization at the appropriate time. Okay. Any [Music] questions? Any questions? No, not at this time. Um, when when do you think you would like us to to vote
180or first of all, does anyone want to have a a presentation by the the law firm? [Music] But no, I don't I would say required. A lot of the information is in the presentation. What do you think? I don't think I need a a presentation from I apologize. I can't hear the questions clearly. Someone Sorry. No, we were talking to ourselves about whether we want a presentation or not. Someone closer to the microphone. Sorry. Sorry. I don't think they will need a presentation. Dan, can you hear me? Okay, got it. From from the lawyer, you feel good, Don? So, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I don't think I I need to I think I think we should do a little bit of our own investigation looking at France law and um P school and some of
181these other I mean there's dozens of um suits out there already on it. Did France Law approach us? How how did that through tech correct Ian? Oh, through I don't think he could hear. Can you hear? No, I heard that one. Consortium is working with France Law. So, it's part of that their legal team. So, they're again that seems to be the group that we've been asked to partner with. I really don't know how or if we have another option. We might as so as part of our um involvement with tech. in the collaborative and I sit on the board. We get these other things like the data privacy and so that part of the data privacy agreement was to protect all of these things and multiple players have signed on to that. So not
182all of the districts in tech have power school but the ones that do y are going to be part of this and I I think most districts are going to vote to um go with F3 because that's what's tech and their lawyers. Do you know any other districts that have authorized not just F3, but to proceed at the mass action? Do you know from your tech meetings? I haven't. I'm due to have a follow-up meeting with tech myself, but do you know from your meetings who's actually already decided? Uh, I do not. We reached out to Emily Parks, who is our facilitator at Tech, and and she said she didn't give me like any details about other districts, but she said that the time is coming. Um, and like Dr. Kuska said this week tech
183is going to be voting the same process, right? Yeah. Um I think next week I have a meeting with them. So by n by the 9th I should have an answer from whether they went on which I think they will and then we would know for the 15th if you wanted to vote then. Okay. So yeah. So let's put it on for the for the 15th as a as a potential vote and get more information as far as what others are doing. And do we know if there's a cut off date though like to proceed or not? Typically there's like a session limitation. Yeah. We have time. Yeah. Well, not even I guess. Yeah. No, it's not a class action. So, you don't have to sign up for a class action. There's no That's right.
184Yeah. But so, we have a little bit of time. We're not ready to vote on the 15th. We don't have to, but we can put it on and then I'll have we should have more information, but then it works. And if you can find out if any of your tech directors have sign if their districts have signed on um you might know before I would Sure, I can do that. And then to answer Frank's question, Emily Park said the end of the school year felt like the deadline to sign on for the settlement. Got it. So, yeah, May 15th. Okay. Thanks, Dan. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. You're welcome. All right. Um, moving swiftly along. Um, we're now uh at the uh central office admin update. Um, not sure if you have any left, but
185uh just three four quick things. Um I did mention quickly earlier um that it is principal appreciation day. So I wanted to give a shout out to our principles that we're so fortunate to have in the district. Um today I was principal for the day which actually ran into um Mr. Alfred at Rams and you know people talk a lot about middle school but they the kids were amazing. We had a great day. Fortunately we were able to be outside for lunch which was nice. So I did lunch duty and all the things that you do as principal. Um teachers were great. I felt very welcomed. I actually got to sit down with both Carla and um Casey today and talk about data and all the things that I never get to do at the
186building level with them. So, that was nice as well. And Miller round table was yesterday and I put some pictures I think up on um Instagram already. The kids did a great lesson and we talked about how they're going to they made rocks about to be inspiration about bullying and kindness and they're going to put them out Saturday. Those rocks should be out when they're doing the cleanup day that Barbara Ryan was talking about with Ola. And then um I know that I just wanted to remind you that Dian had shared with you the AP AP test data bar graph because there was a question about that and he explained what happened and the it got interpolated and he updated the um bar graph on that. You should you should have a copy of that
187was sent to you. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Uh just want to wish the principles happy principles day and the teachers teacher appreciation week next week. Thanks to everybody for all the hard work they do for our students. Oh, can I just say one more thing? Special Olympics is 59 next Friday as well. Just it's always a great day and we'll get you pictures for the 15th. Thank you. Sorry, Dr. Jordan. Uh again, just um happy and excited for the principles principal appreciation day. um you know so thank you to them that's it and I just had a followup I I probably directed to Dr. seminar, but really any of you we've we've had a lot of discussion about um the high school schedule change and in doing that we talked about the increased instructional
188minutes, the 15 extra minutes. What we haven't talked much about is where the 15 extra minutes is going for um Miller um and for the middle school um and also Placentino. So I just do we know at this point like like for the middle school for example, is it divided evenly up between each of the blocks or what does that look like the implementation on the additional 15 extra minutes? I know that Karen had had some challenges with the um when you add the minutes and how it affects the teacher contractual prep time and all of that and there was a discussion about trying to the teachers are really trying to use that RAM's block as they do use it very robustly. you talked they talked today about the interventions. So they were trying to
189add some minutes into the intervention block and into each of the blocks. So I don't have the exact numbers. I could have her share that with you if we could just get a presentation just to understand that because I know with a lot of the um a lot of the um discussion around the override. We talked about direct instruction and I have some concerns if it if it's if the instructional time is within RAMs block which is more of a more of a study block. I know interventions are happening for some groups, right? 20 kids or 26 kids a couple days a week. But voluntary speaking during definitely they they really the teachers were really wanting to have that more robust block so that it can be used as direct instruction. It already is but
190to have it's a short amount of time right now. So I would like I said I'd rather hear her speak to it. I do um believe my conversations with Dr. Laney that they're adding the 10 minutes to the math block for Plentino and then at Miller I'm pretty confident but I didn't confirm that again that he was doing it during for the science and social studies maybe not all 15 but that's where part of my suggestion was that because we knew that was a really short block and trying to fit in that time. So I do believe that's where it landed but they're still working out their schedules a little bit but I can get you an update for the next meeting. The next meeting. Thank you. Yep. [Music] What's next in committees? There you
191go. Subcommittes to um communications. Uh sir, you prepared something? Yeah, I just um wrote a short um thank you email that I thought we could have Dan sent out to teachers on should we do it Sunday night or Monday morning? Um just thanking teachers for teacher appreciation week. I know the PTO is doing their big this is in your folder weekl long um celebration but I wanted to have the school committee send out something as well. So, if anyone has any um comments or edits or um to that note, it's um No, I think it's a great idea. So, it's short short and sweet, but um I hope it communicates the the base message. Thank you. Okay. Do you think it should go what? When? Monday morning. Monday morning first. Monday. Yeah. 8 a.m. Yeah.
192Okay. I will um stand and adopt that. Do you want to just approve it? Approve it. Yeah. So make a motion to communicating this out to our our wonderful teach teachers. I mean it's also I think celebrated for most staff too. I know there's different days for for different I think we'll just it'll be to teachers. Teachers. Okay. Yeah. I mean unless No. Um second by Don. Okay. You mean motion, right? Well, I asked for a motion. Mumble. It's 12:30. Um, teachers. Okay. Entertain a motion to approve this communication to go out to the teachers. Moved by Dawn. Second. All right. All right. All in favor? Anything else from communications? No, that's it. We're still doing our recaps and um just put us there. Well, that was great though. So, I I do appreciate that
193idea. So, um Cynthy's not here, so I can tell you we don't have a policy update. Um as far as we will have we will have a couple policies for the next for the next meeting. Meeting. Yeah. She's going to go out with a bang. Yep. Perfect. Um Superintendent Eval, do we have any I don't think we have any updates. We um [Music] we set a deadline for tomorrow, right? I think we should extend. Can we get an extension? When is your your meeting to sort of pull it together? I think it's next week. There's We have the something scheduled for Wednesday, but I'm I'm worried. Let me double check my uh Yeah, I want to say 4:30 on Wednesday. Is this uh town meeting? Uh that would be fun meeting. So we will need
194to be here at 4:30, but I think we need to reschedle it. We might need to move it. See if you can do something at at uh on Tuesday. Maybe. Tuesday. Well, they'd have to post tomorrow. I will say Tuesday. It have to be later for me, but I can do Tuesday. Tuesday or Thursday? Maybe. But well, I think there going to be a couple meetings probably because first got to go through and then someone's got to start drafting and you know. Um, well, with the idea that it's Tuesday or Thursday, would an extension until Sunday evening be reasonable for Well, I was saying first thing Monday morning. So, first thing get it done Sunday evening and give you the whole evening? Okay. Is Superintendent Bell okay with that? I'm okay with that. I'm okay
195with that. I mean just because there's not much we if even meet Tuesday we just need everyone's write up by Monday and like I don't we're not putting together by the time like we'll have it all put together yes but like we're not writing it up before we meet or are we sure it's up to you guys but generally start s start reviewing them and then someone sort of start takes the owners to to draft let's get it then Monday morning when we wake up we should have all of the individual and then we'll we'll Sarah myself and Cynthia We'll figure it out. Okay. And we'll figure out a time. We'll text Cynthia tonight. Okay. Yes. Budget. Budget. We had a meeting today. Um and we uh revoted our or voted again on our operational
196budget. We uh FINCOM had the recommendation was the 3.26%. um for a FY2526 budget of $44,372,069. Um and we don't anticipate needing an additional budget meeting before no before town meeting. So we we have voted um our budget. Okay. Um so we'll just skip to to that. I mean, so what we did, we we voted the budget uh normally um by town meeting and unless there's a real issue, but in my 13 years or whatever, there's never really been a a a real issue. Close, but very close. But usually going into town meeting, we we do sort of vote to match the the finance committee's recommendation. Um, that being said, I'm comfortable not doing that tonight, even though we've we sort of voted as a recommendation from the budget subcommittee just just in case mana
197falls from from heaven and something happens over the next, you know, week to to, you know, keep our our official so we can get more money so we can get more money. Yeah. Yeah. That that's man um uh but then the meeting before town meeting, we would we would vote to to to match that and and reflect that in our in our presentation. So, we could vote it tonight, but we don't we don't have to. Um, the only thing that we we do need to do tonight, um, as part of the capital project, uh, so, first of all, I want to thank the finance committee for supporting the budget. I think, you know, we came in at the the promised sort of level service budget of of three and a quarter, technically 3.26. Appreciate the
198extra. 01. Um, we were the largest increase in the town. We were certainly not the largest increase in in town on on a percent basis. Obviously, we will always be the largest increase on a dollar basis, but there were many departments with larger increases than than ours. That is fair and true. I'm not going to name them, but you know who you are. Um uh but uh they also supported all of our capital requests, which I think was in incredibly uh beneficial to us and and we really appreciate that. As part of that, um we we did agree to go back and sort of what they call sort of sweep some of our old capital requests that had outstanding balances. And so the uh the subcommittee tonight voted to uh agree to that and to
199sweep five of them. And if you open up uh in your folder, there's a capital account sweep that uh Dr. Jordan put in there uh earlier this evening. And we're looking at the orange. Um and so what we'll do is we could vote the number, but um it was recommended to just simply vote to fully sweep these accounts. Um, so that way in case the numbers have changed any, you know, we're we're just basically allowing the freeing up the account to to to do this. Town meeting could also do it, but it's easier if um if we do it. And so we will be returning uh about $44,000 to the town to to the capital account to the capital to the capital account. Um, which I think is a, you know, a good partnership, a
200demonstration of partnership. So, I will entertain a motion to approve the release of of all funds uh within the school tech devices um appropriation from 10:23, the kindergarten tech uh appropriation from 10:22, the high school lab improvement uh appropriation from 10:22, the school technology uh appropriation from 522, as well as the school curriculum um appropriation from 1019 uh for $43,96756 or whatever is is is in there when they when they go to sweep it. So move second. Any questions? Any Okay. All those in favor? So swept. Um that's great. and we we went through and budgeted all the other ones and there's still active sort of work going on to to to uh meet the the appropriations. So, thank you Dr. Dr. Jordan and Dr. Kuska for uh getting that together. Okay. [Music] Um All
201right. So, let's see. I guess the last thing on our agenda tonight is the math leveling subcommittee. I think that the initial hope a couple weeks ago was that we would sort of we sort of created the shell, if you will. Now we need to sort of place the the people in the uh the shell, but I did see the email just went out yesterday uh to the community seeking community volunteers. Um do we have an update as far as like has there been a communication out to staff seeking uh staff participation? It did go out to staff too. It did go out to staff too. to all all like sort of staff, all math teachers, all do we know? Um I Dian Mloud sent DNA you still there? I think um maybe not. I
202think it went out to the district, but I'm not positive. I don't I didn't see Okay. how it was sent. Um so if you if we're were seeking um they did hear from somebody who said they didn't get you know a teacher that confirm that they it did go okay teachers to middle school teachers no but to the but so were there two emails like one to I thought it was one to the community and then one to staff is it separate or was it I I know the one that was received by staff. Okay. Yeah. If you're a staff member you didn't get to check your spam box. Um, but otherwise, if you're interested and you didn't get it, um, I would recommend reaching out to to Hillary and Sarah and and Karen and
203and Ron, maybe just everyone, uh, to express your interest and, uh, ask for the link or whatever was sort of, uh, sent out. Um, but I really do want to I would really like to v vote on that on the 15th because I do want that group to to get get going because I think Hillary the the timeline you laid out was to have a recommendation and most of the work done by January, right? Yes. I'm just looking for when we're meeting next. Um, was it clear on that form when they were due? I am not sure. Okay. I have to look. Um, we are meeting on Monday, right? Um, I believe. So, I'm hoping that we can uh let's put that on the agenda for the 15th and I hope that we have members.
204All right. So, that work for the 15th. Yep. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure. Okay. [Music] Um, really appreciate both of you guys hard hard work on that and and then Karen and Ron's as as well. I think Jerry, too, right? Um, all right. Did I get everything? I know we were sort of skipping around. I think I got everything. Um, so, uh, 9:55. Uh, that, uh, does bring us to the end of our, uh, um, of our regular session. Our next, uh, planned meeting is May 15th. I don't think we have need for a for a public one in the interim, but Oh, will there No, so I'm sorry. We will be meeting uh a four town meeting. Hopefully that'll be fairly quick, but uh we'll post that shortly. Uh we 6:00 or 6 or
205later. Yeah, I don't think we'll need a ton of time. Um I hope um so we do uh have need for uh executive session. So uh with that I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn from open session into executive session from which we will not return for the purposes of discussing strategy with respect to clar to bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares since this is related to the HFT or and to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-un personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations negotiations with non-union personnel and this is related to our student services director Second. Frank, yes. Hillary, yes. Joe, yes. Sarah, yes. Don, yes. Dan, I'm
206a Yes. Uh, we stand adjourned. Thank you very much. And good night.