School Committee Meeting - 11/2/23 (Part 1)

001good evening and uh welcome to the hollison school committee meeting for November 2nd 2023 uh since we do have some remote participation this evening I will start off by um reading the statement pursuant to the governor's July 16th 2022 act relative to extending certain Co 19 measures adopted during the state of emergency suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law the hollon school committee will be using remote participation for this meeting the audio of this meeting will be recorded Ed and will be posted to the town's website as soon as possible in accordance with keeping public informed of actions during this meeting at this time a roll call of attendance will be taken and we'll start with Sarah yes um Amanda present Cynthia present Lisa present Don Minnie present and I am present Dan so

002we are now uh called to order um we'll just quickly do the consent agenda um there's one amendment that I think we have right yeah that the equity audit ended at 8:15 not at 10 p.m. on October 17th yes and I have an amendment to the October 19th minute okay um it says edits of thei letter were discussed and made during the meeting Don made a motion to approve Cynthia second did all in favor I was asked she was she wasn't here for that okay so it's I did not vote in favor of that so uh lee I know you're watching if you could make those changes um to those different sets of minutes that would be great and then so we'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda with uh with the uh

003caveat the minutes as amended move by Lisa second this requires a roll call Sarah yes Amanda yes Cynthia yes Lisa yes Don yes Minnie mini uh yes I add um the sound is really not very C so I can't how things I don't know or the mic okay we we'll try to talk louder well no that's it's the mic is actually y y all right thank you we'll try we'll try to talk louder so that that carries um so we're going to do now is because we have jeriel here for a short presentation on the uh this Equity steering committee we're going to take that um up from old business and take it out of order and uh with that I'll turn the uh what's [Music] that no just okay you go ahead okay um

004hi jiel hello thanks for joining us yes than um this is great thank you for having me um I'm really excited to talk about um or at least give some frame of reference of where we beginning so you know as we know um the equity audit was shared out um at this point about a week and a half ago maybe two weeks ago um with the community we had a forum um from that uh piece um I'm going to be leading the steering committee as we move forward um I'm sure this won't be the first and the only time where I'm here I look forward to coming and providing additional updates in the future but I want to uh give some framing for where we headed with this work so one of the things I

005wanted to share um is at the very least the purpose for this work I see myself in this Equity audit what I mean is that I got into this work because of the equity audit specifically thinking about what are the gaps right what are the um how to ensure that all of our students have access to the right supports they need right to be the best elves best to see themselves in the best way possible as they graduate our schools what are the resources our Educators need what are the resources our families need um in many ways that's why I got into education that's why I became a school adjustment counselor I became an administrator um and I'm here um excited to lead this next piece of the equity audit so with that being said

006um the proposed purpose uh and this will be um discussed once we kind of get the steering committee going but one of the pieces will be how do we ensure that we utilize this process uh the recommendations that came out of the audit as a way to drive change to drive growth in our district right education is always about growing it's always about continuing to enhance what we do that's what this works about specifically um how do we address the gaps that were called out in the audit how do we think about access that was discussed in the audit and then how do we think about identifying not just the TR not just the aspects of the audit but how do we start to move move work forward and have actionable steps that we could

007see moving the district forward into the future that's what this works about and then connecting it to the to the Strategic plan right the mission within our strategic plan calls for um us to collabora create a safe and inclusive environment that empowers all Learners through Innovative teaching and learning to be lifelong active Global Citizens I would say we don't reach that Milestone we don't reach that goal if we are not actively working to create a Equitable District period where is this work beginning one of the pieces that um I'm wrestling with is how do we do this in an authentic way so one of the things I wanted to share um what are some of the things I'm considering um so one of the things I'm considering is how I'm actually currently conducting interviews with

008um staff members with students with community members and stakeholders to say what would you like to see if Equitable you know to what would you like to see in this District to create an equitable process how do we sure that the voices that the report that the audit calls out are part of the conversation our by our by bipox students and families our students of low income our students with learning disabilities um our students um from the LGT plus Community how do we ensure their voices is there and not just the students but our family's voices just as well and the audit called for us to strategically ensure that they're at the table so if we start talking about recommendations for how do we how do we see those playing out in our district without

009those voices at the table we're actually not living to where we want to go to with this work so that has to be the beginning of this work I'm also considering what are the pre-c collaboration or the education needed right for instance if we put a chair here and said come join us that may not feel Equitable to who I'm asking to join do they feel comfortable engaging in this conversation do they feel comfortable engaging in a conversation about the topics that are discussed in the audit right so there's also almost like a pre-educational piece that I'm considering and think about how do I help those people who join this committee feel that they can fully engaged in that conversation around those pieces as well I also want to learn from the past processes right

010so one of the things I'm looking at is how have other past school committee processes run um what were some of the G what were some of the strengths but also what were some of the gaps right um also to think about what does it look like for us to develop smart goals when I say smart goals not smart in the sense of like intelligent I'm saying that are strategic that are measurable that are ambitious and that are realistic for this work what are the resources of space and time necessary right one thing is to Embark in a journey another one is to really think about what what do we need throughout that journey and if those things come up how do I advocate for that or what might be the vehicle for me to

011say supplies Etc um and the last piece is and I mentioned it already um is that how do we think about ensuring the diverse voices are informing the process that could be part of a whole committee that could also be focus groups right I need to have conversations with different stakeholders to figure out what will feel right for them um to be able to best lend their voice their perspective to where do we take action as a district so uh where are we um as of today we're on that number two right I'm sharing with you kind of the prepping of all the prep pieces that I'm thinking about um the next piece will be to to launch a steering committee right and steering committee has a has a has a purpose which is how

012do we go from the equity audit recommendations to living them thinking about shortterm and long-term steps right that's going to be the ask of this team that comes together um I then foresee at the very least my hope is that by February to come and give an update to the committee with um I'm hoping representatives from the committee as well right because this process will not just be as a leader my process this will be our process um so I'm hoping to be able to come back uh and give a feedback here at the very least by February with just progress and and what are the different things that we're talking about we also were acknowledging that there needs to be cross- sector conversation so here's what I mean um there's conversations around a coalition

013throughout the community there's the equity audit work there's also the curriculum review work that's happening every day for me to engage in this work in Silo doesn't make sense makes sense for me to be able to come back with the other committees and say Here's what we're working on what are you working on to make sure that we're informed because there's multiple things happening all at once so that'll be established the next piece will be um I'm thinking at least let's say six to eight weeks after the first kind of share I'll come back um at least by April to give a a preliminary recommendation as far as what are some of the things where we see this work going also done with the people from the um steering committee um and then and then

014also starting to have conversations around what might be some of those goals that we see coming out um for the short-term work and then the last piece is to think about um I put TBD because one of the things around for people who've engaged in kind of committee work um especially when you think about the intentionality of the inclusivity that we want in in this um committee is I'm not exactly sure exactly when we will be done with the final report but the goal is um at least at the April meeting we'll be able to provide some feedback of where we're at as a team the hope and the goal is that when we provide a final report not only will we give recommendations for the 23 24 where we headed but 2425 right um

015because when this report comes that also means that we as a district start having conversations on what the professional development needs to look like um what's the collaboration needs to look like what how do we align resources to move some of this work all of that piece will be essential um as we kind of make recommendations for the work um and then you know the the the the goal right the goal that I'm bringing into this is just to be in all honesty to have an authentic process where uh we Center the voices of students and families into the room but we do it in a way in which um we're hearing multiple perspectives on how to move this work um I see a a committee uh with Educators administrators parents students um and stakeholders

016as part of that conversation and I also see focus groups happening as well um because I think the other piece is is that um I also want to make sure that that families feel comfortable they may not feel comfortable being part of a a committee but they might feel comfortable being part of focus group right so I want to have multiple ways to get feedback on how to take action as a um as a committee and then the last piece um that I'll share um can they see this I just wanted to share this will be coming out uh very shortly but we've been in uh conjunction um with several Community Partners um and be having a session on November 28th um for the community that it talks about um it's going to be part

017of a three-part series around confronting hate in our community session one will be around understanding anti-Semitism in the Jewish experience you can be in person or Zoom um and it's really meant to be a space where as a community we come together we can learn together engage together uh and start to think about what does it look like for Holliston to come together um and have strong responses uh and change the reality uh for the future of our kids so more will be coming out to about this and I know Dr kuso will share this piece but um so far that's where we at with the next steps for this process did you want me to put it back up only the committee wants to put that's great I'm very proud that that is that

018my temple is the one that's hosting this and I think that that that's really great um so with that you're good right you're I mean are there any questions yeah um can you elaborate a little bit more on recruitment I know it's really hard to reach all the different you know populations of people yeah and I will say I could sit and and type up a process of how I'm going to recruit people but one of the things that I wanted to do before I just jumped into I'm going to recruit people by sending an email and and and reaching out is I in all honesty I wanted to reach out to students and families and ask them specifically what would it feel like um for you to engage in this process right because I

019also don't want it to feel like I'm asking you to join just because I have a process right I really wanted to come across that we're asking you to join not only because we want your feedback on where we take action on the equity audit but also how are we're going to ensure that like your voice continues to be a part of this past this um so over the I already started this week between this week and next week um I'm reaching out I've reached out to um Educators HS and family um I'm going be connecting with students I'm talking tomorrow with our PTO president just engaging different people around the perspective of how to best do that um and start from there okay um so I'm guessing you're going to work with diverse Holliston

020to some extent too since they're resource diverse hollon will be a community uh group that I engage with I've been engaged with them right so this isn't um this isn't just an engagement because of this process but I'm also engaging with h and Family Services I'm also engaging with um our um drug task force coalition I'm also engaging with our town um My Hope Is that we at the very least have a school committee representative there too so hopefully that voice will be there too um so it'll be a multitude of voices yeah could I suggest another group special education curent advisory Council I think be really great if we could get a student who's on an IEP you know somebody who has had that experience and can and can share that as well I

021mean we want to get obviously a broad representation of a lot of different groups but but a big portion of the of the audit was talking about how students with with special needs yeah absolutely so having if we could find you know a parent with that experience or ideally high schooler or both um yeah that would be awesome and that's also where focus groups can also play a part right because we also acknowledge that um one student's Voice or two students or two parents voices not speak for all the voices so I think also thinking about like inclusion of voices at in the process but also how do I go to a group of voices also to hear more perspective so to probably a little bit of both for any one of those communities that

022I shared okay and then I have another question it may not be a question for you but I just want to check in on where are we with we had talked about making some corrections to the equity audit and getting those done how so yes so I sent the corrections that I had and Mindy has those and they're all set but I was waiting to hear if there were any other Corrections so I did reach out yeah I I apologize that uh it's been a busy two weeks so I need to do that but but knowing that she's trying to finalize it so we can get on to the website I'll try to get that wrapped up in the next couple days um but yeah that I let that ball drop yes I have a

023question for darel um hi so um you were talked about having some preliminary discussions with us in February do you think that you might be at a point where you would have some idea in terms of any budget requirements we might have because if we're going to move this forward into the 24 next year's 24 25 school year if you I mean it might be just like a ballpark idea but I feel like it would be helpful to have that if you have anything that's a great that's something that um I can raise to the Forefront right as we engage in conversations that there's some implications to that as well um but I also think that the work will be short term where do we start here now September but also what's the long term

024of that too right so I also think they'll have to be ongoing conversations um of that as well but that's a a great piece to know and and as you're saying that I'm taking these pieces um you know I feel free to to any school Committee Member to provide feedback provide suggestions Etc students who are sitting here if you want to provide feedback I'm more than willing as well but but some of it too could be like we have a professional development budget right so some of it could be utilizing those dollars towards for this for the next year something absolutely so not necessarily incremental but as far as y yeah um it sounds like your recruitment is already going really well um and feel free to reach out I'm sure you're already doing this

025to like other folks that can help you for example like teachers who are like leaders of like student groups on campus like GSA leader or something like that as well as like you know other folks in the community that might have connections um U my question is so this all sounds great I'm a little bit nervous about um will specific initiatives be able to begin before April you mentioned maybe focus group CU some of the things that came up seemed really timely an example that jumps to my mind is like um recruitment or not recruitment but like advertisement of the montauri and French emergence special programs into like underrepresented populations like that would have to be done before April with kindergarten registration and that kind of thing so will there be opportunities for like stuff

026that jumps to the Forefront for you to sort of pass those off to either a focus group or you know whatever School person is in charge to get those done sooner I believe there will be yeah um but I also one of the things that I I heard recently and it was so impactful to me um we've all heard the term uh uh go slow to go fast right uh and someone said to me that that really what we should be talking about is go slow to go far and the reason why I found that so relevant um is because I think that this work is about far right how do we continue to grow where we want to go um so in the process um there's definitely things we could bring to the Forefront

027but there's also another piece of like an authentic process that has to to happen too um and what I mean by that is that as you bring people together who maybe have never worked together there's a space of like how do we build relation collaboration to get to those conversations um so there's the budget pieces there's some of those recommendation pieces but um you know and maybe it's going be a yes and I just feel like I've been on this committee for so long and we keep saying like eventually we're going to do this and it's just like meetings and meetings and meetings and yeah yeah I mean I also encourage and this is a I guess I also encourage our central office team that if there's also items in there that are easy movable

028that aren't like let's engage in what we go with it yes there's no reason why we could not have conversations at the central office piece if it's just shifting something I think that's what I'm saying versus a theoretical where do we start as a district yes um yeah so so yeah yeah and I think some of it that's reflected in the report we are already doing and maybe go more deeply into I also think the nas report will be getting feedback on that shortly and I think some of that might overlap as well which will also maybe take us in a direction sooner than some of those recom I just feel like we don't want to like hear this presentation oh so it sounds like we should start looking at the high school schedule it

029sounds like we should start recruiting monor differently let's start that now maybe it can be in effect for 2026 like yep you I made my point I made my point Sorry I get it I get it they're real yeah all right but can I just push back on that a little bit Amanda because if you look at the trajectory of where we've come in the last several years I know that you know everything seems like it works at a snail space but we went from we looked at a need or concern that we had in the district to deciding we were going to put budget into having a position such as jerel's hired him brought him in immediately started doing all these different steps there's things like full day kindergarten that we got done in

030the last set a couple so there are things that are happening I just know that it feels at times it feels like we're moving really slowly but there is progress that's being made on these goals that we've have that we have so I just I just want to call that out a little bit because I think that I don't want people to think that we're just all sitting here a lot of the action is taking place behind us and behind this business meeting you know what I mean I know I just feel like with Dei work and with like you know the things we the negative things we've been seeing in our community over the past several years there is an urgency um yeah and I think some of that might be addressed outside of

031the steering commit for sure for sure for sure yeah but I guess what I appreciate is that we're now talking about it because I got to say like my kids have said there's things that they've seen for years that we just never talked about there were things that were said to them in the hallways or things that they read but we never called attention to it and now we're calling it out for what it is and saying we're not doing that anymore so I think that's an important step building capacity and I think sometimes um you know there's a there's an assumption that because we're reporting and being trying to be as transparent as possible that it's it's increasing and certainly there's recent events that have caused increases but this is stuff that was happening

032when I was a child and we just didn't go home and tell our parents nobody talked about it um I was talking to an administrator recently that was interviewing in a different District at one point and they left that district and they did not accept the position because they saw very graic um NW in the bathroom and nothing was being done about it so yes we can always do better we're always trying to improve but it doesn't mean it didn't exist and just started um since we've been doing this work it's been there and we need to do better we need to keep calling it out and we need to be as transparent as possible that it exists Sarah do you have any questions U Minnie or Don I'm do you have any questions no

033questions no questions okay okay go ahead hey um I just had a question um as you're conducting these preliminary interviews with members of the community and understanding how to best shape this process are you sharing the feedback that they provide with others so that we're getting multiple perspectives in how to approach what they're the solutions that they're offering yeah so what I'm doing is documenting their feedback um in all honesty when I started talking with people I it wasn't a I'm going to make your feedback um public it was you know how can how can you help me be a stronger leader right how can you help me ensure this process um is done in an equitable way um so what I probably think I can do is almost like go through and think about

034what are the trends and the suggestions that came out of that without kind of like outing people who shared their thoughts and comments as well um but I think there's definitely a space for that yeah like that was a great question yeah jar this this was perfect this is exactly sort of what what I was hoping you could provide us and and the community just a couple quick ones do you have any idea of the size of the hearing group that you're looking yeah I I I um I go back and forth every day but one of the things that I am doing um is that um in my last few years I've been kind of been able to engage with different processes with Desi one is um I'm part of a project called influence

035100 which is des's um approach to uh training administrators like myself to become future superintendents as part of that I have some amazing coaches who've LED some of this work Nationwide so I'm kind of talking with them around like what are some of the lessons they learned as theyve done this in other spaces um and the other piece is a part of a a new group um Dr kusk and myself um in which um it's collaboration led by uh Dara mon Jackson and another gentleman but the purpose of it is is to kind of enhance the relationship between superintendents and Di directors um because one of the things that they found was that just because you create a role doesn't mean the role is living in the best way possible um it takes not only

036long-term vision and collaboration to really think of how to move it so those are two other people who I'm also kind of reaching out to think about have they worked with districts in Massachusetts that have done this work and what suggestions and feedback do they have for me as well um so I've gone back and forth short to your question to say large can sometimes be intimidating for people to engage small sometimes limits the voices right so if I go small focus group so I'm going back and forth on that but I I'm asking actually people that to be like what would be the best way for not just you but uh people who might necessarily be connected to your identity um to best provide feedback right is it a focus group or is it

037a large group I'm wrestling with that I don't have an answer fair fair answer yeah um and then who so who makes the sort of the final decisions on membership that my understanding would be me okay yeah um and then um so you mention talking about a final report right in some ways this is kind of a living sort of work and the work always continues right so one thing I'd sort of like to just be considered if if possible is by the end of the school year could we get some sort of inim sort of report not a final report but but some sort of like sort of conclusionary report for the year that then sort of as the work continues and just it can even be we're still working on this here right

038that kind of thing I I I love that you brought that up because that was something I was thinking about that you know not to say I'm going to in I'm facilitating the process but one of the things is important to me is not only do we provide let's say a preliminary report and a final report but we think about a structure for this to live long term I I don't want to ask people to say engage in a process with me thank you so much I created a report and so to me I'd love to think about how this group of voices that come together to provide feedback can continue in some ways to connect and think about cuz throughout the year next year I'll be back here reporting What's the progress we're doing

039right that group can provide continue to provide feedback on how to best continue to move that work too so there's a short term and I think the long term is how do we build the structure for us to continue to move it like a living document that you said um great um any any more questions on this okay so since we have Jerel here and I just figed um we're on the topic of Dei I think if we could also sort of maybe conclude our conversation that we had last uh week on on the sort of Coalition task force um I don't know if people had had a chance to think about it more um if there's anyone that has any thoughts insights on it um I thought about it a lot um and spoken

040to folks and thought about it um I think that not that I have concrete answers or really any answers but I think it does make sense for us as sort of town at least on paper leaders to make some sort of public thing where we can address this stuff because it's been going on for so long we haven't seen progress so I'm hoping we can um you know have a coalition I know this is something that Dr kuska is very passionate about as are we and so like if we could have um a coalition like either I mean you're just running a huge thing right now the equity audit steering so I don't know if you want to be in charge if you want the school committee to like own it and be in charge

041everyone or Susan um I know this is like things we've all talked about last week and i' like to hear other people's thoughts but um ideally we could have like hollon community members faith-based leaders in town um like you were saying Susan like folks you've already talked to um volunteers different things like that all different stakeholders um and maybe it would even be like someone from the school and someone from the community to co- facilitate this type of thing so it wouldn't be like schools alone cuz what we really need is Community conversations around these things right when they happen like Community conversations like yes it's the school's responsibility to address it but it's also not like just the school's responsibility to address it um and what we need is just like action in the

042community um and we want to make sure that you know there are deliver there are deliverables and we're held accountable for the work that we're doing so like ideally this would be something that would report out like at school committee meetings right like what's been happening what we've been doing what conversations have taken place um and like similar to the equity audit steering committee like maybe in the spring like report out what has taken place and what's been done um and things like that um yeah I think we should make something happen so I can share with you some of the conversations Jerel and I have had so far um we've met I think three times already for two reasons we had started the thought of the Coalition getting framing this as I had mentioned

043last time um reaching out to town community members because what we were finding is that we cannot be owning all the work in the schools and this really needs to be a community situation that we own this work together um so at that point I had talked to you a couple weeks ago about how Travis and I had met Kathleen Buckley the assistant Town Administrator Jerel Jackie Winer and then we also added in Lieutenant Barrett the police department and so the five of us have met three times now one of the reasons that we were trying to think of what are the what are the multiple needs so the tier one needs we were looking at as what happens when an event happens on the school that might overlap no it always technically overlaps the

044community but there are some events that are very school specific that I might just communicate out myself and we we try to resolve and figure out how we're going to react inous but then there are other larger events that might happen that overextended the community so that's where this this smaller group of five were coming in we can actively meet very quickly decide if we're going to collaborate in communication or for example Jerelle and Jackie are they going to enlist some additional adjustment counselors to say from the school and the towns come together to support students or staff depending on the event so that's kind of our tier one thinking and then um um Jackie and um let see if I have it here I put some slides together just because I had the names

045of Jackie and Travis had recommended some groups that we had talked about that might be helpful to have let me just make scre up might be helpful and it's probably very similar to what you're talking I think we're talking it included almost the same thing so let me just show you here so there's a lot you want to do the same thing as Jerelle doing right now as far as sure all groups are represented on this Coalition why is my fale right so that's the thing because we have the bias I mean we have the work that Jerelle was doing we trying Not Duplicate efforts so we talked about what the purpose might be of the coalition to provide a space space and opportunity for Community leaders to come together collaboratively to discuss and respond

046to incident of hate and bias in Holliston again not holl public schools in Holliston with us being one branch of that and then this is what the team had sort of designated and it's very similar to what yours thinking of the different groups in town and having a representative from each group um sit there so that's about 20 people we think we've connected with the groups that we would be part of this but there might be a group that we might have missed as well this is the kind of the list that that group put together so then the thought was the tier two would be this Coalition might come together um we we would be putting together information sending it out about what the purpose is what our intent is to have a safe

047place for people to meet maybe it's at Town Hall maybe we offer different places maybe two or three of these types of meetings but then that group might identify what are some other action steps that we want to do in the full community so for example maybe this this smaller group of 20 or so might say we want to do a community form around X and then I would be saying well who can do that cuz this is this is where our band with is getting so thin we can't maybe manage that and some of that almost is similar to what darel was talking about with the faith-based communities and resolves into doing some of these events already it's a it's a nice overlap and connection um so we were that was our hope is

048that we could get going pretty quickly and move forward so that we could start planning a meeting with this potential group and we were going to reach out to the leaders of these groups and say who would like to volunteer and who would you want to volunteer for that in your group one of the key pieces just to um if you allow me to share is to say that um as the community's hearing it or seeing it right whatever video they're watching um the difference would be right is that this Coalition would be addressing bias and hate in our community the equity audit is going to start by laser focus around the gaps and pieces of access identified in the audit right so one is starting here the other one is starting there um I

049see this these spaces coming together at some point but that will be the difference right um is one is really jumping into the audit and thinking about access and resources for our kids um and the other one's thinking about bias and hate in our greater larger community and and part of what we've been Jer and I've been struggling with when we've been having these conversations since Jerry 's arrived even before is who can we partner with specifically in the community and this is where Travis and I being employees of the town he did agree to co he would like to co- facilitate this and then um Kathleen Buckley would be a backup if he was not available I'm trying to not have Jerelle on this work and that's part of that I'll talk about um

050the ready work that we're doing as well a little bit later but the biggest thing we keep hearing is we cannot be using our director of vessel Equity to lead all of this work they're one person we all need to be leaders of this work so that's you know that's a partnership that Jal and I are doing with the mass ready work and I'll talk about the work with Don a little bit later but this is why I'm hoping to keep keep this off of jeriel he may attend some of these events but I'm not going to expect him to be at all of this I would think sorry I I would think it would be important I mean obviously time time for meeting but I think for you to be part of this not

051not lead this but I mean I I you know I would like it to be I don't want to say priority but but certainly you know I mean you are the the director of and and equity and and you know this is right down the Fairway right so and I know I know you've got tons of different things going on but yes yeah yeah I mean I mean in her description does not mean I disengage with the work what it means is that um I'm actively going to be leading and spearheading the equity audit while also supporting the Coalition um and I've been a part of all the meetings and conversations already um along with Jackie Wier too who I would say is often at the Forefront of this conversation also so um but one

052of the key pieces that I know she'll talk about later um it's just a reflection that this when we say Equity work when we say when we say Dei this work has to be owned by every single person in this room by our leaders by our our principles by our teachers by our central office by our superintendent by our SCH like we all own this and in that way I welcome the leadership um of of leading this Coalition peace wildly this but never disengaging is the way I see it you have one yeah so I'm hoping we could also get like it looks huge but it should be huge like when these events happen we want whether or not you know the kid that makes a bad choice gets caught or not we want the

053prevailing thinking and message in the town to everyone to be a wave of oh no no no no we don't allow that we don't we don't like that here we are an accepting town and we support folks who are hurt by this we want that to be a huge message every single time so I like that it's big and I would also encourage us if we could get our student lead leaders to be a part of this as well or maybe if they're not like at every single meeting to somehow be like at the Forefront of spearheading these initiatives among the students because we're talking about changing the culture and changing the thinking right so there are lots of student Le initiatives and other schools are done like you know spread the word to end

054the word um and different things like that that could be that I'm sure there are a lot of really awesome students that are passionate about this work and would want to be involved to do as far as proactive things in addition to you know the procedures and the policies that you've talked about as far as how principal superintendent whatever leaders will address issues as they arise yes yeah and I think the difference here is really this is really about getting that band within the community because that's where like I said we've been struggling the most yeah I and that co- facilitation is really important because I don't want this I don't want this to fall back on this is just a school thing because we're already doing a lot and it's not enough right so

055this is where we need I think the partner parip with Travis will really help with that um because they're also doing a strategic plan as well um as you know and a lot of the work that they're embedding into that strategic links I've been part of that process as well is on Equity so this is also the bigger how are we bringing in diversity on the town side and human resources and that's where Kathleen Buckley comes in so I think this is really it's bigger than the schools if we do this I me this is the what this group um is wanting to move forward and has started this work um so I think it's it's bigger than the schools and that's what I would like it to be versus it still falls on the

056school's shoulders yeah but we're trying to just I mean I just want to talk she sorry one of our student leaders um yeah I just want to thank you for bringing that up like I think it's very important to have students involved in these conversations because these events did happen at the schools so clearly like there's an issue within the schools um and we also think that like there's a lot of room for this ISS is to be addressed within the schools like there are a lot of students who um are passionate about stopping this like there's the hate prevention Council that is started to meet with um Mr Taylor to kind of discuss how these events can be prevented in the future and I know that English and history teachers have also been tasked

057with coming up with lesson plans that relate to like what these words are why they're so hurtful so I definitely encourage that students and staff um are involved in these process sorry I it's a great point we definitely want that so what are we trying to decide tonight though do you you I just want to piggy back on something Sarah said could the membership of this be able to be a little bit flexible only because it's so hard to recruit like all different folks to have the bandwidth so maybe if like we could allow for like we find a new student who like really wants to get involved or a teacher who says like I'm actually really planning this unit that's with this purpose that they could like somehow get on board with this after

058the fact if we could be a little bit flexible about that or subgroups yeah yeah so I guess to to Le this point what are we deciding me I think you know what I you know I my concerns are is that that that there has been a group in the past that that started this work and the the just the sort of the momentum in the buy didn't sort of persist yeah and you know this is happening predominantly at the school in in the schools on school grounds the schools need to be and schools need to be leaders here right and so you've got the administration who are obviously the the heads of head of the schools but we're sort of that oversight Council if you will and so I think it's very important that

059we play a very active role in this and so if we're not going to do our our sort of an advisory committee of the school committee and and I do you know hear this the counter arguments to that and can see the the benefits there um I think that um what my recommendation would be is that tonight we vote to appoint two members to be um members leaon whatever we call it but that are that are full sort of participants in this group um that we vote to um sort of have this on the agenda every single time we meet and that we look for a consistent update on what is being done when the meetings were how things happened um that these that this group post their me meetings in advance of the meetings

060so the public can be made aware that these meetings are going on that the meetings be recorded posted to the town's website um I don't know if I don't think we necessarily need to require minutes but that at least there there's video of the meetings that is posted on website like like all public meetings um and I think that's you know sort of the most important parts is that we have membership that we have um transparency and that we have continued sort of accountability and and oversight from from the school committee so so I just have to clarify I can't um speak for this committee because this is not mine this is right now this is a town committee so um I think you're talking about something different this is not what I just want

061to clarify that's not what this group was talking about this the part of the reason of not having this as a public tape meeting is to be able to have people be honest about what the needs are and then create some of these form so we can have the more open discussion so I think you're talking something a little different and I I I would want I can't speak for them because this is this is not just something that I own as a but Susan you were asking for school committee Absolut so so you would like one or two of us to maybe if we can we would try to keep it at the one per to have equity and not overload um so the school comme has members have a have a lot on

062their plate and I think that it's important that we have two two members um there and and if if recording is is is not um uh I I can understand the recording issue I guess I'm I think that maybe just publicly posting the meetings then at least to ensure that the community knows in advance that these meetings are are are attending was that yeah that we're doing it that we're doing that and sharing out at school committee meetings and then and then sharing out at school committee meetings uh on a meeting by meeting meeting by meeting basis and that uh again just you know for clarity you know that if if we Dr concerned and we think we need to take more more um active measures we we do obviously always have the ability to

063create an advisory committee so the other thing about an advisory committee though is that the advisory committees cannot be a standing committee of the school committee so it's just like you can have it for a short period of time which is like a year but you can't have an ongoing advit doesn't actually state that there's a it does actually say you can't have a time it says you cannot have a as a standing committee so it would be something that you know this is supposed to be ongoing work so I think it's important we're talking talking about the minutia here we can we could debate you're asking for advisory and I'm saying that this is I'm not asking for I'm not asking for advisory right now I've given on that I'm trying to trying to

064form a compromise here uh CIO so um the only other thing too is I would like there to be some sort of report and documentation provided to the school committee by late April early May uh sort of summarizing not not just obviously the things that we've talked about in the meetings um but that um action steps action steps and just sort of outcomes may not be that that's the end hopefully that isn't the end hopefully we're continuing on with the work but we do while the work always continues it's a it's just like with the Steering group um we we do need to you know have have interm reports if you will so I guess at this time so we can move on and because I don't want to keep the uh the um our

065curriculum coordinators waiting too much longer I guess I'd entertain a motion to appoint two members do I have two Members First of all be interested who I'm sorry would two members would be interested in in joining the I would be interested as we discussed I last at the last meeting I might like to be taken off we can do that in a minute we have that on there so so SAR Sarah and Amanda so that we appoint Sarah and Amanda um as liaison to the Coalition um and that uh furthermore we sort of you know set expectations of for for meeting by meeting uh reports from from the superintendent or the or the Coalition um that the meetings be posted and that we get a report by the end of uh end of beginning of

066April and end of May and that you would be liaison so like a primary and a secondary liaison yeah just I'm just saying just so that they don't have an outsized role in their group they have voting thing so it's just going to be there no I think the issue that would that I was hearing from the rest of the group was that if we stuck to one person then it wouldn't because now other people might say well why do they get to I mean exactly It's Tricky but oh so that would be the motion that that would entertain obviously another motion can you detail that motion for me because I don't know what all the things that you just said that we we Appo Sarah and and Amanda's leison to the Coalition um that

067we set the expectation for um posted meetings posted meetings reports that all of our school committee meetings will be sort of well you have control of the agenda yeah well but I'm just saying like that that's we're setting the expectation now so it's not it's not a surprise anybody um and that um we have a comprehensive sort of overall report by the end of April beginning of May that would be the um the the proposal motion move by Lisa or seconded or whatever no move by yeah do I have a second second okay that requires a roll call since we're still in in uh hybrid uh Sarah yes Amanda yes Cynthia yes Lisa yes Don yes [Music] Minnie [Music] Minnie okay uh I'm yes it carries that carries um thank you very much um before

068we table this um so I I'm assuming the liaison will do that report I won't have to do the report right that's fair you do plenty of reports and then secondly um jarielle will be looking for you may want to vote a for that as well cuz he's going to be looking for so want to do that tonight or save that um let's get I don't know if anyone had can we save that cuz my schedule may change and I okay okay yeah I want to see whether or not put that so but we do need to figure that out but that that is one more one more role for us to to tackle so just so we don't get on and I promise I'm getting there um we there's the reorganizer of the subcommittee

069so I guess at this time is there a sort of a I guess inent motion to replace Amanda with Lisa on the budget subcommittee so I don't think we can do that because don't I have to be on either budget you do policy or superintendency Communications doesn't count nope I don't I don't believe that that that's written anywhere if you don't want to that's fine but no I don't want to be on budget okay so then so then we'll go ahead can keep then you know if if if if we think that it is a a uh if we think that it is a budget we can first of all take a vote to wait our to wave our policy so understand motion to wave our policy well if that's the case I'm not on

070any of those three right so I don't I don't oh yeah so I don't like so it's fine okay so it's fine okay so i' entertain a motion to uh to replace Amanda with no not replace to exch to replace to swap remove to remove Amanda and and rep Place Lisa on on budget read move by Amanda second okay roll call Vote Yes Sarah yes Amanda yes Cynthia yes Lisa yes Don well now you are on a committee so okay goes to you Lisa yes so that carries Thank you Lisa okay getting back to our uh agenda um thank you very much Shel I really appreciate it that that was thank you for being here I appreciate it that was really great and and uh so um on to teaching and learning can we do

071that no we have we have to report from so report they're here so are they they may have to study I don't students I'm happy to hear from the students but I feel like we need to let them cool depend so because they might have questions after right so but we'll just we'll get through that we'll get through public comments and then we can can can go forward so go ahead okay so just for some sports updates um girls cross country won the tbls for the third year in a row and going on the playoffs so yes that's very exciting um and hollon football is ranked number two and they just made it to the playoffs so they will be having their first playoff game on Friday against Ashland and then girls volleyball is also

072ranked fifth nice okay um so senior dress up day was last Friday and it was super fun there was a wide range of costumes and tomorrow is the end of term one so 5% of the way done with the year um we also have visits from college Representatives coming to an end um a couple more weeks into the month and they have been a super valuable resource for seniors figuring out their college list and what they're interested in and um on behalf of the senior class the three of us would like to extend a massive thank you to guidance counselors for helping us navigate the application process as well as teachers for writing us recommendation letters and reading essays and all of those important things yep and uh the National Honor Society had their trick-or-treating

073for canned goods event and we're proud to say that it was a success um freshman elections for the student advisory Council were conducted recently and Mr list School Council made up of students staff and parents um has started to meet to review the handbook great thank you guys uh and so we I think we have two people here for for public comments so one of you could relinquish your sheat for just a few minutes uh that just would be great I apologize don't want me to sit here someone could come sit here someone could come sit here and then you can have Halloween C all right so we'll just you and we'll have public comment right next to me so that'll be uh that'll be perfect Robert would you like to come up you Canen

074cand some Halloween candy and um I don't know we'll do um be cognizant at the time let's do 4 minutes if you can uh thank you Robert Principe 203 turn Road Holliston um three of my six uh grandchildren uh go to hollon public schools and they save me all the tootsie rolls from trick-or-treating so I'm very excited about that um so I'm I'm here actually you know as as a community member as well as a member of diverse Holliston and we we sent a statement uh in support of the upom work related to the equity audit to the school committee um and we we also decided we wanted to be able to speak it publicly uh before the town as a whole um and so I'm going to say a little bit about that and

075then a couple of comments about uh what I heard tonight um first and foremost that I really appreciate jelle's Focus talking about I'm paraphrasing the letter but you know basically um that we're that that this the audit different L than people tend to look at gaps is an opportunity for us it's not a ding it's great that we have Unearthed literally the reality for populations under represented and thus underserved right so when you talk that's that's the first piece that we're saying good we've we've done this this is great right um but what we do with it then is the next the next piece and then certainly the first critical step as Jarelle has also pointed out you know was happy to be here for his presentation is we have to get representation from these

076groups that don't have a voice to understand what their experience is in having the gaps affect their families and their children so very specifically um the the the bipac students students of color students with uh that are English language Learners students who are from uh economic disadvantage free lunch reduced lunch Etc and then students with disabilities I mean if you think just hear the names of those populations they're not the ones that are you know like on the neon signs so there's got to be something different to get to understand what their issues are and then also certainly is you know this Coalition points out as well is this Additionally you know they have to get uh more of an understanding of these populations that have been targeted by hate in this town lgbtq Etc

077the Jewish communities nonwhite immigrant communities Etc we we need to hear their voices um and the trick not the trick the challenge is to get those who don't feel safe to begin with to come forward and share what's going on that's not an easy piece um uh so and then finally you know with the 92.6% white staff members in this this this District what about faculty bipac faculty but faculty of color Okay their voices by the nature of them being what I I don't good with the math what's 92.6 you know a small percentage of folks that have a very different experience of a dominant white community and School District like hollon what would it take to get them here right so um real important we also added in the note about note about hearing

078about mental health issues via the Cal West adolescent Health survey um again information about community members and families and and students that are challenged that way um we're very pleased to see Jerelle in charge of this um and it's not it's it is his identity uh in his cultural ethnic racial background different than the majority of of folks in this town as well as his expertise and experience years and years are focusing on taking gaps and turning into opportunities for change opportunities for change we cannot those of us that are that experienced creating the same results in this town with these same populations are marginalized don't have the expertise period period so that's why these voices and the leadership of jel are so important here um I um a couple things if I could just

079from what was said tonight I really appreciate I'm going to paraphrase I don't know the students name at the end of the table but your piece about you know students involved and the transparency tell us that's so important and and this there's no way any of this is going to work without student input straight up student input not as like oh let's have a student here and a student there students know so much about the truth about their schools right okay it's huge resource for information um and then there's no question there's a link between the equity audit and this Coalition for hate thing there's there's no way they can't function together I'm going to read one final piece um just to Second um so so you know the town is doing this trying to

080do the same work they they're using and centering this this uh this is the Massachusetts Municipal Association there this whole guide they have and let's just listen to this language um that that I Know Travis has has used and Kathleen to share with with Town leaders the municip MP is the real work begins now this is written around the time of George Floyd we know the urgency is died since that tra that tragedy in this country for change around Dei it's faded enormously okay um but that being said we must push towards structural and sustainable change in our Municipal governments schools a part of that we must create spaces of belonging for those who have been left out of governmental policies and institutions or actively intentionally harmed by them we must re imagine uh divers

081SEC incluses a core function of governance not as an afterthought or the job of just one individual I'm saying this because that's kind of where we're positioned right now it how is getting better at centering this as a core of what it needs to do but it's not there yet by any means um we must have deip thought is everybody's responsibility and and I'm going to close with jelle's comment about it's not about get this just done it is go it is immediacy with some things but it is go far the worst thing I've seen happen with these inies over and over again is you get it going you get it going and it's not sustained so that's the challenge that we face and we need to get the voices that know about the door

082closed the experience of trying to push that door open to get that sustainability that we don't understand for those that have access on a regular basis thank you thank you very much thanks appreciate it m Kon thank you all hi Jamie katone I'm a Holliston resident I have children in placentino and Miller I'm a high school teacher and I'm the president of the hollison Federation of teachers um I would be remiss if I did not comment on what was recently just discussed here at the committee and by a fell resident here um so I'm going to just going to say this you know in the in the moment and then get to my my public comment um this work is very important um our teachers care deeply about Equitable opportunities for all of our students

083and so if there's any opportunity of including our our staff voices um they have relationships with our students and we care deeply about hearing directly from those marginalized groups of of students and families so if there's any opportunity for staff to be included in that um I know that that we could really make progress quickly these things have been seen by staff and we want to be able to identify the problems that exist and work towards solutions for our staff so I hope that didn't count against my time it did but go ahead 285 that's how many staff members have started working at Holliston Public Schools over the last 3 years 285 in a district that only currently employs 388 teachers and Par professionals that's 73% that is an average of 95 staff members in

084new positions each year over the the last 3 years but wait that doesn't add up that's because many of the 285 new hires didn't stay we've had multiple people leave the same positions over and over we've lost a total of 243 staff members in the last 3 years which is 62% of our current number of positions people started working here and in less than 3 years many decided that the unknown of a job hunt was more appealing than the security of the position they already had currently of the staff who still work here 75 teachers and 73 PA professionals have less than 3 years experience with Holliston Public Schools that's 27% of our current teachers and 64% of our current par professionals and this number is increasing daily what does this constant turnover say about

085our organization what impact does this have on education on our students for those who don't have schoolage children how will this affect our home values in 5 years from now the recent Niche ranking has Holliston Public Schools ranked at 51st in the best schools in the school districts in Massachusetts behind Ashland Sharon East and Medway hopkington is number one the latest rankings of best school districts in Massachusetts haven't even included the data from the impact on this massive of this massive turnover what will our rankings look like then the implications of this path if this current Trend continues are frightening older experienced teachers will steadily reach retirement within a decade you could be looking at a district comp comprised almost entirely of people still learning on the job a transient District this is the type

086of turnover we see in districts that have been seized by the state the type of districts that should never be a thought in a place like Holliston the good news is there's no reason this trend could not start to correct itself immediately the numbers make it clear that teachers and Pa professionals new hires in particular don't feel comfortable or supported here there's no mystery to the causes as teachers and parents have voiced their concerns to Administration to the school committee at public meetings to their Union officials anywhere they think they might be heard and all it would take is a shift in a mindset toward creating Solutions solutions that already align with what parents and the district want for our students solving the problems that teachers are facing will shift the momentum in the right

087direction and create hope people stick around when they have hope and when they feel like they are being respected they need to know they are not disposable and it's not me you're losing or the 20 or 30e veterans we're just getting older you're losing the French teacher who makes our French immersion program the success it is you're losing the kindergarten teacher who should be the foundation of your child's School experience you're losing the special ed teacher who can call on their decade of experience in the district to help your children learn how to read you're losing the counselor who your middle schooler will turn to when they get overwhelmed with life and they need that trusted adult who knows them better than anyone to help them get back on track you're losing the high school

088teacher who will write them the essay that gets them into their number one college because they've taken the time to get to know your teenager your child will need them but they might not be here they'll be in some other district and who knows who will be in their place 285 a number reported by central office itself you can stare at it and justify it all you want but it but that won't change it you can blame it on a nationwide hiring struggle but we're not talking about hiring we're talking about keeping and you can chalk it up to co if you want but at this point the pandemic has about as much impact on a classroom on a day-to-day basis as the common cold you can say we're just whining and teachers already have

089everything they need to thrive but that won't change a thing 285 will still be 285 and Counting I doubt our rival districts will disregard their shortcomings in a similar fashion they will grow we may not it starts with hope and Hope starts with change changes like a fun functioning Mentor program proper training for par professionals reduced bureaucracy in designing curriculum respecting the time teachers need to adequately prepare for their classes and reducing obstacles for unified teachers to Arts teachers to access IEPs 504s Health Plans most of these Solutions are affordable and accessible right now we have many important issues facing our district how many of these issues can actually be addressed with this kind of turnover we're at a Tipping Point which way are we going to go who is going to care who is

090going to make a plan or we can continue with with the status quo but now we see the grave truth of what the status quo brings us uh so I realized I um I U skipped over uh school committee comments but if you guys want we can do that after the uh the curriculum presentation like to get to teach yeah I and I apologize guys I uh so when don't we get to the uh the teaching and learning and uh again my my apology for it being a little bit later than we were we were planning but thank you good evening um I'm lucky enough to have my district curriculum leaders here to present the incredible work they're doing we have from the left to the right Joe hits our prek through2 plus Humanities um

091for gim coordinator Dr Ida papis in the middle there our prek through2 plus Unified Arts curriculum coordinator and finally James Lasser our prek through2 plus stem curriculum coordinator so going to walk you through a lot of information and get you caught up on what we're doing uh I am excited to start with some success stories um uh just a caveat um last year we um sat as sort of our starting point um core classes and four unified Arts those are the k through eight so you're going to see a lot of things that have happened in K through a in the unified Arts as most of the high school elective um elective courses um so the sorry sorry um so the first group that um I was really excited about sharing with you are the

092uh K through five Spanish teachers when I first met them they they they basically invited me in immediately and said please we really want to do this work we're really excited to actually collaborate um across the two schools the two elementary schools and they felt like they wanted to be able to sort of dovetail that curriculum um what's actually really beautiful is that 50% of them are actually part-time and yet they engaged in this work fully um we met once a week and this is beyond our regular curriculum coordinating after school hours um but it's really I'm really proud to say that by the end of the summer um they requested some summer hours they are 100% complete and writing that curriculum and are now I think maybe spearheading the stage two they might be

093the first group moving on to stage two which is uh creating common assessments to all those units that they had just created last year so hoay for them um and they're very excited and proud too um the um the K through five art group um which were really young ambitious teachers um they had no curriculum um handed to them but they also didn't really have a lot of tools in their toolbox because they were so young uh so we met regularly as well and they developed their curriculum K through 5 100% too um but beyond just curriculum writing we had actually it was Monday um the French Consulate and invited uh some of our uh French immersion teachers to celebrate them and they they told us that we were given this Lael France education distinction

094um which is basically a seal of Excellence for French immersion um uh programs uh all over the world and so we were very proud to uh find that out um just this week um we have been partnering with the French Consulate um all last year we've met on and off and we started forging a sort of smaller group with other French immersion um school districts um and basically looking at resources and finding that pipeline for good teachers that's really our uh the reason that I started to reach out to um the Consulate in that area um we're very proud to say that um as far as Equity having instruments and really expensive instruments the ones that parents who maybe are struggling to rent uh we'll choose a flute over maybe something that's a little more

095EXP expensive um so I really advocated to get some of the more expensive and larger ones that are hard to put on the bus and maybe put in the back of a little you know little VW bug or whatever um the district um purchased some instruments for us and that is for our students to borrow uh anybody who needs an instrument is able to get one um at this point across the schools we we share across all um all three of the schools um at the be my matter of fact my very first day I walked into um a rigging issue on the stage um which was a very expensive and very dire situation for safety and I'm really proud to say not only did we um get the rigging replaced but um it there

096were a lot of safety hazards around the halls probably if you walked those Halls um You probably saw like lots of um I would say steps and wood and all kinds of things that are considered of fire hazard we've been able to clear a lot of things out and start sort of fresh it feels really good in that uh performing arts hall uh in the high school for sure um I am very excited to add third and fourth grade health curriculum um uh the Department of Education um suggests that we have health K through 5 and or actually obviously throughout school but for the elementary K through 5 so adding the third and fourth grade health curriculum actually is a huge step for us and with with um you know um a focus on seal

097um you know this is a perfect place for us to sort of embed that into the health curriculum and then obviously uh I am really excited to engage with the World Language faculty in that curriculum review um there's a lot of things that have changed in since the last time that it was done in 2011 including new standards um so we have a lot of work cut out for us um but yay for us it was all good um thank you Ida um you're doing great work um so uh just a couple of success stories I'm really excited about some of the work that happened at the end of last uh in the second part of last year and over the summer um with Ela at the middle school each of the grades have undertaken

098the the task of revising and adding in some new units and and creating some really great uh opportunities for kids um sixth and seventh grade teachers are designing uh designed some literature Circle units um the sixth grade iteration last year and they were able to get books through uh PTO possibly Grant um which was fantastic thank you to them um were focused on uh novels and verse um and the seventh grade they're do they planned out a unit for their literature Circle Unit this year um uh focusing on overcoming adversity or overcoming obstacles and they're also um GNA be working on uh writing a unit for a new book uh for a whole class use and then the eighth grade is um they're about done with the unit they uh took a real hard look

099at what they have been doing for um their first unit on The House on Mango Street um and they are producing and creating um some wonderful vignettes um in that style um which is great that kids are having the opportunity to really think about their own voice and how to express themselves um so I'm really excited about that this year so far I've begun the work of um moving in the high school pth pass the core classes and into some of the electives um so um history through film was a course that was great um it was taught by uh Joel Bernstein um who retired last year and two new teachers have taken on that course and have made some um changes it was a wonderful course and it was very much um reflected who

100Joel was and he had some great success in teaching the course and the the new folks that are doing it um are are looking at it and trying to make it as good for them as teachers and for their students as well um and we are they've developed some three new units um about how to look at history through film and do some comparison and think about how to we evaluate film um when it presents a historical um moment and the accuracies and which one is best for use with students um and they're doing some really great work um the three units that they've worked on so far focused on the war in Afghanistan um what we and how we view um American Business and strong leaders and one on the Civil Rights Movement um

101so I've been working on cataloging those and getting those um ready to be publishable um and um over the summer as well um our uh Martha going um did some work to look at um South America and how that's reflected in the world history curriculum for sixth grade um she started developing a new unit there and we're going to continue doing that work um that would be taught um the April May June time period of the school year um world history in Massachusetts the standards are not always very worldly um they are still very Euro e um which is not our fault um and we have to really look for opportunities to make sure that it is worldly um so I'm really excited about what that um unit could look like um and what it

102will do for our kids to really understand um our world thanks J um so what I've been working on um working with new teachers at NTI which is new teacher Institute um we have some presentations and really working with teachers on understanding what ubd is and how to curricular map um and the idea of transfer and how to uh come up with transfer tasks uh supporting teachers through Pilots of different curriculum resources in mathematics and soon in science um at the elementary school they are piloting uh Invision which they have currently using but there's a new version 2024 which they're piloting uh they're also piloting uh Eureka math squared and I ready math so I'm supporting a Ashley bashard who's um a cc specialist down there uh with running those Pilots um uh and it's

103going really well some of the teachers really like um I ready and um Eureka writing a mapping science curriculum with third and fourth grade teachers anytime they have curricular time they've had some release time from class um I've gone and met with them and really worked on trying to figure out the standards they need to cover the second half of the year um for those of you who don't know science will be in the classroom in third and fourth grade starting in uh January so really writing the curriculum and figuring out what they're going to be teaching what standards they're going to cover what activities they're going to do we really wanted to be exced exciting uh type sign we want to come in and be really excited we don't want to be dry boring

104uh videos and stuff so we're trying to design curriculum that really excites the kids and teachers the standards I'm currently running curriculum reviews in math which is uh which is pretty big uh through the district a lot of uh thought goes into those meetings and a lot of uh discuss great discussions are happening at those curriculum review meetings that's been going on for a year this is the second year um there and then I'm also starting or started uh science Technology and Engineering curriculum review looking at uh curriculum from prek all the way up through 12 and then helping teachers in all grades at the high school at the middle school with the idea of transfer and how to write transfer tasks as we finish stage one and transition to stage two those transfer tasks

105are going to be really important with their um Summit or their assessments [Music] so so as I said I'm running the Mathematics Curriculum review for the district uh the first thing we did this is a summary of uh what we've done so far uh we ass some L the um Mathematic Curriculum review team for the district um and if you want to click on that link there it'll bring up if anyone's curious who's on the team just briefly you can see there's a lot I'm not going to read them all but there's a lot of teachers and administrators on this team it's full room when we get together um some great discussions happen but uh we have uh Joanie Ron Taylor an kenon Katherine Cooper a new math teacher at the high school Bob Tim

106the department leader of the high school Cassandra go Taylor Victoria Roy Casey conahan Lori kizik Chris venician Jen Dayton de mailing David Kim Ashley Bard Carri propal Katie Anderson Christy fips uh Nicole LEL Lindsay St Obin mag Nolan Adrien Beaver Kristen Marino and myself so it's a lot of people um but really great discussions everyone like every grade level is represented uh and heard at these meetings so uh first thing we did after assembling the team is create the vision of mathematics instruction which is also linked here um I don't think I need to read it um it has the shared Vision that we spent many meetings going through and figuring out and deciding what we want to write and then how it looks in the classroom so as we go through these Pilots we're

107applying this Vision to make sure the pilot matches up with our vision um and the effective elements uh of the effective mathematics instruction which if you scroll down a little bit more um we organized it to mimic the vision of a graduate if you're familiar with that with innovator thinker character Global Citizen and so forth so that's on there if anyone wants to look at it in more detail later uh we then created a or completed a gap analysis which basically we look at the standards covered in each course each grade level and find out what's covered where uh in some of the courses in the elementary maybe geometry is the very end of the year and so if that's for three or four years in a row the kids might have a gap there

108in Geometry so we try to identify those gaps and then look at standardized tests and analyze any strengths and weaknesses in the program we then use curate and Ed reports along with our Gap analysis our vision and what neighboring districts um use for curriculum to narrow down curricular resources there's hundreds of them out there uh we narrowed it down to three as I mentioned before the elementary schools uh the high school is looking at Envision and reveal uh and Rams I think is going to look at reveal and possibly one other they're um still they're still in the process of looking next steps are to get community feedback and use Desi's rubric to evaluate choose and Implement which um curriculum we'd like to um we decide we want and then recommend that to uh the

109superintendent to pass on to school so s science Technology and Engineering again assembled a team it's significantly smaller you click on that link it'll up um the placentin or the elementary I should say um science teachers Julie day and Laura Leonard and we have Noel chanelli third and fourth grade aren't represented they haven't taught science in the classroom so Julie day and Laura Leonard are representing the fourth grade curriculum there uh and then at Rams I've got Carla CR Jen Dayton uh Katie Mason and Nathan Rollins and in the high school silia bodmer Amanda Rivera Jamie katone um Mari gster and Tom LEC on the committee so good representation throughout um all the schools as well we're a little we haven't gotten as far because this is the first year we just started there no

110three meetings uh We've identified or developed our vision we started to of STD instruction at hollon public schools and we've uh they want to just jump in and see what do we need and so we spent about an hour with each School kind of talking about what they feel like they need and then we started to do a gap analysis and just like we did with math next steps going to mimic what happened in math um we'll share out the Gap analysis so each school has kind of looked at the standards and each grade level and um outlined which standards are highlighted which standards they cover now we're going to get together next meeting and talk about um each School overall so everyone can see and then we're going to look at areas of need

111discuss Solutions or possible changes and then re review curricular resources um and then pilot some stuff and make some decisions all right so I I uh I did say that I was very excited about this world language review the last one was done in 2011 so we we definitely have a lot to um to reflect on um we have had only one meeting so I can't say that we've accomplished much yet um we did get our team together um we have Claire peard and Karen tus Garcia and Michael Glenn from the elementary schools Emily rouso uh from the Middle School Dylan NS and Karen Porto carara Heisler from the high school um so we have a pretty nice cross-section um of French immersion Spanish and traditional French teachers uh we started our vision of World

112Language at hollisten we'll probably go back and refine that um we started articulating our teaching philosophies which I think is a this is a really important Point um and since coming to hollisten this is where my education has been um most schools think of um world language as you know you come in and you sit down you're talking about the language um and its structure and its grammar and maybe you're learning about culture um whereas I've discovered is that the French immersion is completely inter interdisciplinary and that is very different than most people who are prepared um to teach uh World Language so that's like a learning curve for anybody who moves into this District um and and for me obviously so I've spent the whole year meeting with CLA peard to get my head

113around um the very unique pedagogy of French immersion um so we're just starting to articulate that so that any new people who come into the district are brought up to speed pretty quickly about the difference uh between the three strands of um of language here um we identified areas of need uh that we are sort of putting on a parking lot um in order to come back and make sure that we bring in the partners that we need to find some of these Solutions um some of it has to do with scheduling uh some of it has to do uh with services for our students Etc but um every time that we're discussing we have a place for all those ideas to get um parked so we don't forget anything uh we come back to

114it um based on teacher suggestion throughout the district I've been reaching out to different Publishers for sample resources we do not have a cury um or an ed report for World Language um just yesterday I spent the entire day with desie um at their um their conference trying to pull some uh get some answers to some of my questions but also uh find out what desie suggesting that we do as far as finding uh quality resources so uh we have a huge pile in our room and we're ready to use the desie rubric to evaluate some of them um we see as our next steps um our meeting is coming up on the 14th um and we are interested in looking at the flowchart for how students get from one course to another um we're

115going to finalize our vision and our philosophy and sort of crosswalk that with the vision of a graduate for sure um we are definitely since the equity um audit came out realizing that every single step we're going to need to have a little bit of a equity lens on it to see um uh what things we need to sort of put in our parking lot to come back and make sure that um we get some suggestions on how to move forward and and uh also just pulling in research there's so much research happening in language acquisition that we want to just make sure that we are at the top of our game and uh [Music] informed um so in ela we started our secondary uh review last year um we're going to reassemble in the

116next few weeks one of the struggles this year and getting uh this work going again is that with so many of the things going on um we when to meet and how to make sure we can meet for a chunk of time to get good work done is hard when um you have so many teachers committed to doing the work um in various diff uh disciplines um and then pulling those teachers out of the classroom to do the work and then what does that mean for a school to run so um we have been not able to get going as quickly as I would have liked um but we're going to reassemble in the next few weeks and continue our work um which it's the 6th to 12th grade um that we will be doing

117um we are last year we did we created a vision for instruction and what we would like instruction to look like we um ident we did a task text analysis of what what are the things we're asking kids to do in class and what are the texts that we're using um as the sources um or the backbone of those um tasks um Ela Frameworks are very different than the science and the social studies and the math ones um in those other subjects it's very specific in algebra you learn these things in social studies you cover these topics um in ela from late Elementary up through high school is the same things over and over again with increas in complexity um they don't name specific books they always say with texts that are appropriate cross genres

118and grade level um but the writing and the thinking and the um that students do over time does get more complex um so that's both liberating but also can be very overwhelming when we think about what then are the books we should be using with our kids to teach these ideas um the foundation of course of all the Ela work is to make sure that our kids leave the schools um with the dispositions of good readers writers and speakers and listeners um as well as a foundation in how what do we do when we read literature and what does that mean for us so that's the things that we wrestle with um we also want to make sure we commit to making sure kids know things about literature um over time um there are fundamental

119things we we value about American literature that we want to hold on to and not get lost in these State Frameworks that can be feel very generic but it's still appropriate to focus in on what happens in America over time or what happens in world literature over time so we're struggling with how to balance that um we also want to then move into a primary review this year um there's a lot of great work that has been happening at the younger uh in the younger grades as we look at the most current research um around science of reading and evidence based instruction and structured literac structured literacy um Jenny man has been doing fantastic work and the staff there has been doing great work work with introducing integrity and making sure that we're doing the

120things that are best for kids um and make some key shifts away from balanced literacy to a structured literacy approach it's really important I'm really happy with those shifts um but we also need to do that like a real hard look at us as a whole and Jenny and ilsa at Miller are very excited about us doing this review um The Challenge again though is that with math and science and World Language happening it's a lot to take on um so we are mindful of the commitments of people um so we're going to we're planning right now out to get that um the three of us to get the review started um we're going to start to determine the committee members we were going to hopefully convene in very early January of 24 um the

121first step of the review is to gather all the information about what we're doing right now key findings um what is um what are students experiencing in the classroom what are the resources that we're using um and we feel like the three of us and members of the committee who want to and can engage in that can do a lot of that work and then present back to the committee as a whole and then dive into next steps and big recommendations at the beginning of next year um so that's what the processes we're hoping to use um and then social studies um it's it's my favorite thing in that it's that it's at my core as a social studies teacher I I I I come from at literacy from a very personal place because my

122son has struggles there and I and it's so important to have access um to good literacy instruction for for everything um but I also have a special place in my heart for social studies um we're hopefully going to start the review in the spring um have couple one or two initial meetings so at least get through what is it that we want to see in our social stud construction was our vision um uh again it's hard to do all the things at once and we have to be mindful that of of what teachers can can take on but there are some things we need to talk about in social studies that's really important um social studies instruction in elementary school is an incredibly important thing that is both connected and you can do reading about

123social study stuff in ways in elementary school but also has its own set of ways of of thinking that are really important that have to be explicitly taught too so we have to hopefully figure out how we do that really well the big thing that I am concerned about and thinking about a lot lately I went to a Desy meeting today is the e8th grade civics mcast that is being field tested this year all districts in the Commonwealth are required to field test the test this year um it will most likely be operational next year um I the Civics teachers are are getting ready to do it they are um aware of what the requirements are we're um we're working through what the logistics are for what that field test means there's um requirements from

124desie about what we have to do um and we're going to meet next week to figure out what we're going to do to meet those requirements and make sure that it's a smooth and and fair process for our kids um the test that they've designed um is as far as standardized tests go not the worst one I've ever seen it's like it's a really it's not a bad test like it's it's I've seen I've seen a lot of them and it's it has some good design um which is good and I'm excited about and it's a lot for our eighth graders they're going to be tesed in all four subjects and that is that makes me sad um but that's also Beyond My Control in this role right there um but the test itself is

125is not horrible and then it's a high school we're re-examining and thinking about how um the high school Civics uh student Le Civics Action Project looks and exists and um making sure that we're doing the very best work there possible um Jen Lasher and I are attending um our Workshop next Tuesday to uh think about uh how we do that work better so that's that's on the plate this year for social studies oh I'm glad to he was going and that's also to add to that that is a destiny requirement of all yeah state law that one's a state law so you know uh all students have to have the opportunity to participate in a student Le nonpartisan uh Civic Action project in 8th grade and once in high school so we have to do

126the work to make sure that that is happening and how do you see that work being done presently right now in high school what opportunities do our high school students have now so right now it exists mostly in the uh Service Learning class that uh Miss Mills teaches and in the global C program um and there's great things that are happening there um I met with a student last week who was very interested in in doing work around anti-Semitism um she's brilliant and it was a really great time talking with her um but we also recognize that that that's not enough and we have to have that opportunity available for all kids um we have to make some some shifts and we're going to figure out what that means this year um for better work

127next September guess right now it's an elective so not every child has access to it but we we think we have have some good ideas that we can we have we have a couple very good ideas that we have to fles out flesh out um and make sure that we choose the best one and that's going to require some more input from the various stakeholders n high school has been doing one for years you might want to talk to them there there's there's a lot of schools that I've been doing it for years and there's really great miles I actually had the opportunity to design that program for a school that I worked at previously from nothing to something that's really fantastic has existed now for very part of 15 years um so it's work

128that I love and I think is really important I'm really excited about about it it's hard because it's it requires a lot of teachers a lot of building of capacity for teachers to be able to lead students do that work um and that is doable um and I I know teachers and especially social St teacher want that because that's why we do social studies because we want our kids to be participating in democracy um but it's still there is work that has to happen happen um so and in looking at that for the future um you have a kid that's very focused in math and science um maybe can't spend two terms in a service learning or another type of class because it simply doesn't fit into their blog schedule and they're scheduled within four

129years is there any capacity to build in projects like that into existing classes AP usgov for example like why couldn't you set up like a mentoring system or something where you'd be able to have that side project but build it into an existing class as opposed to having to carve out two terms for um something specific one of the things that we it has Civics in the in the name so then we automatically think it's a self- siize thing in very many ways it absolutely is um and I would say there's also a lot of great projects I've seen kids do that are not social studies but really are rooted in in science things and climate action and mental health and it's wonderful um the the trick with uh where you then place the the

130task is it's going to have to be in a course that all students take or in a series of courses that all students take because then we can say all kids are being are being given the opportunity and this is the guidance that desie is giving us um so it's hard then to have it exist in you could have it in a in all the grade like one way to do is like all 11th graders in their social studies class do the thing regardless of what the social studies class is right that could be an option the struggle though is then when you have AP courses with very specific things that kids are going to be held accountable in a very specific way in May prescribed it's it's hard then to do that and that

131worries about I worry about then the impact there um so you have to look at what are the core courses that all kids take and then sort of work your way from there about what then are those options um and that's what we're trying to figure out now and I I I don't have a we have some possibilities um of what could be some good Solutions and we just have to continue to do the conversations with the people that that would impact um and we we don't like we're trying to figure that out right now and I will be very happy to share with you once we've made those choices what that choice is but I don't want to say more because then we don't know if that's going to be the best choice to

132until we talk with everybody involed right right J Lasher all of that I wanted to since you brought the point of core classes that everyone takes I wanted to mention that in high school the two things that are immediately brought to the Forefront of my mind are essay writing and Foundations which we take at the beginning of our we take them our freshman year and there aren't any um core required classes that are a term that we take as seniors and um in my personal experience I think I would have found it in intimidating to take on a big service learning project my first like semester of high school but as seniors we've become more confident in ourselves and our ability to take on projects like that and I'm wondering if there's any way for

133us to reconsider what's being taught in the two core classes that we take as freshmen and possibly think about pushing them to later on in our high school care careers where we might have more capacity to take on big starus learning projects and feel more confident in our ability to do so having had years of experience so saki I can I can speak a little bit to that I'm sure jok can as well but that is something we've questioned for a number of years as well just because students have changed needs have changed I think a lot of the I've heard from students as well that some of the work that you're doing in that foundations course is stuff that you've learned through attrition as you coming up through so yes I think we recognize

134that and those may be some areas that we can look at so these are all some of the ideas that we're scoping out right now okay thank you so much for saying that you're you're senior now right so one of the things um and I thank you I really really appreciate it um I would be as as a freshman when I was growing up You' be very scared to do the thing just as you described because I had no idea how to do it till very later um what really excites me is our eighth graders now are doing the thing yeah like they they do so like yes very much more they're going to be much more equipped to do it than I ever was at that age so um I I very much I

135hear because it is scary right um and I totally agree and our St teachers in eighth grade are doing really great stuff to to assuage those worries um right now so um I I just wanted to add on to that and I'm glad you that was exactly what I was hoping for was student input so to the ability that you can a survey or getting more information from students about this because it does give me pause when I hear it might be a a class that everyone has to take in 11th grade history or something I think I I would hate for this is an opportunity right to have kids be P to do a a service project that they're passionate about so if there's a way to fit that into psychology if there's a

136way to fit that into science if that's where their passion lies if there's a way to fit into art if that's where their passion lies I think that to me is more important than like a mandated course that all 10th graders or 11th graders all have to take the same history course and we take away that flexibility of student Choice with courses because it's more important to have a service project that that you care about and are passionate about otherwise we're just doing this to check a box right right and I I absolutely agree um so don't take my next comment as any type of dis because I I yes absolutely kid we want kids to do good work and be passionate about the things and we want to find a way to do that

137the struggle that I'm finding um is the guidance that we get from desie is really specific around these things and I don't always necessarily like the guidance they're giving us um and I would like it to look very much like the way you're saying and um we have to figure out how we can do that and meet their their parameters as well right and that's going to take some creative uh thinking so their recommendation is that it either happens in a core class that all kids take and we can identify what those are it can happen in a series of electives as long as kids are required to take one of those electives so is we could say it can exist in a b c and d as long as kids have to take one

138of those over the course of their their time um doing that then looks and feels very different um and is planning for that then changes in terms of like who then are the teachers what are then the courses what are the like how do we support that um and you also have to support the teachers in if you are the facilitator as a teacher of a service learning project that's a totally different way of teaching than most people have been taught so in order to do it in all subjects that's a lot of professional development that involves a lot of teachers which is not as realistic you know to do that not allow them to cover the standards cover for them correct so but it is within a district that's done Project based learning for

139many years too so I just get I'd love to have staff input in that absolutely soor we'll come back to Cynthia first are you sure I didn't on your toe I thought I was late sorry but um so one of the things um that um you know people think that all we do is is curriculum writing and filling boxes in but our our responsibilities are actually pretty broad so we thought we would outline what what some of them are um obviously you've noticed that we run curriculum reviews uh in each discipline which is a huge amount of of work um and um and they haven't been done for a very long time um all all of us have joined desie leadership um in some way um meeting regularly with people in these disciplines to get

140guidance and to ask questions and to network Etc and bringing those ideas back to the district um we're active members of Desi's implementation team so we um we meet with desie then they can basically walk us through some of these curriculum review expectations and things that they've put together tools that they've put together for us um I know for me I've been a liaison with leaone with a ton of different entities the French Consulate being one I I think I've met with them maybe five times last year um obviously putting together the application for um our uh distinction with uh France educ uh and the visiting French immersion schools come regularly because they love what we do um but it is it is a coordination feat um getting everybody um sort of lined up um

141and uh everybody um informed as to who's coming and why and who what's happening um obviously uh organizing PD but I've been lucky enough to uh work with the districts around here um I pulled together eight eight different uh school districts to bring in a really worldclass um World Language PD facilitator for an entire day's PD which is very expensive but with uh all these districts uh coming together I think we got it down to like $35 a person so we're very proud of that um and then the teachers uh are thrilled to have somebody that they really wanted to see um facilitate writing grants I know that Joanie and I just worked on one that we're waiting to hear about through desie um to provide some um funding for assessments uh stamps assessments particularly

142for our world language uh classrooms uh to sort of start tracking our proficiency um as they go through um our courses and then um obviously leading curriculum writing after school with different groups as well as during the day during their um during their uh prep times I like that also that Desy leadership network has been amazing like imagine like 50 or 60 leaders in math all in the room and they're like if you're doing a curriculum view go over there and you just go and you talk and network and see what's going on in other districts see what other districts do and then the emails then they set up an email chain and it's all back and forth and constantly getting input from all districts in the state which has been huge for me anyway

143I you absolutely yeah and it's a lot of time but it's well spent additionally um working to vertically align the curriculum uh going through those again making those creating those stage one curriculum documents along with uh teachers and then looking at them and using them in curriculum review meetings or whatever to align the curriculum provide professional development for teachers uh support teachers in the classroom where uh we go in the classroom frequently um help teachers especially new teachers trying to retain those teachers uh support teachers in piloting new curriculum um sit on hiring committees uh with principles and teachers uh find uh teacher resources uh publish newsletters coordinate and work with principles uh approve digital tools so if a teacher wants to use some digital tool um it needs um an agreement signed D privacy

144data agreement signed so they fill they actually fill out a Google form it comes to us we look at the curriculum side of that c of that um digital tool and approve it and then uh Dan on McLoud goes on and gets a digital um privacy agreement uh we also um I this is this just applies to me but the performance assessment for science Technology and Engineering in fifth grade and in uh eth grade is actually changing it's changing to be a performance assessment so instead of being based on factual information um it's a performance assessment so what that mean be very different it's going to be like the it's going to be about the um like learning and using science more than factual information so those PR IES it's going to focus on those

145and um and so I went to training last two days and they trained me so I can then go back and train science teachers in 345 and then in 678 to use the uh simulations and because it involves a so basically a student gets asked a problem and there's a simulation they do and that simulation produces data they then analyze that data and then come up with conclusions based on that data so they're actually doing stuff more than just regurgitating facts so it's awesome I've been excited about this you're talking about the e8th grade science mcast or what was formerly known as eighth grade okay thanks eighth grade science mcast St uh s science Technology and Engineering mcast in e8th grade and in fifth grade so they take it in fifth grade in eth grade

146and then again in nth grade so um they're changing the way they do the fifth and the eighth grade test the commission has been promising that for years and we're finally getting there so that's a A plus call it's a definit A plus it's it's going to be good once it's implemented in the classrooms we'll have the kids doing a lot more Hands-On stuff and that'll help with the assessment so they train me and give me a lot of ideas of what can be done in the classroom to prepare kids for that test so I'll be then training teachers in 3 four 5 and then in 678 as well um so some of the other professional development work that's been happening um James has been working with uh grade three and four science teachers to

147write curriculum for implementation of Science in the classroom come January I been working with the third and fourth grade health teachers to write uh Health curriculum uh for implementation in January um James is running um organizing going to run a book study on building thinking classrooms in mathematics and Ida has been working with um band on creative director um we be Aaron Snyder and Claire um had this great idea about um helping the French immersion teachers also make the shift to um evidence uh structured literacy which means something very different in French immersion instruction and they were able to identify and we were able to secure the funds to have some PD for that group um over the course of the year to learn about um those things in French cuz it's the same ideas

148but very different when you're in a different language um the scope and sequence of what gets taught and when and what the sounds are is just different um so they once a month um during their regular schedule common planning time on Wednesdays they spend that uh half the time working with Kim lockart I believe her name is um a great um researcher um out of Quebec um they meet via Zoom to do the work um it's fantastic I'm so excited and thank you to Aaron for finding and helping us um identify that as a possibility um it's it's great um we're doing work with new teachers to make sure that they are getting the support that they need to do good thinking about what their curriculum and what their units can look like um we're

149working uh with teachers on PD days and we're still of course doing the stage one stuff um that has not stopped um go right into take waist into this so