School Committee Meeting - 10/17/2023

001uh good evening Holliston and uh welcome to the special uh school committee meeting of October 17th 20123 we're here to uh receive a presentation by LMP Educational Services for the uh Equity audit that has been commission that was commissioned um and done over the past year or so and we have with us uh Miss Mindy poo to to present and then we'll ask some questions uh but before that I think Susan you or Dr Kus you want to uh start by just giving a little background yes for those of us who don't remember I kind of want to ground Us in how we got to this point in time in Holliston so when I arrived we were under an old strategic plan that was from going from 2017 to 2022 so after um my first

002year here we hired a consultant the teaching Learning Alliance to come in in the beginning of 20 2021 school year and had them work with us throughout the 2122 school year with 22 Community stakeholders two school committee parents par s teachers students um administrators Town Administrator and select board chair at the time and we all were in this room for a number of months including someone here sitting with us in the audience and um we spent a lot of time hashing through developing our mission statement our vision and the Strategic initiatives we wanted to put together for Hollis and public schools and one of the big themes that kept coming up was Equity Equity equity and alignment of curriculum from an equity lens looking at um rigor in the curriculum looking at programs looking at

003courses and just seeing where where we could improve for students from an equity lens and one of our initiatives was to have an equity audit so last year um we vetted five different consultants and we chose l&p um Educational Services to come in and do a full Equity audit having someone from the outside coming in so it it has a more neutral lens and I'll let Mindy tell you about all the stakeholders she and her team met with but it was the Strategic plan that led us to lead us to U develop an equity audit and what we do with the equity audit is going to be a result of a steering committee coming together and the community deciding what they want from this audit just because it's a recommendation they may be good recommendations

004but there's no way we're going to be doing everything that's in there so we're going to be as a team and a community deciding where we want to go with this and I want everybody to be mindful of that and not to panic when they see all list of items because those list of items are going to be prioritized by what we can accomplish and align back to the rest of the Strategic plan that goes through 2027 as well and Beyond so thank you Mindy for joining us sure thank you so much on behalf of LMP Educational Services it's a privilege to be here with all of you and I thank you for the invitation and the opportunity I am here representing one of six members of the equity audit team that conducted the audit

005for the hollon public schools so what I I hope to accomplish with all of you is just to give you an overview of who we are the process of the equity audit itself and then the primary focus of the presentation will be looking at the different factors that we found that support Equity here in the district and those that limit equity and I am just going to provide you with a sampling of those findings the report itself has many many more it's very comprehensive but I am just going to highlight some of those findings tonight and then we'll share some Rec recommendations for high leverage areas of improvement we'll close with an opportunity for you to ask your questions and I will do my best to provide you the information you need so LMP Educational

006Services was founded to build the capacity confidence and expertise of Educators and we do this so that we can help all Educators teach lead and sustain Equitable and culturally responsive classrooms districts institutions of Education we are all pre- through 12 Educators currently practicing we have extensive review experience with a focus on learning and improved outcomes for students we partner with our clients to engage all stakeholders in the process so we try to be very intentional about who it is that we're including in this process and you'll see the variety of stakeholders that we included for this particular audit and we have a process for really creating managing and evaluating the Improvement efforts so this is step one in helping you identify some of those areas for improvement in the areas that you're doing really really

007well that are benefiting all students and also what are some of the next steps that you can take to continue to improve the experience for all here in Holliston and we're experience providers a professional learning towards Equity this is the work that we do day in and day out in all of our jobs to give you an idea of the um Equity team so we represent 10 different districts in the work that we do uh we have done work across uh six different states at this point we've worked with more than 20 different school districts and combined we have 80 years of experience in education so the equity audit process is um designed to address five different areas so we want to really be able to enable all levels of leadership and staff to gain

008a shared understanding of the quality of Education currently available to students here in the district it's also designed to guide a process of self-reflection and directed practice so part of this Equity audit is about doing a health check of the district where are we how are we doing what do we need to do better what can we leverage that's working really well and that comes through the self-reflection it's also designed to develop a shared understanding within the school community of the areas that promote equity and the priorities for improving equal access access to Student Learning further the equity audit process is designed to identify needs using a structured process and many times we'll reference a rubric that helps us gauge where the district stands in the different areas that we're reviewing and also to enable

009the district to identify common patterns of professional practice across the schools so that they can better support improved outcomes for all so we facilitated this Equity audit process using an equity framework that addressed three overarching questions question one what does current District data reveal about achievement in hollist in public schools number two what factors do staff students parents Guardians caregivers identify as hindering or enhancing achievement in Holliston Public Schools and number three what initiatives those at the district school or classroom level can be implemented to build cultural competency and enhance the schooling experiences of all students staff and families in the hollon public schools so to address those three questions we undertook a very comprehensive data review process so with the support of the District we analyzed achievement data and examined District policies practices and

010resource allocations the data and documentation analysis included but we're not limited to all of these different things so we did a detailed analysis of District data relative to student academic performance enrollment based on tracking discipline achievement attendance social and emotional needs Dropout and graduation rates special education status and English learner classification we also looked at achievement data by race ethnicity gender socioeconomic status disability status and English language learner proficiency an examination of targeted intervention supports for academic social emotional and behavioral needs to identify the strengths challenges opportunities and effectiveness of those supports a review of family and Community engagement practices to provide recommendations on strategies for creating a safe and welcoming environment for All Families including our families of color a review of curriculum to ensure it is fully representative of hollis's diverse community and

011to provide recommendations on how to increase representation within the curriculum and suggest supports for increased student representation the data review also had consideration of efforts to recruit and retain black indigenous and people of color staff in order recommend steps to improve the diversification process Recruitment and provide strategies on how to support a diverse Workforce here in Holliston a review of professional development offerings related to equity diversity and creating schools free of bias prejudice and discrimination and with that we reviewed 91 different documents and materials this is just a sampling of some of those documents and materials the report itself includes all of the documents and materials that we reviewed but to give you an idea we looked at the middle school high school math pathway The English Department book titles by course the global Golds

012project scoring rubric the high school bell and rotation schedule the Strategic plan school goals and action steps we looked at mcast data for years 2018 to 2022 we looked at the fall 2022 kindergarten information night presentation um we looked at 2223 safe and support of schools end of year bullets and attendance data if you want to see the full list of 91 please definitely Rec um reference the full report because they are all there in terms of stakeholder input so given the purpose and the scope of this audit our approach was focused on a high level understanding of equity within the district by trying to stakeholder experiences that data and also examining policies and practices so throughout the study while we were conducting this audit we had 18 one-on-one interviews with school and District leaders

013we also had interviews with curriculum leaders and the department leaders and we held focus groups with various stakeholders that included students Community Partners and school committee members this here shows the full list of interviews that we conducted these were one-on-one interviews and you'll see that it ranged from our superintendent assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction student services technology social emotional learning and the curriculum coordinator for humanities the curriculum coordinator for science technology engineering and Mathematics unified arts and World languages our principles grade level leaders of montauri and World languages some department leaders at the high school as well we also held three focus groups we held one for students in grades 6 to 8 a focus group for students in grades 9 through 12 and then we held a Community Partners focus group and one

014for school committee members so students Community Partners and school [Music] committee while doing the study here in the district we focused on three domains and we identify these domains based on some of the analysis that we did during the study itself the three domains included domain one Innovative programming domain two school and District structures and domain three student trajectories and academic outcomes and for each of these domains we had a focus on the factors that support Equity the factors that limit equity and then those High leverage recommendations for each of the domains so I'm going to begin by going through each of the domains and highlighting some of the factors that support limit equity and also the recommendations so for Innovative programming the purpose of this audit uh We examined Innovative initiatives and programs offered

015throughout the Holliston Public Schools that we believe provide unique or thematic instruction that are models to generate new approaches and solutions to teaching and learning that provide access to diversity equity and inclusion resources and opportunities to grow the district's capacity specifically the team identified the K to 5 French immersion program and the K to4 French montor program as two of the most Innovative educational opportunities that focused on teaching and learning and the district's adoption and implementation of equity focused programs we do believe that these two programs could serve as models um and Holliston itself could be a model District just based on these two programs um really outstanding models that we have here so for some of the factors that support Equity that we're going to highlight um at the district level the district has

016engaged with the Department of Education their safe schools program to increase its understanding of identity and other concepts related to the lgbtq plus community and as part of this initiative the district has provided professional development at each of their schools over the past several years around enhancing their understanding of gender identity Concepts and recently updated their school policy on gender identity support to provide a safer environment related to gender identity collaboration with the safe school program has been beneficial to health Educators who have worked to crosswalk Health standards and wellness standards in the curriculum as well the district has initiated and participated in a variety of innovative programming centered on equity and social emotional learning and some of those include um the Holliston Public Schools offering graduate courses through Leslie University's Institute for trauma sensitivity

017focus on creating trauma sensitive schools and this partnership began in in school year 2122 and almost 50 Educators have completed courses thus far the district has already begun registration for those courses that will take place this school year in addition several schools in the district have participated in a variety of the multi-tiered systems of supportmy offered through the Department of Education specifically classentino Miller and Adams are entering year three of the positive behavioral interventions and supportss the Miller school has completed year one of three of the cultur responsive teaching Academy and both placentino and Adams have joined the cohorts as they enter year 1 in school year 22 excuse me in school year 23 24 and lastly the high school has completed year one of the social emotional and behavioral Academy the district has also

018received a grant through the Metro West Health Foundation to engage in rapid assessment action planning in which the district leadership will examine social and emotional learning structures across the system and develop a district-wide vision that details how to support schools with seal initiatives and there is a robust partnership with Holliston Youth and Family Services in the district multiple administrators in their interviews cited the positive impact of the development of this partnership with Holliston Youth and Family Services at the elementary level um we found that families can choose their own pathway of programming traditional montauri and French immersion are open to all through a lottery system and provide students and families with Choice as a way for them to build their agency and voice the world language program is aligned to the Massachusetts curriculum framework this

019means that teachers and leaders can rely on clearly stated academic and Teaching Standards to ensure Equitable teaching and learning expectations for every teacher and student tier 2 intervention is provided in French for short-term interventions this allows for students to use the target language of study to receive increased access to content so we found that really unique that they're able to get their T tier 2 interventions in French as well as in English monor students learn social studies for instance by exploring other cultures and then assessing how their own culture is similar and different from those of children in other parts of the world one teacher discussed how the montauri approach both instilled respect for diverse cultures and a sense of awesome greatness of the world uh placentino and Miller School teachers wo cultural lessons into

020the curriculum throughout the school year um they reported that much care is taken in the assignment of literature for these lessons for the books that are evaluated by teachers and they utilize the seven forms of bias assessment to be able to select the materials that they use in 2023 the kat2 Holliston student body um is at 82.9% White 12% Asian 1.6% African-American 1% that ident identified as white n Asian and what we found here is that uh the K2 montor program was more diverse than the total enrollment with a student body that is 73.6% white and in the report on page 20 you can see some graphs of this data Ela mcast scores of montauri students in grades 3 to four exceeded the scores of students in a traditional education program and French immersion program

021in years 2019 20 2021 and 2022 uh as you may know that the state did not report data for mcast in 2020 due to coid at the secondary level some of the Innovative programming pieces that we want to highlight the high school offers a business program that appeals to many students some of those courses include hospitality and tourism design thinking marketing and accounting and a number of students actually discussed that business program that is available the development of the vision of a graduate program the vision of a graduate program was cited by both district and building administrators as promoting Equity through its emphasis on the personal quote the globe and the the local and the global and we notice that this slogan is also included in the district strategic plan now some of the factors

022under Innovative programming that limit equity and again these are just some of them um at the district community members perceive that teachers are missing practical professional development with ongoing feedback during the negotiated workday as opposed to the current setup of one andone workshops or after hours professional development one member of the group for example said quote the emphasis on leaders not teachers teachers need to participate during school hours they need to practice practice practice this focus group pointed out that teaching materials are often old and conclud uded by saying quote teachers need support end quote there is a great deal of wisdom in these observations if teachers are stuck in a cycle where they feel quote fearful about teaching new Equity based curricula and that fear looks like a lack of caring to students in

023the parent Community then they need support and practice to get more comfortable and confident in teaching the material in 2021 um we had nine students on the free and reduced lunch plan that were enrolled in the montau classroom so I'll move to Elementary here and that constituted just under 9% of the program's 105 students so again I'll repeat that nine students of the 105 students in 2021 were on free and reduced lunch in the montauri program however two years later when you look at the students who were 2021 as first and second graders now having moved to third and fourth graders only two of the 66 students in grades three and four four in the montor program were on the free and reduced lunch plan this is similar in 2021 a total of six students

024who were classified as English Learners were enrolled in the K to2 montauri classrooms constituting 5% of the programs 105 students however two years later when those same students are now in grades three and four only one of the 6 66 students in the third and fourth grade montor program was an English learner an administrator during one of the interviews noted that there is a missed opportunity in not leveraging the world language and arts departments these areas are quote so Central to inclusion and the celebration of diversity end quote and yet do not often feel visible or included in the same way as other content areas are throughout the district we also found that the French immersion program is is the least diverse of all K to2 options and that is true in the following ways

025and I'll just share some of those so black or African-American students have the lowest enrollment in the K2 grade band compared to other racial categories in 20121 they were less than 1% in 2022 just over 1% and in 0% in 21 and 22 English learner students were the least enrolled group there were two students total in the French immersion program while there were no English learner students at the 3 to five grade level band in 2023 two years later one student an English Learner in the K to2 Band and still no English Learners in the grades 3 to Five band in terms of gender males had the lowest enrollment in the K to2 Band in 2021 and this trend continued in the grades 3 to Five band for the same time period as well students

026with disabilities in K to2 comprise 2 and a half% of the enrollment in 2021 and they were just under 9% in 2022 so there was an increase and then the enrollment decreased again for special education students to 3% uh in 2023 and I'll show you some of this data in some charts here so if you look at this particular chart we're looking at the Innovative program enrollment by race at the top we have traditional in the center we have French immersion and at the bottom there we have the montauri program and the blue band represents students who identify as white the red band represents students identified as Asian the yellowish orange color band students who identify as African-American the green band American Indian or Alaskan native the orange band native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

027and the teal two or more races and that's for 2022 and to compare that to 2023 the same uh set of data here looking at tradition French immersion in montor you can see the enrollment by race for 2023 is it appropriate to ask questions or do to go no okay thank [Music] you and here you have the um for 5 2023 data just in a bar graph so you can see students with disabilities traditional program is represented with a blue graph the French immersion program is represented by the red bar and the montauri program is represented by the yellow bar and we have this for students with disabilities our English Learners and students on free and reduced lunch some of the recommendations un under Innovative programming um so for the montauri program we recommend investigating

028the reasons for the decline in enrollment among students with disabilities or economically disadvantaged students and English Learners as they move from K to2 to gr span 3 to 5 and begin to create a plan to provide more support for these subgroups of students we also recommend providing expanded information regarding the French immersion program to families in their native languages so that all families in the district are able to understand the decision- making process uh focusing particularly on information that helps families understand the school supports and services available to the students develop or identify and Implement an assessment to determine French immersion eligibility for students above grade one I just want to check one thing there one of the things that we did find is that students are limited to enter the French immersion program Beyond

029grade one that's why that recommendations is there and again in the report there are many more recommendations for Innovative programming for domain two school and District structures in this section of the report school and District structures primarily refer to the systems and organization of the school and of the district the equity audit team focused on structure structures that need to be in place for staff and students to thrive and experience personal and academic professional growth and a sampling of these systems and organizations include the district's program review process staff diversity school schedules and professional development and the data that supported this portion of the investigation included the Strategic plan action steps program documents school schedules District data and interviews with instructional leaders [Music] so some of the factors that support Equity um hiring a more

030diverse staff is named as a goal in the district's strategic plan uh the superintendent has also provided teachers with an overview of the new strategic plan to quote create a culturally responsive learning environment raise awareness and identify strengths and challenges to improve systemic systemic Equity diversity inclusion culture and climate and quote ensure currency equity and alignment of curricula and that is named in the um school goals and action steps teachers have been offered a variety of professional development workshops related to social justice cultural proficiency the lgbtq plus community and Equity these include professional development provided by outside Consultants including Desy safe and supportive schools initiative and the Anti-Defamation leagues no place for hate the district has reestablished its curriculum review cycle k to2 math is currently in program review beginning uh in this school year

0312324 Elementary Ela K to2 social studies K to2 World Language and kada2 science will undergo review uh we also found that there is a vertical trajectory of science and computer science Elementary science is formly part of the schedule it's once a week for 50 minutes in grades K to 5 and is departmentalized beginning in grade five um in Middle School the computer science program is part of the unified Arts rotation for all students um in addition the district has committed resources to Center and support Equity initiatives for example the district has identified and offered professional learning opportunities um such as the seven forms of VI bias and using texts from zaretta Hammond like culturally responsive teaching in the brain the district also created and fully funded a position focused on Equity the director of social

032emotional learning and equity and this position is funded through the appropriation budget rather than through grants this position was created specifically to address the aftermath of the co 19 pandemic for student learning and well-being at the elementary level some of the factors that we are identifying here that support Equity uh the French immersion program aligns with the Holliston Public Schools mission to quote collaborative collaboratively create a safe inclusive environment that empowers Learners through Innovative teaching and learning to be lifelong active Global Citizens French program offers continuous linguistic and cultural comparisons that contribute to Intercultural competence and communication we also find that there is a variety of literature in the classroom to celebrate diversity represent minorities and different Lifestyles there is a quote gender training to integrate children from a variety of backgrounds ethnicities and daily

033structures to make a welcoming community and teachers reported that this has led to a sense of belonging for students and staff the district has offered seminars and community roundtables at the elementary level regarding issues such as racism that allow important conversations to occur as reported by one educator these workshops serve to broaden an understanding of topics such as microaggressions and among many others some of the highlights at the secondary level Holliston High School offers the directed study block for uh four days a week Monday through Thursday which is an opportunity for students to get individualized teacher help on their assignments there is a Friday advisory that provides students in grades 9 through 11 with an opportunity to engage in Social and emotional learning with each other and the Holliston High School schedule provides common planning

034time for teachers in coming planning time for teachers is essential for the implementation of any initiative and will be especially important uh will be an especially important structural component of further involving teachers in any Equity work that the district May undertake some of the factors that limit Equity at the elementary level the teaching staff is overwhelmingly white here in the district and you can see from this visual representation the blue portion of that Pi graph there represents the number of white Educators about 93% of the Educators in the district are white um at the district level here teachers are becoming aware of how uninformed they are on becoming anti-racist cultur proficient Educators they are and this was quoted from an interview they are worried about saying the wrong thing and would like more sustained proactive

035large scale professional development in this area um holl's professional development success as a means of disseminating Dei practices hinges not on the programs offered but rather on the impact on teaches indeed some Holliston administrators have stated that Dei should be quote called out more explicitly as part of the focus of curriculum reviews for example so that teachers will take Dei work more seriously after one district presentation an administrator thought that the feeling on the part of staff was quote why is this the focus what good will result from all this work and effort when the seven forms of biased curriculum equity Equity checklist was mentioned in one of the interviews an administrative professed to being unfamiliar with this method of assessing the equity of curricula uh tellingly a follow-up question about what aspect of hollis's

036Dei work this leader was most proud of elicited a response asking the interviewer to clarify what Dei actually stood for an administrator also reported that the district's protocols for Teacher supervision have not explicitly targeted Dei instructional practices and District leaders indicated that there has not been much content specific professional development over the last several years it was mentioned however that the establishment of the curriculum coordinator positions should allow for professional development to be more embedded now than in past years prior to having the coordinators there were curriculum leads at all levels but they taught at least part of the time while in those roles which did not allow time for vertical and horizontal curriculum alignment in prek through 12 um also at the elementary level special education services are often delivered during the elementary Spanish

037time fles which is foreign language in elementary schools as a result students who receive those special education services do not get to receive Spanish instruction such students enroll in beginning French at middle school because they do not have the prerequisite skills their peers have received to to enroll in Spanish at the middle school level inequities of this variety occur when not all students have access to the same curricular content year after year um at the secondary level some of the factors that limit Equity leveling in math begins in grade seven and the placement process seems to be in flux prior to the co 19 pandemic placement was based entirely on teacher recommendations and were subject to parent override which could introduce some bias recently the process was changed to include the star assessments the previous

038year's mcast scores and District common unit assessments with some teacher discretion there existed a message that quote students had to do well on mcast in order to get into higher level classes currently at the middle school the process combines the approaches of the last two years that is one that is both data driven and allows for Teacher input discrepancies were also noted between the Middle School and the high school processes and that the high school has always allowed a degree of teacher discretion in the placement process families do have the ability to appeal math placement decisions it was mentioned that it requires a meeting with the Department leader at the high school or the curriculum coordinator at the middle school if there is an impass at these meetings the appeal goes to the principal and

039from there could escalate to the assistant superintendent the information about the appeal or the override process is said to be communicated through an email by the principal however the information about this process we were not able to find was public at all the only indication of next steps is at the bottom of the course description chart and read quote should grade 8 parents wish to know which criteria the student has met they should reach out to their students grade 8 math teacher if you have questions regarding course progression at Holliston High please reach out to your students Holliston High School guidance counselor or mathematics Department leader the Holliston High School's program of studies reads quote placement in any college preparatory to which is the lowest level course is based upon teacher recommendation and subject to

040review and approval by Guidance personnel and administration enrollment will be based upon a student demonstrated ability level and skill set and not upon work ethic or effort however the math criteria documents which describe placement from year to year contradict this notion by clearly listing work habits as criteria also under domain two for school and District structures factors that limit Equity at the secondary level is block scheduling this was probably one of the most glaring areas that we found that limit equity for students at the high school under block scheduling at the high school Myriad concerns about the high school block schedule were expressed in interviews with various stakeholders as well as some of the um students in the focus group some of the stakeholders are concerned that one semester academic courses compress the time allowed

041for conceptual understanding and skill Mastery as a result a student who has math during the first half of one year may not encounter math again until the second half of the following school year potentially allowing a full year to pass without having math instruction this creates a lengthy period of interrupted learning in core academic content areas leading to gaps or leading to potential gaps in learning and uh learning loss one school Committee Member suggested that halfe courses quote short circuits relationships as well further students have raised concerns that some advanced placement classes are three terms long this is equivalent to 1 and a half years of content and this limits opportunities to take other courses that may interest them given that many advanced placement courses are offered for three terms equating to that one and

042a half years of instruction students enrolled in those AP courses are receiving more instructional time than students in any other course level I'll repeat that students who are in our AP courses that meet for three terms are receiving more instructional time than students in any other course level the block scheduling also limits students ability to take courses such as band chorus and some of the art offerings these are typically offered during the directed study block when special education support and extra support from teachers take place student stud often have to choose not to take band or these other offerings if they need extra support many electives are scheduled for one term only this along with ap course schedule and offering music courses during directed study block for example locks the high school schedule it limits

043opportunities for students especially special education students and other students who typically have the greatest academic needs some recommendations for school and District structures develop processes and steps to diversify the staff in Holliston Public Schools this could include undertaking Recruitment and Retention efforts to hire more staff of color by participating in diversity hiring fairs partnering with local colleges and universities to create intentional pipelines for educators of color establishing relationships with historically black colleges and universities or minority serving institutions to be able to recruit candidates and marketing in innovative ways that reach communities of various identities continue to promote the importance of Dei diversity equity and inclusion by having the central office widely share the findings and commit to implementing some of the recommendations of this Equity audit if not all develop a multi-year plan for professional

044development that coincides with the district's strategic goal goals include professional development related to content pedagogy and cultural proficiency create a task force to further investigate and address the lack of diversity in the French immersion program with a particular focus on racial equity and representation of non neurotypical students consider alternative options for pullout Service delivery for students who receive special Education Services and our English Learners that are outside of the World Language programming so that they don't have to miss the fles Spanish instruction having students Miss World Language instruction puts them in Jeopardy of performing at expected levels and subsequent grades examine the timing of leveling in mathematics and science what grades should we begin leveling our classes consider a process through the mathematics program review that delays leveling until High School thereby establishing heterogeneous learning

045environments throughout Middle School when course placement does begin communicate the process to All Families through several forms of media and in multiple languages in doing so all students and families should be aware of the process including the appeals process consider airing on the side of allowing more students to enroll in higher level courses and in particular those students who identify as africanamerican and Native American consider refining the high school schedule so that all core academic classes including our advanced placement courses math English social studies History Science are year-long two-term courses create Equitable access to all courses for all students by ensuring courses are not offered during directed study block only that includes the music courses domain three student trajectories and academic outcomes the equity audit team examines students experiences over time in various contexts and

046the impact of these Journeys on students academic outcomes particular attention was paid to student experiences in core academic subjects at Holliston High School and the extent to which a student is able to successfully achieve their academic goals the team carefully examined the presence of Equitable opportunities for students including curriculum materials and assessment tools programming and structures in place for students prior to Holliston High School that is at the elementary and middle school levels are also discussed in order to provide a vertical perspective on the alignment of curriculum and access for students using course information provided by the district as well as interviews with curriculum leaders this particular section of the report outlines areas that PR promote equity and areas that limmit equity and key considerations for this section will be the district's course leveling process

047student placement procedures and support for the learning needs of all of hollis's diverse students some of the factors that support Equity that we found families see and acknowledge administrative efforts to promote equity in both the community and the school committee focus groups individuals acknowledged and celebrated the work of building and District administrators to promote Equity members of the Community Focus Group for example said that quote the schools are going in the right direction and that their efforts are sincere members of the school committee said that Equity work has the quote potential to be proactive and transformational moving on to the elementary level the French immersion program is quote exposing kids to French culture to try to educate bilingual and bicultural Multicultural kids Beyond France and Canada the program therefore helps students learn the skills necessary

048to function in a world that is increasingly interconnected and Multicultural the hollon French immersion students in grades 3 to 5 have historically surpassed the state average in both Ela and math mcast students in the French immersion and montau programs have often exceeded their counterparts in the traditional program in most years and here you can see a visual data representation for grades 3 to five the percent of students who met are exceeded expectations on mcast English language arts so you'll see the green bar represents our montauri students the blue bar represents our French emergence students the purple bar students in the traditional Elementary program and the red bar is the state average and you can see that that the blue and green bars are at the highest of all of the years uh compared to the

049other color bars and here you have the information for math I want to just go back and say a couple more things around factors that support actually let's go on to the at the secondary level so at the secondary level some of the factors that support Equity um the high school Ela department is currently considering adopting texts from a diverse list of award-winning books recommended by the Middle East Outreach Council the Consortium of Latin American studies program the center for African studies the South asiia National Outreach Consortium in the National Consortium for teaching about Asia social studies course offerings provide students with engaging learning experiences with diverse materials for example students have recently been offered some engagingly unconventional course options like history through film and conspiracy theories in American history also during the pandemic teachers

050attempted to enrich their curriculum materials with the diverse voices of women and people of color accordingly social studies teachers have also revamped the 20th century American popular cultural and social history course including content that related the impact of marginalized groups on us popular culture for instance exploring the roots of the music genre of rock and roll in AFC African-American rhythm in blues the high school enables students to attain a computer science endorsement or a Global Citizens endorsement 12th graders engage in research and presentation with voice and choice via the senior project in the lowest level high school science courses College Prep 2 stopped giving tests and instead are conducting Labs almost every day as a result it was reported by the students and staff that these classes are engaging in bring about the joy of

051learning Sciences the college prep two courses at the high school are sometimes co-taught in both science and in math some of the English Learners are not rece I'm sorry we're not going on to the factors that limit Equity um at the district level some English Learners are not receiving the instruction materials and assessment modifications they need because the general education teachers have not been adequately trained in sheltered English immersion promising practices and often conflate reading and speaking proficiency with comprehension this especially negatively impacts English Learners access to honors level work also attendance attendance is significantly lower among all subgroups across several years according to our analysis of student attendance data in Holliston that was reported on the Department of Education website over the past 5 years chronic absenteeism which is defined as as being absent

05210% or more of the time has been higher for high need students and students of color compared to the total student population here in Holliston and here you can see the data representation for districtwide um attendance rates and you can see that the attendance is is uh in terms of being chronically absent is higher across all groups of students so this one is by race and this um representation here is by subgroup of student so we have economically disadvantaged High needs English Learners students with disabilities and all students and here you can see that the English Learners which is the green line is at the highest for factors that limit Equity under domain 3 at the elementary level limited focus on the outcomes of struggling Learners and the need to commit to enhancing the academic

053performance of these students in one interview someone stated quote schools do not always have the best tools to support support struggling Learners particularly in term in terms of their social and emotional learning needs it was reported that the screening process to enroll in the French immersion program lacks validity thus not accurately identifying students abilities as a result Educators reported that students find both the language and material challenging to learn simultaneously one leader shared that while there are students in special education in each of the three k to4 programs traditional French immersion in montauri it is most difficult to serve the needs of special education students in the French immersion program because they need to receive their special education services they need to keep up with their work and they also need to learn French in

054school year 2122 of the 60 students with disabilities we're now at the secondary level only 19 took advant courses with no disabled students taking an advanced English language arts course while just 11% took Advanced social science courses and while in 2122 of the six African-American students four took Advanced courses none took either the English or social science courses special education accommodations feel canned and are ineffective several students with disabilities spoke up at the student group interview at the Adams Middle School in terms of equity these students were clear that they feel included socially but that academically they feel underserved one student said quote they don't push us enough we shouldn't have retakes because we don't understand another said quote we have a lot of potential there's a lack of enthusiasm from the teachers further currently

055the course texts for grades 9 through 12 English are heavily weighted toward books by white male authors 104 out of the Department's 162 texts had 30 texts by excuse me 104 of the Department's 162 texts were male white authors and 30 texts were white female authors the totals of course texts by male and females Asians blacks and indigenous people were all in the single digits some educators are dismayed by the fact that Holliston High School for instance does not celebrate Black History Month commenting that black history commemorations ought to be more than just uh focus on Martin Luther King Jr the high school math textbooks are outdated the word problems that we saw referenced Antiquated contexts such as CD players and in general eneral we did not find the texts to be C culturally relevant

056to students one leader wished that students had more practical experience with spreadsheets the curriculum resources are currently being examined as part of the curriculum review process some recommendations under student trajectories and academic outcomes offer effective sheltered English immersion professional development to all Educators that would focus on tools and strategies for best meeting the needs of English Learners in all grade levels in the district create a task force to investigate gaps in attendance across subgroups build a social emotional component across grades K to5 focused on mitigating the impact of cohorting students in the French immersion program ensure that the screening process to enroll in the French immersion program is culturally proficient and honors the identities of potential students and Families in 9 through 12 Ela and social studies consider creating common assessments portfolio based assessments and

057rubrics that maximize equity for culturally and linguistically diverse students continue to offer a wide array of electives and advanced placement courses that already exist and perhaps think about expanding those continue to enable students to earn the computer science endorsement and Global Citizens endorsement and continue the senior project and perform a curriculum review to consider the elimination of College Prep 2 courses in order to ensure that all students are adequately prepared for postsecondary Success now in the full report there are many more findings for each of these domains and recommendations I have provided a sampling of these and am happy to answer any questions that you might have about this information that I shared or what's in the report sure um so start with the committee um is there anyone who uh is eager to go

058first this could be a quick one um there just a few just factual inaccuracies in the report just things like math leveling doesn't start in seventh grade it starts in 8th grade um I think the history department does have common assessment just a few little things is it I don't want to mention all of those things right now but is it do we have the ability to just sort of like fact check a tiny bit before a final like is it worth mentioning those things or is it too late I think some of it's typos too cuz some of that might have been caught previously and maybe not I can't speak to all of it I I guess Mindy how how would you want to address that yeah we want this report to be reflective

059of accurate information in the district so we are happy to go back we did offer the district a fact finding um process where they could go through it's possible that either someone from this missed it or we missed it as well right so um we are happy to correct any of that information if someone wants to share it with us we're happy to do that you just go through that real quick yeah take my prerogative as chair for just a second um so where is it there's a list of dates the front there's like so you you provided the district with the first draft in in in May yep okay and then we we got back to you with with some stuff and you provided a followup in in July and then was there more

060sort of back and forth to before we got to September um no not at that point at that point it was just with a copy editor yeah okay so so okay so but the first okay so the the fact check did that include the 18 individuals that you had one-on-one interviews with it does not unless the um District staff that we send it to decides to have those folks do that we send it to our primary cont tax in central office to do that fact check process but they can certainly disseminate it or handle that process however they see fit we don't direct them in any which way we just want to have the most accurate information in the report so you'll be open to taking um uh feedback on things that they might feel

061is inaccurate absolutely okay absolutely this guide this document is to help the district so we certainly want it to be reflective of accurate information for sure I me if you want if you want to go quickly through it I mean I just there might be some some questions in the audience about that and rather than them using up any of their time for it it's up to you uh I I think we should wait and let get to the questions say you we have more time to talk about it we have more and and I'm really happy to know that you're open to additional input about the facts would you be open to additional um questions that we could direct to you because I I I do want to be cognant of the many people

062that have come that have questions and comments about it so as committee members can we reach out with followup questions 100% absolutely if you need us to come back absolutely we we can take some time here to ask questions we have we have some time so we that we can get to the the community because that that is very important but at the same time we need to do our twois as well go ahead okay um can you explain a little bit about leveling and Equity because I'm coming from a place where you know just in my own life experience I know that it can be very frustrating for a high performing kid to feel like a class is moving slowly but I've also seen um how damaging it can be to a kid's self-esteem

063when they're in a class where a lot of the kids are going a lot faster than they do and they don't understand so I have a I I feel like putting I I I feel like deling has a lot of issues and I want to better understand why it's considered more Equitable because from my own personal experience I I I'm not I I see the idea of giving kids enough of a chance to see if they can Excel but I don't understand in general how deling so what why so many recommendations about deling seem to be equated with Equity I'm I'm not quite I'm not quite getting that yeah so I would simply say it's about access and opportunity right so giving all students the opportunity to have access to high level rigorous we use

064math for example math instruction math content um when we have tasks that are high cognitive demand um we have to put some of those differentiation scaffolds in place so that will fall on the teacher to be able to do that but it doesn't mean that those students should not have opportunity to be able to access those High cognitive demanding tasks and see what it is that they are able to do um in addition to that we want all students to be able to analyze and compare and justify solutions for example with one another uh we want to make sure that students have opportunities to draw on multiple sources of knowledge information whether that's through peer-to-peer interaction or exposure to different levels of the content that might be covered in that curriculum so the idea with

065with deling is not to bring down the rigor in the curriculum it's to help Elevate all students that they can access ESS a high level and that's done through some differentiation and Scaffolding um so that all students have an equitable entry point let me I want to push back on that because I feel like we put a lot of pressure on teachers and we and we say as a district that we want to meet students where they are um I think it it is a much bigger ask to put a teacher in charge of a group of kids who instead of being in this range are in this range of ability and say to that same teacher now you need to still meet each and every kid where they are I don't understand how they

066can be expected to do that and I also that's the first part of my question second part of my question is why can't you do all of those things and still have leveling like why can't you still promote access to opportunity and promote kids to reach higher within you know each group without deling so I'm going to come back with some questions to you for consideration right so how was it done for example in grades 3 4 5 where we have students with all various abilities all skill sets and yet we have our teachers who are expected to teach all students we don't fully know their abilities yet though because they're so young and the teachers have those students all day right but is there not diverse Learners in those classrooms right with different abilities

067and skill sets in all of our but I don't I don't think it's as pronounced as it is when they get older and you're dealing with an Algebra 2 curriculum or even an algebra 1 curriculum as opposed to and I'm I want to understand this I'm not saying that I mean I I we want to be as Equitable as we can possibly be I not you know we I am not looking to dismiss this but really don't understand it I'm I'm really struggling because I've seen how difficult it can be for kids how how hard it is on their self-esteem when they see the kid who's performing you know doing cartwheels over what they are able to do yeah and I think another piece that's really important to note is sort of the research the

068correlation between leveling and tracking right or deling and leveling and tracking however you want to look at that but the research does show that when you level classes and students end up in a track it is very difficult for them to get off that track so when you say why can't we do some of that in deleveled courses in terms of having access to high quality rigorous I'll use math instruction for example my question to you would be is if we were to do that how do we make sure those students or where do we make sure those students get that access so that they can enter a higher level math class for example but don't we do that all the time with your example of of the younger grades of of a grade you

069know second through fourth and you have someone who's struggling with a language- based learning disability or numeracy issues you provide extra support and then they're able to ideally move away from their IEP and and and stay within and access the regular uh classroom and move away from the extra support so why couldn't you have leveling with the ability to provide extra support to kids who you know are looking to move um Beyond would you agree that some Learners need more time on the curriculum and some Learners Master it quicker oh absolutely students any studies that show an adverse impact on students self-esteem and ability to learn when it is a heterogeneous classroom there's that great chart right which is that you know equals in Fair and fair is equal you've got three people trying to

070look over a fence right and I think I think Susan youve used this in one of your presentations before right and they all the same box right and some of them are shorter so they can't see over and they give them sort of stagnated boxes so that way everyone can sort of meet the needs of what they what they need isn't in some ways what you're were saying up to us as a district to sort of say you know we prioritize we kids where they are allowing The Accelerated Learners to to to to go forward as fast as they can but then we're going to be back and we're going to put you know budget behind behind this to make sure that we are providing opportunities for kids who who do take a little more

071time maybe need a little extra have a little more support to to to get them to a place where they want to be if that's where they want to go yeah so my question is why can't we do that in D- leled classes so when you talk about that image and you're providing students with what they need why can't those supports and those systems of what they need be provided in those DLS classes that's I mean because unfortunately like and I think research will show this to be able to differentiate in that wide of range to five different classes at say the middle school or High School level is is simply not possible it seems on paper like it's a possible good idea like just differentiate but it never in practice comes out that way

072I'm a high school math teacher um and moreover in Holliston what ends up happening a lot if students aren't um offered that curriculum or they have trouble um many families get like private out of school tutoring um which is expensive and thus creates an even worse very very large Equity issue where whereas um only families that can afford that expensive tutoring can be successful in these classes that aren't meeting the students where they are but I also think that there are many ways and I've you know done this work a lot um to ensure that that tracking is not as rigid to allow for that flexibility between levels and there are many ways to do that as far as like content stranding additional supports as Don mentioned um so that it's not as rigid there's

073also many ways and I done this work as well to be um mindful of the Recruitment and Retention of bipox students students with disabilities English language Learners girls um into higher level classes so I want to take an opportunity and um because we're on the topic we actually happen to have two of the teachers who were part of the study just to invite them up we are going to get to the community don't worry but I saw saw and you wanted to say something and I know you you participated but you have to you have to come up and and sit and be yeah come I just I want to talk and if you want to come up to the the I just want to come and comment as a math teacher that been in

074the um one you need to get to microphone people at home so um I'll let syvia talk after I just comment on the math um so as a math teacher in the district for 25 years um I I um I've listened to what Amanda's saying what Don saying what Dan's saying and um I think sometimes we talk so much about equity and we talk about like it's not Equitable for the for the um I want to make sure this in the right term I didn't sleep well last night so um because I read this report and I was thinking a lot about it but so not town meeting what not town meeting no so anyways um you know we have students that are I'm just going to use a CP maybe in the cp2 level

075we talk about equ equity for those those students but we don't ever really talk about equity for the students that are up here and I and I just think like sometimes I totally agreee with you know we could we could unlevel um but we can't like Amanda said like you just in your report I didn't notice anywhere where we need to add in um differentiation instruction and professional development for teachers because you just can't say to a teacher like oh you have to differentiate and you're going to go differentiate we need what we need to learn we need smaller class sizes we need co- teing there's so much more that goes into it and I along with many of my teachers really do try to do that that type of stuff but it's it's very

076timec consuming but also think um we have to really think about those students that are ready to move on and is it Equitable for them not to give them those opportunities so I do think that we need to figure out Solutions so like in the middle school you know where we um we have unle I want we have unlevel classes up until 8th grade do we offer for those students that want to move can we somehow figure out getting maybe Title One tutors in or something like that that can help move these kids to the students into the places that they want to be and then also you don't want to um you don't want to just have these students move up if they're just going to continually get frustrated and I I worry about

077their I I EMP I have a lot of empathy for students that really want to try to be at the honors level or move up to that next level and they really try they really try they try so hard and they just it just takes them longer and then they they're self-esteem is is lowered and it's and it's hard to witness that as a teacher so I just think like all those things need to be thought about and talked about and um I'm just going to make one more comment and then I'm going to give it over to Sylvia and I'll come back but um I noted in your noticed in your comment that um the the cp2 math classes are Invitational only and um that was done to a lot of the cp2 classes

078and it was more done years ago so that students didn't just drop down into cp2 because they didn't really feel like being in a cp1 class we wanted it to be we wanted students to be in the most restrictive learning least restrictive learning environment so we really wanted only those students that really needed that repetition and and followed those characteristics to be in that um to be in the in the cp2 classes and we do offer students tons of opportunities to move along at the high school but we don't have those supports that we need and I really think that's what we need to be focusing on is like what supports do we have to put in place in order for these students that really want to that that really want to try it um

079and I think it was um Lisa I'm sorry um that talked about um you know how I forget what you said Lisa but you had said something about how do we get these students um the the opportunity to move and then to also what um you had asked Lisa about um you know you're doing this at the lower levels like you're you're differentiated at the lower levels but we do we know that that like do we know that every student in K to 5 is being challenged to their potential I think sometimes it seems like they are right but like I can use my daughter for example like she doesn't always come home challenged you know because because we don't speak up right so I think we have to be I don't know if I'm

080right or wrong with that but I think that you know we have to be careful of saying we not saying that teachers don't do that at that grade level but we don't really have enough data to say that it's that every student's being challenged and that's I'm going to stop and let's you talk so my name is Sylvia bodmer I've been teaching here for 30 years and the most important thing I want to say is that this is an amazing community and I've Loved all 30 of my years and I love what all of you just said about the you know leveling because I do think that's an issue um there are a I'm just going to go through my notes um so there are a few things that I try to on page um

08118 and I I will say that I discussed this with my whole department today as well just so you're not only getting my feedback um this line that you read out loud to every everyone um one member of the group for example says emphasis is on leaders not teachers teachers need to participate during school hours practice practice practice I will tell you nobody understood that of of our teachers so we need a little report there um I'm just going to go through some of my notes okay also um page 25 High School um hiring process at the high school is conducted by department leaders um who might not necessarily prioritize interviewing and hiring diverse candidates I for one feel offended by that um we always have an admin sitting on our high ing committee we

082we reach out as best we can um two years ago we hired three new fabulous science teachers we had almost no applicants certainly none of color um the three we we ended up hiring we had to reach out to different places to find I don't know if you understand how difficult it is to find some of these people we want to keep these people so I just want people to be aware that you know we certainly look at all candidates um and you know the identity politics line I think our um social studies Department leader can speak to that more clearly on page um when you wrote there were curriculum leads at all levels this was before and I have I don't have a problem with the curriculum coordinator positions I that is not an

083issue for me I want to support you know equity and diversity obviously but some of these things are just not correct so um you wrote that they have taught at least part of the time well in those roles which did not allow time for vertical and horizontal curriculum curriculum alignment when we I think two years ago I don't remember two years ago the department leader role was changed and before that we we met once a month in curriculum meetings with people from all levels so in fact what we had there was actually more opportunity to meet to talk about vertical and horizontal alignment just um so just want to make sure I have that correct prior to the current format we thought that you had more opportunity for that well we did because all the

084department leaders met with leaders throughout the whole District so there was a lot of opportun to was it just with the leaders or was it with the teachers as well it was that was just the leaders I think they're trying to focus if I recall correctly this is about providing professional development as well for teachers for anyone in it could be the department so I just want to make sure clarify we haven't seen that not yeah um the advanced placement classes in science um science has Labs you know in college and I know that we have more time and we need more time because of labs and that's generally the case in college as well but and again I would love to speak to our AP Sciences how many students go on to major in

085science in college and or Medical Careers and how many emails we get you know would be interesting to sort of look at graduates and where they're at how many we get that are doing incredibly well because we've met their needs and I think that's incredibly important you emphasized and you reated twice equating to 1.5 years and you said it as if that was something I don't know we've just never seen that in districts well okay so if you look and again you'd have to go to many other different models but a lot of times science has longer blocks or more time because of labs but the other point is that students here and I am completely open to looking at new schedules I'm not tied to anything anything that will help students I would support

086but you have to understand the way the schedule works right so a student might take an AP class in chemistry um or they might choose to take two Social Studies classes in a year so you could then say well this many students take two English classes or two math classes and that would be the equivalent of two years even more than 1.5 so I feel like there's not a great understanding of how the high school schedule really works students can take eight full year courses in our block scheduling again I'm not saying that's the best schedule at all but eight full year courses does allow them to try of different things which is I don't know somewhat aligned with diversity the another thing on the bottom of 28 is this whole appeal process that I

087fully don't understand so a few years ago in uh in the high school we do not meet with people any we do not meet with parents and students anymore to override anyone can override okay anyone they don't have to talk to anybody that it is completely Equitable you can be in level two and you can take AP Chemistry and we absolutely support that like if a student wants to try we want them to try we have filled AP Chemistry sections because people want to try because we've supported that we've given them that opportunity they anybody can overwrite it just through a digital I don't know what it's called go form a Google form all right so it's not this appeal thing this is not accurate not ACC so the bottom of 28 bottom of 28

088this was directly reported to us right and this is not correct I just want to make sure so WECT Bel yes it needs to be it used to be that way but gone long time it's been gone for a long time well four years I don't know I had a I had a freshman that wasn't able to get into AP Physics because he didn't get um and whatever the grade they expected uh 2 years years ago no it's been less but you could just put them in we haven't had override meetings in a while I I can think process-wise I wasn't sure whether he was Rec if he wasn't recommended for it then I wasn't going to override the teacher so that was my mistake I guess but I'm saying that if the teacher said

089not to do it then I didn't do it right okay that was two years ago that was not a long time ago it was two years ago and to be clear you guys are just talking about math and science right no no over we got rid of override meetings I want to say at least four years go okay thank you it's just a form and maybe I I do think that might might be something that needs to be clearer yeah you know um and that's a shame because I always support students trying and our AP classes are full he's not scarred for that okay so on page 32 uh consider refining high school schedule so that all core academic classes including AP classes AP is not a core academic class it's an elective just so

090you know AP science is elective and students can elect anyone can elect to take it there are what we'll change that warning thank you so sorry if I sounded a little no um it it's just this is so personal for me because I love it here I've been doing it for 30 years I think this district is amazing I I really I really do I think you know we offer a great variety of courses I think we try to support all students and you know we're not all successful but one thing I heard you both say that I really appreciate the openness to thinking differently because if we do want to drive systemic change it is just about thinking differently Absolut there are some things that are working really well that perhaps could be enhanced

091refined there are things that are working well we don't need to touch right um but I appreciate just the openness to really thinking um differently about things in order to drive that systemic change so well thank you for let oh stay up here and I thought you went back I did but I came back with my notes okay okay so a lot of you want I will I will um stems off what syvia said I just want to say thank you for um letting me be here and have some um questions I just I just want to say that um when when I read the when I read this report last night I was very taken aback by um not that I I am definitely open to productive um criticism definitely wait like you said

092systemic changes but um when I looked at this it it it just it came across as the staff at Holliston Public Schools is not trying their best for equity and diversity and and keeping up with the terminology changes all the time right so um it's we're always trying to we're always trying to keep up with it and I just feel like um it just I just think we have to be aware of that and that um although we can say oh there's factual things that aren't correct in here this still still was a public document that was sent out and people read it and I just think we need as we reflect on things like if we're in this situation again hopefully we can make sure that um all the stakeholders had an opportunity to

093read this because I know Sylvia and I and I don't think the other department leaders had an opportunity to read any of the drafts and we could have corrected some of this stuff um but um so anyways when we talk about this um I don't know what page this is on but um when it says leveling in math begins in grade seven that is not true leveling in math begins in grade eight and um so that happened um right before Co it it s everything's related to co um but it happened um it happened right around Co um and there's some I know um Joe bowler has some recomendations about why it should why it shouldn't we're in the process of doing a curriculum review right now and that's one of the major topics um

094and the other thing is in the report it talks about how it shouldn't it there's no um it's very weighted on assessments right it's very weighted on assessments so they look at um three4 of the the criteria for placement is based on mcast scores from a year before star assessment and then common assessment and one quarter is teacher input and they cannot override from sth to 8th grade like that there's no overriding from sth to e8th grade so the high school is more flexible and I think that that's one of the issues is that students can come up and override any any class they want and I think like if you look at if somebody's not good at test taking and 3ars of your recommendations are based on test taking hopefully we can look at

095changing that and even for science it goes back to fifth grade um science Technology and Engineering mcast so and then it looks at Ela and math and so I just think like that sort of um needs to be looked at and then we talked about the override meetings I already talked about how you had in the other the HHS program of studies talks about placement in a college prep class the other thing I really want to emphasize the hiring process I've had a I was a teacher I was a department leader I was an assistant principal acting principal went back to being a teacher in every single person committee I was on we always had a committee of people we always had an administrator in there we looked at every single resume and like Sylvia

096was saying we don't get a lot of candidates for math either like we don't get a lot of candidates in science we just we had like 20 cand Ates this summer we interviewed every single person we phone screened every single person so we really try to get um as many people as we can and then the last thing I want to say is that we do not use a quality point average anymore we a waited we don't use a weighted GPA that was eliminated I want to say three or four years ago as well so I really hope that um that um right we can and I just think that but again this document has put out there and um I just think think that there's a lot of misrepresentations that I hope can be

097fixed fine so we are happy to to change anything that is not accurate that is for sure but I do want to acknowledge that the information in here came directly from Holliston staff okay right so um we have all of our interviews these are two of the staff members who who participated that's why I asked them to come up to two many and I it's great right because if we are misrepresenting you that is not acceptable right I didn't talk about this stuff so I don't my questions they weren't mine either we will make sure that they you know we have all of our interviews transcribed by individual so we will go back and double check that all for sure but I can assure you that this isn't about us making things up right this

098this came from the interviews that we had but just bring that up like there's one it was one person that interviewed me and I just it seems like there could be some misinformation if it's how would they be able to take all those notes and I just I just was curious as to why there wasn't two people in one person interviewing so that everything was captured that's just something to think about as well well I think that one of my questions too and we'll get deal with that later but you know there was no Rams teacher interviewed there were there you know there there were differently gaps I you know Dave Jordan was interviewed but there was no Rams teacher it was kind of kept to to leaders so I don't think that might have

099been a missed opportunity but um there is thank you guys thank you I sent around a uh just there was a signup sheet open and then there was another one that I sort of send around did everyone can I get that and did everyone who had wanted who wants a chance to speak sign one of the sheets raise your hand if you want to speak but did not sign it and we'll make sure you I don't understand is there a different thing you sign if you want to speak than just signing in when you came the signing in was the speaking that was for speaking that was for speaking so okay so there's a sheet going around is that there's two names on it I don't think they wanted to speak I think they were

100under the impression they had to get their name okay okay so based on that we have we have we have the list and then if at the end we miss anybody we'll go back uh given that we have about 10 names um we'll we'll do 30 30 we'll do 3 minutes each um this is your time it's time for public comment I would say that this is also your time to ask question so if you you know want to give a um want to give a you know speech that's fine but you know this is sort of going to be your time be done at 7:30 apprciate this this is going to be your your time to uh to ask questions of the consultant or or whatever you want so um you're going to do

101our timekeeping yes okay so 3 minutes each and we'll start uh with uh Mr pre you could we just need you to come up to the table so we can get you on mic [Music] um I don't know what to say uh I really don't and you know that's not me and I don't say that with any sense of ego um I I I just heard um uh you know I know from my own experience as a white guy thinking about Equity stuff that I need to pay attention to voices unheard that are not that means those that are not succeeding in our spaces more much more than those that are frustrated because it's a challenge for them to excel this is part of the problem with Equity work we're protecting spaces we're not opening

102spaces that's my comment thank you uh J just to start okay yeah um so thank you for all the work that was done um if there are issues with the data then I guess we'll get those corrected uh but I would request us to focus on the data a lot of the stuff that I did hear I've heard from parents at at worst even if this is not the reality in process there is absence of understanding of the process in the community guess who gets impacted when there is misunder understanding in the community the people who can't access this information people that look like me that speak like me that sound like me whose names sound like me that's not me though I can read I can spend time on a workday evening attending these

103meetings but I represent the people that look like me speak like like me sound like me that can't because they're working their second job they're taking care of their kids who they can barely pay for those are the kids that need to have access to this information those are the parents that need access to this information so before we get all defensive about how that's not the real process let's think about how we can correct this misunderstanding in the community this exists whether we like to hear it or not you're hearing it from parents you're hearing it from students in this in the classroom instead of challenging the authenticity of that data let us inspect if there is a real issue to investigate let's look at the numbers look around at the school systems teacher

104representation there are not representation from under represented communities I'll give you a quick example when I showed up to coach my son's soccer team in the Holliston youth leagues the next thing I knew he was very interested in playing until then I tried to recruit him on previous Seasons where it was all white coaches he didn't see anybody that looked like him instructing so he never saw a future for himself when he saw me play when he saw me instruct he was interested in the game he could see himself doing it that's what I want you to think about next time you say we're looking at all the resumés we need to find these candidates look at the top leaders in in in in all the tech companies who are they they're not white people

105only there is a huge representation of diverse folks don't tell me that corporate companies whose most important value is dollars and cents can find these diverse candidates but we can't find School teachers that's got to be a joke can I ask one clarifying question I the um the first part where we were talking about how there are processes that are not Equitable and parents know this and kids know this which ones I want to make sure I understand which ones you're referring to specifically um are you talking about um the issue around kids not being able to get into an appropriate class level this is something that I've heard very frequently from a lot of parents especially diverse families that that seem to think that that this is still true if it's not true yes

106did they felt that their kid could handle a higher level class than the one they were put in okay is that all you were referring to cuz I just want to make sure but in general as well that that is the specific question that I want us to inspect but in general there is a lot of misunderstanding in the community about what the school system processes are and we're not doing a good enough job of clarifying where I can go read this information where I can understand when I look for data there's a comment about oh don't look at at that data because that's done by the state and it's not by our by us like then where do I look at what do I look at what is real what's not real I don't

107care bottom line actually I do care I don't care that it's not real I care that I need to have access to that data so I can make the right decision for my kid and so do other parents we don't have access to them we don't we can if you're telling me that the data I'm looking at is not authentic then let me know where I can get approved data I would like to look at that okay but that's it's it's a common problem but you the specific issue that came up today was that and I've heard parents say that many times okay so do you see an do you see an area of improvement as this would be a topic for back to school nights something that would be included in you know Power

108School report card you could have uh you could have Outreach by administrators multiple times rep basically repetitive communication on available resources ability to move between levels is that are there any other ideas in addition I'm um I don't want to I want I know there's other people that that want to talk so we can park this I've been working with the school administration team they know how to reach me we've been trying to work with them so I'm happy to spend more time on the side working on these specific issues they know how to reach me we'll continue working with them um I don't want to derail this particular but I just wanted to present the alternate perspective of let's think about it from the person who looks like me speaks like me and is

109not able to sit here and represent himself on a weekday because they're busy living and surviving understood thank you thank you uh next we have uh Lori marov hi everybody um I have a lot of concerns um about equity in our town I appreciate the report I'm disturbed by the absenteeism data The Chronic absenteeism data I find that very disturbing um I I hear this recommendation about having a task force um but I so I have a hard time with talking about accelerated classes when there are kids in our community who are not going to school because they're in underrepresented groups like I find that to be a very important data P point and I don't know know why that's not what we're talking about here um and I also and I wonder sort so

110I heard Dr kuska say when we walked in you know we're not going to do all these things so I'm wondering how are we going to decide which things we are going to do and who will we ask like will there be input from diverse people the parents that chimaya was talking about when we sit down to decide or whoever sits down to decide which of these recommendations to implement I'm concerned that that we don't know the an we don't know the answers we need more input and then my last um thing is about having a diverse Workforce um I appreciated when I the beginning of this year I heard Dr Kusa talk about um more diverse hires and I know we have actually lost some of those people and so it can't be just

111you know your recommendation is about having more diverse candidates I I would love to see a recommendation about retention how do you retain a diverse Workforce because we we did we managed to to get some and and then we're not supporting them right or I don't know what they don't feel safe in our system I don't know but I want us to look at that and and I want us you know um I appreciate all the work that everybody is doing and um I hope we can really take in this report it's not perfect it's and look for the things that we see there that are real concern and do something about them and not just argue about is it this or is it that so that's what I like to say than you just

112quickly address her first question or sure I mean I think that's really why we do want to develop a steering committee that is reflective of the community we haven't identified I mean we're still digesting what the makeup of that committee but we certainly want to have voice from the community and I also think we'll um likely add some surveys again and maybe some potential focus groups to bring into that similar to what we did with the Strategic plan but this is new for me I've never been involved in an equity audit process so I do think it'd be helpful maybe to even get some um sort of what next steps could could we recommend from l&p as well and potential other sources that would be great get more guidance about having would be great thank

113you L we'll go to Christine Smith next okay um and then I I apologize uh is it is it Kevin 21 21 shop sorry sry at least I got it right to sit on here uh uh I've been in town now for about 10 years I've got three kids uh third grade uh kindergarten one soon to be in preschool so this is my first time meeting a little eye opening just to kind of see what goes on maybe behind the scenes and it's it's good it's good I'm glad I came I have a couple comments of that's okay uh and just a couple questions the first one that I might get some hem and haw but what did this study cost do we know yes I can share that was uh we used grant money

114for this Equity audit and it was $42,000 okay all right 42,000 um than thank you for taking the time to go through all this uh I sit in presentations for a living I give presentations for a living I wasn't expecting to just be read the exact presentation that I read last night uh I did do some com uh one comment I had a question on was in regards to your note about um focus groups you have in the study that was printed for us and given us to us like community members but up top today was Community Partners is there a difference there no there was no difference it was me what was the change for I'm just curious it was the only thing that I noticed all day that was changed I'm just like

115is that another one of those like words that we're not allowed to use or something I I don't know no honestly there's there's no difference in that at all members that I believe Susan you gave us a list of Foles that we could um reach out to and that were part of the focus group so they're part of the community or they are all partners of the community they are all part integrated into the community in some way yeah okay sorry move on uh Elementary uh I think this was number one domain one student demographics for the K through for montor could you break down the second bullet point for me I don't see any correlation of the two what page are you on uh 18 yes second I I just don't AR are school

116lunches offered for free is that right they hav since when during and after and now now it's St okay so in 2021 nine students on the reduced free lunch plan so what does it have to do with anything it's free for everybody whoever wants to participate but that's 2021 let me just clar we still have to collect data about who would be eligible even though all kids can get it there is still uh the state still collects data eligible is a big missing word there we can right that's it for report like this it's based on Dat launch for everybody but there were B why are we using that as a a data point can't speak to but then how does that are we sure this is the eligible people not the people that have

117actually applied for it because how do we how do we know yeah nobody you track our finances you have to self-identify I would um defer to Lyn coning on that but I believe we still have to report and collect that data regardless falal and and the state has required now that we actually we actually still going to have to track which students take what I mean they I think you can apply and then you get screened for it but they're not just going to blank it right am I wrong we don't report parents let's take this I want to take Kevin I'll give you one more question we hav I'm sorry uh I mean we can just continue on that because then and then it continues with similarly in third and fourth montor program uh

118we on the r excuse me 2021 six students were on classified as English learning leaders uh excuse me English language Learners I'm struggling here we in like what's the similarity between linguish uh limited English proficient and people who check the box for free lunch we're not comparing the two groups but why okay rather it's two subgroups of students the way the Department of Education reports them that are considered historically disadvantage we just need to figure out that nine students thing cuz something that came from that um dashboard that was provided to us that Dash so can go back and take a look at those let's take a look at figure out exactly how someone gets in there if it's if there's any sort of automated process and if that's actually a change of things up

119we just want to make sure we're being accur absolutely and we can add any descriptors there that might help Define it um okay and then we got Charlie C okay all right thank you uh Bud drummy bu Le okay uh thank you um thank you for your presentation tonight thank you for the work that you did um I'm not hearing myself this is got it um I yeah I have a couple questions about methodology um the the three questions that you have that you intended to answer with this audit um how did you determine the questions that you intended to answer so when we were commissioned to do this we met with central office staff and try to gather a better understanding of what they were hoping to gain from this Equity audit based on

120the Strategic plan so there were several sections of the Strategic plan that were named and so this Equity audit was designed to build off of that strategic plan so those questions came out of the conversations that we had with folks here in the district before even beginning any kind of data analysis or any of stakeholder interview uh input process that came out of conversations okay um second question um how did you select participants for the focus groups and how did you reach out to people so we did not select the folks um we were again told which subgroups of students which stakeholder groups to include um and then we were given the information from the central office to be able to contact them okay we did not select them ourselves got it okay um thank

121you I appreciate both of those things um I you know I think that what came out what you presented on today there was a lot of information that was helpful um to point out the gaps in what we have as a district um there was I would have I would have liked to have seen also data gathered on Mental Health outcomes in disparities um people's children and families in the district experiences with racism Prejudice um trans homophobia um and then how did the school how does the school each School each building the district as a whole respond to that um and I would I would have liked to have seen you look at their processes um I was wondering if we could also have I mean not I was wondering I I would have liked

122to have seen you consider measuring the attrition of families of color in the district as people um anecdotally are leaving the district and moving to other towns or if they can afford it sending their kids to private schools um because they're not continuing to not continuing to not feel um comfortable and safe in our district so um and then I guess so the pieces about methodology is that like the the people who are paying you our a district determined how this was going to look and that in and of itself doesn't seem like the most inclusive approach um it's not a criticism of you but this is a limitation I think of this process that we're really excited that we have an equity audit but what went into that how how you got the information

123how you got the people you did was all coming from the the people who will eventually get this feedback and then have to implement it or not um and to me I've seen our district be obsessed with achievement and that definitely was borne out tonight when we before having people from the town who had signed in come to speak we invited two teachers to come up and speak and essentially defend themselves and how they felt offended by this um that didn't feel Equitable I was I was in my seat like really frustrated that that that you had to defend what you had done to a few teachers who didn't like what they saw um and that is an experience I think process-wise that I tend to have with this District whenever you say you want

124feedback from people and we give it to you you don't like what you hear and then you get defensive and that is really frustrating because why are you asking the questions if you're going to be defensive what what do you what do you want to know if if it doesn't make you feel good it's not supposed to make you feel good we're supposed to be making the students feel good and the people that don't have aqu S to stuff that that's the people that's what Equity is about so we are splitting hairs about leveling for 20 or 25 minutes and to Lor's point we have kids who are not coming to school we have kids who come to school and get bullied all the time we have parents who are taking their kids out of

125our school because they don't feel safe and staff members and we have staff members of color who are leaving because it doesn't feel good here so that's where we should be spending our time that's what we should have studied um I I am really grateful for what you did put into this I think we should Implement all of it and more thanks bar yeah I do I do want to add one thing because I think again I mentioned this is the first time we've engaged in an equity audit um as a district and in in my professional life I've never been involved in a full process like this so we had to rely on what the Str strategic initiatives were asking us to do and I brought that to the team and I said so

126where do we go from here and I I believe we talked a number of times about how we might want to look into that but we have to limit the scope and sequence so there were a lot more things that I agree we would have loved to look into and the capacity wasn't there so we really had to focus back on those strategic inies what the community had identified as a need because this doesn't mean we're done and we're certainly not um limited to this but this was a few initiatives that led to this discussion and I I want to Echo that because we had LMP had a number of meetings with um Dr kuska and and a number of central office staff and to their credit that was repeated over and over and over

127again right that this cannot cover the full scope or a full examination of everything that is happening in the district there is so much more like you mentioned so many key pieces that need to be examined and looked at that and I I will say that that came out in almost every single meeting that given the capacity given the scope that we have uh to work with what should we focus on for this portion of this work here in the district so we kept trying to add more on your plate they they just we couldn't get to all of that in this within this timeline yeah great uh Karen really I got to the paper because I know well you don't but I do want to not to go back to leveling but just because

128I want to you I think Lisa had a question or you made a comment about elementary school leveling and how we differentiate in the classroom so I teach third grade so it is not perfect when you do it in elementary school and it is hard and when you have a trajectory like this so we end up doing things like flexible grouping and where we team with a few of us and we do it by topic so it's not like a year long so we do it every couple weeks where we'll assess them group them and then we can enrich who we need to enrich remediate who we need to remediate so there's a lot of ways that we do it that are outside of the box in elementary school because it's really hard when you're

129isolated in your classroom to teach to this so I almost understand why when you get to high school you have to have the kind of faster track versus kids that need a little bit of a slower Pace yeah so do you think what you do in Elementary classroom is repeatable in a high school classroom in terms of serving okay and that's and that's and I mean and you have to understand like my kids age from high school to first grade so like my oldest has already graduated but I have a kid in high school a kid in middle school and a kid in first grade and I can tell you just from the trajectory of what my kids can do having kids on IEPs having kids that Excel like personally and academically they're apples and

130oranges I know that like each kid needs to be able B to get what they individually need supports in place so I get the whole we need to have we need to push our kids so that the kids that aren't getting access to it get access to those particular things but at the same time we need to make sure that the kids that need those extra pieces are being able to get those extra pieces so that their their education is Meaningful and purposeful and we're not trying to push them along into pieces that they're not they can't access at the same speed so it then it doesn't become purposeful for them I don't know if that makes sense but um I guess my other question is more for in terms of the equity study that

131would more go to the superintendent versus um to you because one of the things that stood out to me that was very glaring to me was that our underserved populations or um kids with disabilities are English language Learners um whatever however we Al categorized our you know free and reduced lunch um they are predominantly in our traditional classrooms and they're not in our montauri and our French immersion and I from my understanding of talking to friends in the community those classrooms tend to be smaller than the traditional size classrooms so we have the kid no no no we actually have um we limit the class size to 23 I'm sorry to cut you off I didn't to apologize um we have limited to a maximum of 23 in French immersion montauri and it varies a

132little bit there are a couple of bubbles in some grades but for the most part our numbers are actually a little bit lower sometimes traditional just because we give as many seats as we can in the French immersion in I mean that's true at first but but French ersion especially I don't know maybe it does decrease Because by the by fifth grade my daughter's in fifth grade now it's a it's 15 and 15 in both classes and that goes back to the access piece thaty talked about because montor has a better chance it just there's a lot that goes into but if someone wants to enter later montori and a seat opens up it's easier to do that than now pick up with theen which is very complicated but right and but then those kids

133that drop out of the French M and get absorbed into likely in traditional and so I guess what I'm saying is even if you're even and even you have the most needs and you're putting them in the in the you know they're all in those classrooms you have the high needs kind of all in one spot and this is exactly why we need to look into all of this and as a steering committee decide where we can make some changes to tweak a lot of these things it doesn't mean blowing them up but maybe there's tweaks that we can make to improve all of these right and I guess because I also want to like you talked about that you brought the mcast DAT up quite a few times but when you have all of

134those people in this the so traditional all of your kids with disabilities all of your El's all of you know that population is in that one bracket of course you know they're factoring into your scores so of course that's going to impact which scores are higher and lower overall my she at the kindergarten level but she still wasn't not I didn't say that there's none I just said the percentages are not like if you look at the percentage I think it's like 21% of kids with disabilities are in traditional and it's like three and you know 8% I think in the other two that's a big discrepancy that's all thanks Care thank you thank you all right Barbara I know you had some questions earlier so Now's the Time thank you for addressing me so

135kindly before it felt a little Brook so thank you um I guess thank you so much for the time thank you for making this investment opening up the door to these conversations is my first comment um thank you for the ability for us to do the the fact checking and going back and and making that I guess having moved here four years ago and thinking about different experiences in my life um labels always seem to trigger me uh cp2 cp1 honors AP so I I hope we can have dialogue about labeling tell a child they have a limited potential hopefully they're going to believe it tell them they're stuck in a low class meaning cp2 well what am I you know so I I hope as we look at this and we we delve into

136the the data we look at labeling um standardized tests I know when I had a conversation with a ccum coordinator last year for my then seventh grader um standardized tests were three of the four criterian and I know as my oldest has applied and opted out from act and sat uh um you know how are we looking at standardized tests when we look at Equity um how are they given what are the results so standardized tests what does that mean um as we look at Children's potential for math or science or an interest because they're certainly waved now when children are becoming young adults and deciding what they want to do in higher education so when you have leveling or we think your child would do okay here um I was grateful for his math

137teacher and the curriculum coordinator to have a very thoughtful conversation but three out of the four Criterion again were were standardized tests I love my children they're going to have amazing lives they're the bare minimum kind of guys um and uh don't always necessarily challenge themselves but um for the case of block scheduling and I hope the school committee would consider some really deep and thoughtful conversations throughout block scheduling for the average student again I have children with my oldest has a wonderful personality can make a wall talk I don't think that served him well there's a lot of time there's a lot of self motivation um when he's interested he does great when he's not interested he doesn't um I know um rigor in the classroom distraction in the classroom um I can't imagine

138I come from a teacher and a principal I can't imagine how my father would deal as a principal with electronics in the buildings um and my mother as a math teacher and in her classroom so I appreciate what our teachers do every day I appreciate the challenges they have um I hope as we look at scheduling how does that serve our student population across the Spectrum from the high high achieved to the Bel curve average um and I just appreciate um opening these doors to to conversation to go further um as I think Barb had said if I can say that um there is some comment about hate speech and here and those kind of things but but how do we create a safe environment and an equitable environment so thank you for letting me

139riff a little bit um and thank you for letting me speak and thank you for taking the time to invest in our community this way because it's it's a step it's not the end it's a step and as long as we keep stepping towards what we think we need and want to be I think that's healthy so thank you thank you so that takes us to the end of our our list is there anyone didn't cover okay and Louise would you we'll give you differential treatment as a as a as a former uh well everything on the school committee yeah three minutes but but you have two and a half minutes and enjoy the table because I haven't been table in four years so um I mean Louise Hamstead and uh a former School Committee

140Member for quite a while um I want to applaud the district for pursuing this it is hard work but it's really important work it's like boiling the ocean you can't do it all in a short period of time and and you know even this is probably not doing Justice to the complexity of the work um having said that and and I really enjoyed reading it there were a number of recommendations in here that I think had a lot of Merit um but I think because it's so difficult and in the amount of time that you had and I know it started quite some time ago um I think it just scratches the surface but it also scratches the surface in understanding some of the um systems within the district and some of the programs um

141so I just wanted to talk to that very briefly um I also wanted to to just say that all of you who got up you had such relevant and um I think important P perspectives and it was helpful for me to hear actually because I have stepped away from the table for several years and um and that's even in that time the demographics of the town have um become significantly more diverse and I think that changes the needs and profiles of what what happens in these programs so um so thank you for that that was really helpful for me to hear I think the first thing is that I found the report um leaning heavily on anecdotal commentary and I do come from a background of datadriven information and um using that as a at

142least a baseline for further inquiry and I think the one thing that I was struck by was was not that the process you pursued wasn't helpful but there wasn't a more comprehensive quantitative study going against um maybe some of the findings like a student wide survey or certainly a survey of all of our um different identity groups if if that was you know maybe that was a more U would be a more manageable way to like focus in on their um individual perspectives and it might also be a way if it was Anonymous to get more honest feedback from um from our stud students certainly and I think the same might be true I you met with staff but um doing some quantitative research among staff members might give you more perspective and finally community

143members I would love to see the different families of of color and um you know be able to provide that feedback in a more meaningful way and if that has happened and I missed it then just you know shut me up there I think that would be useful um the absente absenteeism I I noted that as well I was struck by it I was struck by it happening so significantly across all groups but in particular students of color and disadvantaged students um I have to believe at least I know this was true when we ran into chronic absenteeism that the administration was reaching out to those families to find out what's happening what's going on what are your needs is there something we can assist with how can we support you better and if that

144isn't happening maybe it's a numbers thing and there's so many now um we should be reaching out we we should be doing more than just recording the absence and um my guess is there is more happening even with the teachers because I know often they try to find out what's going on through email what have you so um that feels to me like something that there's some very shortterm things that could be done there um leveling I I think I'm going to say this I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of the commentary I heard on this I don't want to be be What's the phrase be a dead horse um I do think the goal here is to provide access and the supports for every student to be able to try what they want to

145try and um I'm I'm saying this from a an informed perspective I'm a parent of three daughters girls tend to be um as as they age especially from 8th grade on um less likely to want to pursue certain academic areas especially in the stem areas okay 30 seconds oh stop I'm going to pull a Julia Roberts and say I got more but um so I I think you we've got to find a way to identify the children and and inform the families that there are ways to do this and that the student won't be penalized during an ad drop period let them try the class there should be no Stigma attached to falling back to another class and we should help it help them figure out how to navigate because the ad drop period is

146tricky that's at the high school um and that doesn't even really exist so much it should be navigable okay um we got okay I got to say this on French I'm sorry I think the French immersion program in this port is not well understood I absolutely take note of the lack of diversity in the program there would be nothing that would have made the teachers happier and I think the students would have been delighted if there were representation from other communities and students who were not neurotypical um and I if Terry cavali were sitting here today she would tell you every student is welcome every student is invited and every student should be supported to be successful it doesn't always work out that way but it is not because the pro the program is systemically

147designed to raise barriers to entry I don't even know what the assessment test is my kids hopped on the lottery and that's how they got in it's more if you're trying to get in for another grade like if you trying to get in grade okay okay okay I see but not at the kind Garden level I think there just needs to be more information and I think we have to acknowledge that parents make the choice um so I can't go into the nuances to this but I will tell you this one of my daughters wrote her college essay um one of them on her experience from K through 12 in French imion and the exposure that she had to many cultures the literature that she read on identity Politics as a junior um in French

148immersion on um you know like the Rwandan Genocide etc etc I don't know that you ever explored the reading list for the for the French immersion program but from K to 12 these kids are challenged to think differently they are challenged to open their minds and I I cannot imagine that we would be questioning the Merit of this now so um that's it sorry all right any further questions from the uh committee I just want to say one thing really quickly I I had other questions I'm not going to go into them now but once I started talking about leveling we that cut us spun off into a bigger conversation um but I did want to Circle back and just say that I think there are some really good recommendations in this report and I'm

149excited to have at least a start at least we have some information to use now um I do want to ask if did you ever meet meet with the group diverse Holliston during the whole process of putting together this report I believe there was a representative on the community members focus group okay I just wanted to encourage there are at least members here tonight from diverse Holliston and I think it's really maybe more and I think it's really important as we go forward with this that we include them and make sure that um their views are heard and they can be a great resource for making sure that we highlight what you know really is most important from this report and and Implement recommendations that make sense and will be the most beneficial and if

150there are followup questions we can I'll collect them from the committee and we can send them just sort of one email so that way we're not you know um clogging up your in box with multiple things and you can help that too um so with that uh we have come to the end of our agenda for tonight uh don't go too far because we'll be right back here in like less than 48 hours um for for our regular school committee meeting uh but with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn by least that second by D all in fav all right we're Jed