001for e e e good evening and uh welcome to the February 27th 2025 uh meeting of the holl and school committee uh apologies for the uh brief delay but we'll get right into it um I'll entertain a motion at this time unless anyone has any changes to approve the consent agenda so move second okay I'll favor that carries unanimously thank you moving right along uh to our report uh from our student Representatives open house last night went well which was run by the NHS juniors girls basketball has a playoff game this Friday against Medfield and they just won their preliminary round on Tuesday against Danver girls track won the state championship signups for the senior showcase can be found on the class of 2025 Instagram page the class of 2028 is hosting a dodgeball tournament
002March 14th from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. and for theater there is a preview of the next voice you hear tonight at 7:30 all DEA competitors left for Boston CA Port this morning for States and they'll be back Saturday um afternoon girls Alpine Ski finished third place at the MIAA state championship semi tickets for n9th and 10th graders are on sale Boys Hockey lost playoffs to Melrose yesterday spring Sports registration is open until March 7th and spring Sports start March 17th okay great school committee individual comment Mr Frank nothing for me tonight me thanks Joe so as we heard from the student Representatives our hon High School athletics have been killing it this winter so I just wanted to congratulate them uh specifically the girls indoor track D4 state champs and uh Holliston High School student
003Henry M elot who won the D3 uh State title uh in wrestling for his weight class so congratulations to everyone no comment for me nothing thanks no thank you okay and uh nothing nothing for me um we now have the uh opportunity for the the public uh to uh address the school committee and we'll we'll uh start is Kathy still on there we start on on the zoom yeah okay Kathy are you are you ready I wanted to go to you to make sure you could if you have the time now Kathy if if you're talking you're muted right now if you wanted to speak okay she did ask to speak we'll come back to her then um okay Tracy good evening Tracy flecker 96 rolling meow Drive mom of five students in hollon public
004schools and a teacher for 20 years thank you for letting me speak here again tonight I know this is now my my third time speaking on this topic but it is one I feel very strongly about not just for my own children but for all the students in Holliston a big issue on a new schedule change for both the teachers and students at the high school levels seems to be a fear of change from the student perspectives we have heard that it is too much to handle eight classes while considering all of their other commitments if we can count on one hand though the number of districts in Massachusetts who still have this block schedule and the other 345 plus districts are taking 6 to8 classes in a more traditional schedule what are we doing
005wrong in Holliston that our students can't handle it if our students are to compete for further education and career opportunities with other students who can handle the academic rigor of eight classes at a time we are doing them a huge long-term dis disservice if we are not preparing them to compete in the real world our students are capable of taking gate classes it is our job to encourage them and Foster that academic Drive even when they question their own abilities our students will adapt and this fear that they can't handle these changes will soon go away once it becomes their new normal from a teacher's perspective change is hard changes are often thrown at Educators from the top down with little consideration for how it will actually look and feel within a classroom for some
006of the teachers at hollon high school this is the only schedule and way of doing things they have ever known and their job will look different and yet our job as Educators mandates that we serve what is in the best interest of our students and not ourselves so although the argument for Creative Solutions keeps being thrown around we have more than 300 districts in the state alone to look at for what does work this is a situation where Holliston teachers and students need to adjust but we can look toward those that have already done it we don't need to recreate new solutions that preserve this block schedule we can look to districts that have already demonstrated success with a schedule with more classes that continue for a full year I hope that leaders in position
007to make change start giving all members of the halls and high school community staff and administration alike the same Grace and kindness that they teach and practice towards their students during this entire process many teachers at the high school recognize that the schedule is not serving all of our students particularly those with high needs the current schedule is not Equitable and it is in violation of the Ada and Ida promise to equal access for all students if I'm being honest I don't love the ab schedule I think there are better options I really wish the hft particularly their leadership had acted with the best interest of our students during their ratification vote a few weeks back and looked with integrity at the schedule that was presented by the subcommittee at that time but they didn't
008for a variety of reasons and here we are and yet a change still needs to happen now the $50,000 Plus cost of supplies and Associated materials has been thrown out as a sticking point with the cost of a new schedule but perhaps the cost of the district being called to task for discrimination should really beware the concern lies change needs to happen to make sure that hollon public schools are not in violation of the right to equal access that all of our students deserve regardless of anyone's like or dislike of a schedule change or even of this particular AB schedule the current schedule is in violation of the equal access promised under federal law and although opinions and feelings are always important our moral and legal obligation as a school district is to provide equal
009access and it surpasses all of those all of our high need students deserve the same level of equ attention that our mid-level students deserve and that our high level students deserve so I'm here again to ask the school committee to look at the big picture in regards to the halls and high school schedule and enforce a change it is time for change to happen to make sure that we areare preparing all of our students with the highest amount of academic rigor and at the same time providing the highest levels of equity that we can within our control thank you for your time thank you is there anyone on Zoom who uh would would like to speak during public comments yes I okay Kathy go ahead can you see can you hear you can hear me
010can you see me we can we can give us a quick second one moment we're going to adjust the volume so we can hear you better Dan is doing that right now okay thank you can you say something again please yes hi I'll just tell who I am Kathy charier formerly peny backer 68 P thank you go ahead all right thank you for giving me this time to address the hollon school committee I am sorry not to be there with you in person but I'm tutoring this evening and need to be here I'm here to waiting briefly on the proposed AB schedule at the high school and in more detail about the proposed changes to the middle school math course framework structure I have emailed my thoughts today to the hollon school committee as well
011well many of you know me I'm new to some of you on this committee so let me tell you a little bit about myself and why I'm in a unique position to weigh in in all these topics as a hollon resident for 32 years a mother of two sons who went through the hollon schools a hollon scho Committee Member for 9 years including this Vice chair and policy chair a certified math teacher grades 5 to 12 an SAT act and mcast math and English tutor and a math tutor for students of Holliston and the neighboring towns for 24 years I feel I have a combination of background and education to speak to this issue I am also presently tutoring students in hollon grades 5 to 12 since we tried from the hon school committee many
012moons ago I have mostly stayed silent for the years but feel this topic is too important and too near and dear to what I do to stay silent while staying quiet May year to proposals being adopted that will increase my tutoring business as more students will need my help for those of you who know me well that's not why I tutor I tutor to help students succeed and if there's a less of a need for my services that's a good thing in my book and not a bad thing I am in full support for the first item of moving the high school away from block scheduling and to the proposed AP schedule the block schedule setup is not conducive to students succeeding in math for two reasons first of all students in the block schedule
013module can take for example part one of a math class in the first clock of their freshman year and not take the second half of the same math class until the second block of their sophomore year I've worked over the years with such students and I'm present working with one now this means they would not have been taken math for a year between courses I have found that these students have forgotten a good deal of what they have learned a year ago and it's too long a gap this also could have the same issue when taking the M sat act or other standardized tests as as not having had math for significant time for these tests resulting in them not scoring what they should be scoring on the tests secondly math is a subject that
014needs to be practiced and digested to gain understanding of Concepts The Accelerated pace of getting in sometimes a Year's worth of material into a semester like let's say with an honors class at the high school does not lend itself to understanding topics are not delved into deep enough and there's not enough homework to practice material to gain a real understanding I have found some topics are not taught or some of the material has gone through very quickly for example algebraic fact in is a math building block that is used in most math courses in the high school I have several students who are in Geometry right now and have no understanding of how to factor I see gaps in these skills all the time by going to the proposed AB schedule students will have math
015class all year which will allow them to practice topics more and gain a better and consistent understanding of math concepts and will also better prepare them for standardized testing like the SAT act and mcast changing gear to the second issue I am not in support of the middle school math framework as proposed by the administration at the last school committee meeting for a number of reasons I'm in full support of what many of the Nath teachers have voiced as concerns and I believe that the school committee should implement the Desi model offering a full algebra course in middle school with the model of implementing some seventh grade math standards into sixth grade and moving thus some sixth grade math standards into fifth grade bringing back two math levels in the seventh grade one of which
016does the rest of the seventh grade math and then all of the e8th grade math and offering three math levels in 8th grade including a full algebra one course that is what my children actually had when they were in the hall in schools I have several reasons for not being in favor of the current math framework which does not include leveling in seventh grade the reason is not leveling seventh grade math and perhaps wanted to get rid of all math leveling was due to an audit that came out showing inequities in the current Math course framework with special need students ESL students and students of diverse racial and economic backgrounds while I am of course the believer that all students deserve to succeed a map and work to their Highest Potential when these audits come
017out we look to balance the in in inequities and rectify the situation by causing more inequities and sacrificing the highend Learners I have been an advocate against this for many years and very vocal about it during my time on the school committee as Educators we need to of course work toward not having these inequities with students that face challenges but in doing so not throw the baby out with the proverbial bath water math leveling the middle school is needed to ensure all students are given the opportunity to work to their Highest Potential and we should not throw it away to rectify the results of the audit we as Educators need to think outside of the box and find other ways to fix these inequities the audit raises without causing other inequities we have many talented
018teachers and administrators in this district and there must be a way to do this leveling a middle school of math is the only way to meet the needs of all Learners it was sucessful for many years and allowed for complete algebra one course and a course for students who need more time on instruction it is also fair to our teachers our teachers work hard and with all the new things being T of them it's hard to meet a huge gap of levels in a classroom with Gathering a good understanding of math class as one person additionally I often tutor students who have serious confidence issues and doubt themselves because they are pushed too fast in math or seeing other students on the higher level get the material and wonder why they don't and bringing back
019the two levels of math in seventh grade and the three levels in eighth grade we must do so carefully and consider all issues first one can't just add standards in a year Math course from what I see from tutoring the number of standards in the current year is already too high and cannot be deled into fully as there needs to be uh student understanding to move standards into a math course other standards need to move down a grade level past middle school and down into the elementary school as far as just giving those students who in this one-year transition period interventions to learn all of math a this is not a recipe for success and will not be enough the students will have big gaps in their understanding and will not have learned the material
020voleno is also not fair for the High School Math teachers who will be facing this issue there needs to be a course perhaps online in the summer for these students to take all math a or the parts they need we require some work for AP students and in some other classes we could do this here as well it's a onetime fix while I do think the administration had a year to figure this out it is clear their solution in my opinion raises deep concerns I think a full year Val one needs to be offered in grade eight and two levels of math and seven with three levels in grad eight I think a group of Math teachers and compass in grade five middle school and high school should be formed including administrators and other community
021members with skills in this area the group's goal should be to given the Desi model of leveling should occur how all the concerns I raised and as well as those others have raised can be addressed and not how to get rid of leveling thank you for your time thank you very much KY anyone else on Zoom for public comment okay and as promised just four row I think I just meant I just meant you didn't want to go first so I you know um no I um don't track good evening an kenon 11:35 Highland Street many of you know me I spoken to you um clearly this is a subject that I'm very passionate about myself um I couldn't said it any better than Penny um I've worked with penny I've known penny for many
022years and I think she hit a lot of the points that I wanted to say and I really think that we have to really have a group of people that understand the standards in mathematics to get together and help provide how we move forward I'm a believer of the fact that we go back to where we were um I think it was 2018 2019 offering two levels in seventh desie clearly states this for us it's I've shared it with people and and I just I've got come to the last four meetings and I've oh this is my third fourth meeting and I sit here and I listened to the conversations that just seem to be going round and round and round because there aren't and this is not offensive me to be offensive anybody but
023there's not really M at the table that knows the historical knowledge of what's been happening at Holliston where we're headed and knows the MTH standards and I think that that's really important and to to not have that is not fair to anybody especially our students um and going into that I was really surprised to hear at the last meeting that Administration W wanted to remove the geometry standards from 8th grade and move them to and move them take them out to put them into the algebra standards I don't know how that can work I really don't know how that can work and i' be curious to know how that will work moving them down isn't going to be an answer and putting them up at the high school is not a solution because you can't
024a geometry course at the high school is very dense and it requires the students to come in with an understanding of geometry um in addition from my entire career at hollon Public Schools we've always been told that we need to align our curriculum with the standards we look for our power standards we don't eliminate them we've had several classes or professional development on backwards design and even during our math curriculum review the very beginning after we created our vision statement the first thing we did was we did a gap analysis we looked at the standards that we looked at the state standards and we compared them to our curriculum and we made sure we were aligned um my firsthand knowledge right now is I'm currently teaching geometry honors to the eighth to the nth grade
025students their passion their enthusiasm for proofs I'm not sure whether many of you love solving proofs but they do they come in every day and they're excited to to solve these proofs had they not had the geometry in eth grade they would not be at this level they would not be able to do these at this point so I really think we need to make sure that we are following the standards I also know there's been a lot of comments made that students don't have flexibility to move because of tracking I guess is the word or they don't have those opportunities I don't think that that's a that's a fair statement I there are students that are right now in Geometry honors not just in my class but in the other classes that have moved
026from Algebra 1 College Prep up to Geometry honors so there is flexibility I also um think that we have to keep in mind that mathematics is sequential and I think um Penny said this this she said it better than I said it probably that if students have gaps you just can't expect the Math teachers during that time period to fill those gaps in there has to be some programs outside of the school day or wherever for they get the help other communities Do It um so there and I know there's been comments made that it's not Equitable because students have to take care of their families and they have to work and I totally understand that but I do think that if they really wanted to move up it's like a sport you have to
027practice and I think students can do it um the I will end on this comment I want you to know that I've really spent a lot of time researching and finding articles and it's so hard to find articles one way or another you can you can take any article and you can spin it the way you want even if you find like an article that has data in it it's like from 2000 I don't even know it it it there I just don't know where everybody's getting their information I could come here and say certain things but the facts aren't out there one way or the other um I did do a little research on the different um programs that the area schools offer Welsley offers and I think it's like Needum they offer the
028CMP program is I think that's what they offer at the sixth and seventh grade level but then they offer five levels I would say four levels in eighth grade Hoppington they offer they just brought back in leveling in sixth grade they have two levels in seventh grade and they have three levels in eighth Medfield um does what we do and Medway begins um leveling in seventh grade I'm not sure if Ashley and I couldn't find it some of the programs are hard to find as a matter of fact Welsley Al also offers their eighth grade students geometry for those students that are ready so I do think that we need to like Penny said form a committee of people and really get together and really figure out how we're going to move forward this because
029I think a decision needs to be made so thank you thank you thank you and you're welcome back anytime um okay anyone else I think we've gotten to everyone all right uh so do we'll move on to our presentations and we do have three presentations tonight um and that's before we even get into the other stuff um so I would like to uh bring up our wonderful uh Administration to um but before you guys start I do uh just want to take a moment to uh welcome Karen to the table for the first time time in the uh sort of permanent uh role as a middle school principal congratulations thank you sorry but it is great so welcome ful fully on board dro the in you dropped the inum yes yes so good evening everyone
030we're going to get started on our midyear updates to our school um district and school goals is what it should say that's what it says um in other places but um really every year we've been trying to be more U give more information we used to do an end of year presentation we've now started our we do our goals at the beginning of the year and we do a mid-year update and an end of the year update and we've also tried to invent some more specific data from either our data dashboard or other um data sources so you'll hear more of that tonight and see more of that as well we are going to go quickly because we have five of us presenting tonight I'm going to present on the district four arches and then
031I'm going to hand off to Dr slay at placentino Mr Kim at Miller Karen at um Miss Manning at Rams and Mr list at the high school we also have our full central office team here to answer any questions but I'd ask if you could maybe jot down your questions and just do them between each so I'll do the district part and if you have questions then we could pause then and then we'll pause after each principal presents as well all right so we always have tied everything in the last few years as we talked about many times to our mission and vision statement um all the Arches you'll see that and hear that throughout the night as well as you did in the fall everything is linked in there um for documents so there
032are links in here that um this will end up going Dan on the website probably tomorrow some point and all of those links should be able to be available to people as well so we don't have everything you have the other document um that is attached here in each of um our presentations you'll have the document that has all of our strategic initiatives and goals for the year and you'll see all of the updates to mid year what we wanted to highlight because we had to talk about everything that we've done this year already was just way too much to focus on so we we picked some key areas for each of us um in each of our areas so under Arch one communication we really have ramped up our use of s'more to enhance
033communication it's a great tool it's um it has an ability to put a lot of information in but it also is the put the fact that it can translate so incredibly that that's one of the reasons we've um advocated for that and all of our administ are communicating that way at the district level we're doing four um Community from the whole Central team we're doing four Community updates and then you'll see at the beginning of the year and then throughout the year I periodically have done Community updates just from My Lens as well one of the things that we had worked on earlier in the year was the bus start times committee and we do now have those new start times ready to go for placentino and Miller in particular the change that they will
034be aligned is such we think is going to be a great opportunity for our students and staff to be able to work more collaboratively together from building to building it help us with PD and so many other things we also have done an incredible amount of cyber security response planning because we have had like every other District like many other um businesses you're seeing more and more of cyber security threats so we've had to do an intense amount of training that Mr mlau can speak to if you have specific questions about but we do see that there have been a number of threats despite all of the training people still do occasionally click on things um a lot of times what we've seen actually not lately Dan but we were seeing a lot of times
035that emails were coming as if they were coming from me as a superintendent to all staff with a link um if you looked at the email you'd clearly see it was not my email but in the body of the email would sometimes show as if it was coming from me and people did get fooled by that I feel like we have seen less and less of that and we have implemented some strategies to try to minimize that as well and then one of the things I wanted to highlight is more recently as we've had um some changes in some of the federal regulations and a lot of questions have come our way as administrators so we have created this new website and also I had shared out on February 13th a community update just about
036how we respond to um if immigration came to our district furer and protection for students what what you're obligated to do by law and then um we have attached many of the resources from Desi as well so I just wanted to show you that I think it's a great tool for our community and people have have um been very appreciative of the new use of that tool as well and we'll continue to add resources throughout the year so I did want to show you some of those resources that I talked about the uh you can see s'more is one of the tools that we've been using more also to gather data to see how much people are actually accessing it so I shared two different more templates here one was our um Community update that
037happened on February 13th so you can see the data that we can gather now is that we had 5,366 hits on that and that was a few days ago there's probably some more since that it tells us how long people have been if you look on the top right you can see how long they've been on it so it to me it's showing that we are getting the messages out and people are they may not be spending as much time reading every little um piece but this one was certainly hit on a lot and was not as lengthy and then on the bottom left you'll see the data related to The District curriculum team update that went out on the right with 3,477 hits so again this is data that we look at to see
038if there's other ways we can continue to enhance our communication and get out things out to our families and staff as well Arch two social and emotional well-being we've continued to enhance our mental health supports we've worked on all kinds of differentiated PD you'll see um every time um Joanie has presented on PD Jerel has really worked with a lot of our SSP staff and as well as J and we've really targeted to try to make the PD strategic to the smaller groups of staff that may not be part of um the larger PD trainings that we're having in math or other topics and we are using a lot more data and collaborative time to enhance the work that they're doing we're also working continue our journey with safe and boort of schools um again
039I talked about some of that as far as just getting communication out to families and try to help students feel safe with attendance to come to school we did see a little bit of a dip in attendance um when some of the changes happen a little fear um from some students that seems to leveling off at the moment but in addition to that we' worked hard to implement strategies with our safe and supportive team and our mtss leadership team as well on the bottom I did allude to it but I'll add a little more The Chronic attendance leadership team has been looking at the data that I was saying are there trends that we're seeing we definitely did see um mid January we've saw that there were more students um in certain populations not coming
040to school as much as it's leveled off it's still something we need to look for we need to look at patterns over time I think overall we did talk at the beginning of the year that our attendance was starting to improve compared to last year because we've had a concerted effort to do so and try to support families and reach out to them as needed so this is one of the tools we use here to look at our data we talked about open architect many other times this is our student attendance report so it's telling you um the attendance rate year to date chronic absence rate total number of tarties year to date but this is just general information we're able to dig down down by student by um demographics and so much other places
041so I know at the school level our administrators are looking at this but Jerelle is also monitoring this at the district level to see if there are trends that we can work over time and then um if you look at some of the I mean jar do you want to jump in and just talk about some of the graphics you put in because I feel like you could speak to that better than will um so of it is uh just on the chronic attendance grade as uh Dr cus was sharing we definitely saw some dips in attendance especially in our e Community after um you know we just had some federal changes but as you can see right before vacation that snapshot uh we took a snapshot of our tennis rate and we're at um
042the same exact rate we were last year so we kind of have leveled back off as in other communities they're seeing some decreases uh but we're maintaining that uh you know we're maintaining a pulse on that um on the right you'll see were doing uh professional development with our prayer professionals we've met with prayer professionals um that's been spearheaded by Brenda Maro um without her I would not be able to do that so thank you to her she's been doing a professional development with our Paras um offering ruler professional development which is our tier one approach with our Paras we also partnered with the middle sex DA's office to do um uh pray professional development with our counselors around um how to support if um uh how to support when uh sexual abuse um when
043our counselors um encounter sexual abuse with students unfortunately there's High rates um not just in our communities but nationally um and unfortunately it's going to enter our buildings in a sense of in our councilors are the first ones often our front lines to be the ones to kind of take um the first notice and to kind of interact with our d offices so we want to make sure that they felt comfortable and figuring out what are the first steps they need to do so we partners with the police department and DA's office to figure out how they liaison with the cac's of our local communities um and then also you'll see the professional development at the bottom um and we did that with all of our administrators around how to interface with open Architects and
044how to kind of think about how to dive do some data Dives um and looking at our subgroups and thinking about how to utilize this tool just because just because you have tools doesn't mean you know how to utilize those tools so practicing at how to utilize data uh and how to kind of um build our data literacy tools um around us and then the left um data points are just uh ones that we utilize to help us think about how our counselors can best utilize our referral sources um to um make sure that we're connecting families with M Health Resources thank you jel Arch three teaching and learning um you'll see on the right side there I have a picture of um The Learning walkthrough process that's the one of our slides so this
045year we have as a district had opportunities to as I mentioned earlier the data dashboard has been a huge helpful tool for us for our intervention and our curriculum Specialists um to use but also as a district we are using our data dashboard when we have our full admin meetings we are getting much better at looking at data as a group together and analyzing that and coming up with solutions to what we want to work towards as a district related to our strategic plan just today in in fact um Dr Jordan presented some data financial data to us as a central Office Team and we're really trying to get um ourselves increase all of our capacity as a leadership team how we're using data to perform our decision- making long-term and improve um the educational
046experience for all students at the elementary level we have the El Ela curriculum review andir Mally vertical and horizontal alignment we're doing the cultur responsive teaching PD through all Learners Network and landmark we've talked about that when Joanie presented on PD in the past and we're alignment aligning all of our special education services and continuums that's been an ongoing process the last two years and really refining our programs overall districtwide and again I did mention the learning walkthr we've worked all year to keep changing that process and updating it we've already had three districtwide um all the the central team and school-based teams met at each building so we've already had one at um Miller Rams and the high school and we have one coming up in March at placentino as well as a whole
047team all 19 of us go to the the school and we look at classrooms together and we help improve our capacity looking at data together so this is just one template I just wanted to share some of the we we Whited out names here um but if you look at this this is really just what we can get for from the student companion it shows a particular group of students um and the data that we get on them all of their Dibbles all of their I ready and it has all the data in one place we can pick by demographics we can pick by teacher we can pick whatever group we want to look at and have the data on place and then it's helping us inform our decision- making around um what to do
048for interventions as well so when we look at that data then the interventionist which is also our half curriculum specialist interventionist they work with our building based tutors and they form groups here so you can see this if you look on the right there were four students assigned to this particular group and it shows the time when they started the intervention there's a lot more information that the teacher has to be able to access and put in but they're literally using this program to document the interventions in life in real time and then planning how to look at the data to refine their interventions every eight or 10 weeks or sometimes even sooner under arch for talent and resource you can see on the left this was one of our retirees from um just retired
049on February 14th right Mr list and Mr list and I greeted Chris and her team we're celebrating the last day of 20 plus years here in uh the district so one of the thing we are trying to do is as much as possible we do if we have midyear retirements what we usually do is I meet up with the principal or other administrator and I bring a small token gift it's a Holliston blanket with our logo on it and people have really liked that it's just something to thank them for their time here if it's at the end of the year we actually do a nice little breakfast and also um bring um the blankets for our staff as well and then Jess Bey has already implemented the starfish award and she's done a nice
050job with that and when she communicates out every I don't know how often you do it every other month once a month in her newsletter she'll communicate out who are the starfish recipients it's been very well received and appreciated and I think it's something that Mr McLoud is looking to do with some of his team as well if I heardly the other area is um acid Essentials um we were very appreciative once we found out last year and I think Dean you were the one were able to dig into this that AET Essentials was now available to us at the school levels we had not heard before so once we found that that was an option that we could actually have our staff using AET Essentials to look at of putting in any concerns they
051had the building level anything that need to be fixed or addressed for safety whatever it was so once we were able to implement that with the help of James key we are now actively using that we're able to look again in real time what tickets have been outstanding too long how are they being dealt with and now with a new um facilities director as well who's very techsavvy this is some the tool that's really helpful and staff have also been appreciated that they can get their needs met um we used to have a more paper gr process that could be challenging and this has really helped us a lot the staff portal on the website is also being continually expand via staff feedback we keep trying to make it more all um all the resources
052that they need in one place and that's something we continue to update on the website regularly we're in the middle of applying now actually I have um I think I left it in the card and I'll have to get it to you but I have the paperwork for us to apply for the msba SOI for the Adams roof placement and and we're looking at the placentino and Miller the high school project will come later we will do an SOI for that in the near future as well and then ongoing um I'm scheduling as much as possible to meet with individuals grade team Department leader meetings and in the month of March and going into May I'll be principal for the day at each of our four buildings so I'm looking forward to spending the day
053there and living the lives that our principes live as well so I will pause there oh actually sorry a couple of Graphics here as well make sure you make it a hard day it's always a hard day lunch duties just quickly on the the tracking for IEPs is that any student on an IEP or is it just ones that have are considered sort of more pullout based than than J which which which one which the at the bottom where it sort of says if students been tracking absences there would be any student on any student yeah yeah we won't it doesn't disagre the type of IEP it just would have obviously and they could be it could be someone that's elll and IEP or low income enep it will give you the different demographics as
054well you can look in different areas just I just the last graphic there I have is um that's our asset Essentials um you can see on the left bottom left in Google teachers and staff can all click on that asset Essentials and on the right is just an example of what the dashboard looks like and you can see how um the requests come in and then the principls get them and they're able to label them whether they're medium high or I believe you're able to label them before they go out to the staff to complete the workover so that's been helpful questions on Arch 1 through 4 from the district lens all right seeing none or hearing none this is the links are this is from the fall some of the links that we had
055in there when we were presenting our goals so I left those in there for people to see as well classentino all right hi everyone um so this evening the principles are going to really focus in on um some on really The Arches around teaching and learning we feel that um that's the communication we really want to communicate to you not that it takes away from any of the other work we're doing but just for the sense of time um we're just going to hone in on that so you have everything in the packet do you mind going to the next slide um and these are just some key pieces that we're going to do but I'm going to spend the the bulk of our time talking about teaching and learning can you go to the
056next slide please so when we think about teaching and learning um we really need to talk about our students present so that they can learn um at placentino unfortunately our building is among the highest of chronic absenteeism in the district and I think there's a lot of reasons for that if you look at the chronic absentee rate our highest rates are among our youngest students I think you know especially in preschool where it is a tuition-based program as well um I think there's a lot of um choice of whether they're going to send their child or not but that is part of our entire chronic absentee um data and reported to the state as well when you look at placentino as well as kindergarten um has a higher percentage than first and second grade um
057on you can see that our attendence over um year um has increased slightly um around chronic absentee ISM by 2.5% we have decreased by um a little bit in tardies and that change really came in when we instituted a um technology change where we are now doing daily tardy phone calls emails and um kind of making a nuisance of ourselves a little bit but um you might say well why would you do that because they're driving their kids they know they're being tardy they're they're not always knowing that they're tardy um especially our tardies are coming in within the first 10 minutes of the school which for all students but especially for our youngest students that's when they're they're starting their day and that they're getting ready for their day and that does have a
058big impact on them so um along the left you can see the things that we're doing to really work on this are we've increased our fail communication um the entire District we send out monthly um attendance data to them we're doing weekly monitoring and with our counselors and we reach out to families to see how can we help it's a supportive um Reach Out and um we had our teachers talking to parents during parent teacher conferences to try to help them make that connection between academics and um absenteeism if you go to the next slide um some of our most concerning absenteeism is among a couple of our subgroups so um when you look at our students who are identified as special ed versus non-sp specialed they have a higher rate of um chronic absenteeism
059and especially when you look at our students who have um English Lang language learner status it's significantly higher compared to um students who aren't so this is an area that we need to continue to work on next slide first I'm going to talk a little bit about what we're doing and how we're doing in literacy just to remind you we've really been working towards um changing our instructional approach to kind of Follow That science of reading next slide please this is our I um middle of the year what I'm most proud of um I know this isn't the best graph but if you can just take a look at it this way the to the right those red dots um those are significantly below grade level yellow is kids who are approaching that grade level
060so they might be if you're in first grade they might be at the end of kindergarten and then green and that green striped is either on or above grade level what we look for in Trends and what we're Happening Here is we see a decrease on the right side and an increase on the left side so we're seeing a decrease in the students um who are signant ly below grade level and an increase of our students who are at or above and that's where we're going so we're moving in the right direction next slide please here what we did is we dug into our subgroup data with our Dibbles and we chose a predominant measure for each um grade level so for kindergarten we chose pheic awareness for first grade we chose a phonics measure
061and for second grade we chose fluency when you think about the development of reading those are the key indicators of where you want for each grade level that would have the most predictor of Student Success as you can see that blue trend line is the middle of the year or the beginning of the year Benchmark and the yellow is the middle of the Year Benchmark we're making significant progress in these subgroups and we're really proud of this data um something that I think is important to also think about is um we went in and we looked at the absenteeism of our students who are getting reading intervention and that also was significantly higher than other students so it's worked to be done um how we can reach out to families to support students coming to
062school we have a lot of interventions in place um but if they're not in school they're not able to get that next slide um as I talked about at the beginning of the year we're really focusing on building number sense that is that foundational piece at the elementary level that we need to build that all other math is based off of we have a um a goal that all students will make progress and um 80% of our students will meet or exceed by the end of the year next slide please again this data is showing that we are decreasing on the side of students our percentage of students who are Sly below grade level and we're increasing our students who are at or above grade level so we're moving in the right direction this is
063for all math not just number sense it's all modalities um the next slide please this is our I ready data for number sense of in particular so what you want to see is you can see that um this is by grade level the first bar in each of the boxes that is at the beginning of the year for each grade level and the second is for the middle of the year what we're hoping for is a decrease in the yellow and the orange and an increase in the blue and the green and we are trending in the right direction so when we how are we doing this we have increased our professional development for math we're using um professional development through ALS um we're using Eureka we've really trained our teachers in I ready our
064students are getting on more and more consistently Christen Marino is our stem coach and interventionist she's been incredible she's working with our teachers during curriculum meetings before and after school um and we've increased the number of students we're identifying who are now in interventions for literacy we've really changed our model for Progress monitoring so any student who's not in grades on grade level they're being monitored every month for students who are at risk it's bi-weekly and for students who are at significant risk It's weekly so what that's done is help us really monitor students progress more in real time we've done more special ed evaluations at this point in the year compared to the entire year last year so what that means is we're catching it earlier so that we can intervene and we can
065provide strategic um um intervention at that tier three level we're also working with our grade leaders data Dives with this information so we can look at trends for our tier one instruction and have them be instructional leaders in that way um we also have a team um that I'm on and and Jess spe is on too that were part of the dyslexia Institute and we're really growing our knowledge in that area as well that's it for me questions about placentino can I ask a question about that last point where you said um you done more interventions or was it evaluations this we're doing both actually doing both exactly um doing what would you say account is accounting for that so your ability to do that if you were doing more that you've gotten midy year
066than you did all of last year how what's accounting for that so we are because of our new um way that we're monitoring data and because of the screenings that we're doing three times a year um part of the dyslexia law that we're doing that we're catching um we're we're looking at intervening sooner to be honest with you and are those intervention models like on a what's the cycle for those intervention models it's usually six weeks okay thank you and sooner if we see that kids aren't making progress we'll change what their intervention look like that's great thank you I'm really encouraged by the the dibles data that number of students that have moved from below Benchmark to Benchmark already this year is is really exciting um I'm wondering in so in addition to using
067the data to monitor students uh who might be at risk for reading difficulty what are the ways that teachers are using the I ready and the DBL data to plan instruction well we have a professional development coming up that we are really going to dive into this so what we've started having them do is look at um not just that overall of who's below who's on who's above but what is the skill that they need to work on so we've been working with teachers around okay so in second grade we see that switch between you know the phonics piece to the fluency piece so students who um are word callers we're seeing their decrease in being able to have fluency so what we're doing is we're helping them look at that data and then we're
068saying okay so what is that we're having them do interventions in their room so at this upcoming PD day they're going to be able to we're going to have them looking at all the data from I ready and amplify identify a group that they're going to be working with they're also going to be having Landmark training that day so it's going to be able to come right in and help them build some skills and what we're going to have them do is identify a group of students they want to work with in their room what's the skill they're going to work on what's the data saying and then build interventions so that's the work we're doing right now do you have goals for the end of the year I mean definitely great progress from beginning
069of year to middle of the year do you set goals then when you want to be at the end of oh yeah we haven't met our goal yet so our goal is to get 80% of our students moved over that's lofty but if you don't shoot High you don't get there yes um in terms of the The Chronic absenteeism rate is there any way to pull out of that what is accounted for by sickness or self-reported sickness from families or so there's that we have we have a lot of vacations at our level um I think that a you know people families have said to us you know we we feel that traveling younger there's less they're missing um while that's probably true when I heard um talking about proofs I started having flashbacks but
070um I I think that the hard part is that when students are getting interventions what we're looking at is oh is this intervention not working we're now also looking at their absenteeism of you know out of 20 opportunities they only had five you know so you know we know that all students are going to be ill flu in that piece but we're looking at kids who are at 18 absences 20 absences like that's more than illness or is there something chronically happening that we can then support students with I guess the vacation like like four or five days like can kind of get for a week but like yeah probably one of the things is um just this you know and this is something that maybe we can always um come back and talk you
071know in form later day too what one of some of the conversations we have in our chronic ASM taask Force conversations but we these are things we wrestle with in the in that room it it's super challenging because in some ways um it's it's a tension right um legally we can't tell you no you can't take your kid right but at the same time we're trying to shift the conversation from saying no you can't take your kid but we're trying to have convers ation around trying to engage families to explain to them the impact it has longterm on the learning trajectory of your child and part of one of the conversations we've been having in that room is that what Co did is that over time I think Co shifted and people don't understand the
072impact attendance has longterm because shortterm kids were out and I think people minimize the impact attendance has but impact has an attendance because over time it impacts your growth so what we see is there is a lot of kids just just like take vacations you know in the middle of the school year right and we do see that um also we've had an inflex over the last three years of we have a lot of kids in and out with sicknesses flu streps that's also too right so we also have a when we're sitting in the rooms we have In-N-Outs of sicknesses In-N-Outs of stress throats um we also have this other piece of doctor's offices who also say don't bother coming in stay home yeah so we also manage that too so it's really complex
073because we also have so there's that there's vacations there's this so we're also trying to figure out what's the right shift of messaging because we also want people to understand that being in school is important and how to shift that conversation right so like it's like all of that have we used any of the Mac I know individual data we can't share but the parents data should help and showing the correlation of ABS ISM to decreased so one of the things that actually has has we started doing is and and maybe I think the schools might share some of that or maybe they could at theend I've seen a lot of the like the schools have started in their newsletter sharing attendance um and if they don't have it today maybe they can share it
074but I've in some of the newsletters they started sharing with parents they're actually putting attendance data in there um and I've actually read some of them where they're sharing like did you know ATT tenance impacts your kids in this way um because one of the things research has told us is that often times parents don't know yeah that information um so we're starting to shift that messaging because like positive psychology tells us that if parents knew more about that impact they might it might impact their behavior MH yeah ARS is in there weekly uh in our in our uh newsletter um and go back to your for four or 5 days out on vacation then they come home and they're out four or 5 days cuz they're sick then you compounded that one vacation into
075almost two weeks yeah gocha it's not one simple answer moving on to Mr com so similar if you click on that that is our detailed um um midyear update with all the categories filled in if you jump to the next slide um as Dr slany did um here's a a summary of everything in each one of the category I am also going to be focusing in on teaching and learning you know when we put these together um we put it together not on an island we put it together with a team so thanks to Brenda thanks to Elsa uh Ashley Ally Emily and Ida for helping me gather all this and throw it in there I'm just the presenter of um the work that we're doing and thanks to our teacher uh for the results
076that we get um you can go to the next slide as Dr slany did um our Focus um again early is our attendance um if you look at uh that two that four that eight those are the students already I have 10 students who are above 18 absences at this time in the year not even reaching day 180 I have probably 63 um that make up that 99.8% um at the top there where our chronic absent rate so they've got you know anywhere between uh that 10 and 17 Mark our goal last year our accountability goal by the state was 8.4 last year and we did meet that goal last year um and we are as Dr slany said we are sending this out um uh once a month uh to families we are sending
077it out on day 45 day 90 uh even if they're a week apart we're sending out the 45 and then the monthly one uh if that's um where where we fall um next slide please um I looked at our mlls um we had a real decline in our achievement last year in our mlls um and so we really wanted to take a dive there um we are actually on average uh 2.4% better uh than we were uh at this point last year if you look at those ranges those are averages they aren't where you know date to dat so we are slightly above where we were last year even though the graph um the nonl graph looks a little bit different it's the average uh of the students uh that were there so we are
078doing better um and it comes from as Dr slany said we have our weekly meetings we talk about those kids who have the high tardy the high absenteeism we have guidance talking to the nurse has that kid been out because they're sick have we done phone calls do we need to do phone calls home to find out why a a child is not coming into school next slide please so we looked at this two different ways we looked at it as achievement but in the next slide you'll see growth and I'm going to talk a little bit about both um we have achieved um uh from the beginning of the year uh until now uh and so we've jumped uh 26 points you you can do the math but 20 I got my math up
079yes 26 uh in fifth grade 25 in 4 and 22% uh going into the meeting and above uh exceeding um and so you know that's great but we also want to focus on who are those struggling Learners and what are we doing there um we have a for we have a full-time 30-hour um math tutor who students who are struggling in math um not kids who are receiving IEP Services these are kids who aren't aren't receiving the IEP Services go down and they get it like three times a week uh in areas that we have found that they are struggling in math is a little bit um tougher uh when you look at um the different um uh remediations uh that you they have out there uh and so it's really skills-based and things like
080that there isn't like a phonics or a a word study or a fluency um but it is practice and so if you go to the next slide we look at growth this is tougher to understand it took me a little while uh to understand it so it if we look at this as a school it shows 50% um 50% is our median so we have 50% of our students who are um above the the hold on I got to read it um 50% of the students are making progress towards their typical growth and so but we also have 50% of our students who aren't at that 50% Mark remember we are halfway through the year so these students should not be at their full growth yet because that'll happen at the end of the year
081however we do have um if you look down below um fourth grade we've got a dip uh and so we've got 26 26% of our kids so 26 that is our median so 50% of our kids are above 26 but 50% are below that 26% remember when you're implementing a new math program there is an implementation dip uh and so we may see dips in growth we may dips in achievement as we go through but this is an area that we are going to dive into um the the next column is how many kids have met their growth so and remember they aren't supposed to meet it until the end of the year um that's the 19% 14% And 32% the next is the Str stretch growth and so they set a stretch growth for
082kiddos who aren't meeting the Ben Mark and so they want to plan out how a child is going to make up how far they're behind so their stretch growth is usually going to be larger uh than a student who may be you know in the middle trying to reach um the meeting and they also have stretch growths for those who are already meeting and making more advanced and so on nationally um only 25 to 35% of students make that stretch growth over the course of a year so if we don't see the kids meeting that that's okay but over the course of a couple years we do want to see them catching up there next slide so here's uh our I ready in um uh reading um 15% in fth grade Improvement 11% in um
083fourth grade and 18 % in um grade three again here is our um nope next one our um our growth here uh higher than uh the math um so 80 86% that means um that is our median and 50% of our kids are above 86% and 50% of our kids are below that um at the halfway point uh in the year you can see fifth grades rocking it um with their uh 113 but I did want to bring in um you know we really want to take a look at our kids who are struggling so I wanted to give you uh a little you know how are our kids in third grade so I don't have it up on the screen but in in third grade we've got 38 kids uh and so if we
084look at the growth rate for our kids in intervention only in third grade they are at 135% growth rate and so they are making some huge gra gains we have um 22 of those kids have met uh the the the goal uh and so we really are looking at those interventions and how we're servicing those kids um our real Focus needs to get into you know what are we doing with the tier one uh instruction and I think that goes into and I'll talk to it in a minute um our curriculum review uh that we're doing uh prek 5 next slide please this is just um one way one of the the measures we do is we do Dibbles uh this is or it's oral reading fluency and so uh a child reads A Passage
085over a period of a certain time uh the the the teacher or the literacy specialist is seeing how many errors they make and and how many words they get in a specific amount of time you can see this is just an average class um in um grade three you can see the Improvement that gray bar is where they should meet uh by the end of the year uh and so if you click on the Blue Link at the bottom you're going to see what our inter intervention classes are doing uh in grade three grade four grade 5 uh you'll see the Improvement no they are not at grade level yet but you will see Improvement uh in those so what are we doing um we are looking at um um the um curriculum review uh
086thank you she's taking care of me right here um we're looking at the curriculum review um we are providing release time for teachers with the math program this it implementing a new math program is not easy this year we actually have some substitutes in the building we can actually release like three teachers at a time to be able to look at in advance what the teachers are doing so that they can bring it back to their colleagues uh for instance Eureka does a slide deck and they put a ton of slides in there but you do not need all the all the slides in there so they pair those down the other thing that we're looking at our um reading and uh math menus during our wind time not every child needs you know the
087intervention that some of those kids need games that that uh reinforce the skills or they need some sort of enrichment and so we're trying to provide um menus for teachers to use and we're providing curriculum time for teachers to create those and we're also taking a look at those at our grade Leader Times um also Jamie said we've had Landmark come in um Ela o Brian is part of our dyslexia um the dyslexia in Institute um and as Jamie said we are also uh a school who has probably done more assessments at this time of the year than we did all of last year um we're in the same boat um and you know we have Elsa and Ashley going into the classrooms modeling lessons um it's tough when you're not used to a math
088program and you're used to doing something else they're going in and doing that uh Elsa's going in uh and um helping uh at grade teams you know the writing scope and sequence and looking at the writing rubric because it's not all about the reading it also has to do with the writing and how kids are responding uh to text and my has been a great addition um so when the kids do the I ready uh they get um put on a my path where the students uh using their Chromebooks um are if we get them on it the the amount of time we're supposed to in a week and that's 30 to 45 minutes in a week then we can see progress It's just making sure that we can get them on there so that
089we can show that progress so that's Miller so the the fact that some students have been absent 18 plus times to this point uh days is pretty alarming um are reasons the same as those in placentino is vacations what what is it some of it's illness um some of it is um really some kids are struggling to get into school uh and so we're working with guidance counselors and working um uh with the parents working with special ed liaison to help them come to school it can be school phobia uh at our age and so it's just and um it's just trying to get them in and making sure parents understand um how important it is and that's why we're trying to send it out weekly and in in our uh uh family newsletter you
090know look you know um this is how many are out that's why we're sending the letters and I think it's starting to click in because I do see some starting to come that or or we we saw a dip and now we see the the students back in school but if the parents don't realize it then they're not on top of it but they're being cooperative yeah okay yeah we're doing it districtwide so it's not like one school is is doing it another one's not so if they have kids in multiple buildings are getting the same letter um one might be really good one might be bad and you you can compare I get weekly progress notes on my kids and you can opt in for it so I opted in anything else from Miller
091yeah um so looking at the I data there's also a lot to celebrate here with the growth too especially those kids that have already met their typical growth halfway through the year which is really exting um but looking at you know the math growth for example it looks like there's 29% of kids that have no growth or very low growth at this point of the year so thinking about all those things that you're implementing kind of unpacking the units with teachers um partnering with the all Learners Network or Landmark on on kind of how we support differentiation and supporting all uh students needs and tier one how are teachers integrating kind of the I ready data alongside at kind of what's the purpose of this upcoming math unit what are the standards what is the
092skills kids need to um Come Away with like how how is the I ready data and kind of looking at that 29% of students with some learning gaps use alongside all those other so there a couple different things there a we've got our PD dat coming up in in two weeks but also what we have realized is um in our inclusion model um we've got a special ed teach teacher to gened teachers and you know we had a lot of kids who were struggling more than and no no it is and so what we're trying to do is we are um we're doing a different model in those teams uh where one teacher might take they might have a larger group uh where there might be a special ed teacher and a gen ed teacher
093uh with the other group who are focusing in on those small group skills that that they need to using the I ready data um using um the the the topic assessments uh that they're using uh and so that's a another area that we're we're seeing but we are changing we've got two inclusion teams that have changed their model because they saw that the kids were struggling uh there and again it is more than just um our tier three kids um it it is kind of the Imp mentation too it's different and and teachers have a hard time giving up what they're used to in that and so that's why we're trying to walk alongside them uh and provide time for them and provide pull out time that they can work on that thank you yeah
094Robert Adams midddle School SCH welcome to the midar up for Robert Adams Middle School um so permanent now do you take credit for the first half or uh it's always a team effort it's always a team effort uh similar to my colleagues you can find a super detailed um outline if you click on that link uh into our uh deep inner thoughts and then this is a this is a highlight reel of those deep in her thoughts and I I tried to put three chunks under each Arch so you can see our heavy Focus but today I am primarily going to talk about Arch two which is our social emotional Wellness um and then Arch three which is our teaching and learning so um the first thing I'm going to take a look at like
095my colleagues is our attendance and um what I did here was I I did switch this is in our data dashboard and I did switch it to um only the unexcused absences so there are some absences that are excused those are um absences that can only be verified with the doctor's note so these are the absences that are unexcused they may be verified but they're not excused um you can see if you look at the sort of graph on the upper right that we are seeing some similar patterns and Trends um to last year because it is a comparison graph um we're eding a decent rate um 95.5% our chronic absenteeism is 99.3% um and we did believe it or not even though we have 1,968 tardies not including Bus 15 for anyone who's wondering
096um we we did improve in our tardies so we do have the district team right the the attendance team um we did decide to send out letters parents have access to power school and we we see a lot of kids with anxiety we see a lot of kids with sleep problems a lot of that is around social media a lot of that is around gaming um and so we're we're trying to really think about how we get our chronic kids to come to school and really approaching those topics with parents um so next slide um this I I tried to jam as much as I could into one slide so I could talk really fast and give you a big picture but there are some things on this slide that are shocking and there are
097some things on the slide that are really exciting um so if you kind of look at the summary on the right first in September of 341 of our 630 students so about 54% of students were on or above grade level um in reading and writing that's half that's where we started so um that's a that's a tough Hill to climb um so this this meant that um we had to really take a look at where we were in the fall when we did our Benchmark assessment withl and then our second Benchmark was in January um in January the number grew to 386 it's a 9% increase in just a few months it's 54 um to 62% the growth shows promise um but of course we would like to do more um but I want to
098point out a couple of things in the data if you look over to the left um the top bar graph shows sort of just those numbers I talked about however if you look right below that um these are the kids that we decided to Target as a scho school goal these are our high needs kids right so we're looking at our e students in the blue our El students all grew half to one full grade level in reading or Ela reading and writing in just a few months that's like almost 90% of the kids 13 kids they grew that much our tier 2 students so these are students that do not receive IEP or 504 um or um multilanguage learner Services 100% of students grew half a grade level to 1.5 grade levels um from
099the fall to January we didn't have any tier three students if you look over to the right you'll see in the yellow orangey color the gened students um made a great to total increase with the highest perc increase in sixth grade 133% overall um our students on IEP made a 23% increase overall across all grade levels our students on 504s made a 24% increase and our low-income students made a 43% increase those are the students we said we would Target those are the students that are showing the most growth all of our students are showing growth though they're all showing growth we have more work to do um if we jump over to the next slide we'll kind of look at math in the same way um in again in September we did decide to
100Target our high need students but that by no stretch meant that we were ignoring anyone else um so in September of 20124 224 of 630 plus students so about 36% of students at Rams came to us on or above grade level only 36% of students which meant that 64% of students were below grade level um by January of 2025 that number increased to 376 that's a 24% increase in just a few months um again if we kind of jump over to the left and we look at those graphs you'll see um the top is what I just talked about go down to where we're looking at the students we said we would we would focus on this year our El students made an average of of half a grade level to two grade levels of
101growth in just a few months our tier 2 students that's 23 students um 100% of students made one to three grade levels of progress and our tier three students made um half a grade level to one Le grade level of progress and that's the Great Stuff um if you look over on the right you'll see um in the yellow uh six 67 almost 68% of gened students made a an increase in their progress IEP students 183% growth 504 students 164% increase and low-income students 100% increase it's hard for us to say we're all going to be at grade level as a school goal but I can tell you that because of what we're doing at our school um not only are we you know we have high achieving kids achieving High achieving things but we
102also have our high need students um being a primary focus and making tremendous growth in both reading and math um where we have to do some work um where we have to do some work in attendance is we have to work with our families and we have to talk about why attendence is important and why our kids in middle school aren't getting to school one of our big pushes that we are working on is sort of our launch of a social emotional Wellness Group um and one of our big Ideas is to have like a three-year series of um parent education speakers um really coming with together with the community to talk about the things that middle school kids are facing today um where we need to work in our Ela and our math is
103continuing to differentiate um we are certainly going to feel the effects of what's happening at placentino and Miller um in Reading I think that a lot of our kids are still learning how to read um just because that's the grade level but in middle school you're expected to be able to read to do some of your learning um our teachers are trained in Orton Gillingham which is great but they shouldn't need to be at the sixth seventh and eighth grade level because that's a learning to read model instead of a reading to learn model so as we continue to feel the effects from the elementary schools I think we'll continue to see a growth in that area um we're growing in math we have big plans in math we are just awaiting a just kind
104of a final decision on which direction you would like us to go in that's what I have thank you questions yeah clarifying questions so for the ISL data when I'm reading this um like looking at the ELA slide um when it says 54% of students are on grade level in September does that mean that a sixth grader is testing at a sixth grade level in September yes so um it's on or above so okay so so that's actually seems encouraging so 54% are coming in with the grade level skills y before at the very beginning of instruction right okay oh okay that's and that's after summer which so how do we address that so I guess is some of that due to the summer loss because I wonder whether what you know we're presenting the
105data from this year what's the year-over year like how are you're starting the year I don't know if you can even track back that far only goes back we just gotl recently right right yeah we did and just to be clear like we don't expect them to be ATL doesn't expect them to be at the end of sixth grade like when we say at or above grade level it means at that time of year as well they're ready to get into the materials right it doesn't mean they're ready to go to seventh grade that's a lot of kids that are really ready right but you know in a classroom where they're heterogeneously mixed and there um you know that's that's a lot of differentiation to do in a classroom um my question uh switching to
106math do 35% ready to engage seeing low I know we made great progress right we almost doubled it um in January only a few months later do we know why that is like why are we starting so low and obviously making up for it in the first that's why we adopted new math programs got it so and we're benchmarking you know we have a new math program um we are using aln we're we're trying to use that like across many schools um our teachers are constantly working together to um you know support students during Rams block we have interventions but if we knew the why we would probably be able to fix it right now we're just um only able to offer supports right we should see that like next or this September that number
107will be improving yeah and I think that's why saw has put so much effort into numeracy development with not only the resources the training um the new tools for I ready and I Exel and then also um you know trying to have more math tutors and then so many reasons why we're doing what we're doing and then and open architect to be able to look at this data in real time so all of this together is moving us already but should continue to move us further everything we're doing right now in math is working awesome I clearly January yeah yeah and then when we look at like that 30% of kids in math and Ela who are not yet on grade level MH you have a sense of what that spectrum is are they is
108it like 30% approaching in intervention needed it's it's fascinating and and which is why it was so hard to condense it to this slide because you can see you can see in I EXL which kid like some kids are just like a day away and some kids are a year and a half away based on the current growth right um some kids are three or four grade levels above um but some kids are just like a half a year above we I can break it down for you further if just and I can get rid of the names but if you just want to see what it can do because that's where teachers are really also making a difference because they can dig into it that way interventionists can dig into it that way so
109it's so it's amazing and it also breaks it down by strand yeah I was just curious inred 30% sounds scary like we can't intervene but in small group for 30% of kids without a lot more stuff but if it's so many are approaching a few kids that are significant that's a whole different and and by being by breaking down by strand you can also say for example if you have kids in an algebra class because they're ready for that math but all they can do everything up until you get to these multi-step equations that include fractions for example right but they could do the multi-step equations that didn't have fractions last week maybe you're identifying a a a lagging skill or a gap those gaps can be addressed in the math lab kind of that
110I was talking about you might need two weeks to go through the the fractions with the math lab tutor and then you're right back into you know Rams block after you receive those interventions so there's so many levels of intervention going on right now it's only going to increase when we add the math lab and remember there can be tier 2 interventions just withl also because teachers can assign a student to specific skills that they they need to work on on their own there's yeah things going on yeah so ISL something that they would be using to identify who would be sent to do the math math lab for we don't yeah I mean it will be we don't have the math lab yet it's all a vision right now um but yes we we
111we'll use more than one you know form of data so but we'll definitely look look ATL because that gives us beginning of the year middle of the year end of the year but it's also like a they jump into the arena every Friday which is a way to get a benchmark and it's also would be a potential way to address what we've talked about with the changing to a full algebra one course so students that didn't get the math8 standards because that wasn't part of the instruction last year in grade seven would have an opportunity to take the math lab um and we may end up requiring it as part of if you want to take that higher level math any other questions for else thank you Mr L he happy to go last okay
112see if they're still awake talk about high school schedule never heard about that W yeah that's the last slide so if you want the uh the uh the all of the goals are are there through that link there uh we go to the next slide um so this is just a breakdown of a summary of of the the goals uh just a quick read there um what you'll notice throughout all of them is there is a lot of work being done um in in finding ways to identify students who need supports identify students who are chronically absent I identify the needs of students um one of things it's hardest to do in high school uh because you're taking all these different classes and all these different levels is to start identifying and then finding time
113in there to to do anything with those students whether that be through through grades or on the social emotional lens so a lot of our work this year has been on how do you actually identify students so next slide um so you can see there with the uh absenteeism that's a focus across the entire District um uh and when you look at high school you can see a pretty good correlation between those who are chronically absent and those who are struggling um in uh in their classes um we are seeing um we've been spending a lot of time um reaching out to families um whether it be weekly for those who sign up or um you know once a month we're trying to engage with families more especially those who are chronically absent um we
114were we were doing great until like the January February bug hit our numbers are so much better but had to put these up but um no so we we are seeing our numbers are getting better um in terms of chronically absent I mean if you look to last year we were upwards of like 15 16% uh which is just ridiculous uh for the amount of school to miss for that many kids so um our numbers are getting better spending a lot of time our APS are doing a lot of great work our counselors are doing a lot of great work in reaching out to families um and trying to figure out what supports are necessary uh to get the students in the door so um and as I said we're trying to offer it's it's
115not the data piece here but um we know that we need to provide more and more supports for our students um our Focus this year has been on some of the uh the areas where we haven't worked in the past which is the school activities we spent a lot of time with our coaches um and our athletes in the northeastern Center for sports um trying to provide um uh training for our coaches in um how to identify students um who might be struggling with different issues um how to speak to students um because they're not all teachers um and so then they see these kids uh sort of raw right on the field or on the court and so we want to give the the coaches uh the ability there and then um train some
116of our our students student leaders um the with the north eastern center for sport as well um in in how to support each other and to create a positive environment on on the field no matter what the parents are doing in The Stance so that was for you Sarah Sarah you doing Sarah it's not Sarah she was Jason my husband it was just one we've all been there so as I said data is really hard to come by at the high school um especially when there's not when there's not like alignment into what every kid is doing um so we are really reliant on mcast um for a lot of understanding which will be interesting this year as it's not a graduation requirement anymore so to see what students do with it but what we
117know from here is that um if you're not a high need Student then you're doing all right um but really our high need students struggle and so we're spending a lot of time with our interventionists um and our counselors and our our um student assistant team in trying to identify these students and then how how to build in um tier one interventions and how to support them um one of the issues that sort of exist on our schedule um having the four blocks is you have four blocks so where do you fit an intervention there and that means it has to be inside the classroom uh so we have to work um so our interventionists going into the class um to support the students and to support the teachers with those students as well um
118so that's really been a high for us and something that we need to focus on um in the building and you know unfortunately we don't have mcast L three or four times a year but um you know in terms of the data piece not because I want MCAT that often but just that that sort of that one test everybody's taken uh to see to see how they're doing across the board um so there's that this is just this just gives us our targets and our growth in area that we needed to grow um for this year this is how the state sort of rates us in our growth and we can see again that it's really our high needs population um with growth across the board that's needed um and our Advanced coursework completion um
119the needs to grow as well um because that's how the state sort of ranks Us in terms of students who are taking um the the AP type classes um and we got like a zero there so we're trying so we we increase that as well if you go to the next slide that's what we'll see um so speaking so looking at this is our first like really full year with EXL at the high school um and so a focus of our staff has been on really pushing out to students areas of growth and so I just sort of put that big mountain picture up there because our teachers are doing an amazing job of of pinpointing where students need to grow and then assigning that out to them um we have um our engagement rate
120which is measures sort of how much students are using it um is is upwards of 95% um and students are using it both at home and at in school um and so we're really seeing a good amount of usage ofl um and then on the uh AP side there and our that sort of advanced coursework um one of the things that we have that we struggle with obviously is taking kids taking the test the AP test uh because it's not required um but so our numbers and this just this is what AP gives us but um we've increased the number of students there this year taking AP classes that and we've made a push for more students to take the exam so asking teachers to focus that as well um because that's how you actually
121get counted um when it comes to AP uh is actually taking the exam not just enrolled in the course itself um we also in order to boost that um are partnering with pltw um which will allow us to consider like some of our um some of our science courses to be considered Advanced coursework because even if you're in an honors chemistry class that's not considered that advanced coursework but if you're in a pltw labeled class the state then all of a sudden decides that you're Advanced coursework um so we'll be partnering with them as well I'm going to assume I'm getting the grant where you know we're going to get it so all right this is kind of wonky because of our schedule again um so you have to remember when students take um the
122EXL assessments you're starting in semester the first day day of semester 1 the last day of semester 1 is the last day of your class for the year so the next time you go so your English class so students that it's why it's weird so some students are in a class then they don't have a the next test and then that's why there's three not two numbers because if you take a year-long class you would have a beginning and then a middle and this is that's why there's three numbers there and they're kind of weird sometimes um but the ones I want to focus there is the the math in in the algebra and geometry what you can see is a tremendous amount of growth um on average of our students um across the board
123um and that just it's just uh speaks what our teachers are doing in the classroom they have a brand new curriculum they're working on uh working with Excuse me and then the the the growth here for these students um and then on the ELA side again this is where it's kind of weird because the numbers are are off uh because they take it at the semester and then they start over again um so what you really want to look at there are the two end numbers that's the the not the actual middle numbers there those don't mean anything um you look at those two end numbers and we see uh growth there but what's really cool there is what what we were looking at before is that our kids are coming in prepared um because
124you look at those starting numbers um you can see that that grade n Ela on average the kids are coming in at 954 so that means they were coming in um really well prepared for that those Ela classes um and then as you can see the grade 10 that there was a little bit more so although they came in starting at 953 so we see a lot of growth coming in with our ninth graders and we see that we have a lot of growth to do with our 10th graders across the board um the reason I didn't break it out for the uh the high needs is because like in 10th Grade we need growth across the board with those students I mean we see that we're not where we need to be with them
125um and when you look across the board our ninth grade um we're actually seeing a lot of great success with that um where they came in so um but ISL has been an amazing tool for us to use across the board for supporting students and really pinpointing the needs of our students and and um engaging that because of the amount of time in the classroom that we have um with them uh this allows them to work on some of those skills that they don't have uh time to do in the class um the other thing we'll be doing withl is every student will be taking in in the spring the Diagnostic in the spring so even those students who didn't have Ela will have so we'll be able to see if there's any regression for
126students in June or May and June will be able to say there's any regression for students who didn't have Ela for that whole semester so I was last so I went quick so the colors represent the colors are different different so I could get it on one I couldn't get on the other for some reason but they're the the different strands within um within and I could not get them to get labeled so um but there're the different strands there that exist within Ela and you you won't believe it but the grammar is the lowest there yeah what do you mean by strands like so it measures out so like when you look at so it'll grammar you have vocabulary you have so all of those different pieces within um the standard strand the standard
127strands thank you um but I will say like I'm really really proud of the the work that the math group has done um in in implementing Ela and the growth that we've seen there throughout um and I think that that's a testament to their implementing of that the brand new curriculum um doing that as a team um and then you know working you through L and supporting our students sorry did I oh you can go no no that's fine did I speak correctly that the high school has had zero tardies this year yeah exactly zero yeah exactly the way that it works in our system it's not a clean tardy system for the high school because we have so many rules and so many things we have to do with it that it does the
128computers don't like us cuz it just it doesn't read it well because there's so many different types of tardies that we have that it messes with it we have lots of tardies I will own it's a high school no we have actually I mean it's this is the first year I will say it's actually um I haven't noticed a line out the door in a really long time for tardies to be honest like um and that was a a huge problem um the aps is spending a lot of time you know working with students in being where they need to be on time um and we put in a few new rules that have helped um across the board including you know that you we don't have as many kids on their cell phones in
129the bathroom uh you know you know just hanging out so um those tardies are down and um sometimes for high school kids a few consequences work and so you know you can come hang out after school in the office for the detention room for tardies uh if you'd like to uh no but we it's actually been um uh just following up I think what we've seen in terms of attendance and tardies is that the follow up with the students um and those conversations and reaching out to families and reminding them of how important it is to be in school and on time do we we're talking a lot about students but do do we track some information for for staff for what to be what attendance attendance attendance for staff I mean we have a
130an online system that does um that data they put their absences in yes okay any further questions I was just confused about the gr 10 Ela so like the two test the two tests that are The Benchmark tests for those class is not the middle one yeah it it's it don't look at that don't look at the middle number okay so it's just the the 953 and 95 yeah and then the other the same thing for 9th grade 954 to 989 okay thank you I know you highlighted that mcast is one grade out of the four and it's only once a year so are there other measures that you're looking at at the high school to better monitor student progress across courses grades yeah so we have so believe it or not 80% of our
131kids get a or B's uh and then you look at the scores and that's it doesn't always align um and so what we're running into right now honestly I'm working with the interventionist is trying to um find different ways to do it because you look at grades at the school which everybody knows grades are now inflated I mean that's just a fact um that we're finding different ways to do it where we find the most um most of our data has to come from our grade books so unfortunately um because we don't have very many measures once you get past nth or 10th grade outside ofl um we do have more more staff using ISL for some of our 11th and 12th grade students but not for all um and so the interventionists are working
132with we're actually they're sending it out on Tuesday of next week um ways for hopefully to um create more conversations with teachers around identifying ways so they'll be meeting with teachers asking for support from teachers and trying to figure out ways that they can identify because also when you think about we have you know on most class you have 90 days so by the time you get your first grades in or the time that kids walking into that class you know you're you're a third of the way through um and so we really have to do do some some work at knowing who's coming into that classroom that needs supports from the previous year we've not cracked that code yet anything else any more questions all right thank the three of you very much I
133guess you're welcome to to to stay though for for the rest of not so fast Mr list you have more to to do so close but but first to to to miss an update on uh student services it's Friday she's only got a few slides here so we'll those up would it be better so we don't have Mr list all alone oh yeah oh come on oh for that one yes or you or you going to stay there and then come up so well yeah I don't need to be up there for that one you get the stud no I know you want me to do that one real that one's quick if you want me to do it no you do that he can go he can go if he wants to go he's
134got two things no I got two but if I'm saying the program studies when it's quick so say just let's go to we got student service quick upd because I know I'm two or three meetings you would asked for some Cent updates on the program that she's been doing with her team okay um so I started off with this great image which I will talk about in a few slides um but I want to give this image credit to Victoria Briggs who's our one of our district bcbas and Laura Ryan um who's one of our OTS that is putting together a community Bridge Project and I think what you I hope what you'll hear from me tonight um is my first two years in this role I really worked to like Al to align the
135practices across the district to get protocols in place processes tightened up across the district and now I feel like now comes the fun stuff um where we're really working on inclusion and we I always say inclusion really is a feeling and not a place so making sure everyone feels included not just saying we're an inclusive District but how are we supporting that and what does it look like um and so I'll talk about this in a couple minutes but I just wanted to give them credit for that and Dan's gone so who's doing the slides oh I've been doing them all night oh I thought he was doing them for all the I like um so I always want to update you and I know um the principles talked a little bit about um the
136the increase in evaluations and and um what we're seeing to be kids that are struggling a bit more and what is that look like and so at the end of every year I always paint the picture for you of the number of evaluations we do versus um the amount of kids that end up qualifying so I don't have that number for you tonight um I would agree with the principles that the amount of evaluations are going up this year for sure um we are not looking at a dramatic increase of kids qualifying for IEPs so what that tends to tell us and what we're looking at and and Dr manard and I work with curriculum Specialists interventionists um is really looking at the tier one tier 2 supports right because we will often see um
137students that are struggling and I feel like we need to continue to grow in the tier one approach so that kids across the district everywhere are getting more support in the General Ed classroom um and that way we're not evaluating just to evaluate um because it is hours of evaluation and sometimes only to discover that they're not needing specialized instruction what you will see is a dramatic increase in 504 numbers going up and that is because we are finding students um who are being diagnosed um and do have disabilities that impact their learning but only require essentially accommodations and not specialized instruction not modifications to the way in which they're taught um additionally um our attorney um has met with all counselors um and really brought an awareness to the 504 regulation that continue to
138change um and so we are identifying more students that are on medical health plans are now also needing to shift onto 504 plans whereas in the past we we would have kids that were a little more medically complex would have a healthc care plan in the nurses office that was you know being followed by Educators now we are identifying them to need 504 plans which follow them um throughout the duration of their life essentially so that's that dramatic increase um the other thing that you know I know Dr slany had brought to the attention to is I think we are getting much much better with our knowledge in the area of reading um in those struggles with dyslexia that our percentage of students that qualify for IEPs under specific learning disability which is essentially um
139by desie um and a medical um diagnosis is dyslexia um are qualifying and we as a district are now naming it whereas in years past or when I walked in the door we really were not identifying those as much as we should have been um on IEP so that I think with our knowledge growing and an overall staff knowledge growing we are getting better at that and giving support earlier so you started to see that progress across the district it was so great to hear um placentino those numbers were getting better to you know Miller was improving to Rams was growing right so it was really a nice thing to see um that the supports we're putting in place are are getting next slide um I did want to just give justification um to why
140or what the impact is on our numbers and my eyes are not great so that's really small and I'm sorry um but I know jerielle talked a bit about um the mental health supports and so an increase in numbers and impact on kiddos that way so we are um increasing more clinical supports through kousis and cartwheel um making more referrals that way um our Pathways and connections Continuum that is our Continuum that supports students with social emotional challenges it also supports kids um who have been hospitalized throughout the school year so when we talk about attendance we have to consider those kids too um so it's not necessarily just Illness but kids that really need extra support that are unable to be in school so those are kids we can't lose sight of and can't
141let fall through the cracks um special education eligibility so we are continuing to feel that I I bring up Co like closing that Gap literacy is a huge area of concern for us and across the state um but really looking at that need for tier one um in all classrooms and I'll talk in a minute just about how we're trying to promote that and help Educators so that they know what to do with struggling Learners in the classroom um and Dr slany talked a little bit about um our drive on that dyslexia and being part of the dyslexia Institute through desie um we're hoping to do a brief brief presentation to you in the spring on our action plan that we have to present in a couple of weeks to desie um that we're excited
142about and what that will look like as it comes across the district um in years to come and then I already talked briefly about the 504 regulations and the impact on those numbers um and then we look at out of District numbers so those are always a continued conversation Dr Jordan and I talked about that at the last budget meeting um but I do feel like we are so far as those numbers are in a pretty stable place you saw on the slide before that they've actually dropped a little bit there will always be that little bit of flux um but I think we are doing a really great job of promoting within and really making our continuums more robust so that hopefully we can bring kids back or keep the kids here that we
143really you know can support in the community next slide they deleted oh it's there I'm not changing my slide J I'm falling asleep everyone um just wait up um these are just ways that we are broadening our approaches to create inclusion for everyone so we are expanding our continuums which is on the next couple of slides I talked about our literacy Partnerships with Landmark um so we are having Landmark we have partnered with them to help rebuild our language based programs so that is grades four and five are really really solid at Miller um and we are growing them in grade six and seven and continuing into grade eight next year um um and then we will look to continue that partnership and see what that would look like at a high school level I
144will tell you I've had a lot of Outreach from surrounding districts that know we are doing this and are asking do you have a language based high school program um so there's the need there um it's getting us to build it um to where we can feel really confident and comfortable about accepting tuition kids into it um our community bridge program so that was the image I showed you at the beginning is going to be on April 3rd um and this is something we're really excited about where we are looking to build um partnership with Community businesses here in Hollis so as we work with our kids in our continuums um that are doing internships and learning life skills out in communities we're we're really pushing them out into communities that aren't our own so
145they are working in mendan they are working in Ashlin they are working in hopkington and for me that would just didn't sit right and I think for a lot of our staff it didn't sit right um and so it's really educating our local businesses on how do we um get them to help support us too understand what our Learners need understand how our Learners can help their business and we can create that partnership um we've just created a great internship at basil that's going really well um so we're going to invite Community Partnerships in we're also looking to increase um students younger students abilities to engage in things like gymnastics art classes martial Arts where it is an inclusive model so they're working with peers model peers and not have not needing to feel like
146I I hear from parents a lot um where their kiddos might be placed in a class just with kids that are like them um because the worry is they're not sure how to integrate in with pair model so working with um local companies to understand that learning that profile and how do we best support them so that will be on April 3rd um and then we just launch launched um an King I'm going to give her tons of credit she is our transition program our 18 to 22 program she is our teacher in that program and she has created what's called classroom Creations it's a new business um and the picture below are samples of things that her students in the 18 to 22 program make um and it's for each season or each holiday
147they Market it to the staff of Holliston and we're looking to broaden that um and they sell them so it's a little business that they're starting up I think if you've heard of many surrounding towns have in their 18 to 22 programs have storefronts candy shops restaurants that they're able to um run themselves um so we're starting small hoping to grow something of more of a larger business storefront in years to come so our continuums um we've worked really really hard to align them so you've heard me talk a lot about um how challenging yet rewarding it was to create um solid descriptions of every Continuum um entrance and exit criteria so we're ensuring that we are um when students are ready to fly they're able to go to other classrooms we call it a
148Continuum for a reason so kiddos don't feel stuck in one program that that's their identity but that they are part of a Continuum where they can e and flow um between classrooms um and Continuum support um go ahead and go to the next slide so these are essentially the descriptions of um we are working to Rebrand some of our continuums because we got really creative with names and then some we we ended up combining um so what used to be our basis Network were two separate programs we've now combined with the support of a bcba um and a special educator um and so in that program which will in the fall be called sore um those are students that are really working on functional academics so they're well below grade level working on daily living
149skills functional academics and are able to um attend unified arts and things they'll go out into the community they'll do internships um and they'll practice their life skills learned in that Continuum um in real world application going to Shaws going to um you know different places where they can practice that our Bridge um really was born from a special educator up here at the high school Amanda matches who saw the need and was the basis Network teacher um but saw that she was having students that had the ability ability um to Branch out of basis Network and receive a diploma a lot of our students in the basis Network program are not diploma bound um but receive a certificate of completion of Hollis in public schools and she was noticing that some of those kids
150almost it felt like they were being held back they needed the extra functional academics but they were also able to if we could provide a really intensive co- teing model um be able to be pushed into um some of those CP 1 cp2 classes cp2 classes essentially um to be able to earn a diploma um over 4 after four years so typically a five-year track could be a six-year track um and so what what came from that was the bridge program um and we have pushed that bridge program model in those conversations with parents down to the younger levels so we're starting to have those conversations about is this the track or the journey your kiddo could be on and if it is um what's the reality of that right so get getting them to
151see that yes your child can earn a diploma but it might take longer than the typical fouryear track and so that's been really rewarding our Pathways connections is the social emotional program um and then we have our language based and our transition programs that are really growing um I'm proud of our transition program um when I came into this role um we were down to about one student that was in that program and now we're really growing that and so so um you know we are going into um 3 to four to 5 next year we will be a really nice cohort of kids in that 18 to 22 program next slide and then last I believe this is my last one for all of you yes um are just ways that I want us
152to be mindful of I know our last meeting here was around budget and um I know that times are can be challenging um and so I just wanted to remind um ways in which I adore my SSA team um my student services administrator they they are all amazing and so we constantly have these conversations about how do we bring costs down um we recognize that special education costs are on the rise Transportation costs on the rise and so looking at ways to mitigate that um having conversations with surrounding districts about how do we tuition in and partner together for um students coming into our continuums uh really a little if Y in that language base from grades 4 to8 what I have found is I'm able to bring back kids um that were in language
153based models out of District so learning preps things of that nature where um I'm able to bring them back and be able to either have them come back um and attend high school or be part of our language-based programs um in our buildings here transportation is a challenge um but we are really consolidating our vendors to get more um fiscally appropriate uh pricing where we can doing ride shairs with other districts um to bring down that cost um and then talking about broadening that transition program so really making that a more robust program so we're not losing kiddos where we do need to educate them up to age 22 um they're able to be in District um and then the last thing we're always looking at is Staff efficiency so really looking at as our
154numbers e and flow whether that's total population um special ed population is how are we adjusting the way in which um we're utilizing staff and placing them appropriately so um we're making sense of what we're doing so with that I tried to go as quickly as possible do you have any questions for me I don't have a question but I do I just wanted to say it sounds like you're doing a ton of really good stuff and I just want to thank you for that I really like the idea of the community bridge program and I think it would be wonderful to have more stuff going on right here in holl so thank you does that include other departments like your community Bridge like other departments in the town as well it could it definitely
155could so what we um and we've done actually Charlotte Porter who works at Rams and and does our basis um network does a lot of Outreach with Holliston Police and Holliston fire so looking to bring them in we've talked about we have a couple kiddos really interested in the fire department so invite we're going to invite them to this this breakfast um there might be opportunities where they could you know help there I will send an invite to all of you you're welcome just to come and listen if you want to and you can um but we're excited about it thank you how many students can you take in the transitions program so it's in the 18 to 22 so it's staff dependent so right now we have um one teacher and one parent um
156so we can take you know six to eight is comfortable profile dependent right yeah so and we could take students from outside the district we could yep we definitely could other questions for eating thank you thank you all right Mr list Mr list sit yeah this is the hot seat no no this is this is the more comfortable seat where you're surrounded my friends and antagonists he's closer down yeah might want your name tag though unless you want mine all right back at it um so this kind of serves two purposes um this presentation um it is changes for the program studies for next year but also the state has required us with the um no mcash requirements to determine what um students u in graduation year 2025 um need to graduate uh the competency
157determination that's what uh students would get um with a certain score on the mcast that's no longer required so the district had to determine what that is so you're getting this presentation as kind of twofold so it it it looks at our graduation requirements um but it also changes our current program of study so it's kind of a two-parter um which don't usually get made this time of year um so what you have this is the current language of the prescribed credits of the graduation requirements um here um and then what not yet when we go to the next slide you'll see that uh we we clarified some language there at the math um to make it U math one credit per year that's because uh most colleges universities um ma core require one Math
158course per year so we had students who were meeting the previous requirements which were um to include one credit junior or senior year so in order to align with mass core um we need to have one credit each year so and it again like they have enough math credits but that we just want to align with mass core um when you look at science um we uh looked at again you have to have a competency determination now so that would be uh passing biology bless you um that would be passing biology class um and that would be that you need a one credit sophomore and then junior or senior year because Mass core requires three lab Sciences uh most of our students take four lab Sciences here um we're very fortunate that that's the case
159um but this again just makes sure that we align um with mass core it also um removes um what says there is that 0.5 science technology engineering credit during freshman year that was the foundations class that class was really created when students were learning how to use all of the technology and Gmail and Google and Google classroom and all that so it's really uh kind of an outdated class and so that's no longer um necessary there um social studies stayed the same um the other thing um we added is um a Civics requirement um this is something that um you heard a presentation on um about a month ago I think now um by Amelia Holmes um as a part of um as a part of the of U Amilia Service Learning class um they
160came to me last year and talked about the importance of civics engagement and Civics learning and um as you look across what states are doing uh there's 28 different states right now that require Civics as a graduation requirement and and more and more high schools in Massachusetts are requiring them as well um and so um you know Amelia did a lot of legwork and working with the social studies Department being willing to come here and speak in front of school committee uh Miss Mills is over there so shout out to miss Mills because uh she makes it happen for those students um and really um empowering them um to affect change um and so uh brought that forward and and that will is being proposed as a graduation requirement for students Civics um additionally then
161the financial literacy requirement again which is something that we know students need um and um when we look at um what's going on across States um across the country and what our state is talking about these are things that are coming down the pipeline anyway um but are also really important for our students to have these skills um before they graduate um and so adding the financial literacy requirement um as well so that is the new prescribed credits um before I move on to the mcast part do you have any questions about the credits okay so next slide so this is the current language of mcast which says that we require an mcast to graduate can't do that anymore um so uh if you go to the next slide um what it now says is
162that it's based on educational standards for students in grade 10 in ela Math and Science um what we did keep in here um because this is the a lot of the data that we do use is that our students are required to take the mcast test so they don't need to get a score to graduate but we are requiring that they take it um because that was a big concern across the board was that we would no longer have that data um because they parents are like I'm going to stay home so um that is still that still would be a requirement it really is the only one of the only tools we have um that really kind of Bas gives us some baseline I know nobody likes it or some people do but not
163a lot of people like it but it is that it's it's good Baseline data and it really does show us um you know where where we need to focus on some of the areas with our kids so but that's the that would be the new language that would go into the current program of studies and um the future program studies no I'm glad to see we're still we're going to require that to that was concern yes how do you ensure that they take it seriously though it's not requirement can't no yeah I mean we we just we let them know I mean that there's important to T the other piece is that the scholarship doesn't go away that students have access to um we have a lot a lot of our students attend massachusett State
164schools um so there is that piece of it um and you know we have to we just have to instill in the students that this is important as a baseline for for for what they know and on top of that they will see what comes out of it are you know they they'll be getting meetings with our interventionists um getting supports built in um and if they're not you know if they're not taking it seriously and and we see that across the board then um they'll be working with our interventionist because their scores are so low but I think ultimately they'll know I mean we will tell them where you know their high schoolers we can be honest with them and tell them that we need them to you know work their best and try
165their best on this test and they've changed it over the years it's not as long as it used to be um used to be much longer our students are finishing it now pretty much in in a in a one period in 77 to maybe 85 minutes so on on for most of our kids so it seems to be getting shorter as well and we don't really know what they'll do with it to be honest um moving forward they haven't really I don't know if you have any insight they haven't given us gu at all we're all waiting to hear next um and then eventually we will need to they they are requesting that school committees make policies around this but we're not there yet some school committees have started that route and they're now backtracking
166a little bit because you know the more premature you do that I think with the state coming in and think might make some more Global changes as well but this would require a vote on your parts because it is is changing the current program of studies as well and the and the future program of studies so when did these need be put in place yesterday no we no no no no we ensure so we know because we can look at our information that we have no students who with all of our students will graduate with the new requirements so it is it just has to be voted on by the time graduation happens um the graduation requirements for next year's program study same thing has to be done before next year so we know already
167that our students all will graduate with just when this is got it and the requirements are for like the class of 2029 which is like next year's freshman yeah so we just we have to we usually typically vote on changes to the handbook like for the summer but doesn't really and program would be part of that but okay any more questions for Mr list on this um thank you moving forward we don't have any policy updates tonight thank you did you want to vote on that or po oh did you want us to well I mean yes that would be ideal agenda it doesn't say we'll just add it to the next agenda yeah we'll have to vote on our next you won't have to be here yeah all right yeah you will be anyway
168scr that we to change yeah two weeks we can vote yeah it's three or no two was Science and Technology all right so uh that's it's called uh we finally got to the central office updates for moving right along I think um I'll save video another time okay there is an intervention folder in your um documents for for tonight please let that over when you looking at or intervention put together data that you had asked for please keep in mind when you're looking at it um placentino and Miller both have established systems in place um Rams redefined their structure and then the high school is just beginning so please look at that and review it and if you have any questions please email me okay thank you thank Jordan um we are uh you know
169we tomorrow we have the msba comes out uh just for kind of that uh assessment that they do uh so it's a all day Affair um myself and um Matt robshaw will be with walking with the msba through uh all four of our buildings um doing the full assessment um of our facilities this isn't this isn't associated with our y or our roof this is I saw the saw the face thank you Don um and uh but this is just msba just takes a total assessment of um our buildings in in all buildings in the in the Commonwealth okay how often do they use with water um this is my first go at it so I'd have to ask Kei as far as like how often what that's yearly or fair enough years um okay
170great thank you let us know if they offer us like $200 million um I plan to you know do my elevator pitch the entire time I'm with them just keep going like just point out all the cracks yeah um all right uh reports from our subcommittees Communications um not too much to report we did do a recap for the last meeting and then I just want to ask do we want to do office hours oh yes we do we do um let's we can do that I have to respond but we can set those afterwards and we can just then publicize them but uh but just a quick note I've been meaning to say that you guys have been doing a great job on those Recaps it's been very helpful hopefully people have been been
171reading them but they're out there but but yeah I appreciate it pa um our next meeting is okay find it um April 1 oh it is April 1 no that's not is that something else something else did we I thought it was supposed to be I thought she sent me invitation did you we did um we have a policy that we'll be bringing out forward next um we reviewed over a bunch of um health related policies recently with Brenda Bon I think we're kind of like at the tail end of that what's that yeah yeah and then we have one about like the lights of commit in field oh yeah oh boy okay just clarify little yeah little more all right um budget budget we had a meeting today um going over uh expenditures so
172far for fy2 uh we talked about the operational capital budget for fy2 6 um including you know we'll do another update um next week we have our next budget meeting on March 6th um and uh see uh going over any changes since we we had um budget part one part two and part three right because that came out as early as what November and December for parts 1 and 2 um but again our next meeting is um Thursday March 6 at 4:30 30 and our continued goal is to at least have something to present on the 13th and then with a vote on the 27th would be ideal yes and then the budget hearing and then we go um so we're anticipating meeting next week and probably an additional one before the the general meeting
173on the 13th correct all right supero um we met on Wednesday Wednesday getting confused with post yesterday was it yesterday we met yesterday and we were just reviewed over where we at with mid year and um I'll be resending out to folks in the next couple of weeks the um rubric and the evaluation so that we can get started on it um we were trying to map out like a timeline which I'm going to forward to you in terms of like where we're looking at to get um everyone's evaluation back and time for us to be able to vote on prior to the next committee coming which would be like I think it's the 15th of May is our last meeting before um um election day so that would be the goal so be more
174like wanting it a couple of weeks prior to that if at all possible but I'll be sending that out to you guys next week all right so that is the end no um all right so uh moving on to Old business the high school Bell's schedule calar could you well in a minute maybe second but we can um maybe bring up just part what was part of the presentation from last just to show what we're considering so um from the last yeah last meeting okay um so before we We Begin this ation we we did get a few notes from from the community um let say they were kind of mixed on the the idea there was definitely some concerns and and hopefully we' got some got Mr list with us today and hopefully you
175can answer some some questions that we have just to kind of get a better understanding of what you know the impact of the AP schedule would would be um but just as a reminder sort of how we got here you know obviously the the subcommittee that was formed as part of the Moa uh did make a recommendation at the end of last year um it was uh within the timeline of the mo MOA um and it went to ratification the school committee ratified that contract and unfortunately the hft did not ratify that contract um in the meantime we have uh the neas report as well as an equity audit that and just general conversations and you know understanding and knowledge of the situation at the high school uh that clearly demonstrate significant issues um and
176inequities and problems with our current schedule and so um you know due to some issues with the way that the the the subcommittee uh I guess the recommendation of the subcommittee was handled while we you know are going through the unfair Labor practice um process um which is going which could you know take some time we have to consider what is in the best interest of the students of of hollison um just as far as you know some backstory you know the ab schedule has been a a theoretical sort of option forever but also it was you know first brought up over a year ago um this is not something that's that's brand new um and um while it may not be the the ultimate ideal schedule is in my opinion anyway a step in
177in in the right direction and toward addressing some of the the issues that we have have have identified to REM these multiple reports so um this is not my ideal place to be but it is a place that we are at because we were not able to have a you know have a ratified schedule uh through the subcommittee process yet um I would anticipate that regardless of how tonight goes uh that the subcomittee will continue to do its work and that um there's always the the opportunity to to come to to an agreement and go to a different schedule eventually but for now the options that we have are are status quo where we know that there are issues or um this AB implementation of the current schedule which to be clear is the current
178schedule it is just a modified um implementation of how the courses are are offered so despite how we talk about it I mean whether we say AB schedule or versus current schedule I mean it is it is the current schedule um with just alternating days to provide for yearlong classes so with that um we have Mr list here uh we've had the opportunity to speak to to community members over the period there is a there was a a document that was put out um by the hft um I think there was also some uh some it was also advertised um and so where would we like to go from here can going through the the I we just could bring up yeah for right now okay so Mr list a lot of people had had
179a handful of people have discussions with obviously a bunch reaching out General consensus is the current schedule is not optimal the very least the very most it's awful um and I believe it's our job to bring positive progress right improve the you know the education for students um through multiple ways this is a step in the right direction but a lot of feedback as it relates to this is this seems really fast right if we go back in time in the timeline of things by the end of December we're talking about one schedule this got introduced third week of January maybe a month ago and I get and one of my questions last time was when was this last discussed and it was a year ago so it has been contemplated but now it's being
180considered as reality in with the feedback of was this done too swiftly what is your confidence on executing this appropriately knowing any schedule even the current ones going to have issues how do you feel confidently executing this in the time frame that we have I mean this as as Dan said before this is is it's our current schedle um so it's feasible to implement fairly quickly um just just because it is the the current schedule so it it um you don't there's there's nothing really that changes from how we're selecting classes or um kind of building in a way it's it just is the you take our current classes and you take term three and slice it and put it in every other day you know so um feasibility of pulling it together that yeah
181I we could yeah I mean it's feasible to do how would you rank that feasibility like high confidence versus when you say it's feasible everything could be feasible but commun is confident we're not voting on something that we're going to vote on it and if it goes in the yes direction we can't do this so I would say that not everything is feasible so if you like if you look at like a a complete shift to a new schedule I would say that's not feasible this is do this is a doable option for because it is the same schedule with a minor shift or similar schedule to what we have today I mean it's this it it yeah I mean it's schedule as I said if you just splice the days it just you you're
182literally just throwing the other class from like third term into the middle of the classroom first term that's at yeah so it's um yeah can can you just explain again how this AB schedule impacts Bandon course so if you scroll down keep going right there I guess I nobody can see if I go in point right nobody can see if I point anything right nocker I think so uh so if you look at this right here um what day in time so if you see where it says elective One A Day 142 303 and then semester 2 142 303 so that's just saying you can have a year long Ive in that version and so as you go down to the other sample schedules because they represent sort of different iterations of what our students
183would take anytime you see like the elective one elective one I mean you that's that's a year-long elective so that's something that runs every other day for the year so that's that's where like a band or a chorus would fit in right so the where it's elective one on a day first half of the year and then elective one on a day on the second half of the year that means that they'd have every other day the whole year long they' offer music during that block whereas sometimes now kids are only getting it well they only during okay and is the ab schedule provide for year-long math so yeah so so this is this would be um a student who's taking one math class um this version of a schedule so that bday if you
184go down uh let's say this is like a freshman a sophomore somebody who wants to take multiple math classes so that a day bday so that's the so in semester one term one that's the that would be the same math class that you're do on a day and then bday so if you're looking at like a one part one you're taking that a day and bday and then the second semester it's like algebra one part two a day and b day so in in this sample schedule this student actually is only taking seven classes at a time or actually SE six classes plus well this so it's only because you're doing math it's the same math class right so you'd only be taking seven classes six isn't it well well at a time you'd have
185yeah yeah you wouldn't have eight at a time right seven at a time correct right right you you'd have eight over the course of the the year because the math would switch to a different math class for the second half year yes yeah yeah but it would only be seven at a time but for some for like right now we talked about how freshman year they do alra one part one and then they do alge one part two so theoretically they're having alra one which is still two years that but it's going the full year right so it's still it's the same model really as we do right now for the math at least and there have been a lot of questions about eight class schedules um you know there seven eight it's more than
186the sort of the four the time that we take now um but just help me understand because there there are only so many core class class or is every CL is the work required for every class that you would be taking the same time the same I no it would depend on I mean in in any schedule you have you're going to have different um requirements I mean right now we have some kids who load up on their like core classes in one semester so you have like four heavy you know in one semester in the next semester you could take you know some electives um if you scroll down to the following schedule one more with like even something like this this is it's it's not eight because um again you have like the
187aps that meet twice to make that's that third term that's that extra that's that time that's missing so that this student that that where it says AP science that's like AP Bio AP Bio in term one um so more functions it it again this this is um this is our current schedule just in an a day so you have so you're you're you're taking those AP classes so that this student is only um doesn't have eight classes so it's five it's five different content areas and want elective in this model right in this model so in this model for term is it term one and term two their AP you know bio for example would be meeting every day MH okay and then in term three and four meet every other day then meet every
188other day okay which would be the equivalent of the current model which is three terms of consecutively okay but just because it's an elective doesn't mean that it doesn't have it's not academically rigorous no it depends on the El no take Marine Bio class and that's a rigorous class it's you take the anatomy class you take yeah you're choosing that so that mean you you have flexibility to make those choices so if you have a heavy core class load that that you know that year you can also you could not maybe take a heavy elective versus in MH right there's been a lot of feedback on APS I know we said this a few times I just want to make sure everyone's myself included everyone's clear today's model you have three terms of an AP
189but it also means you may have a gap between ending it and taking the test right most of our APS yes okay in this model they will get three terms worth of material in really a year and leading right up to the test they so fully transparent there are the three terms so that meets if you just do the math on that that's 135 says it's it's a 90 plus 45 y so it's 135 times that they would meet okay yep i' have to do the math on this really quickly so you have the 90 to begin with and then you have every other day in the other term so you'd be doing 22 and A2 after that so 112 and a half like that would be third term plus you have fourth term it
190depends on when your AP test is actually so you're talking about like 120 125 depending on when your AP test is versus 132 12 days but there also there's also more time added on to each as of next year that's four minutes per class so they'd be getting additional time overall throughout the year so you know it's hard to it's kind of comparing apples and orang but I mean so you're right so you like in any yearlong schedule in any yearlong schedule when you have APS there's a gap there's not a gap there's a cut off at the end right because the AP tests happen between first week in May and the and the end of the second week in May so you're always going to have that and then you have the time after
191that that exists when you're in that AP class but the exam is over just like with mcast or anything else there's more content that so there there's there so any any yearlong schedule that's going to be the case where you have this gap or not Gap where you have these other the class that runs Beyond continues continues beyond the test itself um and you figure that you know that if your exam is just on average May 10th because it's between sort of like May 1st and 20 15 16 depending on the year um so you figure you have that between then and and June those days when the class would meet you do have some AP classes that only meet term three and four currently right we have some of those we have some that
192one and we have some that one and two yeah so it would help a little bit with that as far as they would be meeting all year yeah I mean yeah I mean any yearlong class I mean that's like in any schedule that's developed with year long um it's going to write you're going to have that be a part of it um where you have these classes beyond the time of the test itself so I like visual a lot so 12 days roughly 15 hours total difference roughly maybe even a little yeah i' have to do the exact math but you figure if the average test on May 10th and there's you know again it's like depending if you have seniors who are in the ABS they're done by the third week in May so
193like they're yeah not missing any I mean and AP I mean there's a lot of Juniors I know and even sophomores but take AP primarily I I think the concern is and thank you thank you for walking through that the concern is you here 3 to two you think you're losing 45 days the honest answer is it varies but we're talking a couple days potentially and at least you have continuity leading up to the exam so there's there's benefits and considerations to have but overall to me that sounds acceptable if not positive Mr list can you kind of describe with the ab schedule the impact on IEP needs what does that look like under this schu okay so it really depends on the grade level of the student um what they're taking um again with
194what our current students do is they have um IEP Services during dsb or during a given class period every day for a term a semester of the year in some in a schedule like this for example if this if this student with with the AP had IEP Services they could still have them during DSP they could also have them where it says elective one and two all year for a period um so if you go the schedule above you go up one schedule um this was sort of a very sort of restrictive type schedule like if this student wanted to take band or chorus that would be elective one you have to have specialed uh supports in there IEP supports so that could be during DSP um the again because we're using our our it's
195an it's an exact iteration of our current schedule this would be like a like say a freshman who's taking a one part one a one part two for a one part one part one and part two and part two for the semesters um so it would it would I mean again it's it's an iteration of our of our current schedule I mean it's it's so it would operate in the same way um the difference with IEP Services when you have this yearlong option is that like if you look at if you go to the schedule above that one there as you can see those electives that exist so in this case the student could have IEP Services where it says like elective one vote times but if they wanted to do bander chorus on that
196bday where it says like elective two it's the same time as elective four so it could go all year as well so you know the the the benefit um for students overall on any year-long schedule is the availability of um any anything that has a yearl schedule is the availability of taking electives with um Support classes as well what what kind of an impact would this AB schedule have on class sizes if any I it it's the same schedule so that it's our same class sizes can I just especially as we have this sample schedule up you answered before about you know uh incoming freshman um Algebra 1 part one algebra um one part two but we come in at different levels so when when someone comes in as algebra 1 part two and then
197like the honors geometry class what would that look like it would look like the one below look like that okay meaning they'd have math every day y um all year long yes because that's the track they would want to be on that student okay so in this uh because our sorry just because our freshman and sophomores take ma two full years so so this document that the HF put out they have a bunch of other schedules were those schedules considered by the um by the sub I haven't seen that document but so the block schedule Z block a super block schedule a 5 Day schedule five period Day schedule yes yes those were yeah okay and so you these were evaluated yes by and they did not have the support of the sub committee so
198I mean yeah I mean those were those were looked at I think um when you look at the goal of the subcommittee was to um ensure continuity um of of classes um especially in you know the math World Language but the continuity across the board um access to Bandon chorus um ensuring that Equitable access to for um equable access for students who have IEP services to classes into dsb blocks um and so uh those were talked about but ultimately fall short in being able to answer en able to to accommodate those pieces so if you took like a five period schedule you you can't I mean it's our if you look at like a current schedule just add a period to it you can't actually fit everything you want to in there to to uh
199solve the problems that this current schedule has it it'll it'll answer like one of the problems but not not there are there are other schedules that um address more of the issues that that were brought up but I just want clear me the subcomittee Met what 10 12 times 30 plus hours and these schedules were considered and and were these schedules also looked at by the Power School consultant or the the expert if you will that was brought independent expert that was sort of brought in to to look at different options uh yeah I mean we asked the we asked the power school consultant to focus on specifically super block um and the five block right the five block five uh those five day schedules that's like we sent the schedules that the um were
200brought forward so those were where the the focuses on the schedules that the hft had brought forward um to the subcommittee and and what did the pow School consult say um the super block schedule was not a feasible schedule um the other ones are are feasible schedules they just don't address the issues that that we are looking to address I mean that that the concern was that would be a schedule change for schedule changes sake but then wouldn't address any of the concerns that we had in the first place speciic driving a schedule change which specific concerns would that potential schedule not address so you have so you can if you add another period right you can say okay now there's another period so now you could take band in that period year long but
201then what do you do about other classes for continuity okay there um where do you put like where the specializ Education Services live within that so it it kind of like creates other like another period it just it doesn't actually address all of the issues it IT addresses like one of the issues out of time time for a kid but doesn't address multiple issues within that same schedule and and so just walk me through a little bit um because you know there's seven eight Peri eight class schedules um what are the benefits of an eight class schedule versus a seven um so if you just take a look at a Core curriculum for a student like what you know the the average student is taking it's it's English Math Science Social Studies World Language that's
202five courses you have to take legally you have to take PE and that leads you with like a period and a half let's say for for electives um if you throw a special ed in there that leaves you with like a half a period for electives possibly um if you throw a band in there that's that's your elective I mean and kids want to do that um one of the things that that's a seven period That's a seven period but if you look at what we offer to students and what we offer to take um we we have a lot of great electives we have a lot of great you know uh opportunities for students and so when you have the the eth period you kind of open up opportunities for for all students um
203seven gets the job done like a seven period schedule gets the job done um eight just opens up more kind of avenues and opportunities for um for students especially with those with the most restrictive schedules I mean that's I guess one of the things that I I've heard since moving to hollon is that uh we do have a lot of choices but our current schedule sort of limits the ability to actually access them because of the way things are set up and so I would think that you know based on that you wouldn't want to I mean you know the seven period schedule would certainly then limit that well and they would potentially open them up more if implemented in a different way right one of the most restrictive Parts in our current schedule one
204of the reasons again we have to look at is that the one the ter classes are one term one term two term or three term so when you start to put that puzzle together it doesn't really work um and so what you end up with is um a lot of students who actually it looks like there's a lot of choice but there actually isn't a lot of choice because of the structure of the schedule which is you know that's a well-known thing I mean our counselors have all you know spoken you know shared that um that you know a lot of students even though they request a lot of classes they may not get they don't get those classes um because just of the the way the schedule is structured like if they're taking APS
205two APS three terms long that leaves them term four for any in term one they can't even have that right and so just to be clear because in this in this again this this egpc sheet it says that the ab schedule would increase class sizes in AB schedule though the ab schedule here is just our current schedule so it's so it would not increase class sizes we'd hold the same number of classes and I mean in the same number of yeah it's the same offering same yeah under the ab schedule with the dsb would you be able to take Bandon course during dsb would there be that offering anymore no that would fall into the elective period okay the only reason it's in dsb because that's the full year model and the music they it's
206the only option right now right so here here of course becomes 1/8 of your schedule if you take it for the year whereas right now if you have class for the year it's one quarter of your schedule um and so do we have students now that are are not doing abandoned course because they don't or have something else during dsb or want to do other things during dsb that that they feel like they don't want to give up to do Bandon course so we I mean we we have I think what Bandon course run into a lot is that the that students have to choose to you know go somewhere else um instead of going to bander cor so like they need extra help they have to go and get the extra help they need
207to make up a test they go do that I mean that's one of the issues that no matter what schedule we were looking at we needed to address um was uh how to free up dsb to actually be a space where we could provide um support and intervention for students uh and that's that's any schedule that we were looking at that was one of the goals of any schedule yeah I think uh Shan Doo was kind of really clear on that as far as the ability to to build a robust band and chorus program um you know the it being in dsb was limiting but that was the only way to have it year round um so building a schedule that could get it into uh into a period um and be able to have
208that over the course of the year you know I think we've seen some good additions with um Miller and the middle school as far as building the program the size of the program um I think we're building some steam there uh and to be able to you know start with some continuity of a program within band I think we see great progress in the future and I have actually had students come to my Round Table meetings and tell me that they've opted out of Music even though they love singing or know other classes because they can only get it during that so just to sort of because we've kind of hit on some of them but I want to just what issues that we've identified does the ab schedule address and then which ones does
209it does does not address so as a committee um we looked at continuity of classes year long so IT addresses that aspect of it um we looked at the uh Bandon chorus issue and students being able to access that and then accessing um supports within dsb um so IT addresses that um for the most part IT addresses the special education um concerns about when that operates during DS the right now it's like during DPN period but because of the like the schedule I showed there like if a student wanted to take bander chorus then like that yearlong elective that the dsb be would be where it would fit the um special ed services um and again like that so that's that's an area that it doesn't fully um address um again that's like when you
210look at like a seven or eight period schedule if you do a seven period schedule you'd run into the same kind of issue because if you want to offer electives in a seven period schedule that support has to fit somewhere um in an 8 period schedule you have more flexibility um I miss what else am I missing um oh I mean just even uh by having more options in a day or within um that that rotation um of the a to the B uh you have more opportunities for all students uh especially students who have more fixed schedules because there are different services or things that they need to to meet and that includes kind of um our L Services as well um so this provides just kind of increased increased elective opportunities and flexibility
211within the schedule to to schedule for that and so the what doesn't it address uh it doesn't address the the length of the class period um we we talked a lot about students and you know this would be 81 minutes like our current schedule um so it it uh is is that's sort of one of the main concerns that um it doesn't really address at all because it would keep the class length at 81 minutes does it create any additional issues I think the only I mean it's not really issues if if it's our current schedule right so if it's our current iteration of our schedule it doesn't create issues if you if other schools that run this type of schedule they would do like math wouldn't be every day so that would then create
212issues for us because then we would the the math program would slow down for many of our students um but in this iteration it it doesn't really there's no impact there um as I said um Frank's question about the AP there is you know I know that's been a concern about there are a few there will be a few less classes overall being transparent about that um because the AP class ends the AP test happens and the class goes beyond that um except for the terms except for the term ones yeah and it goes up until the test I mean again there's tradeoffs and any um that that exists um really the the only types of schedules that really answer all of the questions that we put forward or all the issues that were put
213forward by NE ask and Equity audit and by the committee are are either like the seven per the seven or the eights that's the only thing that can do it with year-long options um it's the only really way to to address those um those issues and so and just finally for me at least anyway if if we were to vote tonight to uh to adopt an a iteration of the of the current schedule um would you be able to very quickly go through an inventory any uh Supply and material needs that that would be needed to to do that so that we can make a capital request for them I think one of the issues is there there may be additional costs I think that the numbers that were thrown around seem incredibly uh High
214to me just based on sort of what we do spend on supplies but but they would still be Capital right it wouldn't this would not be coming out of our budget our operating budget this would be a capital request for the town the town spends over two2 million a year on Capital uh so even if it was $50,000 it's it's you know not insignificant but it is not you know off the chge sort of yeah I mean any any yearlong schedule will have some cost to it um when you talk about um like hard textbooks we've moved to a lot of ours uh a lot of what we have our licenses so so those are those exist and those are we have enough of those uh consumables those are those exist either way because if
215you're taking like there's students who take the art classes first ter first semester and St take a second semester so you know you still have that um you know there will have to be some cost and I I would have to dive in to look at what what those would be um but I i' have to get back to you on what those are but You' be able to dive into them and and get yeah I mean that would be any as I said any schedule movement at all we'd have to with year long we'd have to look at that yeah yeah I mean I I I would work with David with what their current Supply budget is for those different departments we look at past expenses where like whole class sets of things have
216been built in into the existing schedule and how that flows cuz it's not it's not moving to an AB is not doubling the supply budget it's it's it's a percent a percentage it's already used to replace for replacement costs um so it would be looking at a based off of past expenditures and that need um what that what that would mean as far as an increase in a one-time Capital request okay but we'd also be meeting with the Departments just to I mean there there's probably certain departments that are impacted by this more than others like for example English if we needed to buy additional books because we have all of the kids taking it at the same time they're not going to trade off their books on Tuesday or Wednesday but ALS so it
217could be impactful to some of the AP science classes where they have um you know they're modeled after a college science lab which takes 3 hours we don't have 3 hours um we have 80 minutes so it it goes beyond one day so we just want to make sure there's materials yeah but you'll consult we have to go through each department and look and see what expenses would would be required yeah and I I feel regardless if it's this schedule or another schedule for moving toward yearlong classes and and we're in towards a capital purchase that that meets those needs I think any future schedule would also could address that similar to that but a bit different the community a lot of folks have some questions specific to their student schedule their own schedule that
218haven't been able to get dancers on and I think to the dismay of our students the hft imposed a ceas and assist to have any discussions on a schedule so is there commitment from you Mr list If This Were voted on today you would initiate those conversations to answer their questions yeah I mean a part of any schedule even even a tiny shift of anything that impacts the students you have to have lot thoughts of conversations around so yeah we need to yeah open up those those Avenues of conversation to be able to uh let people know how different how it impacts their them their child can I go now been waiting um so we know that a more preferable schedule exists because it was voted on by the subcommittee and obviously this one differs
219from it in a number of different ways the number of classes the the time of each class I'm I'm really concerned about from like just even the equity perspective um for students who may be struggling that that were adding from going from a 77 minute class to an 81 minute class which I think for students who may be having a we're trying to address some of those issues by making shorter classes so students can attend to that because that's identified as an issue and now we're going to add four more minutes to the class I don't feel like that makes a lot of sense to me um I know that we have a schedule that we preferred and I would really love for us to have been able to move forward to try to work
220out the the issues that we have with hft over that schedule um whatever they may be so we can work it out with Fidelity and then implement it if that doesn't mean that we don't implement it next year that we implement it the year after so we can work on all those issues pardon me did you vote against that schedule it it doesn't matter how I voted for it at this point right if we don't move to an AB schedule is it correct that the current block scheduled next year would also have 81 minutes per class yes yes yes it would so either way well we don't have to make it into the class do we we don't have to add that 15 minutes to the class absolutely do we can add it to dsv
221instead we can add it to lunch if we absolutely made a commitment to the community this would instructional time so I'm just I'm just concerned that that we're and in addition to that we have a new curriculum a new data dashboard new school star times I'm just concerned about the bandwidth to implement all of these different issues all at one time and that I think is legitimate and so I'm just expressing my concern about it I don't know how we address any of that um by pushing a timeline that we artificially created I I hear the change is difficult but I also you were with us when we heard from the nas report and also the equity audit and the issues with limitations on kids of access and services not being able to be part
222of Bandon chorus we've heard from um parents and families U students in the that would like to see music be part of um you know a regular embedded elective uh that goes full year I think you know and I agree with all of that I'm just I I agree with all of that I'm just saying that if we can take a pause to figure out whether that makes sense for us to work through so we can have the schedule that we want rather than the schedule that we're well first of all when not giving up necessarily where the subcommittee is still going to continue to do its work but second I do need to push back on on this sort of because it's a it is a sort of something that people talk about and
223has gotten sort of prevalence into the community these are artificially you know created uh deadlines this was part of a collective bargaining agreement that was reached during negotiations with the hft it was it's you know obviously you've been part of negotiations it's very complex you know this was not just something that we unilaterally decided as as deadline saying that we agre to that but it's just still but it was part of of broader conversation part of broader negotiation and agreement so I think that you know yes they they are deadlines but it was not it's not just you know sort of random it was part of a negotiated process and and I think the why behind it is important to I mean it was with collaboration with our administrators and also during those negotiations because
224we wanted to make sure people had ample time to work through implementation the the uh the pieces of this and I think you know we started this this discussion with Frank asking um if this is feasible if we has enough time to implement it um 6 months before the plane takes off um but more importantly you know after a vote like this we need time for Mr list to be able to communicate um to students families um answer questions start putting this together too right so it this would be 6 months away we typically try to get feedback a more feedback from the community before the problem is I understand which is another another problem canot do that and to be fair to him like he's not not doing it there are other groups that
225have put holds on that and that's the problem and to be I I agree this is a lot of stuff that we're doing but there are a lot of things that need to be done and I think that the communities recognize that that there you know that we have a great school system but there are many areas where we need to do better and there are many areas where we have potentially you know slipped a little bit and so there's a lot of work that needs to be done and you know to to slow playay it doesn't do our students any any any good either the best way to put it too I think Mr L said it at least six times I can't this is our schedule with minor changes so we're talking about
226a I don't want to use minor major it affects everyone a little bit differently but with the least amount of disrup Ion with positive change that's important to me right like we're not flipping things over and saying okay this will be positive change while everyone's being disrupted it will be the minimal amount of disruption and what we can do with the confounds that we have right cuz addressing the fact this is not our ultimate schedule we can't get to our ultimate schedule right now so this is the best we can do and there's and I love the question what does this give us and what doesn't this give us does not solve for the class L time neither does our curent schedule but what it does bring us is access to full year classes it
227brings us access to Bandon quarters brings us better support for IEPs it brings us to an ability to teach our kids all year long the same subject um that that's what we should be circling around I think the continuity of learning is a huge that's huge just think about it in your normal life if you're switching between things you forget things even if you're not seeing the same teacher necessarily every single day you're seeing them for the entire year yes you're able to go to them for dsb as often as you as you need because you don't you have to choose whether you want to do well that's DB will now have dsb can actually be used for DSP who get support but now it's jumbled up with five different things when I look at
228our school and our French immersion program and the amount we we really have tried to emphasize language um were one of the schools where you have it Pleasant you have it all the way up right that's an emphasis but then you get to the high school and the things we about learning loss over the summer are Amplified you know if you've ever watched a kid go through this High School who has a language based learning disability and doesn't have take a foreign language for an entire year and then gets put back in there I I really think we're leaving them behind in that aspect um so and the same thing with math if it was best practice we would tell our fifth graders they only need to study math for half a year right but
229we don't do that but what we do do is when it's critically important in your sophomore year or your junior year as you're taking SATs as you're taking these higher level science classes you often may go an entire year without math and I think that's unacceptable I think we we heard it was unacceptable in the ask and and uh Equity audit reports and I think we need to do something about it um so I don't know how many minutes we've been talking about this but it's felt like it's a good amount of time um are there any more questions for for Mr list you'll feel they need will this require more planning time for the teachers to implement so the contract um requires 85 minutes planning for teachers on on inag so we would do
230the same amount of planning regardless whether it's an NP schedule or a current schedule exactly yeah and that's all determined by the contract so the if you if you look across different schools are teachers have a a good amount of planning time no I know but just in terms of preparing if they're now teaching their course load is going to be different now there there may be some that need to have um you know some discussions with with the egyp about the implementation of this and is is there a possibility that some sort of there impact bargaining is there's a potential that there could be some time of some sort are people ready to vote on this Pro generally I mean I I have a I have a a motion if we ready to to
231vote uh to implement uh the ab uh model okay so I entertain a motion to uh ask Dr Kusa to implement an AB Model at the high school um the the current hon high school schedule uh subject to any bargaining obligations that we may have so second okay all in favor we go we go Frank oh start I would like to see a commitment of a plan to communic so that has been a huge gap with the community and if not again looking at Mr list CU I think he'll be in charge of it obviously the hfts did not allow that up until this point if this passes but really need a plan and making sure everyone's questions are answered this is a change for the community it's change for our students they need to
232be communicated too um and if this vote allows us to do that with the Positive benefits I'm a yes okay so just to be clear qualify yes a yes for the Frank votes yes Hillary yes Joe yes Sarah yes okay no Cynthia no done yes and I am a yes carries 6 to one um please let us know if there's anything that we can do to help support you um and this has not been the way I was hoping it would play out but uh here we go now on to easier [Music] topics Dan it is 103 it is it is 1013 um I'm not I'm not it's it's the Middle School uh leveling discussion um I I guess I'm sort of at a at a loss a little bit of what sort of the
233next steps would be because we we it feels like we're we're not in the same place as as as as you guys are um and then we have two different math groups one last year one this year that have come to different [Music] conclusions and I guess I'm I'm trying to figure out what the path forward is I I you know um Kathy and and and an you know mentioned uh you know potentially some sort of subcommittee uh that we could form um which does make a lot of sense to me we would I would we would absolutely need to have you know Administration included in it heavy math teacher inclusion in it I don't know if there's I mean I would want to know before we did this if there was interest um from
234those people we also have a number of community members who have you know strong backgrounds in math and and school committees Kathy being one of them [Music] um what do people think about about something like that it's it's it's a big de decision in a sense of that you know if we form a subcommittee it becomes a an open meeting law body that's a big sort of downside to it publicly posted just like we did with the the star times um but at the same time I think that you know it would give the US the ability to sort of get a a better we we can't I mean I don't know how I mean you know people can just say just implement the Desi you know model and I I don't I'm not qualified
235to even know what that means um I'm not a LW then but I think we need to get there was a committee the teacher committee right we had together there's math there was a math curriculum Review Committee last year that had teachers and administrators F how many Math teachers were on it and how well you had some like Elementary School teachers who taught everything yeah I mean I think we need to have the I've heard bunch of well qualified Now comments and they all seem to be United mostly I mean there's definitely details probably that are different I think having a community involved to to give input but I do I think in this case unlike St times where we wanted to get everyone's kind of almost equally we need to lean on the expert
236approach here like they're the ones teaching it they should know what's best for our students um and how to administer that the only thing against the subcommittee would be would that message Get Lost based on people's opinion because I want levels or I don't want levels I think we need to take more of an expert approach here no obviously we we need the experts people that will be implementing it doing it yeah but I guess the conservative sub commit unless selected properly I know it's properly or improperly actually it's selectively chosen in if it's too much of a differing group of community Administration Lees you're going to get a difference I trust me St times and that was a little more agnostic that was well I think we would look for for Math teachers and
237then community members who had meth okay as long as we have that provision I I would agree I think out of I'm hearing I'm hearing the experts I think we need a more Collective voice and more details obviously drawn out I agree with you Dan I need their input can I just talk kind of timeline wise where we are um because teachers are very anxious we've talked about all the curricular changes that have happened they're doing a great job implementing we're seeing Pro significant progress we're moving in the right direction we know we have work to do and math was discussed particularly with the middle school tonight we know that and we agreed um that alra one is happening in e8th grade for next year we also know that grade 8 math will be happening
238another level of the same level of grade eight math will be happening for next year if you are proposing putting together a study group right now to now decide whether to add more levels that will take considerably time to do so because we were we've been waiting anxiously to determine where we're going because our hope would be to be able to sit down with our teachers and saying okay we know we're doing which is what we thought we were doing we're doing alra one next year for the students that can be tested into in math 8 for the regular population but then we also have to talk about based on also Kathy was saying we already had talk about moving some of the math standards from seventh down to sixth from the 8th to 7th
239that's going to take time to develop that model I do think there needs to be some talk about what we do with the high school model as well make see if we can make it a 6 through 9 process because we know there's no way we can get four years of math three years of instruction at the middle school it's it's not it's just not doable so there no matter what model you go with if if I level in seventh grade then the sixth graders have not been leveled so they're going to be also have missed the regular seventh grade standard so no matter what while you go with there's always work to be done we we would be ready to go um if we have the time with the teachers right now to plan
240for alra one for whoever can qualify for that rate eight math for the rest of the population and then we would want to make up those gaps if you look at the stand I put some of the um work that Carl had done for us showing you the different standards and what we would propose is using that math lab model because if a child what's a math lab model so we would like to use Rim's block or other parts of the day Mo mostly probably Rams block we would propose using EXL to fill the Gap so for example if a student that is currently in math 7 that they've all had the same instruction um does not have the math 8 standard but tests into the higher level math Downer one they're going to have
241some gaps to fill so that's why we want that math tutor model that I proposed in our priority needs with Ken and we would put the math tutor working with these students so that they would have to agree to do almost like enrichment expectations during the day they're getting additional math basically to supplement to offset that they um haven't had the opportunity to have the other maths are we really doing algebra one next year though if we're dropping the the eighth grade geometry standards I I just I'm not sure that that's something that I I mean that I want to do I I don't I want to do a full year of algebra one but I don't think we have said that we have all almost always we have not consistently said we're going to
242drop them but we said that we need time to meet with the teachers to talk about how to move those standards around so I don't I don't know that anyone said we're going to definitely drop that was one thought that you could shift some of the geometry standards we we've been talking about this though for a couple months now has that work not been going on you know at the same time well I I'm trying so hold on so what you're proposing is that we're going to have a class that's Algebra 1 in 8th grade and 8th grade math right yes so what we hold on what we voted for was that we would offer an algebra one class in 8th grade starting for the fall so if you're able to manage that then asked
243and answered right cuz we are going to hold on what was presented the last meeting was algebra 1 and then math 8 with expanded some algebra 1ent two options the current math algebra we're still looking Ma algebra and algebra that is where my concern is because you have the math8 standard we'll call it you're now putting anyone who would be in there this year now into an elevated accelerated man and I'm concerned with that and CIA our vote also included U moving standards down so that way all the standards were covered by the time that they got to a one not you know we're going to have to fill in gaps withl during during Rams block so and my concern is when we have we have we have something called algebra in 8th grade but
244really it's Algebra 1 part one we're not covering all of the algebra standards I feel like we're trading off now covering more of the algebra standards hopefully all of them um but we've taken out the geometry standards and then how do we fill that Gap we're sending them up to high school without that so I I mean it we need you you said you can't cover four years of math and three years of middle school but that is what I believe the desie model does um where the Dy models for Algebra 1 where it has leveled um classes in seventh grade and then three levels in eth grade um I me there's two things we have to talk about what we can offer for next year and then also how to fill the gaps that
245we know kids will have um because they didn't cover enough this year in order to make sure all four years of math standards are being met by the time they complete eighth grade I would imagine part of that would be some level of Summer work um so I mean is it the understanding that a committee like this would be looking at that um as part of the implementation too what can we do immediately and then also sort of what do we need to do longer term okay I will call out if every a lot of feedback was from start times to the contract to now the high school schedule everything is happening quickly this is one where I'd say I don't think we have figured out and I think we should be very careful how
246we Implement because decisions we make now doesn't just have implications in e8th grade has implications in the high school has implications all the way back to sixth grade and I think we need we haven't been looking at it more holistically we've been focusing on do we offer Algebra 1 and but not the ripple effect of everything else that's where I'm struggling can I just clarify I I know we talk about curriculum there's The Big C curriculum which under policy school committee has under their prw you have the right to say what materials we're purchasing for curriculum you also have the right to say the overarching leveling you know whether you want levels not levels all of that program studies you get to vote on that the implementation is really the purview of administration we really
247need need the time to sit there's been so much communication but not knowing we keep hearing different things so it's it really isn't to our advantage to stop planning something that's unknown we've been waiting to to get like the final def answer we thought we had it we heard Al one we're going forward we agreed to that um we're ready to sit down and work with our teachers and move but this is really falls under the building Administration and Joanie and I would help work with the teachers and if if we decide with the teachers that they would like to offer a summertime the math lab all of these things that really is the work that we need to do and should be doing as Administration and teachers I'm I'm just I'm a little confused
248about hearing different things I mean I think we've been pretty consistent all along um with what we've been saying maybe it was been been forgotten or or heard incorrectly but we were very clear with our vote last year on March 17th or whatever it was that we wanted to have an alge full year of Algebra 1 offered um and that we wanted to start moving some of the standards into to lower classes I don't I don't know what sort of prevented that work from going on over the over the past year I I will say I've been a little bit concerned with the the this all Learners Network which again as I said seems like it was brought into to um to to help reach a conclusion that was not sort of what I think
249the school committee was looking for because they seem to be a deleveling uh an you know sort of a Consultant Group built for ding I will say that if I knew that this was part of the capital request that we made as part of the math curriculum review I would have voted against it um so I'm just I I don't you you absolutely right that the implementation is is within the the administration's purview but I don't know how to make the decision of The Big C curriculum portion of it based upon the information that we currently have we could vote the Desi framework well we I mean like we could vote the Desi framework but then how do we give I don't know the time frame we give to implement that I I I mean
250like you know I don't have the information to know what is a fair and appropriate way to do that I we could definitely build a Dei framework I think the Dei framework is makes a lot of sense but do we say but is there there's got to be a time frame that it makes sense based on what our students abilities are right now and the teachers ability to actually move those things and scaffold that I mean it's you just saying I'm going to throw these standards in and like oh just just start doing it those are units of I mean I'm not a class teacher concern like last last meeting we heard yes you can we can put an algebra one class out there which is excellent that's great that's what we asked for I
251am just just concerned about the missing standards for the kids who are currently in seventh grade and are going to potentially take the algebra when when you know will it be summer work will it be tutoring will it be I would think it would need to be because at the building level the teachers have already been having discussions on this it's just they also are hearing that there's a potential for adding levels that changes everything so if you're looking to now add another level we have a problem because we've been moving in the direction of trying to move toward the model of having alra one and grade8 MTH and if you look at the document that we put in your folder that Carla put together you can see that the teachers did move as we
252asked them to last year some of the shifting standards so some of the yellow in grade seven was moved down to grade six some of the green and grade eight was moved down just seven so that already has been in process the work is being done it doesn't happen overnight crystal clear though we keep saying greater what we saw last week last meaning was grade8 accelerated man as the only other as as the algebra one and then the grade today's math it's gr at math plus and well Carla put I didn't know that Carla put that together that that I'm sure is a very good document for for an educator to me I see that and my my eyes crossed and and that's the problem it's how to follow and that's why and I'm not
253suggesting that I'm qualified to to fully follow that I I that that's why again this this this sub I'm not I'm you know would would almost say we would have just you know one representative from the school committee on there almost to sort of just listen in here and I would think that would be Hillary um and what are you what are you looking to do different like are you looking to have more than two levels in grade eight next year is that what you're I don't know if it's two levels or three if that's the Desy framework yes and then two and seven but I would like Dy fer put out there for a reason I would like the experts we have in the math math department to assess and see if it works
254for us like to kind of if they say yes let's do J framework I would support that to be clear that we is what we used we had we did that prior pre 2019 um but how do we get back there and then how does that work uh with you know moving into night I mean you know it does take a more holistic approach to yeah what's happening in the the high school schedule then and how we get back there is is is [Music] is I me we have a great middle school I certainly don't want to do anything to to Destro it but I also think that if we change at D level that could easily have a the same you know could usually have a negative impact as well yes I think when
255we limmit those can I just ask a larger question like what's the goal and it just sounds like we're all just talking about like algebra in middle school but if the goal is that we want to have a Pathways for students to get to calculus by the time that they graduate like that's what we should be focusing on the the K through 12 kind of more holistic absolutely and not just saying let's focusing on algebra in in middle school or in eth grade my understanding is the algebra Middle School there's Pathways but it gives you an option to get there I suppose but there's also options to get there if you don't take out what I wanted what what for me is important is a pathway is B culous but then also creating Pathways for
256kids that do not NE that maybe get math a little late still get not late sorry that get their math a little later have the ability catch up because I I because for me Equity is about ensuring that every kids can run as fast as they can at the at the current time that they exist and if they start to be able to run faster later that we have the the the structures in place to allow them to shift Lan right I guess I'm just concerned that if we're moving away from that because of the tracking that was happening with students and that it it closes off doors and other areas because then we start focusing on math and then once we start focusing on math we're focusing on science and then it just goes
257all the way down again and that's not good for kids and what you saw David present last year with all of these pink slips using that will actually enhance and increase and create more inequities I mean that is if we stick with the team model but the team model is supposed to be supporting students social emotionally and their connections with their teachers so there's like every time you move a piece it's like Jenga right you pull one out and then like everything gets wobbly so it's like yeah I would I just and i' said this the last meeting is everything that makes Rams as great as it is is is due to a complex Matrix of things that decisions that have been made to put it where it is um each each thing that changes
258will create another each solution or every change will create another problem um and then as we deconstruct that to solve that new problem we create another problem and we could just end up if we're not thought if you're not it's not thoughtfully done um could deconstruct what brought the middle school where it is currently is it possible to do two or three levels of 8th grade math with the team model ramps I I think what I showed last year the what we have with every level that you add you add a constraint regardless if you are in teams or not teams or whatever every level adds a constraint and limits the ability um for some students to gain access um within a team model uh you what um what that causes is that students will
259track together to non-math classes as well um um even if you dteam um you're running you're running three math sections at a at a time um and you're creating a sort of where that group or cluster of students go right after that um creates a back way especially if you're looking at um students on IPS that have specific services and you have like you know three special Educators that you have access to in the in in a grade level uh and where that goes and I just I do if if C as the building leader felt that it was the best decision to dteam to make the greater good for students that really is a decision that she would want to vet with me I mean that is a building leader decision and to impose
260that on a building leader a brand new leader in the building who's had significant gains with her staff already I mean I there may be some staff that would prefer the dteam but I I would think the majority of the staff know that that model is working successfully I mean the fact there are National Blue Ribbit school right now is a testament to the work they've done so there were always trade-offs when you when you make um decisions but the tradeoff that they have made at Rams if try to move in the right direction not not backwards into the wrong direction I'm not suggesting we take decis we take the decision of teams out of out of the your hands I'm I'm simply saying that we need to look at everything and if the the
261issue to creating Pathways and inequities because we're going to continue to offer a a you know a highlevel you know math program and multiple different levels of it is teams then can we at least look at whether the team's model makes sense not I'm certainly not looking to to impose anything like that I don't view that as a in the school committee's purview uh as far as teams go um but I also don't want to be told that teams is the is the the only thing sort of keeping us from being able to implement a you know a High um you know and I know people hate it when people I use the word rigorous but a rigorous math uh program so I just I I just need to just I think our teachers will
262make a rigorous math program regardless they are doing it they've started the work already I mean I just think it's unfair to not have given them a chance to do what you asked you asked for eligible one I feel like if you're changing that decision we are we also have a lot of work to do now to now add more levels in and then to schedule all that it's been almost a year since we voted I don't we did not vote on three levels and two levels voted on an algebra one class but then you're being told that you don't have you haven't done the work to really get I just didn't say that you asked me about how we would Implement and and summer classes and all of that they've been moving the stands
263they've been doing the work but as far as making up the gaps they have to figure some of that out still because we're also trying to deal with the inequities of if we offer summer to some kids and then they can't make it now we've closed the door on them as well that's why the math lab option is what we've discussed we're ready to move in that we would like the math tutor and need that math tutor role but that's the reason why it would help not just our high achieving students but any students that have gaps and now having EXL in place we have the resource that will also identify and help support those students so we don't need one toone a small group teacher instruction by having that model in place I I
264hope you would give us an opportunity high school schedule to talked about not knowing that complicates how we should handle middle school as of tonight I Le we have a direction there and we also had said that we were going to have a math study group at the high school to work on this I mean that's that's the whole point is that they also need to have input into those students coming up could we have math standards as is and algebra like the accelerators what as much as there if you take outs number one I totally get your missing standards we have to solve for that whether it's math lab or summer the administration needs to figure that out but forcing all eth graders now to either an what we call accelerator right now which
265is honors math or Algebra 1 I think you're going to leave that's where you do leave the kids that cannot get to that level behind and so I that's what I was going to address tonight we have talked more about that and that and I thought I had said it earlier that we were we had talked about just doing the regular math and the Els were one long I just refering back to last we and how how are we covering the geometry centers in it's going to be that's some work that's happening now I mean they're putting together a whole okay so can can we get a report on that then I guess for for for next time and I I don't want to speak for Karen how much more time they might need to
266to get that all tweaked out can I should I if you if you don't mind since you're here thank you thank you the so I just want to clarify we we understand the expectation of Algebra 1 in 8th grade there's been Algebra 1 in 8th grade for many years right but it's been partial so that the students could finish the eighth grade standards um there's a full set of sixth grade standards a full set of seventh and a full set of eth if you add another course that's another year of math it's four years of math and three years we've worked really hard during the summer and then all this year to move standards around you heard the report that I gave about the kids that we have that in their Readiness just because we
267move standards to a different grade it's we're not we're not getting them all done we're trying the model but you have to give us a chance to to work with like what you asked us to do last summer so we moved the standards um but with a full Algebra 1 we're not going to be able to do any eighth grade standards in that Algebra 1 and eth grade so where do we put the standards we figured out a place to put everything the only thing are about seven or eight geometry standards they just don't fit in sixth and seventh grade and there's nowhere else to put them so we've done the work it's just it's like everything is full and we have the kids that we have in front of us to teach so that's
268where we start talking with the high school is there a opportunity to have a pathway where they're going to get those geometry standards before high school we have to talk about that is there an opportunity to get those geometry standards in a math lab situation with a math tutor we have to plan that is there an opportunity to do that work in the summer we have to plan that so all of these things are possibilities but what is the the startling part you know on on our end is we can't start the work if then we're told actually there's going to be three levels in a and there's going to be two levels in seventh like we've been planning for what was asked of us a year ago but now if the if the if
269the finish line is changing we're I don't know what we're going to do where is the seventh sorry where are the E3 geometry standards in the Desi model there's more than one Desi model so I think before we start like well the one where that gets an algebra one I would have to look at it I know a couple people I mean the Desi model also gives out like yeah in eth grade you can take the algebra one or you can do the grade eight math yeah there's many desie models like just to be clear there was one that was mentioned tonight a couple times but that's not the only one I've been in public education for 30 years and it all of it's been in Middle School I've seen it done every which way
270there's no perfect solution but I understand what the people of Holliston you know have asked for and it's been promised that we'll have Algebra 1 in 8th grade we can make that happen but you have to give us a chance to fit the geometry standards somewhere and you have to know that there because of that decision like Dr Jordan was saying like there's a gap everything touches everything else like the the geometry standards that the kids are going to be missing are not just going to magically happen like we have to we have to figure that no I get that so yeah so go ahead figure out figure it out come back I I still think that there could be a way of sort of continuing on and not throwing a a uh complete uh
271you know grenade and everything that you've been working on okay great thank you but also then you know looking at the longer term solution oh yeah let's keep that open 100% yeah and we're not saying that this is be important the final resting stuff saying right now let us what we thought we were planning for and also implementing the new curriculum new materials we're already seeing gains in the younger levels coming up you know I mean this is all it's not but I don't think that precludes necessarily forming a sort of a leveling commission if you will to to sort of look at things and work with I I just so we don't need to do I'm not looking to vote on this tonight um we're not going to change anything full year of Algebra
2721 and then the regular current math 8 sort of remains right that's what um but I do think we need to take a hard look at at sort of you know K through 12 really but at least certainly six through through 12 um and I you know I I would like to be able to hear more directly in some sort of form from from teachers and then some of the the other um community members who have you know interest in this two of which are former School community members I mean we're still hearing about this this is still a very Lively discussion 6 years later so there is still a lot of interest in in in um in this so and in terms of the implementation I think it it helps with the communication of
273it the understanding of it I am I I just I have real concerns about whether all the standards are going to be covered and it gives me pause when I hear that I've identified some geometry ones and maybe the high school will figure it out or or they'll have to be filled in some way and when I say Desy model I mean the Desy model that that looks at middle school and gets through all of Algebra 1 um and does that by by doing four years within 3 years by teaching some of those standards in seventh grade and eth grade and and the one where it's leveled in seventh grade and leveled into three parts in eighth grade if there's a different desie model that you know of that gets through all of Algebra 1
274but doesn't level in seventh grade I'd love to hear about that too I mean there are other models that are like all the sixth grade stand get covered in six the seventh grade standards get covered in seventh and the eighth grade standards get covered in eth and some it doesn't cover Algebra 1 no okay but there was the sort of hybrid that we've been doing at the middle school for a while where it was most of algebra one but they also got through the rest of the eighth grade standards like about half of Algebra 1 right is that what we did I think so you have to ask I would have to ask the Math teachers so we're getting we're getting late not going to throw hand grenade in all the work that you've done
275um so let's pick this up next time and we'll sort of consider sort of what we want to do as a committee for next steps while you continue to do the work based on the assumption that you've been working under yeah so is that everyone's we're we are stuck and unable to kind of build our schedule without a final answer on levels for seventh grade so we're still under the impression there's I I think I heard Dean say that we're sticking with the I don't think we're in a position to create level inth grade for next year okay thank you is that was all you need okay I was never I was never going to propose levels and for next year that's what people time there for let's always talk about math but guys I'm
276crazy I'm nuts and I can be a complete but I'm not I'm I'm not a you know a SI of fan um well maybe um but thank you sorry to 11 can we like I'm I'm done okay well so day is only getting started um it's not so all right so we have the calendar back on here we're going to pick this up we're going to pick this up next time there was a group that put a poll out there we got some results I we need to get a little more information about that but I think that we need a more next year we probably need to take a more holistic approach I'm certainly not ready to to make drastic changes for next year I had a thought which was that we just do
277back up our December holiday I thought you wanted to to be done with the meeting today I do but I'm just throwing it out there for people to think about since we were going to talk about it tonight and we're not um I was just wondering whether if we backed up our December um winter holiday to the 22nd 23rd 24th 25th whatever go back to school for the 29th 30th and 31st and then have the first and second off okay it breaks it we'll talk about next time but I'm just throwing it out there think about it you an email with that because I so that debt really just buys that just gets back one day though no it gets three days but you're trading oh sorry it gets one day yes it does but
278it pulls us away from the end of the year that's sort of the the issue right yeah there would be no okay next break happens okay we earlier yeah um moving on to to new business uh the maintenance technician unit um we sort of has everyone had a chance to review that are we good with it is now a paid holiday what is a paid holiday yes there's minor changes there's the they added one there's the increase um increase the s for their trade lure um yre educational reimbursements from 300 to 400 and then the increase in salary um hft 4% and then adding atep 10 okay so um any other questions thank you hearing none fits our budget I'll entertain a motion to approve the maintenance technicians unit of uh collective bargaining agreement for
279the 2024 2027 or yes24 to 2027 uh year um yes that's the motion so move second okay she's yes Frank yes Hillary yes Joe yes Sarah yes Cynthia yes Don yes I yes that uh is uh so ratified um okay just last on our on our public agenda is uh we wanted to vote on this so I had it's in the folder uh there are two versions We can vote on they they gave us this option I I just simply Express if this is going to be an agreement between the school committee and the um and the select board there's an or chart here that sort of I wanted to be cognizant of of Dr cusk's responsibilities to sort of manage um the people report to her so we can either vote I I don't
280think we got to back up and see what we're this this is an agreement between to allow us to continue working with with James ke and have him sort of involved in our larger projects and some of the procurement stuff one you said there was two though there's two versions of it one has the org chart in it and one doesn't do you have a preference whether it has the the or chart in it or not but my only thing was that you know in theory there's agreement between the school committee and the select board though this is your purview better I like visuals myself we're fine either way you're fine either way okay so then we will uh I'll entertain a motion to approve the um to approve the M what are they calling
281this the Mo MOA uh between the select board and the school committee for facilities management uh that includes the order chart move by Cynthia second okay all those in favor okay um if you would all this has a place for all of us to sign so if you would all uh sign that um this time we've reached the end of our open meeting uh our next meeting will be March 13th um we do have reason for executive [Music] session uh to conduct strategy sessions and preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct colletive bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel uh from which we will have return move by Cynthia Frank yes Hillary yes Joe yes Sarah yes Cynthia yes Don yes and I am a yes we standa Jour thank you very
282much e